Red Love (24 page)

The Rev. Very Big Bob

Fish fries.

—G. L.

I

The Rev. Very Big Bob was about to begin his Thursday radio show when he heard shouts: “Massa Big Bob! Massa Big Bob! Good news! We have proof!” It was Bradley, the midget Negro who slept at the foot of Big Bob’s bed and was his faithful servant—the epitome of the “real Negro” as Bob called him, not the uppity Communistic nigger types.

It
was
extraordinarily good news, and the Rev. began his program with it: “Flash! Evidentiary proof has just reached your reporter that Eisenhower is the Jew we thought he was all along. Here verily is the West Point Military Academy yearbook of the year 1915. We quote: ‘Dwight David Eisenhower. Abilene, Kansas. “Ike.” This is Señor Dwight David Eisenhower, gentlemen, the terrible
Swedish Jew’
— emphasis mine—’as big as life and twice as natural.’ “ Bob slammed the yearbook on the table. “Now tell me that I’m crazy, motherfuckers.”

There was silence, interrupted only by the troubled breathing of Rev. Very Big Bob.

“Yes, this is your Rev. Bob. Tonight I’m seated before a roaring fire in my study in brown tweeds, pipe in hand, the sweet aroma of tobacco recalling the winding green and brown roads of my boyhood. The luscious strains of the organ you are hearing: the beautiful Celeste at the reins. Bless you, Sister. I love your hair. We’ll take your calls. Here’s one now.”

“Something is going on, Rev. Bob,” a thin, reedy voice whispered. “There is some hidden force, or some hidden power, or something that is influencing our people. They don’t act like Americans.”

“So true, Christian caller. There is too much treason in the land. The Rubells are not alone. The same force that has agreed on the elimination of Senator McCarthy, the one man who, alone, has aroused the American people to the menace of the hidden force in the government—”

“Yes, yes,” the voice said excitedly. “Hidden, hidden. But what is it? Who is it?”

“Oh, we know
who
it is, don’t we, Christian caller?”

“Who is this?” the voice was gasping now.

“Who is what? This is still Rev. Bob.”

“Is it really? How do I know? Everything is so hidden. How can I be sure? You could be one of them.” He hung up.

Another caller, a lady, said “Eisenhower says he understands the Russians. If he understands them he must have a lot in common with them. Huh!”

The organ caroused softly behind Rev. Very Big Bob. “The thing you’ve got to remember about
them,
brethren, is that they look different from anyone else. Big noses, dark looks. But then on the other hand, they don’t look very different at all. That’s their cleverness. You wouldn’t always spot them in a crowd; they mesh. It’s devilishly complex. Or, for example, they’ll poison the water with fluoride and x-rays and they’ll drink it themselves as well—see what I mean?”

Sister Celeste let out a giggle: “I’ll stick to martinis, Big Bob.”

“And they’ll take their own electric shock treatments to prove the treatments are innocent. Boy, are they smart. I wish I was that smart. You can’t think about this stuff all the time, it would drive you loony.”

Rev. Very Big Bob read for the rest of the program from the seventeenth chapter of Revelations, which depicted serpents covering the world. He said, “Internationalism is the serpent, my friends, engulfing Christian virtues.”

The tapping of shoes was heard. “It’s time to go, dear friends, but we’ll end this Thursday with a rousing tap dance from our beloved little Negro Bradley. Take it away, Bradley.” The sounds of tapping, the organ strains of “Oh! Susanna” filled the airwaves, and the delighted laughter and shouts of Rev. Very Big Bob: “Do it, Bradley. You kill me, ya brave little pickaninny. Brethren, say a prayer for America and put it in an envelope. No coins please. Nice bills. Mail to Rev. Very Big Bob, Stearwater, Arkansas. Godspeed.”

The following Thursday, Rev. Very Big Bob said, “I just came back from New York City, that sewer reeking with big-breasted women, subversion and anti-Christian influences. The world’s center of intrigue. The House of Rothschild, all them superpowerful money changers operating between New York, Switzerland, London, and lovely Paree. The twins of the antichrist, Communism and Zionism, have their headquarters there.

“I had the honor of meeting with a little handful of fearless patriots not afraid to say the word ‘Jew.’ Not afraid to expose the octopus of political Zionism or to contribute manfully to the struggle.

“My person was not safe. It was necessary for me to remain strictly incognito as far as my place of abode was concerned. There are thousands of people who would be only too happy to murder me on sight if they could do it without being caught. And if they were caught I doubt seriously if they could be convicted. They might even be honored by the Jew-controlled courts.

“Brethren, do not get caught up in minor, routine issues. Stick to the super-issue, the terrific issue, the awful issue, the bloody issue.

“Last week this reporter presented proof about the Abie in the White House. Yes, Baruch and his gang have captured the capital once again. And the process of mongrelization goes on. Yet tonight I have even more fantastic evidence. I could hardly believe my eyes. I chanced upon a 1912 novel about a Communistic social Utopia—
Philip Dru, Administrator
by Colonel E. M. House—in an obscene little bookshop in Manhattan. God sent me into that store, and then he made me want to throw up.”

Organ music surged. “I have irrefutable proof that the Swedish Jew was the candidate of Jewish plotters to dominate the world—”

“Oh my goodness, what is it, Rev. Big Bob?” the beautiful Celeste asked.

“It is precisely this, Sister Celeste. I discovered the truth by reading between the lines as I always do. This strange book appeared in 1912. Only a few copies were printed—for obvious reasons. Franklin Delano Rosenfeld was chosen, groomed, and installed in the White House to consummate the conspiracy. This explains why,
the day after F.D.R. was nominated in 1932,
he flew by plane to be the houseguest of Colonel House in Massachusetts! So you see, it’s clear as a bell. Rosenfeld served them to the end of his days! Truman was their pawn. And the Swedish Jew—of course, what am I, an idiot?—was their choice in 1952.”

“Oh, wow,” said Sister Celeste.

“During the war, I have learned that, under the Swedish Jew’s military command, white girls were used exclusively in Europe in all the U.S.O.s and cafes to dance with, entertain, and date Negroes. That’s his version of Romeo and Juliet.”

Rev. Very Big Bob sighed. “Enough insanity. Let’s hear from our callers.”

A piercing female voice said, “It looks to me, Rev. Bob, like Washington is just a snake pit of thieves, perverts, hookers, and traitors.”

“I’m afraid you’re right, listener.”

“Did you know, Big Bob, that the real America can be found in the archives of the thirteen colonies? Ninety-eight percent of the founding fathers were Christians.”

“You can bet your sweet buns on that one,” Rev. Bob said.

“And did you also know that the United Nations was conceived in sin?”

“Sure did.”

“It’s the devil loose in the world, the most diabolical scheme ever hatched—”

“Absolutely.” The caller said goodbye and hung up.

Rev. Big Bob said, “Brethren, it’s time to go. While I was in that city of sin, I wrote my mother every day. If you would like to read my letters with my dear mother, if you want to walk by my side as I encountered the red-lipped harlots, the temptresses, the hot teasers, mail your request and offering to me. You will hear from me in a plain brown envelope by return mail. Jesus loves you and so do I. For now—I remain Very Big Bob.”

II

He began his radio ministry at the peak of the Depression. From the time of his earliest broadcasts from his home in Arkansas, Rev. Bob believed that capitalism would not work. He saw the breadlines, the bank closings, people deprived of their lifetime’s savings, dispossessed from farms they’d worked their entire lives. Everywhere, people looked for work and didn’t find it. He said, “It is time for the world to look aloft, above the stars, and see there the eternal Son of Justice, who says to all of us: ‘Come to Me all ye who feel heavily burdened, and I will refresh you. He who is not with Me is against Me, and seek ye first the kingdom of God and His justice and all things shall be added unto you.’”

His strong, syrupy voice kept millions glued to their radios. They waited for the weekly rituals Rev. Bob indulged in—stoking the fire (they would listen to him puttering with it, exclaiming “Golly ding it”), feeding his puppy Billy (Billy’s barks were a treat), tapping his pipe and filling it with tobacco, lighting up with a sigh of contentment (“Gosh a mighty”). He’d mislay his suspenders and talk to himself while hunting for them. They listened to him count the stars in his backyard and answer the doorbell right on the air and chat briefly with neighbors who stopped by to borrow sugar or discuss seed supplies. And they enjoyed Bob’s unpredictability: one week he was joyous and full of pep, another he was sad, another angry or pessimistic about the state of the world. You never knew what was coming with Rev. Bob. “Boffo radio,” said
Variety.

But it was what he said about their lives that counted most. “Something is very wrong, and we gotta fix it,” he said. Every weekend Rev. Bob and a group of volunteers distributed food and clothing to thousands of the unemployed and their families. Communism, he said, was the enemy. But what was creating Communism? Selfish capitalism. The capitalists had to raise wages, create better working conditions, provide the workers with old-age insurance. They had all the wealth, and assumed none of the responsibility. And why the hell should so few have so much anyway?

Congressmen, senators, and newsmen flocked to his door. “Get the plutocrats,” he told them, “retire the international bankers, the money changers, the Wall Street finaglers.” He had a new prescription every few months. It was difficult to keep up with Rev. Bob.

Within a year, the money came pouring in from sympathizers. Rev. Bob was forced to construct a twelve-story edifice, the Wee Kirk of the Heavenly Biscuit, and hire a corps of a hundred workers to handle all the money that was coming in. They worked ten-hour shifts. The Wee Kirk of the Heavenly Biscuit was illuminated with floodlights night and day. The lights were staggering; those within two or three blocks of the shrine would sometimes faint from the impact of the glare and crumple up on the sidewalks. Those who got closer shielded their eyes with steel buckets over their heads, making their way by holding on to the sides of buildings. Rev. Very Big Bob used a seeing-eye dog himself to reach his office.

Three years passed. The country had slowly picked up, but Rev. Bob was sorely pressed. So many admirers, so many flowers, but he was still broadcasting from Arkansas. Roosevelt had reformed the system and allowed it to survive. At first Rev. Bob showered the president with bouquets. When he was invited to the White House, he tingled. He arrived with notebooks of proposals. Roosevelt handed them to a secretary. Did the president giggle? No, that was impossible. “Let’s do this more often,” he told the president. “I’ll make myself available.” He suggested a private phone line between them as well.

The President sent Bob little thank-you notes, but rarely saw him after the first meeting.

In 1936 Rev. Bob formed the Christian Bob League, so that “the will of the people will be realized.” His enthusiastic followers sent in more money and membership cards. Rev. Bob said that Roosevelt had deeply disappointed him by his partial reformist methods that ignored the central problem of injustice that was gnawing at the country. Plutocratic capitalism and the international bankers led by the House of Rothschild were depriving the workers of their fair share of the national wealth.

He addressed a packed house at Madison Square Garden. Confetti rained down on him, men and women fainted in the aisle. A woman who had not been pregnant gave birth in the twelfth row. As word spread of this miracle, the crowd went berserk. Mother and child were carried down the aisle and up to the stage to the outstretched hands of Rev. Bob, while the mob shrieked with joy. “This is God’s handiwork,” someone called; the crowd shouted thousands of hallelujahs.

An unfortunate incident occurred later the same evening outside the Garden. When a portion of the crowd learned that the mother— not having even dreamed of bearing a child—was not married, they stomped both her and the little bastard to death on the street and walked away furiously. It was a sad footnote to a beautiful and miraculous evening.

As the months passed, and F.D.R. continued to implement social programs that improved the national economy, Rev. Bob became more and more depressed. He did not feel the energy to organize the League or to do much of anything. His radio audience was slipping. He wondered what was the cause of it all.

One balmy day in June, Rev. Bob received a bulky package in the mail. “That Jew in the White House don’t want you to know this, but you will be interested in the enclosed.—A loyal follower.”

Rev. Bob went into seclusion for seven days. It was such rich reading. So there it was, explaining what he’d suspected all along but couldn’t put into words. No wonder Roosevelt had been so unfriendly—that cat’s paw for the international Jewish conspiracy. It was so simple. Bob shivered. So unbelievable, so strange, but there it was in learned print. The Illuminati. Sounded Italian and sexy to him.

A secret order. Blowing up ships. Taking over the world with the Jews and the Masons. It went back to 1776. A group of secret societies headed by the Illuminati—led by Adam Weishaupt of Bavaria—conspired to overthrow every institution, dethrone God and become the new rulers of civilization. Responsible for the French Revolution! Sponsored Karl Marx!

Communist traitors now ran the government. How did they do it? With gentile fronts. With ridicule. With scantily clad women, of course, with jazz, movies, with sharp tongues of revolutionary heat licking at church altars, playing in school belfries, crawling into every sacred corner of the home. Every delicious perversion known to man.