The Tent by Gary Paulsen Read Free Book Online

fell. She was an elderly woman who had been in a wheelchair, crippled by arthritis, and she had stood with the help of Jamey and Davis and had even walked, and they had praised the miracle. But she fell now, along the side of the tent, and men helped her back to her chair, and Steven turned his eyes from her, almost in slow motion, turned his eyes to his father and caught it.
    The same look. The edge, the hard cut of guilt,
of doubt, and when Corey saw Steven looking at him, he looked away quickly, but it was too late. Steven saw it, the look.
    That night his father stayed with Steven in his room and did not leave him alone. He sat at the table reading while Steven drank Cokes and ate hamburgers and watched movies. Once Steven went up to him, during a commercial, and asked what Corey was reading, and Corey held it up to show Steven the Gideon Bible that had been in the drawer of the bedside table.
    "For tomorrow's sermon," Corey said. "I'm studying for tomorrow," and he seemed about to say something more but stopped and went back to his reading.
    Steven nodded but knew he was lying. He hadn't read the Bible once since he'd started preaching but made it all up as he went, letting his personality, his charisma, carry the congregation.
    For two more nights he preached and healed but came back to stay with Steven and read from the
Bible, and both nights when it was time for the collection Corey turned his back when the money came, turned his back and let Steven count it with Jamey and Davis.
    The fourth night before the sermon, Corey came out to the three of them while they were standing by the truck getting ready for the service, and he stopped and looked at them and said, "I have been reading."
    "That's good," Jamey said. "Reading improves the mind. I'll read now and then myself, you know, when I'm of a thought to. What have you been reading?"
    "About Jesus," Corey said. "I've been reading about Jesus Christ and what He said." He turned to Steven. "We have to ... we can't..." He trailed off without finishing and turned away to go back into the empty tent. Steven followed.
    "What were you going to say?" Steven asked.
    Corey stood by the pulpit with the crude wooden cross and shook his head. "Nothing."
    "Were you going to say this is wrong and we can't do this anymore?" Steven asked.
    Corey had been looking at the side of the darkened tent and he turned suddenly to Steven. "You too?"
    "It ... bothers me. The money and the healing and the ... women. All of it bothers me in some way I don't understand."
    Corey turned toward the pulpit and didn't say anything but put his hand on the cross, looked where his fingers touched, and stood that way for a long time, in silence, looking at the cross and touching it.
    "We have to stop," Steven said. "This is wrong."
    "They're coming now. Start the music," Corey said, then turned and walked away, out into the parking area, where the cars were starting to pull in, and when he turned Steven saw that he was still carrying the Gideon Bible from the room in his left hand.
    The service started normally, with the music
and singing, and when it was done Corey stepped up to the pulpit and held up the Bible and stood in his expensive poor suit with his expensive hair and rich underwear and opened his mouth and said, "You know what Jesus said? He said it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." He took a breath and then removed his coat and threw it on the ground. "I have become rich by stealing," he said. "I, we, have been stealing from you, taking money in collections, healing when we knew nothing of what we were doing—we have been stealing your money but worse, much worse, we have stolen something more precious than money."
    The congregation sat, stunned, some with their mouths literally open, some trying to smile as if it were a joke. Corey looked at Steven and Steven thought,
That's it, go for it,
and Steven nodded