The Dirty Parts of the Bible: A Novel (4 page)

“Daddy got to where he couldn’t work the farm anymore, and Will had to take over. I married your mama and went off to seminary. It was time to give up childish things.

“For a time, I thought I could keep playing on the side. But at seminary, I learned that God is glorified by spiritual hymns. Worldly music glorifies Satan. One of my teachers told me that I had to choose between my guitar and Jesus. He said, ‘Would Jesus ever sing about women, or gambling, or drinking?’ Those words convicted me, and I smashed my old guitar. I vowed to sing nothing but hymns for the rest of my life.

“But I didn’t know what to do with all that money. I didn’t know any better when I earned it, but it was surely tainted now. I decided to burn it, but I couldn’t bring myself to go through with it. What if, someday, God wanted to give it away to help others? So I stuffed it all into a leather pouch and dropped it into an old, dry well on my family’s farm. Then I threw in some dirt on top and boarded over the hole so no one would see it.”

Father stopped and leaned in towards me. “Now take that piece of paper,” he said, “and turn it over.”

On the back of the advertisement, there were faint pencil markings.

“It’s a map,” Father said. “I drew it to mark where that well was, so I’d never forget.”

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?

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.

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.