Joe Lansdale - Edge of Dark Water

“He did,” the reverend said.

“Right then?”

“No. He had to recover. The ribs and chest had to heal.”

“So,” Jinx said, “it was a miracle that needed a doctor to look in on him, and he needed time to get over things, like that crushed chest and such.”

“Yes, but God was watching.”

“Uh-huh,” Jinx said. “He might have been watching, but I can’t see he did much. And where was he when that wagon rolled over on that fella? What was he doing then? And if that’s a miracle, my ass is white.”

“Jinx!” Mama said, but since Jinx didn’t really know her that well, her complaint didn’t carry much weight.

Jinx plowed ahead. “Always someone’s got to tell me about miracles and how they happen now like in the Bible. Mama read that Bible to me when I was young, and it cured me of religion itself. That Old Testament is just chock-full of mean ol’ men who killed whole tribes of people and was with other men’s wives, and even their own children, and they’re the heroes.

“Them other books, the New Testament about Jesus, they’re better, but there ain’t one miracle in that book like any miracle I’ve heard about that’s happened now. That Lazarus, he didn’t come back from the dead then need a week to rest before he could get out of bed. He come back all ready to go. And blind men and cripples Jesus was said to heal didn’t have to have a doctor come help them out and cure them up after Jesus was said to put his word on them. They was in a miracle right then, not over a stretch of time. The cripples leaped up and walked, blind men took to seeing right away. Least, that’s the stories. And it don’t fit anything I’ve heard you talk about, no matter what you name it. Way I see it, if there’s miracles, tell me how many folks done lost arms and legs and had them grow back. Got an eye poked out and had a new one pop back in their head. That happens now and then, I might go more in the direction of believing that hooey.”

The Reverend Joy had been sitting there listening to Jinx politely, but his cheeks were red as fire and his smile had tumbled off. There was a feeling in the air like we had all just seen a cow drop a pile in the floor, but didn’t none of us want to mention it.

The Reverend Joy sat staring at Jinx. Then slowly he found his smile again. It was a little crooked, but he had it back. “You know, baby girl, you have some real thoughts there on miracles. And maybe I’ve been too quick to call something that is explainable a miracle. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a God and that he doesn’t watch over us and there aren’t miracles.”

“I certainly believe he watches over us,” Mama said.

“So do I,” Terry said.

I decided to remain quiet and on the fence.

“You may not believe in him,” Reverend Joy said, “but he believes in you. And he’s up there watching and caring.”

“Well, if he’s up there and watching and caring,” Jinx said, “he’s sure one for making you earn your spot.”

You’d think that stuff Jinx was talking about would have made the Reverend Joy sour on us right away, but it didn’t. At first I think it crawled up under his skin like a dying animal, but the more he sat and thought on it, the more I think he liked it. I figure that was because he thought he might save Jinx and offer up her soul to Jesus, though most likely, like a lot of whites, he thought she’d end up in Nigger Heaven, which was separate of whites and would give the white folk someone to do their laundry and cooking during harp concerts and the like.

Anyway, they went at it, arguing religion. No matter how the reverend tried to give his ideas, he couldn’t make headway. I could tell Jinx had become a challenge to him, his Wall of Jericho that needed tumbling down. This led to us staying for dinner, and having that ice cream-which was a little runny and not that cold-and then it led to the reverend sleeping in his car, and the rest of us sleeping in his house, though he made a few suggestions that indicated he might like Jinx out in the storage building.

That night, Mama slept in the bed in the other room, and the rest of us slept on pallets on the floor under the table. Terry went to sleep right away, but me and Jinx was awake. I could hear her tossing and turning.

I told Jinx, “If you don’t get converted before supper tomorrow, we might have a whole day of something good to eat.”

“I promise not to embrace Jesus before then.”

“There may come a time, though,” I said, “when he gets tired of the argument, and you might want to get converted so we can keep eating and having a roof over our heads. I think he likes trying to convert you right now, but later he may insist on it.”

“What I was really thinking is we don’t need no roof,” Jinx said. “What we need is to get back on the river. We haven’t gone that far, and here we sit.”

“Mama’s doing better,” I said. “She even seems a little happy. Maybe she just needs some time.”

“I had an uncle was a drunk, and that cure-all is the same kind of thing,” Jinx said. “What happens is they quit a day or so, then they get to craving, and they get sick, then they get better if they don’t go back to it. But the real bad time is coming yet, and you got to be ready for it.”

“You don’t know that,” I said.

“I know it well enough,” she said. “Same as I know that fried chicken tonight was too salty.”

“You ain’t against looking a gift horse in the mouth, are you?”

“Even if the horse is free, you ought to check its teeth now and again to make sure ain’t none of them falling out,” Jinx said. “Besides, I ain’t the reason he wants us here. It ain’t arguing religion he likes so much. He likes your mama.”

“I see that,” I said.

“He looks at her, it’s like he’s licking his lips over a pork chop.”

“You think he’s got bad intentions?” I asked.

“He’s got regular man intentions, that’s for sure.”

That night rolled into a series of nights, and then I lost count. We got the river off our mind. The food was good and it was brought to the reverend free by his church members, though there was someone who always did overdo the salt.

It was a good life and easy, and I wasn’t having to carry stove wood to bed with me. There wasn’t any sudden outburst that ended in Mama holding her eye and limping off to the bedroom. The reverend had a good singing voice, and he sang spirituals and old songs, and he sang them well, like his voice was coming from down deep in a well.

This enjoyment didn’t keep me from allowing the reverend to help us build that rudder he talked about for our raft. Then he built a kind of hut made of lumber and logs in the middle of it. It wasn’t much of a hut, but it could hold all of us at one time if we didn’t breathe heavy or think too hard. He even stocked the hut with a couple bags full of goods so that if we decided to leave, we’d have a few things with us.

But after it was built, we didn’t leave. We was like flies stuck in sweet molasses. Things was so comfortable there, I was beginning to think we had gotten worked up for nothing, and no one was following us. A few miles down the river had given us a freedom. It had been at our fingertips and we hadn’t even known it. I had hesitated about running away from home, but now realized just how much of a captive I had been. What really struck me was there hadn’t been no walls or guards around me, yet I had stayed in my prison on a kind of honor system. I had been my own guard and prison wall, and hadn’t even known it.

As I said, the reverend slept in his car, and now and again he would sit at the table in his house with a big pad and pencil, the Bible at his elbow, and would write out sermons. To see how they would go with his flock, he would try them out on us. We told him how it all hit us, and gave him a few tips on how it might sound better to his listeners. He didn’t even mind that a nonbeliever like Jinx had some suggestions. He got so good at delivering them sermons, Jinx was damn near ready to get baptized.