The Neon Bible (8 page)

For a minute he didn't say anything, but opened his Bible and tried to find a page. When he found it he coughed and then looked at the people for another minute. It made everyone uneasy around me. You could hear the wooden chairs squeaking where people were moving. After he ran his eyes over the crowd again, he cleared his throat and spoke in a voice that sounded far away but was still loud.

"Here we are gathered together again for another glorious night of conversion and salvation. I was praying right before I came up here that the testimonies would be many. I was praying that more lost souls would give themselves up to the glory of
Jee
-sus Christ. I feel in my soul that these prayers will be answered, that sinners will surrender to Him by the hundredfold. He don't care who you are. He don't care if you're rich or poor. He don't care if you're babe or grandfather. He just cares if you've got a soul to give Him. That's all
Jee
-sus cares about. Take it from me, my friends, that is all. What more could He want? He don't want worldly riches. They lead to lust. He wants for nothing. He owns a universe. How much do you all own? A car that you use to kill with when you drive under the influence of wine? A house that may easily be turned into a house of sin? A business from which you get worldly riches that lead to sin?

"Today our nation is having a mortal struggle with the devil. In camps young girls are dancing with sailors and soldiers, and who knows what-all. At U.S.O. centers in our cities girls are giving themselves up to the oldest profession before our very eyes. The president's own wife takes a part in these activities. When they're dancing, do you think they're thinking of
Jee
-sus? You can bet your life they aren't. I tried that once. I was dancing with a girl once, and I said to her, Are you thinking of
Jee
-sus?' and she pushed me away. She don't realize the importance when she pushed me away. She made me realize that I was representing
Jee
-sus and that
Jee
-sus has no place on the dance floor. No, sir, that is the playground of the devil.

"We have another great menace on our doorsteps. Our men and boys have flown to the other side of the ocean. Are they living with
Jee
-sus
over there? Is He in the trenches with them? Are they leading clean Christian lives? They are lost in lands where evil rulers are our enemies. They live in a world of carnage and bloodshed that makes
Jee
-sus
Christ weep tears of remorse that He ever peopled this earth. I do not say it is not necessary. It is very necessary, but what type of men will come back to their homes? What type of men will be sitting by the fire, supporting your family, marrying you? They may not even remember the name of
Jee
-sus. Are you prepared for this, or are you fighting it with letters right now that carry the name of
Jee
-sus, that fill your fathers and husbands with new dedication to Him? Ah, the women of America are failing. Every day more soldiers and sailors and marines and colonels and privates and lieutenants are taking up with foreign women and even marrying them! Do you want your son to return home with a foreign wife, maybe even a heathen? That is the cross you women must bear because you have been asleep to the words of
Jee
-sus.
Do you want a Chinese in your house taking care of your grandchildren, nursing them from her breast? The sins of your men may be your burdens in the future. Think of this before you write him your next letter. Include the glorious words of the Bible, of Matthew, of Genesis.

"Now I may ask
you
a question. What about
you?
Are you being faithful to the men while they are away? It is a great chance to be free and do as you please, isn't it? Nowadays you can see women all over in the factories, driving buses in the cities. They may go where they want, dance and honky-tonk at the army bases, ride the trains and highways without a restraining hand. The devil is tempting these women, drawing them into his web. Are you fighting the devil, or are you falling under his influence?"

Somewhere in the back a woman began to cry, and people started turning around to see who it was, but remembered they shouldn't. When the chairs stopped squeaking, he went on.

"Ah, we have heard a voice, a voice in the wilderness. She don't fear
Jee
-sus,
she wants His compassion. How many of you other women are stifling tears of repentance? Don't be afraid. Let
Jee
-sus know you're sorry. Cry to Him for mercy."

The woman next to me began crying, and so did a lot of other women too. She was about sixty-five years old, and I knew she couldn't have done anything wrong.

"
Jee
-sus
hears those tears of remorse. He is rejoicing in His kingdom. True repentance is the only thing, friends, the only thing. Let us pour forth our hearts to Him. Then we will see the light, then we will get the true feeling."

In the front row a woman screamed, "Oh, Lord," and fell on her knees on the sawdust. Bobbie Lee Taylor was beginning to sweat. It was getting hot in the tent, and though I knew nobody was smoking, the air looked like they were. From the back somewhere somebody else screamed, but I couldn't make out what they said. It started up high and loud and ended in a sort of a moan. All down my row the people's eyes were shining. There was just one old woman who held her head in her hands. She was crying.

"Oh, isn't this glorious, friends. Tears for the Lord. He don't care what you were. He just wants a new soul for his flock. I prayed that tonight we'd see glorious conversions. How my prayers are coming true, friends, how they are coming
true! Jee
-sus
is with us tonight. He feels that a band of dedicated people are asking for a new birth. He is ready to accept His new sheep into the fold.

"Now, while we sing 'Rock of Ages,' I want every one of you who has felt a new birth in their soul to come up here on the platform.
Jee
-sus
don't give a hoot what your past life was. He is willing to forgive and forget. He will welcome you with open arms. He wants you. Try living with
Jee
-sus and see how glorious your life can be. What a band of crusaders you will be, my friends, those of you who are willing to testify to Him that you will fight the Christian battle. We don't want cowards to testify tonight, we want only dedicated Christians. Come up and be born again, my friends. Let us bow our heads and sing."

The piano player struck up the tune, and everybody started singing. I looked at Bobbie Lee. His mouth was tight, and he was breathing hard.

"'Rock of ages, cleft for me

I heard some footsteps in the sawdust. I heard Bobbie Lee.

"They're coming, they're coming out of the rows and up the aisle. Why don't you join them, my friends. Why don't you unburden your strayed hearts."

I felt the woman next to me get up. Chairs were squeaking all over the tent.

"'Let me hide myself in thee. . .'"

"Oh, isn't this a glorious night for Him! What a defeat for the devil, friends. I can see them coming, young and old. I can see the look of dedication in their eyes. Oh, why don't you join them. Won't it be wonderful if we have a great crowd up here as a grand testimony to Him?"

There were more chairs squeaking and footsteps in the aisle. Some of them were crying as they went by.

"Let's take another chorus, friends. Some of you have not made your decisions yet. Don't pass up this opportunity. Make up your minds while we sing it again."

The piano player struck up again, and everybody sang quieter and slower. There were some more footsteps, but not as many as before.

When we finished the chorus Bobbie Lee said, "Here they are. They want to dedicate themselves to
Jee
-sus. We'll let a few of them speak. Oh, what a glorious turn their lives have taken tonight."

There were quite a few people on the platform. Most of them were women, but they had some of the big boys from Mr. Farney's room up there changing from one foot to the other. All in all I'd say there must have been about fifty of them.

Bobbie Lee took a woman by the arm and brought her up to the microphone. She was biting her lip she was so scared. He asked her for her testimony.

"I'm Mrs. Ollie Ray Wingate, and I live here in town." She stopped to clear her throat and think of what to say. "For a long time now. . . for a long time now I've been feeling that I needed the help of Jesus. So many of my friends came here and told me about it. I'm glad that I had the courage to testify and. . . and I hope you all who have not come up yet will come up before Bobbie Lee leaves town."

She started to cry, and Bobbie Lee helped her away from the microphone.

"Weren't those words of inspiration? Let's hear from this lady."

The old woman who had been sitting next to me came up and spoke.

"Most of you know me. I own the grocery on Main. But friends and neighbors, let me tell you I never felt this way before. I am resigned to the Lord to judge me and forget my past sins. I want to repent and be converted to His way." Tears started to roll down her cheeks again. "I want to walk in the Garden of Eden with Him. Our Bobbie Lee has put a new meaning in my life. My soul feels like it never felt before. It took Bobbie Lee to get the name of Rachel Carter on the rolls of converts. For fifty years I wanted to come up and testify, but no one gave me the strength until now when this dedicated young man showed up."

Bobbie Lee helped her away.

"Thank you, Mrs. Carter, for opening your heart to us and showing us what it feels like to have the light beaming in. You see, friends, she don't have to fear that she can stand up to any Christian now."

The next one up was a boy from Mr. Farney's class. He looked at the microphone and swallowed hard. Bobbie Lee said, "Don't be afraid of
Jee
-sus
,
boy."

"My name is Billy Sunday Thompson, and I go to school here in the eighth grade. Er, I just want to say that I am glad to dedicate myself to Jesus and I'm glad I finally came up because I felt I needed Jesus for a long time."

He put his head down and stepped back.

"Friends, those were the words of a babe, while many of you grandfathers here are afraid to come up. That testimony should inspire you grandfathers and grandmothers who will not come up. Wouldn't you all feel good if you would have testified at this age. The Lord may take you any time, yet you are not preparing for that great day."

Some of the others testified, and a few just looked like they didn't know what to do up on the platform. The little children whose mothers went up were beginning to cry for them, so Bobbie Lee knew the testimonies would have to stop. He gave the piano player a signal and said for us not to forget the donation box in the back of the tent, which was the only support for this revival, and that he would be back tomorrow night with another message that nobody would want to miss, and if they couldn't catch him tomorrow night, and he hoped they could, he would still be in town through Monday.

The piano player started to play some fast song, and Bobbie Lee and the people on the platform went out through a little opening at the back of the tent. As they were disappearing, the people in the audience started to leave too. They stopped and talked with each other at the ends of rows and in the aisles, so it took a while for Aunt Mae and I and Mother to get out. By the time we got to the outside, the piano player had stopped, and the man who led the songs, the middle-aged one, was taking the white flowers off the platform.

Outside it was a lot cooler. I took a deep breath. All over in the schoolyard and in the street people were talking and drinking pop they bought from the man with the stand. We began walking home, but some woman who knew Aunt Mae from the plant stopped and talked to us. She was going our way down Main, so she walked with us.

Along the curb children and women were getting into the cars and trucks, and they were starting up, and their lights were going on. People walked in the street and jumped out of the way to let trucks pass them. Sometimes children just stood in front of the trucks with their arms out and pretended they wouldn't let them pass, but just when the trucks got near them, they laughed and ran away. I wished I was one of those children who could ride in the back of the trucks and hang my feet over the tailgate and feel the wind rushing all around me. The only bad time to ride there was when it rained.

The woman talking to Aunt Mae was the kind that talked a lot. For a while she talked about the plant and how she never thought she would ever be working at her age, and in a plant, too, which was a man's work. She said her son was on an island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, and he wrote her and told her how proud he was she worked in a war plant. With her son's money and what she was making, she never saw so much money before in her life, but she worried about what Bobbie Lee said. She said her next letter to her son would have something in it about Bobbie Lee, he was such a wonderful man, one of God's chosen, and her son should know what he said about the boys overseas so he wouldn't make any mistakes, because she told Aunt Mae she didn't want any Chinee grandbabies on her knee with their dangerous-looking mother hanging around the house. She asked me if I liked Bobbie Lee, and I said yes, I thought he was pretty good being able to speak like that for so long without ever stopping or forgetting something like we did at school. She had gone up the second night he was in town. She went up every time the evangelists came to town because she said you can never get too much of that. She wanted to know why none of us went up, so Aunt Mae told her that we hadn't made our minds up yet. We'd better do it quick, she said, because Bobbie Lee was going to be here only a few more nights, and you might as well be in God's favor with all they said about Hitler sending a bomb over.

We left her at some street near the beginning of the hills. When she was gone Aunt Mae said something to Mother about her that I didn't hear. By the time we were halfway up the hill to the house, all the lights were off over at the tent and the last trucks were starting and lighting up and going off. I saw Bobbie Lee next when he was leaving town and Miss Moore took us on a field trip to see him off.

Five

With a lot of women who had never worked before having jobs in the war plant and getting money from their husbands in the war, most people had more money in our valley than they ever did have. They didn't have too much to spend it on with the ration books for almost everything. In the grocery you could see everybody looking in their books trying to figure out which coupon to use for what. Nobody seemed to have enough, especially people with a big family. Aunt Mae and Mother and I always didn't have meat or butter or something because there weren't any more coupons for them.

We got oleomargarine for the first time, too. When I first saw it, I thought it was lard. Mother brought the box into the kitchen and put it in a bowl and dropped a red bean in and started to mix it. It was thick and hard to mix. After a while the bean disappeared and the lard started to get yellow. By the time it was creamy it looked like butter. I didn't mind the taste. I kind of liked it, though it was salty at first. That night we just had bread toasted in the oven with oleo, and cabbage with some pickle meat, because Aunt Mae used the coupons we needed to get good meat to get something else. The ration book made Mother go down into town more than she did before. She was the only one who knew how to use it.

One night that summer the women at the plant had a party. Aunt Mae was a chairman of it because of her job. The whole day she spent down at the plant decorating and helping them with the food. When she got home, she went right up to her room to get ready. I was going with Mother and Aunt Mae, and I wanted to see what it would be like because I didn't go to a party since I started school.

At about seven o'clock Mother and I were ready sitting on the porch waiting for Aunt Mae. Mother had on a good dress, and I was wearing my suit, a nice gabardine one. It was a wonderful night for a party, warm and clear, with just a little warm breeze. I hoped they had punch and sandwiches with the crusts cut off. We didn't eat any dinner because we were going to get food there.

After a while Aunt Mae came out, and she really looked good. She was wearing a dress she bought in town. It was maroon crepe with silver glitter around the neck. In the shoulders they had big pads that made Aunt Mae look strong, and the skirt just came to her knees. I liked her shoes because I never saw a pair like them before, with the toes sticking out and a little strap around her ankle. I thought what nice legs Aunt Mae had. Mother got out a handkerchief and wiped some of the red off Aunt Mae's cheeks, and Aunt Mae fussed about it. When Mother finished, she got out the little powder box she had in her purse and looked at herself in the mirror in it.

All the way down the path to town Aunt Mae told us to go slower because of her shoes. It smelled good on the path. Not only because of Aunt Mae, but because the summer flowers were out and the honeysuckle was climbing along the old stumps. Even though it was seven-thirty, the night hadn't set in yet. It was more like twilight, and the hills always looked pretty then.

Down in town a lot of people were walking over to the river where the plant was. When we got there, there were plenty trucks parked along the river and in the plant parking lot. Almost all the women getting out were dressed up with flowers in their hair. It must have been the honeysuckle from the hills, because you could smell it all over and I knew it didn't grow down by the river.

We went into the big room in the plant where they put the parts together. The small machines were pushed up against the wall, and that left a big space on the floor for dancing. There weren't too many dances in the valley. Now with the war on and the men gone there hadn't been one in a long time. Aunt Mae went behind a table where they had some food and helped the women there. Mother and I just sat on a chair by a big gray machine and watched the people.

A band came after we were there about fifteen minutes. It had a piano, a bass fiddle, a banjo, and a trumpet. The players were from the county seat, I think, and were all men except for the woman who played the piano. They struck up a lively tune that I'd heard plenty times before but didn't know the name. A few women started dancing with each other. Except for Aunt Mae, they all had on thin summer dresses with flower patterns all over. You could see the flowers moving across the floor, a rose pattern with a gardenia and a violet with a sunflower.

The room was pretty filled. More people came in all the time and stood around against the tin walls and the machines. Some would start in dancing with each other, or see someone they knew and start talking. Before we knew it, Aunt Mae was on the floor dancing with that woman who walked home with us after the night we saw Bobbie Lee. Aunt Mae took the man's part, and she was swinging the woman all over. The band was playing a song I always heard on the radio called "Chattanooga Choo Choo." When they saw what Aunt Mae and the woman were doing, the other dancers moved back in a circle and let them have the whole floor. Mother and I stood up on our chairs to see over the heads of all the people who had crowded around the floor. They were calling, "Look at Flora" -- which was the name of the other woman -- and "Swing her, Miss Gebler," and "Look at those two go."

When it was over everyone clapped. Aunt Mae got through the crowd of women who were patting her on the back and came over and sat down by us. She was trying to fix a heel on her shoe that came loose. It wouldn't go back on, so Aunt Mae sat by Mother and they talked. By now the floor was full of women dancing and trying to watch out for the little children who ran in and out between them. Aunt Mae watched them, and I knew she was disappointed over the heel.

The women walking past where we sat were carrying big glasses full of white foam that dripped over the sides. They didn't usually have beer at any party in town, and Aunt Mae said the manager of the factory sent it over from the capital, where they had the brewery. She told me to go get her a glass. I could hardly get through to the table where they were giving it out, there were so many women and little children around it. Aunt Mae took her glass and took a long drink, then got a faraway look in her eye and belched.

It was almost ten o'clock. Most of the beer was gone, but there were still plenty dancers on the floor. The little children were sleeping on top of the machines with their legs hanging down the sides. Women stopped by where we were sitting and told Aunt Mae it was the best party they'd been to since they were girls. After a while the band played a waltz, and Mother asked me if I wanted to dance. I never danced before, but we didn't do too bad. Mother was a good dancer, though, so she took the boy's part. I was almost as tall as she was, so I don't know how we looked.

Some woman got up where the band was playing and asked if there was anybody who could sing. Nobody in town sang except the woman at the preacher's church, but she had the kind of high voice that nobody liked. Flora, the woman who danced with Aunt Mae, got up by the band with the other woman and said that Miss Gebler, the supervisor, told her she used to sing. Everybody looked over where we were sitting. Aunt Mae said no, she hadn't sung in years, and she'd just make them hate her, but everybody told her to come on or they wouldn't go home that night. After they went on this way for a while Aunt Mae said alright, like I knew she wanted to say when they first asked her. Aunt Mae had a few beers, so I wondered what she'd do. She took off her shoes, because of the heel, and went on up to the band and talked with them for about a minute.

Then the piano started up and played a few notes. Aunt Mae nodded her head. The big fiddle began to thump, and the piano started again with the banjo. Aunt Mae turned around.

"Saint Louis woman with your diamond rings

Got this man of mine by your apron strings. . ."

The trumpet blew a few notes here that sounded real good. Aunt Mae sounded good too. I didn't know she sang like this. Her voice was better than any I ever heard outside of the movies. I looked at Mother, and she was looking at Aunt Mae with her eyes all watery. The women stared at her. Nobody in the valley heard anyone ever sing a song like that except on the radio.

Aunt Mae finished, and they all whistled and clapped. They wanted her to sing again, but the only song the band knew that she knew was "God Bless America," so she sang it. It was a song that you always heard on the radio then, and everybody sang it with her the second time. When that was over, the women all grabbed ahold of Aunt Mae and hugged her. She was crying as she came to where we were.

As we walked home up the path, the cool summer night had set in. No matter how hot it was in the day, it was cool in the hills at night. Aunt Mae had talked all the way home after we left the plant, after everyone had stopped talking to her and we got away at last. We left after midnight and were the last ones to go except for the night watchman. It was about one now. Up ahead I could see the house with the lights on. I could feel my bed under me, but Aunt Mae was going slow. Right when we got into the yard and could hear the cinders grinding under our feet, Aunt Mae turned around and looked down at the town and held Mother by the arm.

"You know, I never thought I'd be happy here." Then she looked out onto the hills and the night sky.

We didn't see much of Aunt Mae after that. One of the old men who played in the band at the plant that night asked her if she wanted to sing with them all the time. They had a lot of jobs in the hills playing and went into the county seat and the capital sometimes, too. When Aunt Mae came home from the plant in the evening, she put on the dress she wore to sing with the band and went off. The old man met her at the foot of the hill in his truck with the bass fiddle in the back. I used to sit on the porch in the twilight when the night birds were beginning to sing and watch Aunt Mae go down the path in her good dress and disappear where the hill got steep and I couldn't see her anymore. A while later I could see the old man's truck going off down Main Street with Aunt Mae's arm resting on the door and the big fiddle in the back.

The newspaper had a story in it about the band once, with a picture of Aunt Mae singing along. It was like all the other pictures in our paper. Aunt Mae's hair looked like a cloud with a bunch of colored men playing behind her. In all the pictures people's skin was always dark and their hair white, no matter what color it really was. The story told all about how Aunt Mae was once a famous singer and that people like her were needed in the valley to make people feel good. Mr. Watkins wrote a letter to the editor about the story. It said that the people of the valley needed a lot more things before they needed Aunt Mae. Then Aunt Mae wrote a letter that said the valley needed a lot less people like Mr. Watkins, if it needed anything. They didn't have any more letters in the paper on either side, and I thought it was over when the preacher got into it.

He put an ad in the paper that had a list of reasons from the Bible why the band and Aunt Mae weren't doing anyone any good. After Bobbie Lee Taylor left, the town was split over the preacher. The people who didn't go to the preacher's conference when Bobbie Lee was in town were dropped from the church rolls. The people who got dropped were mad at the preacher because everyone liked to go to church if he could pay the pledge. Of course, there were people like us who didn't belong to the church when all this happened, and the preacher said they were the kind that "didn't care which way the wind blew."

The people who were dropped bought an ad in the paper the next day and gave a list of reasons why Aunt Mae and the band were good for the valley. It started that on Saturday night the moviehouse began to have Aunt Mae and the band besides the movie for ten cents more. The second Saturday that they were there some people who belonged to the church walked up and down in front of the moviehouse with big signs about the evil inside. When the editor of the paper heard about this, he got a picture of them on the front page. Our paper went all the way into the county seat, and even plenty people in the capital bought it. They saw the picture of the people with the signs and, like people always do, came to see Aunt Mae the next Saturday night. That night the town looked almost like Bobbie Lee was there. Trucks were parked all over, and only a few out of all those people could get into the movie house. You couldn't even find the preacher's people with the signs in the crowd on Main Street. The people came back the next Saturday night who couldn't get in, and by then the sheriff told the preacher his people were creating a nuisance and would be removed. They had done his brother's business all the good they could.

After this the preacher sort of set himself off from the town. Mr. and Mrs. Watkins and the others who were still on the rolls tried to fight anything the town did, and even sent a few of themselves to the state legislature to see about the moviehouse. This didn't get anywhere because the governor was a friend of the sheriff, but it did make the preacher's people get even closer together, and there were quite a few of them. They bought time on the town's radio station for the preacher to speak on Sunday night at the time
Amos 'n' Andy
came on. The people who didn't belong anymore, and those who didn't in the first place, got mad because
Amos 'n' Andy
was everybody's favorite. The only other station you could get was the one strong one in the capital, but it never came in well.

Meanwhile Aunt Mae was going with the old man and the fiddle in the truck every night. They got famous all over our part of the state. When the soldiers came home on furloughs, they got married to the girls they'd been writing letters to in town. A lot of girls who never expected to get married were asked to by soldiers they knew since school who were home for two weeks. Aunt Mae and the band got plenty business from all the wedding receptions going on in our section. People didn't usually dance at wedding receptions like they did in the movies. If the preacher married you, you couldn't do it, but people liked to sit around and listen to the band and Aunt Mae. Mother and I went to a lot of receptions that way that we never would have been invited to. Mother told me Aunt Mae didn't get half the money she should for singing with the band, but I knew she liked to do it and would sing even if they didn't pay her anything, most likely.