Most of the night’s conversation, not surprisingly, had centered on religion, but the natural flow of talk had revealed quite a bit about the brothers. That they were dumber than I had ever imagined became clearer all the time. They used the word “nigger” a lot, but strangely their use of the word went far beyond derogatory references to black people. Everyone they didn’t like, black or white or Asian or whatever, was a nigger. And that was a very long list. Most of the night, I could see them trying to figure out if I was a nigger, too.
They’d grown up in Cuba Landing, the sons of a sharecropper who spent most of his time drunk. When their mother died, thirty years before, the sharecropper had taken his sons and built this cabin far away from the hustle and bustle of life in the Big City. Cuba Landing, that is. They lived off the land—their diet consisted mainly of meat they caught themselves—and made money selling shine to other towns in the county.
Their father taught them how to make shine. He taught them many things. How to fend for themselves, how to use guns, how to kill and prepare an animal for consumption. He taught them about the Bible. But mostly he taught them the ins-and-outs of paranoia. He taught them that the niggers would get them if they didn’t watch out.
That paranoia was weaved in with their faith in the Bible. Equal doses of Christianity and a phobia of all humanity, with a dash of child-like superstition. At one point in the evening, Henry said something about the possibility of G-men coming to arrest them, and Mack rapped hard on the wood table for luck, crossed himself, said, “They’d have to plug up their bullet holes first, the damn dirty niggers.”
As the evening wore on, and we all got drunker and drunker, religion came up more and more often, and Mack started getting hostile. He was one of those kinds of drunks, the kind that makes you think a fight is just inevitable if someone doesn’t pass out first.
I used the occasional tense silences to gaze around the home of the Aarons brothers. It wasn’t what I thought it would be. For one thing, it was amazingly neat and clean, essentially one giant room, sparsely furnished with only the table we sat at and two beds along each wall, made up with military precision. Along the wall to the right, a small refrigerator and a sink and a stove. On the table before us, next to the jug we drank from, a half-done wooden carving, not near enough to completion yet to tell what it was.
But none of those things leaped right out at you when you first entered the cabin. The first thing you noticed was the metal contraption near the far wall, pumping and steaming and making a noise like a grade school science project. Jugs and bottles, some of them full and others waiting to be filled, lined up neatly in front of the still.
After you noticed the still, your eye moved naturally upward, to the wall behind it. And there hung the gigantic cross, the one Henry had been referring to. Not quite as big as the one in the church, but it gave the impression of being bigger because of the relative size of the room. It must’ve been nearly seven feet tall; it’s base touched the floor and the very top of it came above my head. The Aarons brothers had left the wood grain showing, but lacquered it carefully and expertly, so that the steam from the still gathered on the wood and made it look like it was sweating divine inspiration.
Very impressive work.
The only complaint anyone could’ve had about the cabin was the smell. As neat as it was, the stench of humanity hung in the air—or rather, the stench of the Aarons brothers. Obviously, they didn’t take bathing as seriously as they took housekeeping, and every corner of the cabin was infected with their body odor. I figured I’d get used to the smell after a few minutes, but I’d figured wrong. I was still very conscious of it. Looking on the bright side, though, I was sort of glad about that—not the sort of odor you’d like to grow accustomed to.
But the bad smell wasn’t on my mind at that moment. Mack stared at the Reverend, waiting for a response. Testing his tolerance for abuse.
The Reverend had managed to defuse the tension each time with a disarming smile or a witty comment directed at the Aarons brothers level. But I could tell he was getting fed up. Mack had made a personal attack on him this time, and he couldn’t let it go.
Taking up the jug, the Reverend eased the uncomfortable silence by confronting it head-on. “Well, Mack, I reckon you’re right about that. I ain’t exactly typical in my approach to saving souls. But that’s the way the Good Lord made me, and I’m damned if I’m willing to go against His plan.”
Henry said, “Now, Reverend, Mack don’t mean no—”
“That’s all right, Henry. I know what your brother’s getting at. And I don’t hold it against him none. It’s just a little misunderstanding, and I’m trying to clear it up best I can. See,” he turned his attention back to the younger Aarons, “we’re in the End Times now, Mack. You knew that, I reckon. The Book of Revelation tells us that things is gonna be all fucked up in the Final Days. What appears to be wrong will be right, and what appears to be right will be just dead-wrong.”
“I don’t getcha,” Mack said.
The Reverend took another swig from the jug, leaned in closer to Mack. I could see the fire of alcohol in his eyes, the flush on his cheeks. When he spoke again, his voice was barely a whisper. “And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of his wrath is come; and . . . who shall be able to stand?’ ”
All three of us stared at him. There was a vague terror etched on the ugly faces of the Aarons brothers. I didn’t really follow what the Reverend was talking about, but the fear that permeated the room touched me slightly and I picked up the jug and had a swallow.
Henry stammered, “Revelation, 6:15, 16, and 17. Right?”
The Reverend grinned; not the boyish, charming grin, but a grin straight out of Hell. “That’s right, Henry. That’s very good. You know your scripture pretty well. But quoting scripture don’t mean a damn thing unless you know what it means. Do you know what it means, Henry?”
“Well . . . it means . . . it means, like, when the end comes, ain’t nobody . . . no one’s gonna be safe.”
The Reverend slammed his fist down on the table, hard, and all of us jumped. “Wrong!” he shouted. “That’s just wrong! You think a good, God-fearing man’s got anything to be worried about? Bullshit! Folks like you and me, we’ll be walking with the Lamb on that fine day!” He said again, “Who shall be able to stand? Not the great men, oh brothers, not them. They gonna fall. Not those kings and captains and great men we put all our faith in. And you know why they gonna fall? Because they don’t know shit. They don’t know about God’s Truth. It’s the End Times, and in the End Times, God’s gonna have a different word to give. And to the ears of everyone who’s scared, everyone whose hearts are filled with the Devil, that word is gonna sound wrong. It’s even gonna sound blasphemous. But it’s the true word, brothers, and I got it. I heard it, and I’m giving it to you now.”
He stood up, pointed his finger at Mack. The finger almost touched Mack’s nose. The Reverend said, quieter, almost gently, “Do you understand that, Mack, my friend?”
The Aarons brothers were transfixed, obviously under the influence of more than just the potent moonshine. I took another drink.
In a reverent tone Mack said, “I . . . I understand. You’re . . . you’re the Preacher of the Apocalypse . . . ain’t you?”
The Reverend relaxed a bit, and the good ol’ boy smile reappeared. He sat back down, took the jug and had a drink, then said, “Hell, I don’t know. Just trying to do God’s work as I see it. Sorry for getting worked up and all. It’s just that I take my calling very seriously, and I wanted you to know that.”
Mack shook his head. “I’m the one should be saying sorry, Reverend. You’re as fine a Man a’ Gawd as I ever seen.”
Henry said, “Amen! We’re just awful proud to have ya here.”
The Reverend laughed, raised the jug above his head. “Damn proud to be here! Let’s have a drink on it!”
And the jug went around amid raucous laughter and a chorus of amens.
All the talk after that was easy, and the Reverend and me and the Aarons brothers were friends. Which, I found out later, was very important to Reverend Childe.
You have to become someone’s friend before you can betray him.
I remember the sky getting gray with the approaching morning, and a dull ache behind my eyes. I think I remember leaning out the car window as the Reverend drove and throwing up along the side of the road in a long and colorful stream of half-digested food. And I think I remember thinking, So much for Mrs. Edels’s chicken-and-dumplings, and laughing weakly.
He sang a song as he drove, riding on the dividing line as often as he rode in the right lane. I didn’t know it, but it sounded like a cross between a hymn and an Irish drinking song. I tried to ask him about it, but my tongue wouldn’t work, and halfway through my struggle I forgot what it was I wanted to ask him.
He had one hand on the steering wheel, the other clutching the bottle of moonshine we’d taken with us when we left the Aarons brothers cabin. It sloshed all over the car seat and all over my leg. He laughed, and I laughed, and then I threw up again, sticking my head out the window just in the nick of time. The Reverend said, “You all right there, Charlie?” but didn’t wait for an answer. He was singing again.
How we made it back to the church without being caught, or without being killed, I’ll never know. But suddenly we were in the parking lot and the sun was coming up and we stumbled into each other and giggled stupidly as we made our way to the door. The Reverend fumbled with the keys, dropped them at least eight times. Each time they fell we laughed until tears streamed down our faces, made “shh, shh” noises at each other.
Both of us had to piss like crazy, so we half-walked, half-fell down the stairs and jostled our way into the restroom. We argued briefly over who would use the toilet first—I guess we forgot that there was a bathroom upstairs—then gave up and just pissed at the same time. The toilet was big enough for two, we reckoned, laughing like idiots.
He finished, zipped up, but my stream still went strong. I think I made a kind of victory noise, like “Whoo!” as if I’d proven myself greater than him by the sheer strength of my urine stream. Then I threw up again.
The Reverend got me a glass of water and some pills, helped me get them down, then said, “Okay, Charlie, ol’ son, ol’ boy, ol’ man. . . . Okay, Charlie, let’s get you ta bed.”
Despite my throwing up, it wasn’t until then I started to feel pretty bad. He helped me out of the bathroom and up the stairs. He was almost as drunk as me; his grip on me failed more than once and I almost toppled down the stairs. But he always managed to catch my arm or my shirtfront and haul me back up.
In my room, he let me fall onto my bed, then paused a moment to get his breath back. I murmured, “Uh. Christ . . . I don’t feel so good, Rev.”
“Well, damn!” he said, wheezing, “Ain’t no wonder. We went just a tad . . . just a tad over-board, didn’t we?”
I laughed weakly. “Just a tad . . . I’ll never drink again.”
Both of us found that remark hilarious. We laughed again, and he said, “Well, let’s not be saying nothing crazy, now.”
He started out of the room, singing that song again. I still didn’t know what it was. I remembered that I wanted to ask him about it, but then I realized I didn’t really care after all. I closed my eyes for the inevitable bed-spins.
And, far away, I heard him singing, or muttering, or talking. “Motherfuckers,” he was saying. “Motherfuckers, cocksuckers, stupid sons-a-bitches. . . .” And then he laughed, and said louder, so that I could hear him, “Hear that, Charlie?”
“Uhh.”
“Hear that? They’re stupid sons-a-bitches, brother. . . . And we got this fucking town in our back pocket.”
“Uhh.”
“Right in our back fucking pocket. . . .”
And that was all.
I woke up once about noon, stumbled into the bathroom to throw up one last time. I splashed water on my face, then fumbled back to my room and fell on the bed.
When I opened my eyes again, the bedside clock told me it was almost two in the afternoon. I lay there for a minute, then decided I felt all right. I sat up, took a deep breath. My mouth tasted like a sewer, but other than that, and a vague dullness in my muscles, I felt much better.
The Reverend’s room was empty. I went into the bathroom, took a couple aspirins just to be on the safe side, and climbed under a long cold shower. Then I shaved and brushed my teeth three times. Most of the pain from the dental work was gone now, but by scrubbing so vigorously I managed to draw blood.
I dressed in my new clothes and ventured downstairs. I didn’t exactly feel like a new man, but I at least looked it.
He was down in his study again, working on the sermon for Wednesday night. He looked up when I came in, his eyes bleary. A half-smile touched his lips. “Well, lookee you,” he said, his voice raspy. “Ain’t you looking sharp?”
I grinned, and when I answered him, my voice matched his for gruffness. “I look better than I feel, if you wanna know the truth.”
He chuckled, leaned back in his chair wearily. “Well, I reckon we had it coming. I just don’t know what we were thinking, getting all tanked up on that nasty shit. But . . . live and learn, huh?”
“That’s a nice sentiment, but I doubt we’ve really learned anything. Next time the urge comes on to get drunk, we’ll be right back up there at the Aarons brothers place.”
He lifted one finger in the air, said, “Ah! Not necessarily. I was thinking about that this morning while you was getting your beauty sleep. See, I’d plumb forgot that you were working for me now—”
“Oh, yeah. I guess I am.”
“But seeing as how I really don’t have anything ’round the church here for you to do, I figured you could maybe run an errand or something. What do you think about that?”