Walter Williams - The Rift

“Driving like a drunk,” said Sheryl.

The Roman Enemy, Frankland thought, and turned to face the foe.

The Rails Bluff area had so few Catholics that there was no full-time priest in the community. The little clapboard Catholic church shared its priest with a number of other small churches in the area, and Father Robitaille drove from one to the other on a regular circuit. In Rails Bluff he heard confession and said mass on Monday nights, then roared off in his rattletrap Lincoln to be in another town by Tuesday morning.

Robitaille did not show the Church of Rome to very good advantage. He was from Louisiana originally, but alcoholism had exiled him to rural Arkansas. And he drove like a crazy man even when sober, so sensible people slowed down and gave him plenty of room when they saw him coming.

“I don’t know how he’s avoided killing himself,” Sheryl said.

“The Devil protects his own,” said Frankland.

A cotton gin shambled up on the right, corrugated metal rusting behind chain link. 750 friendly people welcome you, a road sign said.

The population estimate was an optimistic overestimate. Both in terms of number, and perhaps even in friendliness.

The Arkansas Delta, below the bluff, featured some of the richest agricultural soil in the world combined with the nation’s poorest people. The mechanization of the cotton industry had taken the field workers off the land without providing them any other occupation. The owners had money- plenty of it- but everyone else was dirt-poor.

Rails Bluff, however, envied even the folks in the Delta, and sat on its ridge above the Delta like a jealous stepsister gazing down at a favored natural child. The county line ran just below the town on its bluff, and all the tax revenue from the rich bottom land went elsewhere. It was as if God, while showering riches on everyone in the Delta, had waved a hand at everyone above the bluff and said, “Thou shalt want.”

In the Delta, many people were poor, and a few were rich. In Rails Bluff, nobody was rich.

Now that a Wal-Mart superstore had opened in the next county, things in Rails Bluff had grown worse. The hardware store had just gone under, and the clothing store was hanging on by its fingernails.

If the world did not end soon, Frankfand thought, Rails Bluff might well anticipate the Apocalypse and vanish all on its own.

The truck drove past an old drive-in theater, grass growing thick between the speaker stanchions, and then passed into town. Sheryl pulled into the parking lot of the Piggly Wiggly, and Frankland saw that Reverend Garb was already waiting, standing with one of his deacons, a man named Harvey, and a smiling, excited crowd of young people, members of his youth association.

Garb was a vigorous man in gold-rimmed spectacles, pastor of Jesus Word True Gospel, the largest local black church. The kids- all boys between the ages of twelve and eighteen- were all neatly dressed in dark slacks and crisp white shirts. Garb and Harvey added ties to the uniform. All wore white armbands.

Frankland hopped out of the pickup and shook Garb’s hand. “Glad you could make it, Brother Garb.” He looked at Garb’s youth brigade. “I hope my parishioners give us such a good turnout.”

“I’m sure they will, Brother Frankland. Some are here already.”

Frankland looked at the rows of cars and trucks parked at the Piggly Wiggly, saw familiar faces emerging. He greeted his parishioners as they approached, heartened by their numbers.

As he was talking to one of his deacons, a battered old 1957 Chevy pickup, rust red and primer gray, rolled off Main Street into the parking lot, a big man at the wheel. There was a gun rack in the truck’s rear window with an old lever-action Winchester resting in it. Frankland walked toward the pickup truck to greet its driver. Pasted on the back window was a sticker that read TRUST IN GOD AND THE SECOND AMENDMENT.

“Hey, Hilkiah,” said Frankland.

“Hey, pastor,” Hilkiah said cheerfully.

Hilkiah Evans stepped out of the truck. He was a tall man with broad shoulders, powerful arms, and a pendulous gut. His prominent nose had been broken over most of his face, and his arms were covered with tattoos. The old ones, the skulls and daggers and the Zig-Zag man that dated from his time in prison, were getting blurry with age as the ink began to run- a contrast to the later tattoos, the face of Jesus and the words “Jesus is Lord,” which were sharp and clear. A naked woman, prominent on his left bicep, had been transformed into an angel through the addition of a pair of wings and a halo.

Hilkiah was one of Frankland’s success stories. After his second stretch for armed robbery, Arthur Evans had been introduced to Frankland by a member of his church, Eliza Tomkins, who was also his parole officer. Though Arthur had at first resisted Frankland’s efforts to get his mind straight, it was clear that Eliza had detected a void in the man, a void that needed to be filled with belief and with the Light.

And, by and by, Arthur had listened, and as a mark of his conversion had changed his name to Hilkiah. Now he was one of Frankland’s stalwarts, a deacon and a tireless organizer. He had joined the Apocalypse Club and purchased a two years’ supply of food, although he’d had to do it on credit. Though he always had to scrape to make ends meet and was always working at least two jobs in the community, Hilkiah nevertheless donated much of his time to work at the radio station, to helping with church projects, with the youth and outreach programs.

And of course with the Christian Gun Club. He had given a great many young parishioners their first lessons in the use of a firearm.

His involvement with the Gun Club was, technically, illegal and a violation of his parole. But since his parole officer was also a member of Frankland’s congregation, she had decided to ignore the technicalities.

Besides, it was ridiculous to tell someone in a place like Rails Bluff that he couldn’t own a gun, even if he was a convicted armed robber. Sometimes the law was just silly.

“Hope I’m not late,” Hilkiah said.

“Not at all. I’ve barely got here myself.”

Hilkiah reached into the bed of his truck and lifted up a large Coleman cooler. “I brought some Gatorade. Thought people might get thirsty in this heat.”

“Bless you, Brother Hilkiah,” Frankland said. He should have thought of that himself.

Hilkiah set up the cooler on the tailgate of his truck along with some plastic cups. Reverend Garb came over to shake hands with Hilkiah, and then he turned to Frankland.

“Shall we get started?“ he asked. “Or are we waiting for someone?”

Frankland glanced along the road. “I was expecting Dr. Calhoun,” he said. “Maybe we should wait a few more minutes.”

Garb glanced toward Bear State Videoramics. “There’s Magnusson standing in the door,” he said. “He doesn’t look so happy to see us.”

“He that seeketh mischief,” Hilkiah said, “it shall come unto him.”

“The way of transgressors is hard,” said Garb, skipping a little further in the Book of Proverbs.

There was a silence while the others waited for Frankland to produce a quote, but Frankland’s mind spun its gears while it groped through its limited stock of citations, and it was Hilkiah who finally filled the silence with “A wicked man is loathsome, and committed to shame.”

“’Scuse me, teddy bear,” said Sheryl. “You forgot something.”

Sheryl approached and tied a white band around his arm. “Thanks, honey love,” said Frankland.

“I’m going to go back to the studio and check up on Roger,” Sheryl said. “I’ll be back at ten o’clock to pick you up, okay?”

“Okay,” Frankland said. They kissed, and she walked to the truck. Roger was the boy volunteer they had minding the radio station- not a big job, because all he had to do was load prerecorded programs- but Roger was fourteen, and Sheryl didn’t want to leave him alone with complicated equipment for too long a stretch of time.