“A deacon was one day passing a saloon as a young man was coming out, and thinking to make sport of him, the young man called out, ‘Deacon, how far is it to Hell?’ ” A chuckle from the audience as they sense what is coming.
“The deacon gave no answer, but after riding a few rods he turned to look after the scoffer, and found the man’s horse had thrown him and broken his neck. I tell you, my friends, I would sooner give my right hand than to trifle with Eternal things.”
At least, if what the lieutenant said is true, they won’t be going right away. There is time to repent. It strikes Little Earl that timing figures larger in the stories the preachers tell than the amount of wickedness engaged in — a monster of lechery pardoned at death’s door while a Godly man might transgress only once, but if struck down leaving the address of sin, be cursed forever.
In Missoula he sported with most all of the women who made themselves available outside the Fort every payday, before settling on the Man-killer sisters, Jewel and Ortha, Flathead girls who weren’t really red. Copper maybe, with long, coarse black hair that took his breath away sliding against his bare stomach and strong legs that didn’t let you loose till it was finished. Ortha was moody while Jewel was gay, but both knew your company and rank and called you soldier—“Get those trousers off, soldier”—and Jewel even gave Elijah Barnes a free one to celebrate when he made corporal. Then the one in the Chattanooga house he visited a couple times, dark little thing with the beautiful eyes who called him Daddy and could bend herself like a pretzel and now the whole shooting gallery available over in Ybor, Francine with huge breasts that have a life of their own, pillowing his ears as she works on top of him or Zeidy who snarls words in Spanish he doesn’t understand but thrill him all the same and Caridad his exact same shade like they were formed from the same patch of clay and Esther who could pass for white or the skinny Chinese girl the guys call Poon Tang with her nipples like the tips of his little fingers or any of the other ones, all shades and all sizes, all the other ones he’s looked at but never tried in Ybor or here in Tampa City.
Little Earl shifts on the bench to cover the evidence of this line of thought. Moody seems to be looking directly at him.
“We are trying to win you to Christ,” says the man with the patriarch’s beard, sincere, forceful, singling Little Earl out from the others. Can the man read minds?
“If you go forth from this tent straight to Hell, you will remember this meeting, and the golden opportunity we have offered you here. For in that Lost World you won’t hear the beautiful hymn Jesus of Nazareth Passeth By, no, He will already have passed by. There will be no sweet songs of Zion there, only the mournful lamentations of the eternally condemned. If you neglect this salvation, oh sinner, how will you escape? Remember that Christ stands right here—” Moody holds his arm out to indicate the Redeemer is standing only feet away from him, “—here in this assembly tonight, offering redemption to every soul. For the reaping time is upon us, brothers and sisters — if you sow the flesh you must reap corruption! If you sow the wind you must reap the whirlwind!”
The evangelist pauses dramatically, and Little Earl can hear the life on the street beyond the tent, hear horses passing and carriage wheels rolling, the drunken shouts of men, can hear, as if they are calling to him, the brazen voices of the women of the night. They are out there, a hundred Jezebels, no, a thousand, waiting with eager lips and soft skin, with enticing words, with—
Moody changes tone.
“I was called once to the bedside of a dying man, a man who had tried to follow the word of God but let the opinion of his worldly acquaintances obstruct his progress, a man who had turned away from the Light to bask in the false warmth of his comrades’ admiration. ‘You need not pray for me,’ he said, ‘for my damnation is sealed.’
“Nevertheless I fell upon my knees and tried to speak with the Almighty, hoping in His charity He might comfort a sinner come to the final day — but my prayers did not go higher than my head, as if Heaven above me was like brass. ‘The harvest is gone,’ said the poor unfortunate from his bed, ‘the summer is ended, and I am not saved.’ ”
Moody turns his lion-like head slowly, seeming to look deeply into the soul of every person in the tent, black and white. He speaks softly, sadly, yet such is the silence in the tent that even Little Earl, crammed in the rear of the colored wedge, can hear his every word. “He lived a Christless life, he died a Christless death, we wrapped him in a Christless shroud and bore him away to a Christless grave.”
The Golden Orator of Chicago slams his hand down on the top of the podium. “Fly to the arms of Jesus this hour! There is yet time! You can be saved if you will!”
And then the choir, bursting into song with Sankey’s beautiful voice rising above the others, the man nearly blind now but God-possessed, calling them, calling them forward to Glory—
What means this eager, anxious throng
Which moves with busy haste along,
These wondrous gath’rings day by day,
What means this strange commotion, pray?
In accents hushed the throng reply,
“Jesus of Nazereth passeth by!”
Tampa is a fever dream.
Tampa is a fever dream lying by the fetid Gulf, writhing hot with fear and desire. Camp followers have swarmed the miasmic city to feed upon the soldiers and each night, drawn to light and noise, those soldiers dare each other to be the drunkest, the loudest, the lowest. The pianos are all warped out of tune, the liquor smells of kerosene and the Army is a guest who has stayed overlong. Tampa wishes he would leave but can’t help selling one more cocoanut, one more drink. And there are guns everywhere, guns are the point of it, guns and flags and men marching or staggering in groups and the hard slap of a black man in uniform a reminder that there is a price for this boon, this bonanza of war, an insult that must be swallowed to keep the riches flowing. Tampa is a cackling reverie, flushing hot in fevered temples, teetering on a point of chance—
Finally, Coop is the shooter. It’s the first time he’s held the dice all night and up to now he’s just nibbled around the edges of the table, for it is a table and not a poncho behind a tent or chalk marks on a floor, throwing the nickel minimum in on hopping bets with long odds and the house has taken his nickels. The house used to be a butcher shop from the hooks on the ceiling and the smell of it, with a half-dozen games working and Army-issue tin cups, a boxcar-load of them seems to have been stolen and spread around Tampa, that you rap on the pine three times when it’s time for a refill. Coop puts his half-full cup down to press the dice between his palms.
“These bones been waitin for a man knows how to treat em,” he says, closing his eyes and rubbing the cubes. “They feelin awful cold.”
“What you play?” The boxman is a Chink in a vest and bowler hat. A light brown boy with a harelip is ragging a tinny little piano at the rear where the heavy breakdown used to happen, blood stains mottling the wall beside him.
“No pass, what you think? Lay a dollar down, Willie.” Willie always handles his money when he is rolling. Making change interrupts the flow.