The Television Evangalist

He could suck joy out of a daisy, turn a Spring day to dust and grit. His belief was a second-hand fire-sale. His wife practiced adultery, gamely trying to perfect the craft. She would join him at the pulpit, to appreciative applause. Her blond hair a halo glowing with an electric light. She was his tax-deductible angel, but he did not love her. He loved only the vengeance of an unforgiving deity, long since cast in the role of divine curmudgeon. When he returned home to find his angel sucking the joy from a parishioner’s upright daisy, he had no doubt in his God’s words, and the power in them to enslave.