by Joan Hess
“What a bitch,” Chastity said as she turned on the water in the shower and let the cool spray wash away what felt like an inch of sweat. She reached for a bar of soap, then decided it was too much effort and let her arm fall. “I’m already three-quarters dead, and this is only my first day of practice. I wonder if they’ll bury me with my halo?”
“You have a halo?” asked Darla Jean from the next stall. Based on what Chastity had let drop, it seemed improbable that she was a candidate for any of the roles in the Christmas pageant. It was hard to tell how much of it was true and how much was so much hogwash, though.
“I don’t want to talk about it!” Chastity snapped. “Mind your own damn business—okay?”
Darla Jean pulled aside the plastic curtain separating them, made a face, and yanked the curtain back into place. “Well, excuse me,” she said, allowing her irritation to come through as loud and clear as a TV commercial. “I’m just a redneck from a pissant little town, and I ain’t never seen no honest-to-God real live angel afore. Here I was planning to ask you for your autograph, Miss Hope. You got a pen in there, Miss Hope? If you do, you can sign my ass, Miss Hope.”
There were a few giggles and snide remarks from the other stalls, but for the most part the dozen girls were too tuckered out to worry about anything other than sore muscles and bruises. Coach Grapper insisted they practice with the same intensity as in regular games. Anything less resulted in extra laps.
Chastity’s eyes were narrowed to reptilian slits, but she adopted a penitent voice. “Sorry, Darla Jean. It’s just so friggin’ embarrassing, you know? By Monday morning, I’ll be the laughingstock of the town. It happens every place we go.”
“Nobody’s gonna laugh at you,” Darla Jean said. “If they do, they’ll have to answer to me and Heather.” She paused while she rinsed out the shampoo and then added, “What would happen if you refused?”
“No one says no to Malachi.”
“That’s stupid,” Heather said from another stall. “What’s he gonna do—spank you and send you to your room without supper?”
Chastity twisted the spigot and tried not to yelp as cold water splashed onto her face. They didn’t understand, but she sure as hell wasn’t gonna try to explain about Malachi. When she was shivering so hard her teeth chattered, she turned off the water and wrapped a skimpy gray towel around herself. It reminded her of the detention center where she’d spent three months after she was caught shoplifting; the woman from social services said it would teach her a lesson. The lesson Chastity had learned—don’t get caught—may not have been what the woman had in mind.
As she came out of the stall, one of the girls whose name she didn’t know said, “What’s with that guy that rides the motorcycle? Is he as hot as he looks?”
“He’s my boyfriend,” Chastity said as she found a seat on a bench and began to dry her hair, “and he’s a helluva lot hotter than he looks. If he ever bothered to even glance at you, you’d turn to ashes and go floating away in the wind. He has that effect on virgins.”
“Who says I’m a virgin?”
“No one, Carlotta,” said Darla Jean as she emerged from her stall. “According to Billy Dick MacNamara, you’ve made it with pretty much anything that wears a jock strap.”
“Shut your mouth!”
“Make me.”
To everyone’s dismay, Coach Grapper’s voice crackled through the intercom before the matter could be resolved in a thoroughly uncivilized fashion.
“Listen up,” she said. “I want you all to get dressed and be out on the bleachers in two minutes. Anyone who’s not there will do twenty-five sit-ups. Got that?”
The squeals from the stalls and subsequent activity indicated everyone had. Exactly two minutes later, Norma Kay strode out of her office, made sure no one was missing, and said, “You’ll be glad to know we aren’t going to be obliged to have a rummage sale or a car wash to raise money for the team. I just had a real interesting call from a man named Thomas Fratelleon.”
“Oh, shit,” muttered Chastity, then hunched down behind Carlotta as the coach glowered at her.
Norma Kay let it go and continued. “With the exception of Chastity, you all are going to be ushers during the revival. We’ll get a hundred dollars a night, which means at the end of the week we’ll have seven hundred dollars in the account. That’s more than enough for the tournament in Pine Bluff, and we may be able to go to the one in Longspur, Texas, too.”
Heather figured she was on real thin ice, but she raised her hand and said, “I can’t be there every night, Coach Grapper. My family’s going to Arkadelphia in the middle of the week to see my grandmother. She’s so sick the doctors say she may die any day now.”
“I told this man that all of you will attend every night. Explain this to your parents and arrange to stay with one of your friends. This is a team project, as well as a service to the Lord. Now, you need to report to the tent at six o’clock Sunday evening, dressed in church clothes and low heels, to get your instructions. I’ll be there to take roll.”
Several of the other girls had objections, but nobody had the nerve to voice them and risk Coach Grapper’s wrath. Once she was gone, however, one of the Dahlton twins jabbed Chastity and said, “Thanks a helluva lot, Angel Face. I was supposed to go to the drive-in Sunday night with Cooter Bog-bean, but now I get to prance around a pasture, telling little old ladies where to sit and trying not to throw up when people start babbling about the Holy Spirit.”
The other twin (no one could tell ’em apart, not even their parents) took a poke at Chastity, too. “And I had a date with Cooter’s cousin, Lloyd. He told me this morning he already found someone to buy beer for us.”
“This isn’t any of my doing,” Chastity protested, squirming as they glared at her. “Thomas always calls the local high school and arranges for some organization to be ushers.” She did not add that the organizations rarely saw a check at the end of the week when the caravan rolled down the road.
“Why don’t you have to be an usher?” asked Traci.
“I’ll be there every night, same as you. Trust me.”
There was a lot of grumbling in the locker room as they gathered up hairbrushes, sweaty shirts, and gym shorts, and began to leave. Chastity waited until she and Darla Jean were the only two left, then said, “I need to ask you something, but you got to promise not to tell anyone, including Heather.”
Intrigued, Darla Jean dropped her bag and sat back down. “I won’t tell a living soul,” she said solemnly.
“Is there a place in Farberville where girls can go if … well, if they need a doctor to take care of things?”
“What kind of things?”
Chastity made sure the door to Coach Grapper’s office was closed and then sat down next to Darla Jean. “You know what I mean.”
“An abortion? Are you …?”
“Maybe,” she said, her voice so low and miserable it was almost inaudible. “I’m two weeks late, and that’s never happened before. If I was still in Milwaukee, I’d know how to find a clinic.”
“Is Joey the father?” asked Darla Jean.
“Yeah,” she said. “Last month when we were in a gawdawful town in Texas, we took a sleeping bag out to the desert. The condom must have had a hole in it or he put it on wrong or something like that. Anyway, I don’t want him to know about this ’cause I lied and told him I was on the pill. He’ll be so mad he’ll jump on his bike and take off for good. All I want to do is take care of it before Seraphina gets suspicious.”
“You’ll have to tell her on account of your age. Girls under eighteen have to have their parents sign a permission form.”
“We are not talking about a goddamn field trip! Just get me the name of a doctor, and I’ll figure out something.”
Darla Jean gaped at her. “I don’t know of a doctor right offhand, and I’m scared that rumors might start spreading about me if I ask around. Why don’t you ask Joey to call places in Little Rock? It’s only a four-hour drive
, so you could go down and back the same day if you get an early start. I’ll see if I can find a fake ID for you. After it’s arranged, you can tell your sister you’re spending the night at my house. I’ll stay home to make sure my ma doesn’t get to the telephone first if anyone calls to check on you.”
“Get off it, Darla Jean. Malachi won’t even let me ride to practice with you. He sure as hell isn’t going to let me sleep over at your house.”
“Did he adopt you?”
“Yeah.” Chastity picked up her canvas bag and stood up. “He’s waiting outside for me, so I’d better go. Maybe one of the local workmen knows somebody. If not, I suppose I can try a home remedy.”
Darla Jean didn’t know what to say, but she couldn’t help thinking some gruesome thoughts as they left the locker room. Neither of them spoke as Chastity walked across the parking lot and disappeared into the gold Cadillac with the darkly tinted windows.
Darla Jean watched as it rolled away, then drove home and went upstairs to her bedroom. She did not call Heather but instead lay across her bed. When her mother came to the door half an hour later to tell her it was supper time, she pretended to be napping.
By Saturday morning there were enough flyers taped to windows and utility poles to wallpaper my apartment, assuming I’d even consider it. My idea of interior decorating is to scatter magazines on the linoleum so I don’t have to look at the cigarette burns and patches of mildew. It had taken me most of a year to get up the nerve to buy a small house-plant; within days, its leaves had turned as yellow as a Buchanon’s eyes.
Now I was sitting in my car, watching a couple of high school boys tape flyers to the window of a vacant building that at one time had been a New Age hardware store. I leaned out the window and called, “You’d better be prepared to take all those down at the end of next week. I don’t want them littering the roads.”
“Yeah, we will,” one of them said.
“Are you getting paid for this?” I asked.
“Sort of,” the same one said. “Some man called Coach Jenks and cut a deal with him. All the money goes to the team for tournaments and equipment. Some of the guys have to work during the revival, but me and Cooter volunteered to get in our hours aforehand.”
I drove back toward the PD, but when I pulled into the lot, I realized I could no longer ignore the upcoming revival. It was tempting to get my gun and all three bullets and concoct a reason to run Malachi Hope and his entourage out of the county before he got his hands on skimpy Social Security checks and Mason jars filled with crumpled bills. However, Malachi had the law on his side—for the time being, anyway—so I gritted my teeth and headed out on County 102.
The pasture was clotted with trucks, vans, the RV, and a variety of vehicles. Men were unloading boxes and hanging banners that made it clear (to the literate) that Hope was here for seven days. Tables had been placed outside the tent for the convenience of souvenir shoppers; I suspected that at-some point there would be a blue-light special on splinters from Noah’s ark and genuine plastic replicas of the Holy Grail. Three men staggered by with a popcorn machine, their faces red with exertion. Praise the Lord and pass the salt.
I wandered around, ducking beneath cables and dodging deliverymen as I searched for Thomas Fratelleon. I looked inside the tent, which was now jammed with metal benches, folding chairs, stereo speakers, strings of paper lanterns, fans, and a large stage in front of a dark blue curtain. As I tried to imagine what the tent would be like when packed with passionate rhetoric and impassioned spectators, several spotlights came on and cast irregular circles on the curtain. Fog began to drift from under the stage, swirling mysteriously as it crossed the beams of light.
When the Rolling Stones failed to materialize, I turned around and found myself nose to nose with a man dressed in jeans, a gray sweatshirt, and grass-stained moccasins. He smiled and said, “It’s impressive, but just wait until tomorrow evening. We’re planning on a full house.”
Annoyed with myself for failing to hear his approach, I stepped back. “Do you know where I can find Mr. Fratelleon?”
“I believe he went into Farberville to meet someone. Can I be of help, Miss …?”
“Arly Hanks,” I said, struggling not to smile back at him. He had a smooth, boyish face and ingenuous blue eyes, but so had the ex-person I’d married in the past. I may be guilty of a lot of things (trespassing included), but I’m not a slow learner. “Do you know when Mr. Fratelleon will be back here?”
“You’re the local constabulary,” he said as his smile broadened to expose even white teeth. “Thomas mentioned that you dropped by earlier in the week to check things out. I hope you found everything to your satisfaction?”
“It’s outside my jurisdiction, so it doesn’t matter how I found everything. Tomorrow night the traffic will spill into Maggody, though, and I want to make sure he arranged for ample parking. The county road’s too narrow to have cars and trucks parked along it.”
“By noon, these trucks will be out of the way and there will be space for all the attendees. Thomas has hired local teenagers to direct parking.”
“Okay,” I said, “that’s all I wanted to know.”
“I do hope you’ll come tomorrow evening,” he said, then frowned as Joey Lerner came trotting up the aisle.
“Malachi,” he said, “we’ve got trouble in the van. Something’s wrong with the power. I’ve tried everything I can think of, but it won’t kick on. If I hook it up to the lines to the tent, fuses are gonna blow.”
I took a harder look at the man with whom I’d been conversing. Thomas Fratelleon had warned me not to make any stereotypic assumptions, but of course I’d gone right ahead and conjured up an image of Elmer Gantry (okay, Burt Lancaster) with unruly hair, fiery eyes, and an aura of erotic energy. Malachi Hope possessed none of these traits—or at least he wasn’t displaying them.
“Am I supposed to fix it?” he demanded. “Shall I put my hands on it and beg Jesus to let there be light in the van?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of calling the electric company to check the installation.”
“Then by all means do it.” Malachi sighed as Joey trotted away. “It’s a good thing Joey wasn’t Edison’s right-hand man. We’d be performing miracles by candlelight.”
“What miracles do you perform under the glare of spotlights?” I asked.
He lifted his eyebrows. “Do I detect a note of skepticism in your voice, Miss Hanks?”
“It’s possible. What exactly are you selling?”
“Oh, dear,” he murmured, “you are a skeptic, aren’t you? What I’m selling, to use your terminology, is prosperity. I’m giving people the opportunity to find happiness in the here and now, instead of living in terror they’ll commit an unforgivable sin, knowingly or not, and be doomed to eternal damnation. If the financing comes through, I’m going to offer families a Christian utopia, where they can have some fun, ride some rides, spend some time knowing their children are safe from drugs and evil. Do you have a problem with that?”
“I have a feeling it’s not free.”
“That depends on what you mean by ‘free,’ Miss Hanks. I presume you understand farming. A man doesn’t go out into his field in the spring and cross his fingers that he’ll have a good crop in the fall. He plants seeds. If he plants sickly seeds, he gets a sickly crop. If he takes a risk and does everything he can to plant the best seeds he can find, he can expect a healthy crop. As it says in the Scriptures, ‘Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.’”
“All this requires is a donation?” I asked dryly. “Or is a copy of the Burpee catalog adequate?”
“I’m offering salvation, joy, prosperity—and hope. The Lord came to me one night when I was lying in a filthy, wretched hotel room, trying to remember if I had enough money for another bottle of cheap wine. All of a sudden, I felt such a golden glow inside my heart that I walked out of that room, hopped a freight train, and rode
it clear across the country, marveling at the majestic beauty the Lord has given us.”
“I’ve seen the movie. Save it for your performance tomorrow night.” I walked out of the tent. I felt a tingle in my back, but I didn’t look over my shoulder to see if Malachi Hope was staring at me.
By the time I reached the county road, I became unpleasantly aware that I’d stepped on something common to pastures. I drove as quickly as I dared to the PD, and was scraping my shoe with a stick when I heard the telephone ringing. I hurried inside and picked up the receiver. “Arly Hanks.”
“This is Jim Bob. I want you to get your ass over to the SuperSaver right this minute—and bring your handcuffs. I have caught myself a shoplifter.”
In the background I heard a wail of despair. Suddenly the cow shit on my shoe was the least of my problems.
6
As I came into the SuperSaver, Kevin blocked my way, no doubt envisioning himself with a gleaming sword instead of a gray-headed mop. “I got to talk with you,” he said. “Jim Bob cain’t do this.”
“That’s for me to decide,” I said as I pushed aside the lethal weapon and continued to the walled cubicle at the end of the row of checkout counters. I could hear no wails, but the expressions of the shoppers and employees implied I’d missed an extraordinary performance. I knocked and went inside.
Jim Bob was leaning back in his chair, his boots on his desk, his fingers entwined over his beer belly, and a cigar clamped between his teeth. “It’s about time you got here. It’s a good thing nobody was holding up the bank.”
“We don’t have a bank.”
“I know that,” he said, the cigar wobbling enough to send ashes trickling down his shirt like gray snow-flakes. “Did you bring your handcuffs?”
Ignoring him, I looked down at the lumpy mountain of misery in a chair. “Dahlia,” I said gently, “what’s this about? Were you shoplifting?”
