On Saturdays, Grandmother Tillman would command Old Redemption to stay, and then she and Nate would get into her Oldsmobile and drive into Davis Corners. Old Redemption would try to look sad, but his wagging tail would give him away. Nate wondered what kind of mischief Old Redemption got into to while they were in town. He wondered where a dog might go for dis-sanctuary.
In town, Grandmother Tillman would pick up groceries and other items while Nate knocked around. Occasionally he got his hair cut at the same barbershop where Buster, Old Redemption’s sire, and Billy Taggert had hung out. Once, he asked if anybody remembered the old picture of dogs playing cards that had been on the wall, but nobody did. Nate thought about Old Redemption’s wagging tail and figured he wouldn’t make much of a poker player.
The last week in June, they were driving back from town, and Nate saw a billboard that advertised Reverend Ralph Johnson’s Faith Crusade. It said there was to be a tent meeting, featuring gospel singers, Wednesday night at eight-thirty at Evans Field. Every summer, “that tent preacher,” as Nate’s mother called him, came to Davis Corners. Nate’s family never went because his parents were too conservative for this sort of boisterous approach to religion. To them, it was too close to “colored religion.” With that many indictments stacked in its favor, Nate wanted desperately to go.
Nate had been going with Grandmother Tillman to her small church out on State Road Forty-one, which catered mostly to poor, farming families. The services, like the building and the people who came, were plain. They would sing a little, but they mostly listened to the thin preacher describe the various torments that awaited unrepentant sinners. Nate felt that rural people were attracted to that kind of religion because it made life on the farm seem not so bad.
“Can I go to Reverend Ralph Johnson’s Faith Crusade,” he asked directly, because he could do that with Grandmother Tillman. She didn’t have that automatic “no” reflex his mother did.
“Why on earth would you want to go there?”
“I’ve never seen it and I want to see what it’s like,” Nate said.
“Well I have, and I’ve got no desire to do it again.” Nate could tell by the tone of voice that this didn’t meant he couldn’t go, it just meant that she didn’t want to go.
“I could get somebody to take me,” Nate said.
“Who?” Grandmother Tillman sounded suspicious.
“Uncle Henry.”
Grandmother Tillman laughed, and it made Nate think of how young she’d looked in his dream.
“Why not,” she said, still laughing. “When the dog and cat fight, throw in the rooster and holler ‘nurse.’”
Nate had no idea what she meant, but he started laughing too. He figured it must mean that if someone can’t stop something, they might as well escalate it to a level that makes it interesting.
After they got back to Grandmother Tillman’s, Nate unloaded all the groceries. He called Uncle Henry and told him what he wanted to do and told him Grandmother Tillman said it was okay if he took him.
“She put you up to this,” Henry said.
“No, I just want to go.”
Henry was convinced, nonetheless, that it was Grandmother Tillman’s plot to get him into church.
“It’s not a church,” Nate said, “It’s a tent.”
“Same difference.”
“No it’s not,” Nate said. “They’ll be hooting and hollering and faith healing and all kinds of stuff you don’t see in church.”
Eventually, Henry gave in, but only after Nate assured him that they were going for the cultural experience and not for the religion. Wednesday night, Henry showed up in the Caddy and picked Nate up. As they left, Grandmother Tillman put a dollar in Nate’s hand for the collection basket.
“Now it’s a different approach to God, but it’s God all the same. Don’t you two be snickering or acting blasphemous.”
They assured Grandmother Tillman that they’d behave, and they left.
“If this guy takes out a snake and kisses it, I’m leaving,” Henry said in the car.
“They do that?” Nate said with obvious excitement.
“Probably not here, but you go back in the woods and you bet they do.”
“Why?”
“To prove that the serpent, you know, Satan, has no power over them.”
“They ever get bit?” Nate said.
“All the damn time.” Henry laughed. “Just proves that some people still love God, even though he didn’t give them a lick of sense. Me, personally, I think I’d be holding a grudge after I got bit the first couple of times.”
“Don’t they die?”
“The snakes?” Henry said in a mocking tone of voice. “Lord no, they’ve got cast iron stomachs.”
“No, the people they bite.” After Nate said it, he realized that his uncle had been pulling him along.
“Not usually,” he said. “Snake poison works mainly on the brain, making those folks mostly immune to it.”
Nate remembered Grandmother Tillman’s admonition and thought that this conversation was probably not a good start to the evening.
They got to Evans Field and saw the big tent pitched in left field. The infield lights were turned on so people could see their way. Bare electric bulbs were stung up in the tent, casting a yellowish tint on everything inside, especially when compared to the whiter spot lights outside.
They parked the Caddy in the clay and gravel lot and got out. Nate saw a nice looking car parked away from the others and a dark figure leaning against it. The figure pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and pecked at a spot on the side view mirror. Nate knew right away who it was.
“Washington.” Nate ran over to him.
“Well, well, if it isn’t the young man from the gas station,” he said in his refined, low tone. Nate realized that he’d never told him his name.
“Nate,” he said awkwardly.
Washington seemed to weigh that new information for a moment, and then nodded his head approvingly.
“Nate,” he said as he extended his hand.
They shook.
“It’s a pleasant surprise to see you,” Washington said.
Nate explained that he was staying at his grandmother’s and this was his night out for good behavior.
“Had your behavior been bad prior to this?”
Nate panicked. Davis Corners was a small town, and the story of his episode with Grub Hanley and Jim Frank’s statue could easily be common knowledge, even among the black people in town.
“I did some things I wouldn’t be proud to admit to,” Nate said.
Washington gave an approving smile and said, “Haven’t we all? I suspect that’s what draws most of these people out tonight.”
They looked around at the crowd chatting outside the tent. Nate could see that his Uncle Henry had connected with some men he knew and was talking with them. Henry saw Nate and made kind of a quizzical look. Nate knew he was wondering who Washington was and probably didn’t remember him from that day at Thompson’s. Nate smiled and nodded back to him.
“What are you doing out here,” Nate asked Washington.
“Chauffeuring Mr. Wanamaker’s brother-in-law, Mr. Caterson,” Washington said, with a strained edge to his voice.
This time Nate had the quizzical look.
“Mr. Wanamaker’s sister thought her husband needed some good, old, bible-thumping religion, but he was more of the opinion that he needed half a bottle of whiskey. The compromise was that I got to drive him here, so he doesn’t smash up the car.”
“Nice car,” Nate said as he admired it.
“It’s the flower car,” Washington said, almost disdainfully. “It’s all right, but nothing like the big car or the hearse.”
Nate remembered that Washington wanted to drive the hearse. “Any luck on getting to drive either one of those?”
“Not yet,” he said wistfully, “But I keep hoping.”
“I’m only thirteen,” Nate said. “I’d be grateful to drive anything.”
Washington laughed. “Oh, but there are big differences in cars, just like there are big differences in people. You wouldn’t hang around with just anybody would you?”
Nate conceded that he wouldn’t.
“Same with me and cars. This flower car, for example—vinyl upholstery, manual windows, no weight to the body. That Cadillac hearse, though, is top of the line. Leather seats, electric windows, heavy body, yet it steers and moves like it weighed nothing. It’s the last ride anywhere for the passenger in the back, so it’s got to be first class all the way. One of these days, Mr. Wanamaker’s brother-in-law’s going to get drunk on the wrong day and my chance will come.”
“I believe it will.”
“I believe it too,” Washington said and winked.
Uncle Henry called over to Nate, so he wished Washington good luck and said he’d see him around. Uncle Henry was talking to some men Nate recognized from hanging around Hank Thompson’s.
“Who’s your nigger friend?” one of them said.
“He’s not...”
Nate stopped mid-breath and wondered if he was going to say “nigger” or “friend.”
“He’s Mr. Wanamaker’s driver from the funeral home. He drove Mr. Caterson out here because Mrs. Caterson wanted him to get religion, but he got drunk instead.”
The men all laughed and one of them said, “If you want to know the gossip, ask the hired help.”
Nate and Henry broke off and started walking toward the tent. Even though he hadn’t done anything wrong, Nate felt kind of ashamed, and he thought about the day he’d had coffee in the kitchen with Grandmother Tillman.
He looked back at the men and yelled over his shoulder, “And he ain’t no nigger.”
“What was that about?” Henry said while walking quickly away from the men.
“Washington’s a friend of mine. I couldn’t just let the insult lie,” Nate said.
“He wasn’t insulting him. It’s just his way of talking,” Uncle Henry said.
“It wasn’t like he was saying ‘Jim Frank’s nigger,’” Nate said. “He meant it different.”
The two of them shuffled awkwardly for a few steps. Nate’s reference to the statue reminded them both what had been lost between them since Nate had broken it.
“Sorry I embarrassed you,” Nate said.
Henry laughed and patted him on the shoulder. “You didn’t embarrass me, just surprised me a little.”
“Seen Jim Frank lately?” Nate said.
“No, Hattie keeps me working on Saturdays.”
Nate was reminded again how much he’d broken that night he’d stolen Jim Frank’s statue. He and Uncle Henry had become a couple of real homebodies, whose idea of getting wild was going to church on a Wednesday night.
As they crossed through the white glare of the infield lights and toward the yellow air of the tent, Nate wondered what the difference was between “Jim Frank’s nigger” and how that man had said “nigger friend.” He wondered why he had staunchly defended the one in Grandmother Tillman’s dining room, yet had attacked the other. He was trying hard not to admit that maybe there wasn’t any difference.
His thoughts were interrupted by a familiar voice.
“Henry Givens, my word, you’re the last person I expected to run into here.” It was Jeremiah Lightcap.
“Make that the second-to-last if you count yourself,” Henry said. “I’d think faith-healers represent a certain degree of competition for you.”
“Oh, you should always keep an eye on the competition,” Jeremiah said softly, with a smile. “You never know, they may come up with something.”
It was indeed odd for Jeremiah Lightcap to be there, seeing that he was the closest thing Davis Corners had to an avowed atheist.
“How’ve you been,” he asked Nate in a focused way that let Nate know he was referring to that day in his office.
“Fine.”
“I hear you’re spending the summer with your grandmother, helping out on the place and all.”
“Yes, sir,” Nate said.
“Good for you, probably good for your grandmother as well.”
The crowd hadn’t settled in yet, so Jeremiah took out a pack of Camel cigarettes. He offered one to Uncle Henry.
“Hattie’ll kill me if she smells tobacco on me. Besides, Doc, they aren’t good for you.”
Jeremiah shrugged and lit up anyway.
Henry watched the people streaming into the tent. None of them were folks he’d normally run into, although there were some familiar faces here and there.
“This guy reels ‘em in,” Henry said.
“Oh yes,” Jeremiah said. “And before the night’s over, he’ll have reached into the pockets of every simple, believing soul in the crowd.”
Nate felt a little embarrassed about Grandmother Tillman’s dollar bill, which he had in his right pocket. When the time came, he thought, he’d be discreet about slipping it into the basket.
“As a man of science, what do you think about this faith healing stuff?” Uncle Henry said.
“I’m not at all sure that science has any good answers for what science does,” Jeremiah said with a cynical shake of his head, “But at least it has some basis for it, some rationale for what it tries.” He pulled hard on the cigarette and surveyed the tent, now almost filled. “This guy’s just an outright charlatan who works people’s emotions. Spiritually and scientifically, he’s as bogus as a wooden nickel.” He crushed his cigarette vigorously into the gravel. “Not many seats left, you’d better get in. I like to watch from the outside.”
Nate and Henry nodded good-bye and scooted into the tent. They sat in two hard, wooden, folding chairs near the front and settled in for the evening’s entertainment.
Chapter 16
Copyright (C) 2009 Michael A. Hughes
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