Feast for Thieves (16 page)

That Sunday I preached with a black eye and busted-up nose and a bandage on my head, but nobody slapped me this time when my sermon was finished. My message was ten minutes from start to finish, and the sheriff shook my hand on the way out and said, “Keep practicing, son.” Deputy Roy still eyed me warily and walked off without a word. Another missionary was passing through town, and he took the evening service that night, which I was sure glad about.

Bobbie said I did better all around when we met again
Wednesday morning. She’d fixed us a snack and brought it over in a picnic basket. Some deviled eggs, two apple turnovers, and a jug of fresh spring water. Said it would help us study, she did. She helped me outline my next sermon, quoted me some poems she’d composed, and ordered me to practice my sermon again in front of the woodpile.

I visited with folks in the congregation all during the week. I met with Mert and discussed how a fella might begin a building campaign, and tried to talk with Cisco Wayman about coming on the board, but he wasn’t listening yet. Sheriff was called away on business all week, so the vote for a new deacon didn’t come up in the deacon meeting, so all was fine for another spell.

Friday night I went to the tavern again, got into another fight with every man I could find, lost again to Deuce Gibbons when six of his gang jumped me all at once, and drove back to the parsonage in the DUKW to ice my head.

Next Sunday I preached from the next chapter in Genesis, chapter 3. There, the devil deceived Adam and Eve. The folks ate from the tree they wasn’t supposed to, and God banished them from the garden of Eden. That made me a mite angry, it did. Maybe if it wasn’t for them, we’d all still be back where we belonged, back where things made sense. My sermon was a whopping fifteen minutes long. Sheriff actually gave me a grin when it was over. None of the men showed up still, but I didn’t expect them to yet seeing as I hadn’t beat any in a fight. Oh sure, if I picked them off one by one, I could take out a whole roomful no problem, but I knew I needed to beat their leader first. If he wasn’t won over, then the rest of the fellas might well come once or twice, but they’d still follow their leader back to their old ways. No, it would take me beating Deuce Gibbons man to man. Get the leader, the rest will follow.

That Sunday night, Bobbie took the evening service out of kindness for me, I gathered, which gave me some more time to
think. Then on Wednesday I met with Bobbie again. This time she brought a hunk of cheddar cheese along with four biscuits. She ate one and quoted her latest poem. I ate three, and we outlined my next sermon and I practiced it again in front of the woodpile. I wanted to preach again on Genesis chapter 3, since I didn’t get too far in the chapter last time, so this sermon was about the curse that was laid out against mankind after the fall. Thorns and thistles grew, making the man need to work hard his whole life. Well, I could understand that. Then the woman would have pains in childbearing, too. I’d never seen a woman give birth, but I’d heard it described as a whale of a cursed time.

The one hopeful note in all that cursing was something Bobbie pointed out to me in the chapter, for I wouldn’t have grasped its importance if I’d simply been sailing through the text by myself. The thought sprang from the fifteenth verse: something about a future fight between the devil and the woman’s offspring. The devil would strike the child’s heel, and okay, so he’d be wounded. But that little tyke would really be a fighter, he would, and he’d end up crushing the head of that snake, the devil. In the end, good would triumph over evil, and I liked the sound of that.

Friday night I returned to the tavern. I never did quite savvy who owned the bar, but the fellas behind the counter didn’t seem to mind the fighting much. They may have been hired hands themselves, merely looking for a good show, or perhaps they had such a powerful love of fighting themselves that they considered all the broken chairs and glassware and such to be a small price to pay for all the fun. This time while I was whaling away against Deuce, somebody clocked me with a chair from behind. It’s mighty hard to fight a whole room of fellas, I thought, when you’ve got a bright red bull’s-eye painted on your back. I drove back to the parsonage and flopped on the front floor feeling blood-spattered and defeated.

Sunday my sermon lasted a whole twenty minutes. I found
I had more to say now, more of substance anyway. I was getting more comfortable with being up in front of folks, speaking in public like that. Oh, I had no problem telling a squad of soldiers to dig a foxhole, set up their mortars, and establish a machine-gun field of fire, but speaking to church folks was different. More people were coming—and they were listening more intently, too. It was mostly all women in the congregation still, though a few old farmers and oil men started coming along with their wives.

I took the Sunday evening service for the first time and spoke out of the book of John. In the beginning was something called the Word. I gathered that Word was Jesus. Bible said he was with God and was God. Well, that was something to think about.

Tuesday I met with the deacons, Wednesday I met with Bobbie again, Thursday night I met with the youth for the first time. Emma Hackathorn’s oldest two children came, as did one other fella who introduced himself only as Mike and said he didn’t like me much and was only there because his parents made him come. Also showing up was a highly opinionated red-haired girl by the name of Martie who asked a lot of hard questions I had no idea how to answer.

Friday night I drove down to the tavern again, walked inside, plopped my half dollar on the counter to pay for the drink that never slid down my throat, and turned to square off against Deuce Gibbons.

He was as bruised as I was from a month of fighting. All the fellas were. We all nodded our hellos to each other, caught up on small talk, then clenched our fists and prepared to wallop each other.

“There’s one thing I’ll say about you, Reverend—” Deuce said. “And I respect this about a fella, no matter what he does for a living.” We were shuffling around each other, warming up before we charged. I noticed he looked a little flat-footed tonight.

“What’s that?”

“You got grit.” He popped me with a left jab, then another. I threw a lunging left and missed. I was running on adrenaline instead of using smart fighting skills. Right away I followed my miss with an uphill combination. Deuce deflected the blows and nailed me across the eyebrows. A scab split and blood spattered. It started running down into my eyes, making it hard to see. Quick, I wiped it away and hammered Deuce with a shot to the chest, then grabbed him and threw him backward. A chair sailed my direction and I ducked it. The other fellas were all fighting now too, not against me just yet, just among themselves for the fun of it. I pushed Deuce away and followed up quick with a hook to the shoulder to knock him off balance, then a right cross to the ribs.

He was glancing around for his gang, I could tell, not wanting to call out to them to appear weak, but breathing heavy, looking for a quick way to finish me off. He threw a left uppercut, but I dodged it along with a bottle that came at me from behind, then smashed him across his nose, hearing the bone snap. The punch drove Deuce to his knees. I pivoted and pummeled another fella who attacked me from the side. He went down like a stack of bricks and I turned and faced Deuce again. He rose, panting, and I walloped him in the cheekbone. He went down again, this time to his knees and from his knees to his back. I spun again in time to duck another broken bottle heading straight for the back of my head. I ran three steps forward and caught the thrower with a crack to the jaw. Then ran back to where Deuce was. The big man was still on the floor.

And this week—glory be—he wasn’t getting up.

The next Sunday morning Deuce Gibbons sat in the front pew at church. Even though he didn’t like preachers, he was true to his word and, sure enough like I’d reckoned would happen, a whole gang of men followed him through the front door.

Oh, I knew most of them by name now. There was Hoss and Cash and Slim and Stitch. There was Tick and Harry and Hank and Boone. At one time or another I’d punched most of them in the face. We breakfasted every morning together at the Pine Oak Café before we all went to work, and they’d all warmed up to me considerably since I started fighting with them. I was speaking a language they knew, I reckoned, meeting them on their home ground. Gummer came along to church too, although he and I had never fought. He was friends with all the fellas, so he figured wherever they went, he’d go along too. In all, about thirty new young men crowded into the sanctuary.

Along with all the men came the barmaids from the tavern, the cleanup crew, and most of the working girls. There was Trixie and Dolly, Opal and Marlis, Zelda and Sal—they’d been watching me fight at the tavern too, and I’d always talk to them if I had a moment or two before each week’s fight started.

Ava-Louise ran the show at the brothel. She was a handsome woman, maybe sixty years old, and she came to church to keep track of her gals she said as she walked in. I watched her while we were singing. She was looking to a faraway spot in the corner of the roof, her eyes misting over like she remembered a better place from long ago.

Luna-Mae was in church, of course, and the rest of the gals who came along with Oris Floyd, but he wasn’t here for a spell. Word had it that he was in Oklahoma looking over a line of purchase on some new oil wells. He’d be away for at least three months, maybe four, and that suited me fine. With him out of my hair, I could get some real preaching done.

“Today we’re talking about two fellas named Cain and Abel,” I said, grasping the pulpit with both hands. “Most folks when they read this story picture themselves in the shoes of Abel, the brother of righteousness. But I’ve been reading this text every day this past week, and I’m seeing things different.”

The folks all looked to be listening to me. Deuce Gibbons made sure all the boys kept shut up.

“See, Cain was the ornery brother,” I continued. “He was a fighting man, a scrapping man, a man so bent on destruction he hated his own kin. Cain hated Abel so powerful that Cain ended up killing Abel. It’s harder to see ourselves in Cain’s shoes, I reckon, as a man who’s hardened around the edges, but I can tell you from reflection that it ain’t as hard to attack a man in anger as you might think.”

Deputy Roy was chewing gum, his eyes fixed on my face. The sheriff was staring at me too, not knowing where I was going. Bobbie was taking notes, her brow furrowed intently. Emma Hackathorn was shushing her children.

“That’s the funny thing about this passage,” I went on. “Frankly, when I read it for the first time, it stopped me cold. It was after all the destruction took place—not before—that God met with Cain. God asked the murderous Cain where his brother was, and Cain didn’t have a smart answer for that, claiming he wasn’t his brother’s keeper. But God knew the truth. As a punishment, God told Cain he’d need to leave the area, and Cain obeyed. The man was fearful of leaving a place of safety. He was scared others would attack him. But God said, ‘Not so,’ and put a mark on Cain so no one who found him would kill him, and God promised that his presence was still with Cain, even after he’d done all that evil.”

I looked around the congregation, at that room full of rough-hewn folks. They was all becoming familiar to me now. I’d been visiting them at their homes and speaking with them on the streets of Cut Eye. I’d met them at a funeral and at the filling station and at the mercantile and at the café. I was getting to know who was related to each other by blood and lineage, what one person thought about another, what one person was struggling with, and what another needed to overcome. For the first time I looked at them not with eyes of duty, but with eyes of heart. I
wasn’t fighting these folks no more, not pushing my way forward only to keep a job and stay out of jail. I was beginning to care. I plumb was.

“So that was good news for all of us,” I added. “If God could care for a ruffian like Cain, even with everywhere he’d been and with all the wrong he’d done, then I reckon God could care for someone like me.”

The congregation was nodding their heads, agreeing with what I was saying. I heard someone call out an “amen.” I cleared my throat. They was still with me, still on the same page.

“It’s no secret I went to Sunday school as a child,” I said. “I was taught who Jesus was, and that he was a man worth following. It’s also no secret that I’ve strayed far from the path of right living since then. I believe that same spot of hardship is where a heap of folks are today. Some folks here are finding God for the first time. And some of us are finding our way back to God. I don’t know all that I believe yet, nor can I explain all that I hold true. But that’s where I’m going. I’m traveling this road with you. I’m discovering something that gives me a hope and a future. And I invite you along with me in this good and noble direction.”

That’s all I said.

I sat down. Bobbie got up, led a song in closing, and then we were done. I’d preached for a solid half hour, the rightful amount of time. But it didn’t seem like the amount of time I preached was all that important anymore. That morning after service was over the folks filed out the door and shook my hand genuinely, not out of pity or consternation. The old lady who’d once slapped me asked me to bend my face over so it was close to hers, and when I did she kissed my cheek. Deuce Gibbons muttered that he’d be back next Sunday, and so did most of the other rough fellas.