The Prophet

The Prophet

The billboards on the outskirts of town proclaimed the coming of the celebrated prophet Elijah Weismann, who had an important message for our small town of Westbrook. Newspaper ads, flyers posted around town, and radio and TV all repeated the message ad nauseam. This was to be a big event if the blizzard of messages were to be believed.

In my role as a local reporter, I am a skeptic, especially when it comes to so-called prophets. As prophets go, their predictions, usually of some cataclysmic event, historically pass unfulfilled but not without leaving people traumatized and in some state of anxiety in their wake for years to come.

The day of the much-hyped event had arrived, and I took a seat near the front of the auditorium, armed, as it were, with my notebook and recorder. I’m generally recognized around town at 6 feet 3 inches tall, topped with my unruly mane of white hair. At 50 with a long career at the paper, I no longer felt a need to wear pretentious and expensive clothing, preferring instead my worn but comfortable brown corduroy jacket, a rumpled dress shirt open at the collar with no tie, jeans and sneakers. Years ago I took to carting around my journalistic tools in an olive drab canvas satchel slung over my shoulder. You might call it my trademark.

Jake Humbolt, an old colleague, slid into the seat next to me. “Mark Richards, you old dog, what brings you out to an event like this?”

“Just covering community events,” I said. “And what about you, Hummer? You think there’s something here you can use to build up your freelance portfolio?”

“Never can tell, never can tell,” Hummer replied.

The first hour of the “big event,” as I called it, was typical of an evangelical service. A large choir, which had organized its members from several local churches, provided the seemingly interminable, rousing gospel music. This warm-up entertainment proved very effective if you judge such things by the packed auditorium of people who stood, jumped and waved their arms as if trying to be recognized by someone. More likely, they were just excited and willfully went along with the manipulation they were being subjected to. I would have beat a hasty exit in a matter of minutes if I didn’t think there might be a story here. So how’s that for a prophetic prediction, I thought.

While I was sitting there enduring the warm-up foolishness, I took out my cell phone and did a quick Google search on Weismann. Amongst all the credentials and bona fides, the one thing that got a laugh out of me was his birth name, Sam Putz. No wonder he changed his name or used a stage name. The name Putz just wouldn’t strike anyone as a celebrated prophet. The other interesting fact was that none of his prophecies ever came true, not one.

The warm-up was concluded by a local preacher who got the audience back into their seats then proceeded with a thankfully short religious message which was followed by the introduction of the prophet Elijah Weismann using a litany of a-man-who statements. Musical theatrics, of course, also accompanied all of this: flourishes on the organ along with amens and arm-waving, which the choir performed as prompted by the preacher’s wiggling fingers behind his back.

Weismann appeared to be in his mid-40s with slicked-back dark hair and dressed in an expensive looking shiny dark grey suit, and wearing highly polished black shoes. He didn’t need the podium and strode proudly onto the stage, outfitted with a skin-colored remote mic.

I wasn’t sure what to call what happened next. Was it a sermon or just a speech? I opted to call it a speech. In any event, Weismann launched into a mini-lesson on scriptural references to prophets in, I supposed, an effort to align himself with historical prophetic figures. It took him fifteen painful minutes to finally reach the message of why he was here, opening this section of his remarks by saying, “brothers and sisters in the lawd hard times are coming and coming soon. You will be tried like never before, but you must stand firm knowing that your savior will hold your hand all the way and lead you to salvation. I’m here to reveal to you that a great meteor will fall on your town,” he said as he waved his hand in the air. “The impact will be felt for miles around and leave a deep crater where your homes and businesses are now located. This will occur in six months, so be prepared.”

The audience broke out in murmurs, with many people looking at each other and holding their hands over their open mouths as if in shock following Weismann’s pronouncement.

I shook off Hummer’s hand on my arm as he tried to stop me from rising to ask a question as if in a press conference. “Mr. Weismann,” I shouted in my deep baritone voice. He barely glanced at me, but I asked my questions anyway. “What is your proof? Where is your evidence?”

Giving me a scowl, he turned to continue his rant.

It was then that I noticed two large men in ill-fitting dark suits approach me. I raised my hands, palms outward, in a sign of submission, and sat down. The two goons wandered off, but not too far.

While taking my seat, I glanced at the audience and saw many attendees who had attended city council meetings and had no problem standing up to have their voices heard. Why was this any different? Why didn’t they question the absurdity of Weismann’s prophecy? Were they so under the spell of this guy that they had lost all sense of critical thinking and reason?

In the final act of this big event Weismann was replaced by a local preacher who proceeded to use his charismatic skills to work the crowd into a frenzy with his emotional salvation message complete with his rising and falling voice, crocodile tears, a raised shaky hand with an equally shaky proclamation that “Gaaaaaawd will save us if only you will repent.”

As expected, the revival-like act ended with the passing of the collection buckets and a plea for the people to deposit their tithes and offerings in order to “continue the work of the lawd.” While this was happening, I sat there wondering why the predestination of an all-knowing, all-powerful deity needed any help from us mortals, especially considering Weismann’s prophecy. Why can’t these folks just call their collections for what they are: payment to the preachers?

At the end of all the religious theatrics, people began to head for the exits. I saw Weismann leave the stage and elbowed my way against the flow of people toward the back, trying to catch him for an interview, but I was forced away by Weismann’s goons.

My story appeared the next day under the headline “Prophet Predicts Town Disaster.” In Midland, the larger town 50 miles away, carried my story along with a piece by Hummer. The entire area was in a tizzy with letters to the editor running the gamut from people discounting Weismann’s prophecy as bunk to people expressing actual concern and fear for what they think will be coming.

A week after the big event, the billboards at the edge of town had changed to show a flaming meteor falling from the night sky along with the date of this supposed local apocalypse in large bold letters above the word “repent.”

The number of for-sale signs that popped up like dandelions showed that many citizens had heard Weismann’s message loud and clear. It took little research to find out that Weismann and his cabal of preacher buddies were principals in Kingdom Realty who were buying the properties for pennies on the dollar and who would sell them for a healthy profit or rent them out once the hysteria and died down.

Time will show if any of the faithful will come to understand that they had been scammed.