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Scene #47
Daddy said that the world crawls with demons; not all have yet
been to hell but all will return there at some time. I've
seen demons and they don't all have a foul face. So many wear the
faces of our congregation; the slippery faces of the repentant and
the sorrowful, they like to disguise themselves as one of us. You
can always see in their eyes, the men who look at women who they
ain't married to with that slack jawed expression, the men who hide
behind the fumes in the alcohol they drink, glassy eyed are those
ones. They're slick and they lie. Daddy likes to
shout the Bible and he threatens them all, the good and the bad,
with divine justice, with the Lord's retribution. But Daddy lies. I
know the truth that Daddy would hide, the hard glass face that
nobody has ever seen and I pretend I never have. Daddy is a
demon. He pretends to be Pastor James LeCaster, and that might
really be his name. I don't know if he was born human and became
demon or if he was demon at birth. But he's the scariest man I've
ever seen walking this earth and I don't know what I'm supposed to
do. My Daddy wants to destroy this earth. And I don't
know how I'm going to stop him. “Sal, get your ass
movin’. We have a truck on 47 near the Virgin that needs a tow.”
“Shit Lee, can’t you send Paul?” I had a battery that died
in an Olds that looked to have a cracked case and some funky
wiring. It promised to be more fun than towing a dead truck which
would probably have a chauvinistic farmer attached. I hated those
hayseeds who always had to say something smart-ass about ‘some
girlie doing a man’s job.’ “Just get your ass movin’.”
Lee sent a stream of brown spittle to the ground which
was his way of saying the conversation was closed. I cursed and
pulled off my gloves, the keys to the tow truck were hanging inside
the office and I stomped in displeasure to get them, my anger
unimportant to anyone but myself. Lee bought that old
tow truck back when dinosaurs wandered the earth; the engine
groaned to semi-life, the cab of the truck smelled of oil and
sweat. I gave a silent thank God that the weather allowed for the
windows to be open as I sputtered out in search of a dead truck.
I should be grateful that Lee had given me a job when
times were tough for everyone and I had blown into his world with
nothing to prove myself except a resume full of nothing and a
promise that I could fix cars. He didn’t know that Tiny had taught
me everything I knew; he didn’t know that Tiny’s life was cars and
me. He probably hired me cause my breasts were nicely sized and he
was hoping to grab a feel. A few days into the job and he stopped
thinking of me as boobs only as he started thinking of me as a
mechanic. Driving past the Graham Trailer Park I blew
a kiss in the direction of the small mobile home we were calling
home. Tiny would be sitting in front of the TV, I knew, watching
strangers bicker in front of a celebrity judge. He had no
appointments today, so he’d have his feet up and a pot of chili
cooking. We’d been living in the trailer park for
the last four months. We’d been on the move for eight years and
this was a long stay for us. I was feeling restless but Tiny was
having some problems catching his breath. He was seeing doctors and
heart specialists and I wasn’t willing to risk his health for
anything. The grass on the sides of the road was a hard
yellow; this was land that needed rain. I could feel the whipsaw of
dry air on my skin. Some women dream of diamonds and some of furs,
I dream of the kiss of rain in the sky drenching the world that
surrounds me. Thunder didn’t rumble above me though,
the sky stayed bright as the truck lumbered along. A
quarter of a mile before the turnoff to Hwy 47 I saw him: an old
red truck parked at the side of the road. The hood was up, the
universal code for Stop Here. I pulled over, angling myself
in front of the truck. The man standing in front of it didn’t turn
to acknowledge me. He was lean and leaning, his body snake thin, a
black cowboy hat blocking his face from my sight. Everything I saw
on him was black except the skin on his hands and the brief glimpse
of his neck. Black shirt, black jeans and black boots were his
outfit. “You the fella needing a tow?” I called as I
approached him. He turned slowly and I froze as I saw
his eyes. “Hey Sara,” he drawled, his voice dry as a desert floor,
“you got something of your Daddy’s and he’s coming to collect.”
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