“I can almost carry a tune if it’s not got any more notes than ‘Jingle Bells.’”
“Okay, how bout ‘Honky Tonk Angel’? It’s silent movies in here. Let’s jist have us some fun.”
…
“I really liked singing with you, Duke. That was fun.”
“Me, too. You ain’t got a very big voice, but it’s purty.”
“Oh, I’m not a real singer. But you help. Best night I’ve had since can’t remember when. I feel so good I almost feel bad. You’re some kinda lover, too.”
“Not mostly. I can genrally raise enough wood t’do the dirty, but cep fer the little spurt at the end, I don’t git a whole bushel a kicks outa it. But you’re sumthin special, Patti Jo. Took me clean outa my mizzerbul beat-down self. How long y’been doin’ that?”
“Since I was twelve. My father did me in my confirmation dress. That’s how I know I was twelve. I don’t remember much about it, but I do recall the blood on the starchy white skirt and worrying how I was going to get it out before we had to go to church.”
“And that was when your mama split.”
“Well, yes, about that time, but I don’t think him raping me was the main cause of it. She’d married this good-looking Italian high school football star who’d turned into a fat drunken bully like a prince into a toad, and finally after fifteen years or so had got fed up with him. Him and his quick fist. He always had this sick grin on his face when he hit you, and it was what you remembered even more than getting hit. She always said her only regret was that the mean sonuvabitch never got killed or crippled in a mine accident. But finally he did. I don’t know if she was sorry about that or not, but probably not. Probably she went out and got drunk like it was a birthday party or something.”
“I had this guy I useta play ball with. He was a pitcher like me, and though he couldn’t throw as hard, he was trickier and sharper — he could smash a fly on a barn door at sixty feet — and he actually got a brief sniff at the big time. He was specially good at a inswingin’ curve so sharp it could break batters’ fingers on the bat, but that was his undoin’ cuz them batters got pissed off and begun sendin’ line drives straight back through the mound, aimin’ at his dome. He was too quick fer ’em but eventually they nailed his pitchin’ shoulder and he ended up workin’ in a doughnut factory. But the point a my story is his ole man had been a sarge in the army, had got shot up and had, you know, one a them hinged meathooks fer a hand, and he used it to terrorize everbody, includin’ the guy’s ole lady, who went completely crackers from the thing and finally stuck her head in the oven, and his two sisters who was both somewheres round twelve or so like you was. He’d snap that claw over their shoulder from behind, push ’em to their knees and threaten to stick that hook up ’em and do a lot more damage ifn they didn’t take it and shut up. Well, the guy noticed his old man was beginnin’ to cast lustful looks his way, too, and he figgered it was time to git his little butt on the road. So he waited until one day the ole fella was humpin’ one a his sisters and he had a good look at his backside with everthing floppin’ and he took his baseball and sent in a hummer that crushed the ole guy’s maracas. The sonuvabitch was in a unholy rage and come roarin’ at him t’kill him, but the kid was waitin’ fer him with a live wire that he calmly handed to the steel hook and walked away, leavin’ the ole man dancin’, and went off into the world t’seek his fame and fortune. Ain’t that the berries? Whattaya laughin’ at?”
“Your stories are always so funny, Duke. Why aren’t my stories funny like that?”
“Probly cuz yours are true.”
“Aren’t yours?”
“Some parts. ’Djever have any kids?”
“I got pregnant a few times. A lotta miscarriages, if that’s what they were. Had the weird feeling sometimes my dead sister was killing them off. Who I thought was my dead sister.”
“Ain’t none of ’em lived?”
“I don’t think so. I think I would of remembered that.”
“Well, I sure ain’t fixin’ t’make new ones, good lookin’, but I wouldn’t say no to encorin’ our duet. I’d like t’try it agin, as the song goes. One more time.”
“Sure. Move it on over, Duke, and come on in. You sing the high part this time, honey, I’ll sing the low.”
I.6 Sunday 12 April
“I don’t like the man,” John P. Suggs says plainly. “Never did.”
“Well, his conversion seemed genuine,” says Reverend Hiram Clegg, the plump silver-haired bishop of the State of Florida and president of the International Council of Brunist Bishops, who was present on the Night of the Sacrifice and witnessed that conversion. Reverend Clegg, the most successful of all the Brunist missionaries, has arrived at the Wilderness Camp today with two busloads of pilgrims from his Fort Lauderdale congregation, the first of hundreds of Brunist Followers expected later this week, and this little Sunday afternoon meeting in the church office has been called to talk about the logistics of all that and about the anniversary celebrations and dedication ceremonies next Sunday. It is, however, the imminent return of Reverend Abner Baxter, who is expected the day before those ceremonies that now has their full attention. Debra has been included in this meeting because of her knowledge of actions likely to be taken by city and state officials, and she is eager to exhibit the kind of thoughtful serenity that has been all too lacking of late (she doesn’t know why she said those things at the Easter prayer meeting, it was as if she were under a spell — that holy ecstasy maybe that she’d been seeking, but it was terrifying, and she found herself suddenly coming like an impassioned bride in front of everybody). She has only the dimmest recollection of Reverend Baxter, though she has been aware of the anxiety he arouses and learned more about him during her shopping trips with Clara. “The man then stayed on here a time and suffered more than any of us from the persecution, escaping only when incarceration became imminent,” Hiram continues. “And he has been intransigent in the vigorous propagation of the Brunist faith. He might not be the man you once knew.”
“He was the one who struck that girl with his car and killed her, was he not?”
“That would seem to be the case,” replies Hiram, whose people are presently getting a tour of the camp conducted by Darren and Billy Don. “If one ignores divine intervention. It could equally be said that God called her to His bosom and thereby launched our true religion, Abner Baxter merely His instrument of the moment, in the manner of Saul of Tarsus.”
John P. Suggs grunts and shakes his burry head at that.
Ben would seem to agree with Mr. Suggs that Reverend Baxter is a troublemaker and apt to be disruptive (“There’s no music in him,” he says and Debra feels she understands exactly what he means), while Clara, like Hiram, is more inclined to be conciliatory and respect Baxter’s loyal ministry on the grounds that not to include him, and with open arms, would amount to a failure of their mission, and that is Debra’s thinking, too, though her only expression of this has been the occasional nod while Clara is speaking.
“I have known Red Baxter a very long time,” says Mr. Suggs, whose own short-cropped white hair was probably once red, “since back when he was an atheistic God-hating communist. He has condemned me to hell or worse many times over. He is a power-grabber, a parasite, and a renegade firebrand. If he moves in here, he’ll just bring trouble.”
“Well, people moving in is surely a worry,” Clara says. “And not just Abner and his folks. This is a home for our movement, but not a home for people. We are mighty grateful, Hiram, for putting your congregation into motels. You can tell by the way things are out there that we ain’t set out for heaps of visitors. Soon as we’re done, all us living here will be heading out again on our missionary travels, except for them who run the office and keep the place in order and receive visitors and the like.” That’s me, Debra thinks, a little shocked at witnessing her life, its critical turning turned, spread out before her suddenly like a dummy hand in bridge, a win still possible, but not hers to play, she at best a kibitzer. Tour guide. Outsider still. “But I know, no matter what we’ve told them, a goodly number of these folks coming to the dedication got no place to go afterwards. They ain’t even sure there’s gonna be a afterwards. They figure they’re here till God calls them to glory. And I don’t doubt but what Abner and his people are thinking the same way.”