Rock n Roll Preacher

So I went to a wedding the other day. It was a nice affair, as most weddings are - there haven't been many weddings that weren't nice, at least for the guest. Anyway, amid the usual white wedding dresses, sharp dressed groom's men, tiered cake and ever present stuffed chicken breast was a most unusual preacher. To give you a slight idea of this guy, imagine Garth Ennis and Flannery O'Connor having a baby and that baby becoming a preacher. Everyone in the wedding party is wearing the traditional garb- the groom in his Marine uniform - but the guy presiding over the event is in black jeans (slightly acid washed), black leather jacket and Timberlands. And the whole ceremony felt like improve with the preacher just spouting some religious stream of conscious diatribe as it popped into his head and delivering it in a folksy easy going manner. The hipster baptist preacher channeling his inner McConaughey. I bet his favorite movies are Easy Rider and Vanishing Point. But the best part was his voice - he spoke as if he had Tom Waits stuck in his throat. As he spoke I kept imagining him in some tattered revival tent preaching to a bunch of hicks, each of them swaying to his county-tinged religious oratory - even some of the women folk in the sweltering canvas tent finding themselves sexually aroused. Even though I wasn't buying his bullshit - and it was most certainly bullshit - I could see people persuaded by this man and his talk of Jesus. And then I knew I had found a character. I don't know where he'll find a spot in my imagination - in a novel down the road or lucky enough to have his own short story, but he (or at least my fancied version of him) will show up on my computer screen some day.