‘You know the bes’ place to meet a wife in those days? At a well,’ Bob said. ‘Wells was like Starbucks. Jus’ hope the water tasted better ’n the coffee. You wan’ good coffee, you gotta go to Cuba.’
‘Have you been to Cuba?’ Eric asked.
‘Nah,’ Bob lied. ‘Numskull governmen’ won’t let us. Jus’ what I hear, is all.’
Eric was now more confused about the Bible than before the conversation had started. It was difficult to tell if Otis believed in God or not. He decided to ask again: ‘You do believe in God though, don’t you?’
‘Sure I b’lieve in God,’ Bob replied. ‘I b’lieve in Him, but not the Old Testament version o’ Him. Ol’ Testament’s a hist’ry o’ the Jewish people, not the hist’ry o’ God, but the two’s been blended an’ it’s this what gives God a bad name. Makes mo’ sense once you get to the New Testament – that’s when they chop God into three, an’ me an’ my brothers get to eat barbecue!’
Eric started to look even more doubtful.
Doc joined them just as Eric was proclaiming his belief in Jesus. ‘I’m going to stick to Christianism, Otis.’
‘Christianism?’ Doc said. ‘Is that the grammatical equivalent of Islamity?’
‘Don’t go messin’ with the boy, Gene. I jus’ been sayin’ nice things ’bout you.’
‘I’m just joking, Eric. When you get a chance though, ask Jack about Buddha. When he was about your age, he was under the impression that Buddhism was the friendliest religion in the whole wide world, but could never find a book on it. Saphead thought it was Buddyism.’ He then sat down and allowed Bob and Eric to continue their conversation.
‘So how far you got countin’ the dead?’ Bob asked.
‘I’ve finished II Kings and counted another 205,353 bodies, and now I’m reading Chronicles,’ Eric replied.
‘That’s mop-up territ’ry then, fillin’ in the gaps o’ what’s gone b’fore. You can miss out Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes an’ the Song o’ Solomon, ’cos there ain’t no deaths in them, an’ they don’t make a whole buncha sense, neither. Solomon was too wise fo’ his own good, if you aks me.’
It had started to shower and Bob turned the wipers to the intermittent setting. Jack drifted into the lounge and sat down next to Eric. ‘How you doing, kid?’
‘I’m okay, Jack. Otis has been telling me about the Bible, and Doctor Gene said I should ask you about Buddha.’
‘He was a fat guy, just like Doc,’ Jack said.
Nancy joined them, rested and smiling. ‘How are you, Jack?’ she asked.
Jack eyed her suspiciously. ‘I’m fine thank you,’ he said cautiously. ‘How are you?’
‘Very well thank you, Jack.’ She then turned to Doc. ‘He’s a nice young man, isn’t he, Gene?’
‘The best!’ Doc said with feeling.
The Protestant Vatican
The bus rolled through Tennessee at a steady 70 mph. Interstate 81 turned into Interstate 40, Eastern Standard Time changed to Central, and intermittent showers developed into constant and heavy rain. The road climbed through cragged hillsides, disappeared into low cloud and then descended towards Nashville. Billboards appeared bearing messages from God: All I Know Is Everything; Don’t Make Me Come Down There; Evolution Is A Fairytale For Grown-Ups; What Part Of Thou Shalt Not Didn’t You Understand?
They shouldn’t have been surprised by the black and white announcements. When the bus had crossed the Potomac River and entered the state of West Virginia, it had also entered the socially conservative and evangelically Protestant Bible Belt. Here, the church was at the heart of every community, and Moral Majorities and Christian Coalitions railed against the practices of abortion, homosexuality and the teaching of evolution. The area approximated to the old slave states and, paradoxically, boasted the nation’s highest divorce, murder and teenage pregnancy rates.
If Nashville wasn’t its buckle, then it was only a notch away. The city boasted more than seven hundred churches and was headquarters to the world’s two largest Baptist denominations – the Southern Baptist Convention and the National Baptist Convention, USA. It was also the home of the United Methodist Church, the National Association of Free Will Baptists, a host of Christian publishing companies – including the world’s largest producer of Bibles – and Gideon’s International.
‘You know who Gideon was?’ Bob asked.
Apart from Eric, no one did. ‘He was a Judge,’ Eric said. ‘He killed 120,004 Midianites.’
‘He’s the one! Anyone know what his name means?’
Not even Eric knew the answer to this question, but Jack hazarded a guess: ‘Killer?’
‘Means Feller – as in a man who cuts down trees. To my way o’ thinkin’ his name’s ’propriate. You know how many Bibles them folks has handed out? 1.5 billion! Think how many trees was chopped down to make that much paper. They hand ’em out willy-nilly an’ in diff’rent coloured covers, too: desert camouflage fo’ military people, dark blue fo’ people workin’ in law enforcement an’ so on. Ever’ damn motel you check into’s got one, an’ you know anyone who’s ever read it? ’Course you don’t. Guy ain’t gonna go to his room an’ start debatin’ with his self whether to read Gideon’s Bible or turn on the porn channel. He goes straight to the movie. Al’ays!’
‘Hey Bob, remember Eric’s with us, will you?’ Doc said.
‘Sorry, kid,’ Bob said. ‘Keep fo’gettin’ you ain’t a growed man.’
‘Jack, why don’t you and Eric make sandwiches for us?’
Jack and Eric went to the kitchen and Jack returned. ‘Where did you put the groceries we bought in Crawford, Doc?’
‘I thought you brought them on the bus. Did you bring them onboard, Bob?’
‘No, guess we musta left ’em at Merritt’s.’
They pulled into the next rest area, and Jack and Eric went in search of food.
‘Make sure Eric wears his helmet, Jack, and just to be on the safe side give him my glasses to wear. And tell him not to talk to anyone!’
Jack and Eric climbed out of the bus. Doc’s glasses disguised Eric’s appearance well but effectively blinded him. He walked falteringly, as if the asphalt under his feet was criss-crossed with deep crevasses. Jack took hold of his hand. ‘I’ll let you know when we get to a step,’ he reassured him.
They got provisions from the vending machines and then went to the restroom.
‘Thinking about it, we should have probably used the restroom first,’ Jack said. ‘I need to use a stall. How about you?’
‘I just want to pee.’
‘Okay, I’ll hold the bag while you pee, and then you take charge of it.’
Eric doddered uncertainly to the washbasin and unzipped his pants.
‘Hey!’ Jack called. ‘The urinal’s the other way!’
He took hold of Eric’s arm and steered him to the urinal. ‘It might be better if you take Doc’s glasses off while you pee: you don’t want to get your jeans all wet.’ He waited the short time it took Eric to empty his bladder and then directed him to the door, instructing him to wait outside the restroom. ‘And remember – don’t talk to anyone!’ He then entered the stall.
Everything was a blur for Eric. He could vaguely make out shapes, but had no idea what the shapes were. Some of them spoke: ‘’Excuse me kid, you’re blocking the door; hey kid, move out of the way; bozo, move to the side, will you?’ Intimidated by the voices, he gradually moved from the doorway of the male restroom to the doorway of the female restroom. There, other voices similarly urged him to move on. By the time Jack exited the restroom, Eric was standing in the foyer talking to two policemen.
The police had seen Eric inching his way erratically through the lobby and become suspicious. One of them returned to the door and pulled off a poster he’d noticed.
‘You think this could be the missing deaf kid, Lou?’
‘Don’t know, Murray. Let’s find out.’
They took hold of Eric’s arm, steered him to the side of the lobb
y and started to ask questions. ‘Are you Eric Gole, kid, and are you deaf?’ Eric said nothing. ‘Are you Eric Gole and are you pretending to be deaf?’ Again, Eric said nothing. ‘What’s your name? Where are your parents? Are you an orphan? Where do you live? Are you a runaway?’ To all these questions, Eric made no reply.
‘I think we should take him to the station, Lou. If he’s not the runaway, then he’s obviously someone who needs help. Does he strike you as being a bit simple?’
The police were about to haul Eric away when Jack came bounding into the lobby. His initial panic at seeing Eric in the hands of the police had subsided and been replaced by a practised nonchalance honed in the television studio.
‘Hey, Con! What’s going on?’ he asked jovially. ‘You haven’t mugged anyone, have you?’ Eric recognised Jack’s voice and also the name Con. Jack had told him his son’s name was Con.
‘No, dad, and these men are trying to interfere with me. They’ve been calling me simple!’
‘You his father?’ one of the policemen asked.
‘Yes. My name’s Jack Guravitch and this is my son Conrad.’ He took out his billfold and showed them his driving licence and a photograph of him, Laura and Conrad that he still carried with him. Conrad and Eric bore a passing resemblance.
The policeman looked at the photograph and then at Eric. ‘How old is Con?’ he asked.
‘Nine,’ Jack answered.
‘Is there a reason why he refused to answer our questions?’
‘I always tell him not to talk to strangers, and he wouldn’t have recognised you as policemen because of his eyes. He’s just got some new lenses and he’s not used to them yet. Let him see your glasses, Con.’
Eric handed his glasses to the policeman who looked through them. ‘Mother of God!’ he exclaimed, and quickly handed them back to Eric.
‘Do you mind if we ask Con to take off his helmet?’
‘Not at all! Take off your helmet, Con.’
Eric did. ‘It’s not him,’ the policeman holding the poster said. ‘This kid’s got blonde hair and it says here he’s thirteen. No way is this kid thirteen.’
The other policeman was no longer looking at Eric. He was staring at Jack.
‘Are you that weatherman?’
‘I used to be a weatherman,’ Jack said, slightly alarmed. ‘Why do you ask?’
The policeman broke into a big smile. ‘Goddamn, Murray, this is the guy who stuck it to the man! Told him to fuck off on primetime television!’
‘How do you know that?’ Jack asked, now intrigued.
‘You’re on YouTube!’ he said. ‘Let me shake you by the hand, Mr Guravitch. You said what a lot of us want to say, but daren’t. Hey, Murray, take a photograph of me and Jack together will you? You don’t mind, do you, Mr Guravitch?’
‘No, not in the least,’ Jack replied.
‘You got video on that phone of yours, Murray? Good. Do me a favour, Mr Guravitch, and tell me to fuck off, will you? Say fuck you, Lou, and fuck you, too, Murray!’
Jack obliged.
The policemen thanked him, apologised for detaining Con unnecessarily and again shook his hand. ‘You’ve just made my day, man,’ Lou said. ‘Wait till I tell my wife.’ The policemen then went to the restroom and Jack and Eric hurried to the bus.
‘You’ve been a long time,’ Doc said. ‘What kept you?’
‘We got stopped by the police, Doctor Gene, and Jack told them to fuck off. When my Uncle Jeff told them to do that they arrested him, but they just thanked Jack and shook his hand.’
Jack put mayonnaise on the bread, sliced a tomato and added bologna. He handed one of the sandwiches to Eric and poured two glasses of Coke.
‘I bet your mom made better sandwiches than these, didn’t she?’
‘Yes, she did. My mom baked her own bread, too.’
‘That’s good. My mom just bought it from the store. She never baked, but she was a good cook.’
‘My mom baked all the time. She made cakes and different kinds of cookies. My friends came to the house just to eat them.’
‘Did you have many friends?’
‘I had two: Gregory Thompson and Matthew Scott,’ Eric said. ‘We went to the same school. They weren’t popular and never got invited to parties either, so we just went around to each other’s houses. Greg’s mom was nice, and she sat next to me at my parents’ funeral.’
‘Two friends are enough for any person,’ Jack said. ‘Two good friends – that’s all you need in life. Do they know you ran away?’
‘No, I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t want anyone to try and stop me. Do you think we’ll find Susan, Jack?’
‘We’ll give it our best shot, Eric. Bob’s got the name and address of the person she went to see in Nashville, so we’ll start by looking there. It will be like an adventure.’
Eric smiled. ‘You’ll like her, Jack. I promise you, you will.’
‘I’m sure I will. Tell me, Eric, what was the church you attended like? What was The Reverend Pete like and did he do healings?’
‘The Reverend Pete was nice,’ Eric said. ‘He never managed to cure my father’s headaches – because God wanted Mr Annandale to do that – but he cured a man of catarrh once, and a girl who had pimples on her forehead.’
‘If I find the right church service, would you like to go to church tomorrow night? I’m thinking of giving it a try.’
‘You bet, Jack!’
And so the seeds of a memorable debacle were sown.
The Nashville skyline came into view. They’d been travelling close to nine hours and no one was more pleased to see it than Bob. ‘There she is,’ he said. ‘Home sweet home!’
‘Have you been here before?’ Jack asked.
‘Me an’ Marsha came fo’ a visit once – she wanted to experience the Grand Ole Opry fo’ some reason I’ll never understan’. If you plannin’ on payin’ a visit yo’selfs, you can count me out. One time was a time too many.’
‘What’s the big building?’ Eric asked.
‘AT&T Building on Commerce Street. Talles’ buildin’ in the whole o’ Tennessee.’
‘If Nancy and Doc are staying in a hotel, where are we staying?’ Jack asked.
‘I thought we’d park over in Music Valley an’ stay close to Opryland. There’ll be plenty o’ buses like ours parked there, an’ there’s bars an’ restaurants, too. We’ll have us a boys’ night out – jus’ the three of us.’
Bob edged the bus through the rush hour traffic and eventually pulled into a parking area adjacent to the Union Hotel. ‘You an’ Nance all set, Gene?’
‘Yes, all set. What are the plans for tomorrow? I was thinking of taking Nancy to Vanderbilt University in the morning and strolling around the campus. Do you want to meet up for lunch somewhere?’
‘We can meet at the Loveless,’ Bob said. ‘You an’ Nance get a taxi there an’ we’ll do the same: I ain’t drivin’ the bus roun’ Nashville. The Loveless is close to where the guy who knows Susan lives, so once they’ve eaten Jack an’ Eric can drive on out there.’
Gene and Nancy left the bus and walked through the doors of the hotel, a large overnight bag slung over Doc’s shoulder. Bob waited while Jack bought a copy of the local newspaper, and then reclaimed his place in the traffic and headed towards Music Valley.
‘When I get home I ain’t drivin’ fo’ a month!’ Bob said. ‘Marsha can take the wheel fo’ a change, an’ if she cain’t, then I’ll take taxis.’
‘How many more miles before we reach Coffeeville?’ Jack asked.
‘Journey’s back’s broken, but I’m guessin’ we got another three hun’red miles or so. We musta covered close to nine hun’red since we left Hershey. How many days we been on the road?’
Jack had to think. He always lost track of time when he travelled, and this trip was no different. ‘About a week? Does that sound right?’
‘Five days,’ Eric said. ‘We left Hershey on Monday and it’s Friday today.’
‘Well I’ll be
damned,’ Jack said. ‘It feels like I’ve known you guys forever.’
‘Yeah,’ Bob agreed. ‘Spendin’ time with some people really drags. Ha!’
They walked from the parking area and found a restaurant serving burgers. It was noisy inside and the atmosphere was friendly. Bob asked for, and was directed to, a wall table. He sat down with his back to the wall and beamed at his two companions: ‘No point takin’ chances.’
They ordered cheese burgers and fries from the waitress, a couple of beers for Bob and Jack, and a Coke for Eric. Jack poured the Budweiser into his frosted glass and waited for the foam to settle. Bob was reminded of Che and Fidel, and smiled to himself.
The food arrived and both Bob and Jack poured tomato ketchup over their fries. Jack offered the bottle to Eric, but he declined to take it. ‘My mom said that people who use ketchup have been brought up eating poorly cooked food. She said they’d probably poured it over their food to make it taste better and never got out of the habit.’
‘So much for our upbringings then, Bob,’ Jack said.
As they ate, Jack listened to the music. ‘Have you ever wondered why lyrics always capture the distress of life rather than its joy?’
‘I ain’t never thought about it, but now I do, I think you right. Why you think that is?’
‘Probably because there’s no market for happiness,’ Jack said. ‘The news is never happy. People like to be happy themselves, but they don’t want to hear about other people’s happiness. It seems to be a fact of life – though I doubt you’ll ever get anyone admitting it.’
‘Man, you been ridin’ with Gene too long!’ Bob said.
‘Hymns are happy,’ Eric said.
‘That reminds me, Eric. There was a big advertisement in The Tennessean for a special service tomorrow night. I think it will suit us.’
‘What the two o’ you plannin’?’ Bob asked.
‘We’re going to church tomorrow night,’ Eric said.
Opals and Cigarette Butts
The Union Hotel was a former railway station built in the style of Richardson-Romanesque. The walls of the huge lobby stretched upwards until they reached a sixty-five-foot barrel-vaulted ceiling crowned with a Luminous Prism stained glass roof. The exposed floors were marble and tiled, the sitting areas carpeted, and the walls highlighted with old polished wood and plaster reliefs.
Last Bus to Coffeeville Page 37
