Joe Lansdale - The Complete Drive-In

“It’s a comfort,” I said. I wondered if Bob would loan me his shotgun so I could shoot myself. I had been a bean head to see anything wonderful about these people and their way of life. The truth was I was going to die, and there wasn’t any heaven to go to. Unless it was some sort of B-string heaven for extras in bad movies. That’s what this all had to be. A bad movie.

When Mable came back she had on a long overcoat, and I could tell the pockets were filled with something, but I had no idea what.

“Well, how do I look?” she asked Sam cheerfully.

“Like a million dollars, sugarbunch, like a million dollars.” He smiled at her, then looked at the hourglass. “Almost time. I got to go next door and tap on Deacon Cecil’s car window, get him to get everybody ready for tonight’s services. You’re gonna like this, son. It’s gonna put you straight with God.”

I was beginning to doubt that. If these were God’s chosen people, He had poor taste, and if I wanted in with them, then I had even poorer taste. But as it stood, in for a penny, in for a pound. It wasn’t like I had a pressing engagement elsewhere, but I was beginning to plan one. Maybe Bob would like the idea. We could maybe find a hose somewhere and run the exhaust fumes into the back of the camper. Just go to sleep and not wake up. It sure seemed like a good proposition to me.

Sam got up and I let him pass by me and out the door to get Deacon Cecil. When he was gone, Mable shrugged and said, “Well, here we are.”

She told me a story about how she’d won a baking contest in Gladewater, Texas, once, and by then Sam was back.

“Are things ready?” Mable asked.

“Ready,” he said, and looked at me and smiled.

I smiled back.

We went out of the bus, and as we walked, Sam put his arm around my shoulders and told me about the Kingdom of Heaven. None of it was particularly inspiring. The smell from his armpit kept my mind off what he was saying and made me woozy.

As we neared the selected spot, I could see a number of the Christians strutting rapidly toward it. They really seemed worked up and excited this time, like they’d just arrived at the company picnic.

On the other hand, I was considerably less than worked up. My entire religious experiment so far had been a vast disappointment. Sort of like when I found out my pet gerbil wouldn’t live forever, and later, after I’d cleaned the little turds out of his cage for what seemed like an enormous period of time, thought the little fucker would never die.

When we were all gathered there, Sam introduced me as a “boy who wants to join God,” and the others told me how nice that was, and a girl who might have been pretty, had she not been so thin and her hair so greasy, said, “A fresh one, huh?”

“You know,” Mable said, looking up at the lightning flashing across the blackness, “this reminds me of when we used to camp out, and sometimes it looked like it was going to rain. And we’d build us a big fire anyway, and we’d take some coat hangers and straighten them out and roast wienies over the fire. It was so much fun. We’d just let them cook until they were black, and they tasted so good. That just don’t make sense really, ‘cause if you burn them at home they aren’t any good at all, but out there on an open fire you can cook them black as a nigger, and they’re just as fine as they can be.”

“We’ll start the services with a little round of prayer.” Sam said, “then we’ll have communion.”

At mention of the word “communion,” a collective sigh went up from the crowd. These were some communion-loving folks. I remembered the sighs from the Popcorn King’s followers when they were eating the results of his vomit. There hadn’t been a lot of difference in sounds.

“God,” Sam said, “you sure have allowed some odd things here. In fact, I would say you have outdone yourself. But if that’s your will, that’s it. Still, sure would like to know the why of it… We also have this young fella amongst us, just baptized and craving the Lord, and we thought we’d bring him to you… It would certainly be nice if you’d do something to that old Popcorn King, by the way. Like maybe kill him. And it wouldn’t hurt my feelings, or the feelings of anyone here, if you’d make this black mess go away and give us back our highway and things. Amen-”

“Amen,” said the crowd.

“Bad as things is,” Mable whispered to me, “you got to be thankful. Things will work out, I know they will. I had a cousin, her name was Frances, and she didn’t have good thoughts on nothing or nobody, and she got this rash on her foot and it got infected, and she wouldn’t do nothing but wear this old sock on it, day in, day out. It just stunk something awful. I’d say to her, ‘Frances, you need to go and pour you some chemicals on that thing. It’s done gone and got infected.’ But you know, she wouldn’t listen, and her foot got so infected they had to cut it off. Had a foot one day, next she didn’t. Just had this little stub and they got this leather thing they put over it, and she had to put on this artificial foot, and she’d pull a stocking over that and she could slip a shoe on, you know, and it looked almost real. But when she walked, she walked something like this.” She showed me how her cousin Frances walked. The congregation and Sam had stopped to look at her, but she didn’t seem to notice. She did a sort of stiff step with one foot and dragged the other after it. “That’s how she looked. And there’s some little ole mean kids that live down the block from her, and they’d get up behind her when she was walking to the store, and they’d all walk like her.” She showed me the walk in more exaggerated form. “It was just like a bunch of crippled ducks following their ole crippled mama. They’d been my kids I’d have worn their little hind ends out so bad they couldn’t have sat down for a week. But the reason she got her foot rotted off like that and got mocked by them children is because she didn’t have no faith and doesn’t look on the bright side of things. God keeps score on them kind, you can bet he does.”

“Mable,” Sam said patiently, “if you’re through with the story about your cousin’s rotting foot, we’d like to continue.”

“Oh, I am sorry,” said Mable. “Don’t you pay me no never mind. Ya’ll just go right on with your rat killing and I’ll hush and listen.”

“That would be nice,” Sam said.

Then came the sermon. It had a lot of storm clouds, sinners, fire and brimstone and the work of the Devil in it. Sam hopped around and waved his arms a lot. But somehow it wasn’t very exciting. There were quite a few references to plumbing and painting and a parable about a little girl that got hit by a truck, which I couldn’t seem to work into the rest of the sermon or find the point of.

A man beside me leaned over to another and said, “I’m really sick of this crap.”

“It’s a thing to get through,” the other man said.

Finally Sam’s sermon sort of petered out, like maybe he couldn’t keep it on his mind anymore. He said “amen” and called his flock to him. This was the huddle I’d seen, and Mable put her arm around me and pushed me toward it. In the huddle it was hot and full of sweaty pits, unwashed clothes and bad breath; all this ganged up on me and I felt dizzy and weak, and before I knew it, I was in the center of the huddle and hands were touching me, then suddenly Sam stepped forward and kicked my feet out from under me. I went down hard and hit my head, tried to rise, but Sam shoved me down with his foot, and the next thing I know there’s two guys holding my arms, and the girl with the greasy hair has one of my legs and Mable has the other.

“What in hell are you doing?” I yelled.