A Moment in the Sun (42 page)

The subject is the Lost World.

“The Spirit of God tells us that we shall carry our memory with us into the Hereafter,” says Moody, lifting his iron gaze to the volunteers standing by the rear of the tent, still whispering among themselves. “Memory is God’s officer, and when He shall touch these secret springs and say, ‘
Son, daughter, remember
’—then tramp, tramp, tramp will come before us, in a long procession, all the sins we have ever committed.”

The whisperers fall silent, not sure whether to retreat or hold their ground. “Do you think Cain has forgotten the face of his murdered brother, whom he killed six thousand years ago? Do you think Judas has forgotten that kiss with which he betrayed his Master? Do you think when the judgment came upon Sodom that those wicked men were taken into the presence of God, or did they find themselves in the other, darker realm, in the Lost World of Hell itself?”

Mam made him swear upon the Bible—Earl can feel the dry leather in his hand—to walk the path of Righteousness no matter where the Army might take him. That she is back in Arkansas, breathing still, is a comfort, for if the dead can indeed look down upon the living, oh, Lord, the sins she be witness to!

“Many in that Lost World would give millions, if they had them,” Moody continues, “would beseech their sainted mothers to pray them out of that place—but all too late. They have been neglecting salvation until the time has come when God says, ‘
Cut them down, the day of mercy has ended!
’ ”

A note of laughter from the men standing by the entrance. Moody does not deign to look their way.

“You may make sport of ministers, but bear in mind there will be no preaching of the Gospel in that Lost World. There are some people who ridicule these revival meetings, but remember, there will be no revivals in Hell.”

Little Earl wonders is there a rope, a line of barbed wire perhaps, that separates black and white sinners in Satan’s realm? Or will their bodies be hurled unsorted, stewed together like offal in a cauldron, and that wicked proximity yet another torture they must bear? And in the place above, should he somehow rise to see it, will his people there be asked to sit to the left, crowded on unpainted benches?

“A deacon was one day passing a saloon as a young man was coming out, and thinking to make sport of him, the young man called out, ‘Deacon, how far is it to Hell?’ ” A chuckle from the audience as they sense what is coming.

“The deacon gave no answer, but after riding a few rods he turned to look after the scoffer, and found the man’s horse had thrown him and broken his neck. I tell you, my friends, I would sooner give my right hand than to trifle with Eternal things.”

At least, if what the lieutenant said is true, they won’t be going right away. There is time to repent. It strikes Little Earl that timing figures larger in the stories the preachers tell than the amount of wickedness engaged in—a monster of lechery pardoned at death’s door while a Godly man might transgress only once, but if struck down leaving the address of sin, be cursed forever.

In Missoula he sported with most all of the women who made themselves available outside the Fort every payday, before settling on the Man-killer sisters, Jewel and Ortha, Flathead girls who weren’t really red. Copper maybe, with long, coarse black hair that took his breath away sliding against his bare stomach and strong legs that didn’t let you loose till it was finished. Ortha was moody while Jewel was gay, but both knew your company and rank and called you soldier—“
Get those trousers off, soldier
”—and Jewel even gave Elijah Barnes a free one to celebrate when he made corporal. Then the one in the Chattanooga house he visited a couple times, dark little thing with the beautiful eyes who called him Daddy and could bend herself like a pretzel and now the whole shooting gallery available over in Ybor, Francine with huge breasts that have a life of their own, pillowing his ears as she works on top of him or Zeidy who snarls words in Spanish he doesn’t understand but thrill him all the same and Caridad his exact same shade like they were formed from the same patch of clay and Esther who could pass for white or the skinny Chinese girl the guys call Poon Tang with her nipples like the tips of his little fingers or any of the other ones, all shades and all sizes, all the other ones he’s looked at but never tried in Ybor or here in Tampa City.

Little Earl shifts on the bench to cover the evidence of this line of thought. Moody seems to be looking directly at him.

“We are trying to win you to Christ,” says the man with the patriarch’s beard, sincere, forceful, singling Little Earl out from the others. Can the man read minds?

“If you go forth from this tent straight to Hell, you will remember this meeting, and the golden opportunity we have offered you here. For in that Lost World you won’t hear the beautiful hymn
Jesus of Nazareth Passeth By
, no, He will already have
passed
by. There will be no sweet songs of Zion there, only the mournful lamentations of the eternally condemned. If you neglect this salvation, oh sinner, how will you escape? Remember that Christ stands right here—” Moody holds his arm out to indicate the Redeemer is standing only feet away from him, “—here in this assembly tonight, offering redemption to every soul. For the reaping time is upon us, brothers and sisters—if you sow the flesh you must reap corruption! If you sow the wind you must reap the whirlwind!”

The evangelist pauses dramatically, and Little Earl can hear the life on the street beyond the tent, hear horses passing and carriage wheels rolling, the drunken shouts of men, can hear, as if they are calling to him, the brazen voices of the women of the night. They are out there, a hundred Jezebels, no, a thousand, waiting with eager lips and soft skin, with enticing words, with—

Moody changes tone.

“I was called once to the bedside of a dying man, a man who had tried to follow the word of God but let the opinion of his worldly acquaintances obstruct his progress, a man who had turned away from the Light to bask in the false warmth of his comrades’ admiration. ‘You need not pray for me,’ he said, ‘for my damnation is sealed.’

“Nevertheless I fell upon my knees and tried to speak with the Almighty, hoping in His charity He might comfort a sinner come to the final day—but my prayers did not go higher than my head, as if Heaven above me was like brass. ‘The harvest is gone,’ said the poor unfortunate from his bed, ‘the summer is ended, and I am not saved.’ ”

Moody turns his lion-like head slowly, seeming to look deeply into the soul of every person in the tent, black and white. He speaks softly, sadly, yet such is the silence in the tent that even Little Earl, crammed in the rear of the colored wedge, can hear his every word. “He lived a Christless life, he died a Christless death, we wrapped him in a Christless shroud and bore him away to a Christless grave.”

The Golden Orator of Chicago slams his hand down on the top of the podium. “
Fly
to the arms of Jesus this hour! There is yet time! You can be
saved
if you will!”

And then the choir, bursting into song with Sankey’s beautiful voice rising above the others, the man nearly blind now but God-possessed, calling them, calling them forward to Glory—

What means this eager, anxious throng

Which moves with busy haste along,

These wondrous gath’rings day by day,

What means this strange commotion, pray?

In accents hushed the throng reply,

“Jesus of Nazereth passeth by!”

Tampa is a fever dream.

Tampa is a fever dream lying by the fetid Gulf, writhing hot with fear and desire. Camp followers have swarmed the miasmic city to feed upon the soldiers and each night, drawn to light and noise, those soldiers dare each other to be the drunkest, the loudest, the lowest. The pianos are all warped out of tune, the liquor smells of kerosene and the Army is a guest who has stayed overlong. Tampa wishes he would leave but can’t help selling one more cocoanut, one more drink. And there are guns everywhere, guns are the point of it, guns and flags and men marching or staggering in groups and the hard slap of a black man in uniform a reminder that there is a price for this boon, this bonanza of war, an insult that must be swallowed to keep the riches flowing. Tampa is a cackling reverie, flushing hot in fevered temples, teetering on a point of chance—

Finally, Coop is the shooter. It’s the first time he’s held the dice all night and up to now he’s just nibbled around the edges of the table, for it is a table and not a poncho behind a tent or chalk marks on a floor, throwing the nickel minimum in on hopping bets with long odds and the house has taken his nickels. The house used to be a butcher shop from the hooks on the ceiling and the smell of it, with a half-dozen games working and Army-issue tin cups, a boxcar-load of them seems to have been stolen and spread around Tampa, that you rap on the pine three times when it’s time for a refill. Coop puts his half-full cup down to press the dice between his palms.

“These bones been waitin for a man knows how to treat em,” he says, closing his eyes and rubbing the cubes. “They feelin awful cold.”

“What you play?” The boxman is a Chink in a vest and bowler hat. A light brown boy with a harelip is ragging a tinny little piano at the rear where the heavy breakdown used to happen, blood stains mottling the wall beside him.

“No pass, what you think? Lay a dollar down, Willie.” Willie always handles his money when he is rolling. Making change interrupts the flow.

“Train leaving the station,” says Coop, rattling the dice next to his ear now. “You boys better jump on board.”

Some of the boys he knows and some he doesn’t get on it while he heats them up and then Too Tall shouts “Come out, brother!” and he whips them down on the felt. It really is felt, too, recently razored off a billiards table from the marks on it, and an easy eight bounces off the rail.

“No pass,” says the Chink with the bowler hat. “Point is eight.”

Coop will play whatever is running but he likes craps the best. Straight poker is slow, feels like you’re slaving at the mercy of all that royalty on the cards, and roulette you can’t ever hold nothing in your hand, but craps is ever-shifting, like trying to catch fish in a river while bouncing through its rapids. And he’s always been good with numbers.

“What you paying for hard-ways?” he asks as he scoops the dice up.

“Nine to one.” Jerome, who is black as a wood stove and twice as wide, is dealing and wielding a bamboo cane for a stick at the same time. “But for a sportin man like yourself we make it ten.”

Coop smiles. “Put me down five, Willie.” Cheers and whistles from the boys. “Gone roll me a hard eight.”

The floor man is a tough-looking cracker who sits on a high stool with a shotgun across his knees. Coop has never seen a white man shoot craps, one of the things he likes about it, but has no doubt that’s who owns the bank here. Willie puts the cash on the layout.

Coop rolls a five, and then a ten. Fagen, a big old local boy from the Scrub who soldiers with the 24th, leads a few men over from the other games. Coop feels their heat around him, feels snug and happy in the smoke and noise and music, gulps whiskey and bangs for more. He knows the secret and they don’t. He rolls a four.

“The man is
hot
!” Willie calls out. “Keep back or you catch fire off him.”

Yes, there is luck, he knows, but it smiles on nobody. The rain is going to fall or not fall whether you put a crop under it or not, enough people scratch for gold someone is likely to find it, and you can be the slickest thief in the Carolinas but a day will come when you’re in the wrong place with the wrong mule.

“Show me a five, keep it alive,” he chants and snaps them down on the table and yes, it is a five but it could have been anything. He starts to laugh.

“He got the
pow
er,” calls out Rufus Briscoe from A Company, who is sweating the way he does when thoroughly drunk. “He got the touch.” And doubles his bet on the point.

Most of them are making deals with God, but Coop knows better. He knows the secret. “
Oh Jesus, if You love me slip me a queen on the draw
.” Jesus don’t play that game—Jesus is the house and the house always wins. The black come up five times in a row it’s just as likely to come up a sixth as to go back to red. Company of men go running at a lot of people shooting a lot of bullets and some number of them, good soldier or bad, is going to get killed. That’s the odds Jesus will give you. You have to forget about winning and just be happy to hold the dice for a while.

Coop hurls them down and the twin fours come up. There is a cheer and men slapping him on the back, half the room following his game now, and even fat Jerome pretends to smile.

“The Lady didn’t just smile at this boy,” says Fagen when the shouting settles down. “She done sat on his face.”

Coop nods and Willie pockets his winnings. He rolls an eagle to the Chink. There are shots then, just outside the door.

“Bout
time
the show got started,” says Coop before he rolls boxcars and craps out.

Tampa is a fever dream.

When they step out of the arcade there are men with guns and a woman screaming and a child held upside down. It is hard for Royal to focus at first, he’s been looking at the views in the little machine, a train coming straight at him but contained on the rectangle and if he looked away it wasn’t there. But this is all around him on the street and won’t go away, a black woman screaming and cursing as the white boys, Ohio Vols, laugh and hold her back and another down the street holds the child, who is screaming too but with an animal terror, swinging by his ankles gripped in another soldier’s hand, the man holding him out like a rabbit just killed, a shell on a leather thong dangling down from the boy’s neck, and then Junior grabbing Royal’s arm, Watch out he’s saying and then the shot, coming from behind him. Yet another Vol, feet spread apart but body swaying with liquor, one eye closed as he aims his Colt at the swinging shell.