Ларри Макмертри - The Last Picture Show

"When I say back to the Bible I don't mean just a chapter here and there," he tried. "I mean the full Gospel, the whole Bible, all of it! Ever bit!"

He kept working that point over desperately, hoping somebody, at least one person, would come down and rededicate his life. Finally, to his great relief, the Pender family got down out of the stands and came. It was not much of a triumph, because the Pender family rededicated their lives regularly, several times a year, but it was better than nothing. The Penders lived in a cabin down on Onion Creek where they shot squirrels and farmed sweet potatoes. Every two or three months, when things got boring, they came to church and rededicated their lives, hoping thereby to move the community to charity. They were a generally scruffy lot -in fact old man Elmer Pender spat tobacco juice right on home plate as Joe Bob was calling for the closing hymn.

Because of the Penders, the first sermon was not a total disgrace, but Joe Bob still had the second one to preach. That one was scheduled for a Saturday night, only one night before the revival was due to end. Hysteria would be at its height, and Joe Bob knew he would need something more potent than the Full Gospel to exhort on that night. On the next-to-last night of a revival it would be a black disgrace not to get twenty or thirty rededications.

All week he brooded about the final sermon. He knew good and well there was no way he could get out of it, and as the week wore on the only way he could get it off his mind was by abusing himself. By Saturday morning he was in a serious state. He stayed in his room until noon and abused himself twice. Then he talked his father into letting him use the family Plymouth, on the grounds that he needed to go off and commune with nature in order to get inspiration for his sermon. Nature that day was about as hot as the place Joe Bob was supposed to be saving people from. He drove out to the lake and sat staring at the water for a couple of hours, thinking how much he didn't want to preach that night. Finally he tired of staring at the bright sun-whitened water and drove into town to get a coke. That move turned out to be his downfall.

The facts of it almost passed belief. Nobody in Thalia would have supposed that Joe Bob could get in so much trouble in Thalia, Texas, right in the middle of a hot Saturday afternoon. Sonny heard about it almost as soon as the news got out. The sheriff happened to be in the poolhall shooting a quiet game of snooker when Monroe, his skinny deputy, came bursting in, white as a sheet.

"Sheriff, Johnny Clarg's little girl has kinda been kidnapped," he said. "They seen the preacher's boy putting her in his car about an hour and a half ago, in front of the drugstore."

"What the hell?" the sheriff said, taking aim at a red ball.

"Maybe Joe Bob gave her a ride home—be doing her a favor, hot as it is. Why would Joe Bob want to kidnap Molly Clarg?"

"Don't ask me," Monroe said. "She ain't at home, though. Miz Clarg's all upset-she's done looked everywhere for 'em. They was seen drivin' out of town toward Olney. Miz Clarg's afraid Joe Bob might be goin' to mo-lest her or something."

At that the sheriff quickly slapped his cue into a rack. He was getting beat anyway, and a sex crime called for immediate action.

"Some of you boys might come with us," he said. "If that's the way it is, no tellin' what we'll find."

In all, three cars set out on the search. Brother Blanton was in one, with his wife and some good church deacons. Mrs. Clarg was in another, with a deputy and some of her friends, and the sheriff and several men were in the lead car. Sonny was with the sheriff.

Fortunately, no particular searching was required. It was clear to. everybody that Joe Bob had taken Molly out to an old lover's lane, three or four miles south of town.

"Boys, I don't know what to think, but I fear the worst," the sheriff said, wiping his sweaty face on his shirt sleeve. He drove like sixty, roaring over the rattly cattle guards as if they weren't there. If they hadn't been lucky and encountered Joe Bob on an open stretch of dirt road the sheriff might well have plowed right into him and killed Molly and several other people. When they spotted him Joe Bob was on his way back to town, but he was coming reluctantly, at a speed of five miles an hour. He stopped instantly when he saw the three cars coming toward him.

The sheriff quickly got out of his car and rolled down the cuffs of his shirt sleeves, while Joe Bob sat in the Plymouth, looking miserable. Everyone but Brother Blanton and his wife got out of the cars and stood looking indecisively at the Plymouth. After a moment Mrs. Clarg became hysterical and ran over to the Plymouth and yanked Molly out. Molly was five, and had been sitting quietly in the front seat eating a lemon all-day sucker Joe Bob had given her. When her mother yanked her out everybody noticed that she didn't have her panties on.

"Get him, ain't you goin' to?" Mrs. Clarg cried. "He's the one done it, here's my little girl, why don't you get him. If my husband was here he'd kill him dead."

At that the sheriff and Monroe leaped in and pulled Joe Bob out of the car.

"What'd you do to that child?" the sheriff said. "We all know you done somethin'."

Joe Bob started to say something but he was too scared and nervous to get it out. Instead he collapsed, and they carried him to the sheriff's car and rushed him back to Thalia.

Sonny volunteered to drive the Blanton's Plymouth into town. Seeing Joe Bob so scared depressed him and he drove slowly. Molly Clarg's panties were laying in the car seat no one had noticed them, but Sonny supposed they were evidence so he left them there. By the time he got back to town the poolhall was full of men, all of them talking about the crime. It was generally agreed that Johnny Clarg would go to the jailhouse and kill Joe Bob as soon as he came in off his rig.

Then Monroe came in with news that the doctor had said Joe Bob hadn't actually done anything to Molly. Apparently he had just given her the lemon all-day sucker as a bribe to get her to take her panties off, and that was all he had done. It was kind of a letdown.

"Never had the guts," Andy Fanner said. "Preacher's boy."

"Well, the sheriff figures he might have mo-lested her a little bit," Monroe said. "It stands to reason."

"I've thought for years the boy was that kind," Coach Popper said, when he found out about it.

At any rate, Joe Bob had found the one method available to him for getting out of his second revival sermon. He spent that night and many others in jail, but in a way, what did happen at the revival that night was his triumph. His disgrace made possible the greatest upsurge of religious feeling the town had ever known. Brother Blanton insisted on preaching his son's sermon, and what he said did it. He rose above calamity and got right out there on home plate to lay matters on the line.

"Good people," he said, "I guess today I've suffered about the worst shock that can come to a man of God. My own son sits in jail tonight, sick with corruption. This very afternoon he was caught in an act of carnal trespass, a thing so foul it's almost unspeakable. How that tears my heartstrings I can't say, but what I want you to know tonight is that I've come through. The Lord has held me up. I've not lost one bit of faith. As for Joe Bob, I've given him up to the Lord. I've prayed to the good Lord this very night that they'll send my boy to prison. Yes, to prison! Sometimes in this life things just don't work out, and I believe it is God's merciful will that Joe Bob go to suffer with the murderer and the thief. It will be a hard thing but a just thing, and I know Joe can count on God's help."

At that Brother Blanton broke down, stretched his arms to the crowd, and began to cry. "Oh, my friends," he said. "If only you would take heed from my trouble. If only you would listen and realize that Jesus Christ is the only answer. If only you would come down tonight, just come down and pray with me and let all of us rededicate our lives right now to the pure way, the righteous way. . . : "