by Sam Torode
It looked like a child’s drawing—a wiggly line for a river, some trees, boxes for buildings. Looking at that map, I realized that Father had drawn it when he was my age. His handwriting even looked like mine. For the first time, I realized that Father had once been a lot like me.
“I need you to go to Texas,” he said. “To Glen Rose. To get that money.”
“Texas?” That was impossible. I’d never traveled alone anywhere further than Grand Rapids—how could I find my way to Texas?
“This is all the money I’ve got,” Father said, handing me a wad of moist bills. “How much is it?”
I counted. “Thirty-seven bucks.”
“Good—that’s enough to get you there. Take the evening flyer to Chicago. Then change over to the St. Louis line, and take it all the way down to Fort Worth.”
“Tonight?”
“There’s no time to lose. Don’t let your mama catch wind of this, either. She wouldn’t stand for me sending you out alone.”
“What happens when I get to Fort Worth?”
“Pay someone to drive you to Glen Rose, then search out your Uncle Wilburn.” Father thought for a moment. “Don’t tell him what’s happened to me.”
He reached out and I took his hand. Father pulled me close and gave me a quick hug. “Godspeed, son. May an angel of the Lord watch over you.”
I left the room in a daze, wondering if this was all real—or if I’d finally gone insane from whacking the weasel.
Somewhere inside my father, the boy Malachi—who loved gunslingers, guitars, and girls—was still there. He was buried as deep as a treasure in a dry well, but he was still breathing. Otherwise, Father would have burned that cowboy novel years ago.
If I brought back the money, could I help Father resurrect his boyish soul? Or was one quest as foolish as the other?
CHAPTER 5
I pulled out of Remus at midnight, with nothing in my pack but Father’s money and map, a change of clothes, and some dried venison for snacking. By the time we reached Grand Rapids, I’d eaten all the deer jerky and my mouth was on fire.
At the station, I gulped down some water and bought a ticket for the Chicago line. “You’ll want a bed,” the agent told me. “You can’t get any sleep sitting up in coach. I’ll give you a berth with a window, too.” I figured a good night’s sleep was worth the extra expense.
The porter stowed my pack and showed me to my compartment. I climbed the ladder and rolled onto a paper-thin mattress. When I stretched out, my feet slid off the end and pressed against the cold shell of the train. Overhead, there was about one inch of air between my nose and the roof.
I scooted onto my side and, with some effort, found the narrow opening the ticket man had called a window. Once I clicked off the light, I was able to see the stars; it felt like my bed had left earth and was now floating through the night sky. Each click-clack of the rails carried me further from the only world I’d ever known. My life seemed like a speck of dust in comparison to the universe.
Pondering my own insignificance, I drifted off to sleep. Then the wheels banged across a loose rail joint and slammed my forehead against the roof.
After the throbbing subsided, my eyes fluttered back shut. In my half-sleep, I imagined that the train berth was a coffin. I was being buried alive. I pushed against the roof but it wouldn’t budge. I tried to yell but no sound would come out of my mouth. I jolted awake, slammed my head against the roof again, and slowly came back to my senses.
I became aware of a nagging tingle in my loins. The water I’d drunk in Grand Rapids had made its way through my system and was itching to get out. Damn—there was no chance of sleeping now. No way in hell was I going to leave my berth in search of a john. If there’s anything worse than a Michigan outhouse, it’s a Michigan outhouse on wheels. I pinched together my legs and stared out the window.
After an hour or so, the starry night faded into a gray haze. The sun made a faint yellow stain on the horizon. Then I saw the first signs of Chicago—shanty houses, church steeples and smokestacks, workers huddled on train platforms. We rumbled on between rows of brick houses the color of rotten teeth.
As we hurtled into the heart of the city, the wheels screeched and the engine lurched. I gripped the sides of my mattress and braced my feet against the end of the car, fearing that my bladder would explode on impact. Finally, the beast ground to a halt and bellowed out a dying wheeze.
I jumped out of my berth like Lazarus out of hades, with an urgent need to piss.
+ + +
In Chicago Union Station, groggy passengers poured out onto the platform. I’d never seen so many people—a teeming sea of black overcoats, suits, and dresses. I rode the current down several flights of stairs and into a great hall, all the while humming a tune:
Chicago, Chicago, that toddlin’ town;
Chicago, Chicago, I’ll show you around.
Bet your bottom dollar you’ll lose
the blues in Chicago,
Chicago, the town that Billy Sunday
couldn’t shut down.
I’d been to Chicago once before, when I was about ten. Father took me to see Billy Sunday preach a revival. It was under a circus tent packed with sinners, and all I remember is that right in the middle of his sermon, Billy picked up a chair over his head and then threw it down, smashing it to splinters. Billy stared out over the crowd with wild eyes. “Did I scare the devil out of you? Well that’s what I’m a tryin’ to do!” I wet my pants.
That was the third or fourth time I got saved. Whenever I feared I was in imminent danger of death, I’d call on Jesus and beg for salvation. The rest of the time, I didn’t give him any thought. Jesus was like an insurance policy against eternal fire.
Father came home from that trip converted, too. From then on, he wanted to be the Billy Sunday of Remus. The next week during his sermon, he even tried throwing a chair. It knocked over the pulpit, and sent the Bible flying—but the chair remained unscratched. I don’t recall whether anybody got saved, but three old ladies wet their pants. Billy Sunday couldn’t shut down Chicago. My father couldn’t even shut down Remus.
Now, I was in danger of wetting my pants in Chicago for the second time. It wasn’t easy finding a john in Union Station. The great hall looked like something out of ancient Babylon, with its marble columns and vaulted ceiling.
That got me thinking about Samson, and how he was kept prisoner in a hall just like this. After Delilah cuts off his hair, Samson is captured by the Philistines. They forgot about him for a while but, during a big party, they bring him out for laughs and chain him between two pillars. But his hair has grown back just enough that he’s able to pull down the pillars, squashing everybody in the place. The story of Samson always was my favorite Bible tale. A man of super strength, the seductress who betrays him, the mass carnage—it’s better than an Errol Flynn movie.
I was standing in the middle of Chicago Union Station imagining Samson pulling the whole place down, when someone bumped into me. “Watch it, rube!”
Then somebody else knocked my pack off my shoulder. “Keep it moving, hayseed.”
Onlookers chimed in. “Whaddaya think this is, a cornfield?”
I was wearing a canvas jacket and my best shirt—red plaid with pearl buttons. Fancy duds by Remus standards, but I stuck out like a sore thumb in Chicago. The crowd pushed me through the hall and swept me out into the street. I stood on the corner trying to get my bearings amidst the shouting pedestrians and honking cars.
“Hey kid—never seen a crossing signal?”
More laughter. “Where he’s from, they’ve only got cattle crossings.”
I walked along the sidewalk till I came to a staircase leading underground. The smell of stale urine wafted up from below. Finally, I thought—a john. I ventured forth into the dark, damp corridor.
Halfway down the stairs, I bumped into something: the saggy ass of a disheveled old man. The man had his pants down around his ankles and was he peeing right there on the stairs.
He looked as startled as me. “It’s all right brother, I’m almost done.” Polite though he was, I turned and ran.
Hell, I thought—they must not have johns in Chicago. So I found a dark alley of my own and did my business.
CHAPTER 6
I’D thought that no place could be more boring than northern Michigan—that is, until I crossed the godforsaken Land of Lincoln. The whole state seemed to be one empty field, as long and plain as Honest Abe himself.
To pass the time, I read a travel magazine. Only one item held my interest—an advertisement for Fred Harvey’s restaurant at St. Louis Union Station. It wasn’t the food that whet my appetite, though. “Featuring the world-renowned Harvey Girls, the Acme of Femininity, beautiful in Form and Spirit, individually hand-picked by Mr. Harvey for exceptional Composure and Grace.” After reading that description, I wanted to hand-pick one myself.
At Bloomington Station, an old man boarded the train. There were empty seats all around, but he sat right next to me. His white linen suit reeked of mothballs. I stuffed the Harvey Girls brochure into my pocket and went back to counting silos.
A few miles out, the old man stood up and paced the aisle, staring into people’s faces. The porter asked if he was looking for something, but he just grunted. When the porter left the car, the old man made his way up front and pulled a small leather Testament—just like my father’s travel Bible—out of his inside pocket. No one else seemed to notice, but my heart was pounding.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “I want you all to know that I’ve found the Lord.”
For a moment, an awful silence weighed in the air. Then somebody yelled from the back of the car. “Found him? When did he get lost?”
Everyone laughed except the evangelist—and me. I sunk down in my seat, wishing to God he’d sit back down. But he continued undaunted, as evangelists always do.
“The day of judgment is nigh. Soon, you will be called to account for your wicked deeds. Brothers and sisters, let me ask you this: are you prepared to die?”
Another passenger groaned. “I ain’t yer brother. Siddown for Chrissakes.”
The evangelist flinched like he’d been slapped. He gripped his Testament with both hands. “Thou shalt not take the name of thy God in vain. That’s the Second Commandment. Satan is stoking his fires for the likes of you, sinner friend.” The veins on his neck and forehead bulged. “Turn to the Lord while there’s still time! Fall before his throne and plead for mercy!”
Tall and gaunt, he looked like a stretched-out, funhouse-mirror image of my father. Maybe that’s why I felt sorry for him. I wanted to pull him aside and tell him that this sort of talk may get you an “amen” at Remus Baptist, but it will only get you rotten tomatoes from a train full of Chicagoans.
The evangelist lowered his voice to a whisper. “Listen friends, I’m here to help you. To warn you. Your children are being lied to—led like innocent sheep to the slaughter. Let me ask you this: does anyone here really believe that his ancestor was a monkey?”
A shout came from the back—“Yours sure was.”
The passengers broke out laughing again. It was sport for them but torture for me. As ridiculous as the evangelist was, he was one of my people.
“Friends,” he said. “This is not a laughing matter. Tarry not, O sinners. The angel of death might claim your soul this very hour.” I made the mistake of looking the evangelist in the face, and he locked his eyes on me. “You there. Have you settled your account with your maker? If this train were to fall off these tracks, would your soul to his bosom fly?”
At that moment, a crash like thunder shook the train. We jolted forward in our seats and the evangelist tumbled backwards, head over heels. A woman screamed. We’re all going to die, I thought. And me without ever getting to make love—or even getting to see a real live naked girl. I’d settle for that. But no—
“Take me, Lord!” the evangelist cried. “I’m ready to go home!”
The brakes shrieked like a band of demons, sending a shower of red sparks past the windows. An awful smell—like burning rubber—filled the car. When the train finally ground to a halt, we all looked at each other in shocked silence. Was the evangelist right? Had we arrived in hell?
The back door slid open and the porter poked in his head. “Everyone all right in here? There’s some cattle on the tracks. Nothing to worry about—we’ll have ’em cleared off in no time.”
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and went back to chattering and crinkling their newspapers. The evangelist brushed off his suit and slunk back to his seat, disappointed that this sinful old world was still spinning.
+ + +
Thankfully, the evangelist got up to leave at the next stop. After the doors closed, I saw he’d left his Bible behind. Had he forgotten it, or left on purpose? Was his faith shaken, or was it meant to be a lifeline for my damned soul?
The little brown Bible lay right in the middle of his seat, looking like a sacred dropping from a man who ate, drank, and shat Scripture.
I wanted to let it smolder there, but I was afraid people migh think that it was my Bible and I was a preacher, too. So I picked it up and buried it in a travel magazine.
Growing up, the Bible was as much a part of life as the air I breathed. There were no atheists in Remus—only believers and backsliders. I knew there were folks out there in the wide world who denied the Scriptures, but I’d never met any. Now, here I was in a car full of heathens, embarrassed even to be seen with the Good Book.
A few miles down the track, I cracked open the musty book—careful to keep it inside the magazine—and leafed through its yellowed pages. I was used to hiding magazines inside my Bible so I’d have something to read during Father’s sermons. I never would have dreamed that someday I’d be doing it the other way around. But the wasteland of Illinois had driven me to Scripture reading. It wasn’t just out of boredom, though; witnessing the evangelist’s humiliation ripped the bandage off my old doubts.
I wanted to believe the Bible. But every time I tried to read it, I got confused. It wasn’t that I got lost halfway through, either—my troubles started on the first page. In Genesis 1, it says that God created the plants first, then the animals, and people last. But in Genesis 2, it says that God created Adam first, then the plants, then the animals, and Eve last. Which was it? Not even God can have it both ways.
Then comes the talking snake and the angel with the flaming sword. Actually, the idea of a talking snake didn’t stretch my imagination too much. But after Adam and Eve get kicked out of the Garden of Eden, God posts an angel with a flaming sword at the garden gate to make sure nobody ever tries moving back in. That means that the Garden—and the angel with the flaming sword—are still there today, somewhere on the banks of the Euphrates. What if someone sent an army to conquer Eden? Sure, an angel with a flaming sword can hold off Arab raiders on camelback—but how about a fleet of tanks?
Then there’s Cain’s wife. At the start of Genesis 4, Eve gives birth to two sons, Cain and Abel. After he kills Abel, Cain goes off and finds himself a wife. Cain and his wife have children of their own, then grandchildren, then great-grandchildren, then great-great grandchildren. And then—and only then—Adam and Eve, who are still alive and kicking, give birth to their third child. So if Adam and Eve are the parents of the whole human race, where did Cain’s wife come from?
After that, there’s a lot of begetting—which gets rather dull, even if it does involve sex. My interest perked up again with Genesis 6, where the beautiful girls come in. The girls are so beautiful, in fact, that angels swoop down from heaven and knock them up. Then the girls give birth to a race of giants. This story didn’t seem entirely implausible to me: if I was stuck in heaven all day, I sure as heck would have flown down to get a closer look at Emily Apple.
Right after the giants are born, God gets mad at everybody and decides to destroy the whole world and start over. He takes Noah, the one righteous man on earth, and tells him to build a boat b
ig enough to hold his family and two of every sort of animal. Every sort of animal, that is, except dinosaurs. Why didn’t Noah save the dinosaurs, if God told him to bring two of every creature?
My father believed that dinosaurs weren’t on the ark because they never really existed. It was all a hoax to lure people away from Scripture. The time he took me to Chicago, we visited the Field Museum and saw the Brontosaurus and Tyrannosaurus skeletons. My eyes were wide with wonder, but Father just chuckled. “Those Godless evolutionists glue a pile of chicken bones together and fool everybody. Well they can’t fool Malachi Henry. Chickensaurs, that’s what they are.” Awfully big chickens, I thought.
Fresh off the ark, Noah throws a party where he gets punch drunk and strips off his clothes. When his youngest son, Ham, sees Noah’s wrinkled old pecker, Noah curses Ham and his children forever. And this is the one righteous man on earth?
After that, there’s more begetting—Noah’s family has to get busy to repopulate the earth—and then things get dull again. A few chapters later, Abraham shows up. Abraham is an old man with a barren wife, and he wants nothing more than children. So God cuts a deal with him: God will give Abraham more children than he can count—if Abraham agrees to circumcise himself.
I first heard the word circumcision in Sunday school, the morning Eddie Quackenbush raised his hand and said, “Mrs. Pike, I was trying to read my Scriptures last night before bed, but there’s one word that’s got me puzzled and I can’t figure out what it means.”
Old Lady Pike’s face lit up—Eddie was the last child on earth you’d expect to read the Bible on his own volition. “I’m so glad you asked, Edward. Now which word is that?”
“Circumcision.”
Eddie never got an answer, because the old hag turned purple and ran out of the room.
Later, I asked my father what it meant. “It’s the removal of the foreskin of the penis,” he said.
