Then I sang The King Is Coming - Shane said I should have sung it while the judge was walking down the aisle - or that maybe when the prosecutor’s assistant was coming down the aisle, Doug could have sung the part about “he’s coming for me.”
I then tried to get the meetings “back on track”, i.e., I reminded the folks that our original purpose had been to pray that God would wipe out CPS, and that the affair with Doug had been a diversion CPS had created, to shift our focus away from them. To emphasize the point, I showed a video of Bib giving his rant against CPS and daring Billy to call them, of Billy smashing the window, and Bob then giving him a couple of pops with the paddle.
Of course, since we record and archive all the stuff, we could have used any one of us as the “spankee” - and if we’d used Ronald, since he’s an adult, it would have kept CPS from having any cause of action for “child abuse” - which would, however, have defeated the whole purpose of showing it, by demonstrating that we were, in fact, scared to cross them.
I insisted there was no danger at all, since God would protect us and anybody who messed with us would be in hell in short order. Bob split the difference, and settled for using one with Billy in it, since Dad - himself a lawyer - would be standing there to say Bob had been acting in loco parentis. As I way, I thought it was a needless precaution, and told him so. But Billy’s “performance” had been quite animated - and I was quite willing to let my “lover” be the star of the production, since I’m already a clear target, and don’t need more notoriety.
As a sidelight, folks wanted copies of the video, and we wound up “giving away” not only copies of the video, but tee shirts and posters depicting it, as well. I hadn’t told Shane to make copies in advance because (1) he hadn’t had much extra time; (2) it made folks come back the next night to pick them up; but primarily (3) because the idea never occurred to Bob, and I'm extremely reluctant to look like I’m “running the show” - any more than I can help.
Billy speculated that I’d deliberately tried to make Shane “look silly.” Such was certainly not the case, since making us look incompetent certainly did not serve our purpose of intimidating CPS.
Then I ranted on for a bit about our “war on CPS” and described in some detail what’s going to happen on Friday afternoon. I’d said it before; but many of our crowd hadn’t been there then, and had, at any rate, been completely preoccupied with “rescuing” Doug, and had lost sight of our original objective. And I categorically insisted that God was going to burn their building down, whether I showed up or not - so shooting me again between not and then would be a waste of time.
Then Bob got up and told the folks we were sending the governor a petition asking him to pardon Doug. Of course, Doug was no threat to anybody, and supervising his probation would be a complete waste of resources - not that the government minds wasting money. But Dad was giving him a sufficiently large bribe to insure that it happened - it was, as he’d told Bob before, “the way we do things.”
But it helped to raise and sustain interest in our cause, and keep CPS’s attempt to kill me in focus. Bob first explained the First amendment right to petition the government - and for the fist time, I really thought he sounded like a lawyer’s son.
He also told them Doug had invitations to preach “in other states and abroad.” we’d actually gotten enough invitations from churches in various states that we could have spent the next year touring the United States without hitting the same venue twice - except that we needed to “move in for the kill” and attack CPS at its source, without being distracted by a nationwide tour.
The invitations from “abroad” were a little more dicey. My dad had always been active in our church in Copenhagen, Maria and I had sung there many times, and had a standing invitation to sing again anytime - and getting them to say, “Bring Doug along” would be no problem.
Bob’s dad had given their church at Stockholm enough that letting Bob and Billy sing, as they’d frequently done before, would be no problem, and they’d willingly let a kid from nearby Copenhagen tag along, and bring a buddy.
Their dad was also generously supporting a church in Brisbane, and could arrange to get us invited there - but all three “invitations” would, clearly, have been contrived. There had, however, been one small church across the border in Canada whose pastor had driven down to our meeting one night, and invited us to come to his church and “perform” some time - so Bob’s assertion that Doug had “foreign” invitations was kinda true.
Then I did two “miracles” that were different from anything I’d done before, and which I was not to replicate any time again. One was writing and then sealing a prediction that the judge was going to announce the following morning that he was going to run for governor - which no one, including him, had known he intended to do, and which he did.
The other was telling a kid he was going to inherit over a million dollars the next day - which he did - and I teased him by asking him to give us a tenth. The kid got it, as I’d known he would, but had no clue what to do with that much money - when Alex jokingly told him he wanted a million dollar fee for notarizing his signature, the kid started to write him a check.
We managed to recruit the judge’s grandson and the kid as students for our school, which was the real reason I did it’ but, unlike the miracles of healing kids and rescuing them from the ocean - as I’m fixing to do - this looked too much like a parlor trick of some kind - God let tm do it, let me use my powers to recruit the two new guys; but I didn’t feel right about it, and after we got home that night, I spent a long time praying about it. After all, when Moses struck the rock, God gave him the miracle, but then punished him for doing it; but continued using him. Since I don’t want to wind up dead on top of Mr. Nebo forty years from now, I’ve promised God I’ll never take such a “cheap” shot again (and haven’t).
Evidently I’d “teased” the matter fairly well, because Billy insisted on Frankie taking the two of us out to a burger joint, and sitting at the other end of the restaurant, so he could “wring” the “secret” out of me.
Of course, by them, I was thoroughly disgusted with the whole project, and told him what I was up to. Billy, as usual, was mystified - so I didn’t try to explain why I’d decided it was a bad idea.
It was Sammy’s first night with us, of course. We put off giving him his ritualistic first spanking, because we were all too tired to savor the moment properly. Sammy felt like Doug had been the one who’d helped him get healed, and wanted his bed beside Doug’s. So Doug’s got his first fan - and I’m grateful that he’s now taking at least a little of the load off me. He’ll find it a “burden” soon enough.
The next day the judge announced his candidacy at 11:00 a.m. - as I’d known he would - and we watched it on TV. Shane waggishly suggested that we watch cartoons instead. The judge also announced he was putting his grandson in our school - and shortly after lunch, he showed dup, accompanied by a bailiff. Because he was wearing a uniform, Shane assumed he was a cop, and asked Doug whom else he’d shot.’
Doug retorted, “I’m fixing to shoot you1" And, despite knowing why they were there, since he had ‘the gift”, Doug panicked, reflexively, thinking they’d changed their minds and come to get him.
Anyhow, the bailiff and kid - Tom Webb - had first gone to t he office, then showed up at our classroom, enrollment forms in hand. Tom asked Bob, as soon as the bailiff left, to paddle him “like you have all the other guys their first day here.”
Bob was not just “scared,” as Billy wrote - “terrified” would be more like it. He could honestly envision himself being thrown in jail by the judge. He was absolutely wrong - the judge realized better than most, that God is protecting us - he actually knew all the ones God struck dead, because they’d all appeared in his court regularly.
Tom was still standing there waiting for an answer, so Bob asked me what to do, in Swedish (disregarding his rule about “no secrets”). Doug happened to be reading my mind, and I wa
s able to “tell” him to answer the question, just by thinking about it.
So he responded that it was OK, and that the judge really did spank Tom as hard as he’d told us. But Bob wouldn’t believe it until he’d heard it from me - but I’ll soon convince them to trust Doug as readily as they do me.
In responding to Bob, I’d used the term “he’s shooting straight.” Shane took the bait, and suggested Doug could show us all about “shooting straight.” But Doug just grinned and shot back, “Sure, Cracker - you can be the target!” So, despite all he’s been through, Doug’s become well enough integrated into our “gang” that he’s willing to kid about it, instead of punching Shane out (which he could easily have don’t), or yelling, “Bob, I want this kid spanked!” (We toss the line around constantly, but would be mortified if Bob actually did it.)
Billy, predictably, was dazzled by hearing Doug answer Bob in Swedish, although he knows perfectly that Doug’s got “the gift”, and has proved it by conversing with us in Swedish.
So Bob said, “Sure,” and we gave him the works - dragged him up, held him down, let him throw the phone and break two windows, put him in our “prayer circle” 0 and he proved his bona fides by taking twenty swats without any problem. Then we carried him outside and around the building.
After we’d finished, Sammy asserted his “right” to be paddled his first day here, as well. So we did it all again, except we didn’t break any more windows - he settled for throwing the same broken phone through the windows we’d already busted out. Of course, since he’d been crippled, he’d never been spanked - but, as Billy later commented, Indians are tough,” and he managed to match Tom’s performance.
Tom had gotten two extra for breaking the windows - but part of their “deal” was that Bob would give Sammy the extra swats, without his having to actually bust two more windows to get it. They'd have both taken it bare, but Bob insisted on doing our “rite of passage” the usual way, promising that they’d get plenty of spankings “bare”, “soon enough.”
So we didn’t get any academic work done - as usual, our discipline program’s working great, but academics gets neglected. My feeling is, it doesn’t matter. Jesus is coming back before we get grown, and we’ll have plenty of money between now and then. The greatest service we can perform is ridding the country and world of CPS.
Then Michael Wren - the million-dollar kid - showed up. He’d gotten a letter from some lawyer he’d never heard of, with some legal documents enclosed. Alex - who had no clue he’d be coming, looked over them, and confirmed that it was just like I’d said. All he had to do was execute the documents and take them down to a local bank, where the money was already on deposit in a lawyer’s escrow account. That’s when Alex kidded him about charging a million bucks for notarizing the paper. Michael would have written the check - which would have been cold, since his account only had fifty dollars in it, and he was planning to withdraw the million in cash; he rally doesn’t know much about money.
Anyhow, at that point we gave up on having classes and all went with Michael down tot he bank. Bob rationalized it by saying it was a “field trip”. Going to a bank is probably defensible as teaching us to handle money, but that presupposes that there’s been an academic preparation, which Bob hadn’t given us/ And if he had, it would probably have been a lecture on “banks in Stockholm”. (OK, since he has an account in one, and his dad has practiced banking law there, maybe he’d be well qualified to do it).
Billy, Bob and I went in and left the other guys outside, so they wouldn’t think they were being invaded. Michael told them he wanted it in cash, not realizing they didn’t have that much currency in the bank. He’d been planning to take it up on the platform, to prove that I’d had it exactly right.
Of course, it wasn’t practical - it would have been more than the thousand hundred dollar gills, and at the rate of one per second, would have taken nearly three hours to count. Bob eventually persuaded him to simply deposit the check in his account, and show the folks the deposit slip.
Billy and I went with Alex to take Michael home. His dad, who knew nothing about Michael having gotten the money, was flabbergasted. He knew what I’d told the crowd at the tent, but had dismissed it as a wild claim, designed to get cheap publicity (and that’s exactly the perception that’s led me to swear off ever doing it again.)
Chapter 514 - “ . . . more than CPS thinks you should have!”