Chapter Eighteen

Reverend Milton’s last several sermons had not gone well at all. No one else could see the demon, but Reverend Milton was keenly aware of Nubbins’ presence at all time. It was worse when he was on stage. The little fucker paraded around behind him, mocking him the whole while.

Cyrus would say something about God’s boundless capacity for forgiveness, just to hear Nubbins say “Too bad you’re not ever going to experience that, eh buddy?”
If the demon wasn’t heckling him, he was high-kicking and twirling just out of easy kicking distance.

Nubbins constant harassment made it really hard for Reverend Milton to string more than a couple of coherent sentences together. It was nearly impossible to get the crowd worked up into a good fervor.

As bad as it was having Nubbins chase him around on stage, however, it was even worse when Nubbins would disappear into the crowd. Reverend Milton then had to contend with the knowledge that somewhere in a crowd of two thousand or more people who had worked themselves into a religious frenzy was a knee high demon messing with them.

If you were wondering, Nubbins didn’t actually do much when he was out in the crowd. Mostly he’d find a quiet spot, sit and smoke. The people in the crowd acted bizarrely enough on their own, they didn’t need his help. All he had to do was kick back and let Reverend Milton freak out wondering what he was up to out there.
Donations had dropped significantly, as had merchandise purchases. The pretty young things no longer came back to Reverend Milton’s hotel room. It was just as well they didn’t, since he wouldn’t have let them in anyway. It was hard to even imagine having sex with Nubbins in the room, presumably watching and making snide comments the entire time.

Grace had been keeping a very close eye on him recently as well. She thought he was either losing it, or having problems with drugs. She had a vested interest in his success, since he paid her extremely well when he was making a lot of money, but not so much when he wasn’t.

This steady decline would have continued, if it weren’t for the one crazy lady in the crowd who was indeed looking for demons, was indeed expecting to see them, and did, in fact, spot Nubbins as he was riding around on Reverend Milton’s shoulders yelling “Giddy up” during Cyrus’s sermon. Her breath caught in her throat. Her eyes bulged. She started to feel faint.

And then she screamed loud enough to wake the dead, and more importantly, loud enough to be heard over the crowd, “Dear God, there’s a demon tormenting Reverend Milton!”

Reverend Milton paused, unsure if he’d heard her correctly. Nubbins also paused, calculating the best way to work this development to his advantage. The crowd paused, even the ones busy speaking in tongues. And then, they all saw Nubbins at the same time.

You might expect a convention center full of the faithful to attempt to help Reverend Milton, or perhaps attack Nubbins. You might expect them to launch into prayer to give the Reverend strength to battle the demon.

You would probably be surprised, then, to learn what actually happened: As one, the crowd shrieked and began shoving and heaving their way towards the exits. In a matter of minutes, several thousand panicked, God fearing taxpayers as well as the band and all the ushers, cleared the room (and the building, for that matter) , leaving Reverend Milton, Nubbins and the sound and light men alone in an empty convention center. Nubbins couldn’t have orchestrated the whole scene better himself.

“Holy shit,” muttered the sound man, as he looked around at the room. Chairs were scattered everywhere, little paper fans decorated with Jesus paintings littered the floor, as well as the colored paper programs.

The light man brought up the house lights and killed the stage lights, which made the entire scene even more surreal.

“That was,” Nubbins slowly began, “totally awesome! Not even one of them tried to help you. Even the other preachers bailed! Gotta love that community spirit.”
Reverend Milton, for one, was seeing dollar signs galore. News of the evenings excitement would spread quickly, and he couldn’t pay for publicity like that. He suspected people would be camped out for his next revival by the end of the night.
He had to come up with a way to work Nubbins into the show. And he had to come up with something quickly, the next revival meeting was scheduled to begin the following Friday. That left him Monday through Thursday night to come up with a plan.

Nubbins had hopped down from his shoulders, and stood about ten feet away from Reverend Milton, looking up at him suspiciously. He lit a cigarette, and continued staring at Reverend Milton, who stared right back at him.

“You aren’t freaking out,” Nubbins said. “What’s the deal?”

“The deal is, you and me are going to be stars. If I’m going to be damned, I might as well figure out a way to profit from it,” Reverend Milton said, smiling slightly. “And if we do it right, you might even get to enjoy it a bit.”

Then Reverend Milton walked off the stage, towards the green room. Visions of demon exorcisms and elaborately staged spiritual warfare danced through his head. He was going to be able to earn more than he ever had, if he worked it the right way. But how to keep his audience from panicking at the sight of Nubbins. There would have to be a build up. Expectations. Showmanship. Yes, he had a lot of work to do by Friday.

He also had to hope Nubbins would be agreeable to all this. He wasn’t sure how to bribe a tiny demon, but he guessed it would take more than a new pair of elevator shoes and a handful of cash.