JUGGER’S RAIN
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Carney, the eldest son and a famous television preacher, decides to make it his business after a traveling journalist pays a visit to his family and produces a tabloid news story, complete with photographs, about his crazy family. In an exorcism that terrifies even Dulcey, his gentle wife, he casts out their optimistic fantasies, calling them “lies of Satan,” and brings his kinsmen back to a painful, mean-spirited reality, making them all so unhappy that even the tree weeps salt tears for them. Clearly, a miracle is needed to heal these unfortunate souls and set Carney back on the right path. But miracles are bought only through sacrifice, and Jugger knows this.
Damned if he doesn’t deliver a miracle. The legend of the Tree of Life is to be found in the lore of almost every culture in the world, an allegory for the spirit that transcends the misery of earthly existence and offers hope of a better world to come. The fundamentalist Carney rejects this mysticism, claiming, “We must define our purpose on this earth and accept our pain as Christ embraced His passion on the cross.” Boogie refutes this argument, declaring Christ did not die to teach us to worship a reality rife with cruelty and injustice: “He died as He lived–to deny the cross of your “reality’ which could not kill him. He died to defy your reason and defeat death itself.” This echoes the words uttered by the intuitive Dulcey: “The kind of love your daddy had can’t die. It’s too strong, and it wants so much to reach out to us that it finds a way, even after death.” In the face of the miraculous evidence wrought by this enduring love, even Carney, who has spent his life denying love, cannot prevent his eyes from being opened.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Mark Hardiman.
