This Side of Jordan (4 page)

Alvin smiled. “I like pie.”

“Well, then, let's shoot the works,” Chester said, disposing of his cigarette. “Follow me.”

He had parked under a ragged oak at the upper corner of the parking lot. Alvin saw a shiny tan Packard Six hidden in the shadows.

“Gee, this is a pretty swell auto.”

Alvin had never seen a Six in the flesh before, only a magazine advertisement that named Packards
“The supreme combination of all that is fine in motor cars. Ask the man who owns one.”

“It's nifty, all right,” Chester said, unlocking the door. He climbed into the driver's seat, and reached across to open the passenger door. “Come on, kid. Hop in.”

“Sure.”

The farm boy climbed into the car as Chester fired up the engine. The interior smelled like cigarettes and gin. A pair of old leather valises were jammed in front of a bunch of boxes in the backseat. Alvin had never been inside of a fine motorcar. He liked it.

At the stop sign on the corner, Chester asked, “Where should we eat?”

“Well, tell the truth,” Alvin confessed, “there ain't really nothing open 'round here after dark.” Where was he going, anyhow? It'd be a hell of a long walk home by moonlight and he had already begun to feel weak. He sure didn't want to come home wheezing and have everyone in the family see how bad off he was.

“How about the other side of the river?” Chester asked, letting another automobile pass by before he went right.

“I guess so. There's a flock of hotels.”

“Should we drive over?”

Alvin shrugged. “All right.”

Chester turned at the stop sign, then drove quickly west along Buchanon Street. Most of the framehouses still had lights on, but the sidewalks were empty and the neighborhood was quiet. Alvin knew he had to feed the dairy cows in the morning and replace the floorboards in one of Uncle Henry's barn stalls and help fix his old disc harrow. He also knew Doc Hartley was coming out to the farm tomorrow afternoon to give him another once-over and maybe decide it was time for Alvin's folks to buy another train ticket on the Limited back to the sanitarium. That spooked him something fierce.

Chester asked, “Ever been across the Mississippi this time of night?”

“Not by motor.”

“Well, you see, I've got appointments in Hannibal and New London tomorrow. Maybe we ought to hire a couple of rooms, stay over a night or so. What do you think?”

“I ain't got any money.”

“We can tackle that tomorrow,” Chester said, steering around another corner. The bridge was up ahead, rising out of a cypress grove. “Say, maybe you can help me out in New London. I could sure use a partner who's willing to put in an honest day's work.”

“What would I have to do?”

Chester laughed. “Well, you wouldn't be slopping hogs.”

Alvin felt his face flush. Now he was really scared. This fellow was asking him to quit the farm, which he hated, without letting anyone know about it, and by noon everyone in the family would say that poor sick Alvin was too dumb to understand just how important it was that he begin his pneumothorax treatments all over again.

Chester swung the Packard onto the bridge that led west across the Mississippi River. Both windows were open and a draft swirled through, cold and nightdamp.

“Well, what do you say, kid? I won't kick about it if you say no, but you have to choose now. I got supper waiting for me on the other side of this bridge.”

Life was strange, Alvin thought, as a sort of weary exhilaration came over him. He had walked three miles to the derby and that was a long haul when he lived on the farm, but last week his only true ambition had been to go fishing Saturday morning with Frenchy, maybe lie on a summer hammock afterward by a hackberry grove near the creek. So he said to this fellow he hadn't even known an hour ago, “I guess I'll take that pie.”

Chester put the Packard back into gear. “You sure you're not going to pull out of it? It's pretty easy to get bitter if somebody goes back on you.”

“No, sir.”

“You're a brick, kid.”

“Thanks.”

W
HEN ALVIN PENDERGAST WAS THIRTEEN
,
two years before the consumption, he and Cousin Frenchy sneaked a ride one Saturday night on a melon truck driving south to market in Macomb. They figured on traveling a while before jumping off in the next county and hitching a ride back on Sunday. It was summer and the night was warm, so they just lay back and counted stars and gabbed about girls and fishing until they got sleepy and nodded off for a few hours. When they woke up, they found themselves parked behind a blacksmith shop next to a backhouse and a chicken coop full of squawking hens and a pack of children collecting eggs for breakfast. Alvin and Frenchy crawled down off the melon truck and walked out in front of the store to have a look-see, take the “lay of the land” as Frenchy put it. Not that there was all that much to see: a long dirt street, all the buildings on one side, shade trees and huge blackberry bushes on the other. Men sitting in chairs out front of the stores. Wagons parked at the curb. Horses reined to hitching posts. No automobiles anywhere. One sign on a post draped in trumpet vines across the road leading into town told them where they were:
Hiram, Ky. Pop. 132.
If they hadn't just recently gorged themselves on melon, they'd have been in trouble because neither possessed more than sixteen cents in his pockets. Alvin had a peculiar feeling, walking down the middle of Hiram's main street with Frenchy, trying to ignore the thought burning in his brain that he might never see home in Illinois again—an awfully black thought for a thirteen-year-old. Men stared at them from the storefronts clear down to the end of the road leading out of town. Alvin didn't see any women at all. The heels of the shoes Frenchy wore kicked up a trail of dust behind him, disturbing swarms of black flies off the horse apples in the dirt. Past a livery stable, the road bent left and went up a hill lined with more blackberry bushes. The boys followed it, hoping to find a county highway and another truck driving north to Illinois. Coming down the slope toward them was a preacher dressed all in black and carrying a leatherbound Bible. Back in Illinois, Alvin's mother attended church every Sunday, but his father never went, claiming the Lord knew how he felt about Him and didn't require a weekly recitation of those affections. Sunday School was where Alvin learned all about slingshots and miracles, which he preferred to sitting with the adults where everybody talked about loving the gospel while they farted all morning. Church was fine so long as it didn't last more than a couple hours and Momma cooked dinner afterward, but this particular Sunday in Hiram was different. The preacher had a little boy alongside dressed just the same as he was: black frock coat and suit, wide-brimmed hat, leatherbound Bible and comfort shoes. He had eyes like a crow and a face white as a spook. Man and boy shared the same gait, a purposeful stride that brought them straight down the road to Alvin and Frenchy. Probably they'd have walked right on by had Frenchy not whistled at the boy once they passed. Both preacher and disciple came about together just a few yards past Frenchy and Alvin. The boy wore a scowl like a wolverine. The preacher's face was mild but stiff. Alvin was terrified. Frenchy whistled again.

“You mock those bringing the Lord's word,” said the little boy in a fluty voice, “and He'll see a visitation upon your house. Ask old Pharaoh if that ain't so.”

“I ain't got no house,” replied Frenchy, puffing out his chest, “and I ain't got no silly-looking hat like yours, neither. And I wouldn't wear one if I did.” Alvin smiled. Frenchy hardly ever showed much respect for anyone smaller than himself. He was always puffed up about all sorts of things and let you know about it, too.

“Blasphemer!” said the boy, eyes narrowed in fury. “Jesus'll burn you up! You just—”

The preacher cuffed the boy, knocking his hat off. “You hush now. The Lord's got no tolerance for curses spoken in His name.”

Then he walked on up to Frenchy, his face hardened, while the boy bent down to pick up his hat. Tears filled his black crow's eyes, and the little one bowed his head.

The preacher looked down at Frenchy. “You boys look lost.” His voice was thick and hoarse, like he'd swallowed gravel for breakfast.

Frenchy shrugged. “We're just walking.”

The preacher held a firm countenance. “The road to the Lord is long and confusing. We all need a guide to take us to its proper end.”

Frenchy shuffled his feet in the dirt. Alvin hadn't the guts to look the preacher in the eye, nor did he know just what he and Frenchy were supposed to say.

“The Lord provides in Jesus a road map for all our lives,” the preacher continued. “Did you know that?”

“Jesus can see into your heart,” barked the little boy. “You can't lie to Jesus.”

“Hush up.”

“They're sinners, Papa,” the boy said, backing up. Tears streaked his cheeks and his lips quivered, but he spoke firmly. “Liars and sinners, both. I reckon I smelled 'em when I got up this morning. I know I did.”

In the blackberry bushes, birds twittered and squawked. The sun was rising quickly on the morning sky. It would be a hot day.

“The Lord offers salvation in multitudinous forms,” said the preacher, “and He does so without want of recompense or gratitude. It's His gracious heart that redeems us. Without our Lord's guiding hand, we'd all walk in constant night, utterly lost and confused.”

“We ain't lost,” said Frenchy, hardly a quiver in his voice. “We're just going fishing, is all. We like to start early.”

Alvin always admired Frenchy's talent for smart-mouthing, another one of the reasons Alvin liked knocking around with him. Also, Frenchy rowed the boat whenever they went fishing and didn't complain about it.

“I don't see no fishing poles,” said the little boy, sounding somewhat bolder himself. “Hard to catch fish without no poles.” He stepped closer to Frenchy and shook his Bible at him. “Jesus was a fisher of men, but I expect He'd just throw you two back.”

Before the boy could crack a grin at the joke he'd made, the preacher backhanded him across the face, knocking him down again into the dust.

The boy lay there whimpering as the preacher looked Frenchy square in the eye. Scared, Alvin backed up some, keeping one eye on the preacher and the other on the boy who lay flat in the dust, hat off, blood trickling from his nose. Alvin thought maybe he and Frenchy would have been better off staying in the melon truck.

“I ought to take you both home with me,” the preacher said to Frenchy, “set you to work learning about the Redeemer and the path He walked. I know you boys are lost. There's no sin in that. We all find ourselves lost now and again. Jesus Himself spent forty days in the wilderness. His suffering lent salvation to all men.”

“I told you,” said Frenchy, narrowing his eyes to meet those of the preacher, “we ain't lost. We're just going fishing, is all.”

The preacher's boy was on his knees now, grabbing his hat and fixing the brim. Tears and blood mixed in the dust. Flies buzzed across the road.

“The path to righteousness is the Lord's inspiration. You boys ought to study on that before you commence to walking any further. There's only one road worth following, and it's the Lord's. You remember that now.”

With those words, the preacher strode past Frenchy and Alvin, scooped the little boy up by the crook of his arm, and headed on down the road. Alvin watched them go, his knees shaking.

“Amen,” Frenchy said, and gave them one more whistle. Neither preacher nor little disciple looked back. Near the curve at the bottom, they passed out of sight.

Alvin swatted a fly off his face. Frenchy tossed a stone into the blackberry bushes, stirring up some bees. It was a long walk up the road, but Alvin was so afraid to follow the preacher back into Hiram they headed off just the same, deciding to walk home to Illinois if need be. Five hours later, God rewarded them with a ride north courtesy of a businessman from Galesburg, who had been visiting an acquaintance down in Bowling Green. When they reached Farrington, both boys received an enthusiastic whipping with a hickory rod in the tackroom of Uncle Henry's barn, followed by a lecture whose chief message was that life's highway holds extremes of danger and delight and only sinners and fools tempt its fancy.

 

Chester Burke's tan Packard Six was parked in a grove of old oak and black walnut trees on a shady bluff above the Missouri River a couple of miles from a small town called Hadleyville. Chester sat behind the steering wheel, reading a morning newspaper whose pages riffled in the morning breeze. Alvin Pendergast stood a few yards off in the sunlight, combing his hair and studying his look in a small hand-mirror. His face was sallow and thin, and he had a cough and a slight fever. Back home, he'd be in bed, sweating up the sheets, or maybe riding a train to the sanitarium. Far below to the east, a steamboat plied the wide green swirling current upriver.

Chester called over to him. “Look here, kid: the Babe hit another one. Rupert's gold mine. Greatest drawing card the game's ever had. I tell you, nobody stands 'em up like the Bambino. I saw him at Comiskey last year, swaggering around outside the clubhouse with a bottle of beer in each hand and it wasn't yet breakfast. Well, wouldn't you know it, he hit about a hundred balls out of the park in batting practice, went three-for-four in the game, then left with a dame on both arms! Can you feature that? Of course, Cobb was the real showman—get a hit, swipe a base, knock some poor dumb bastard on his keester. A genuine sonofabitch. My kind of ballplayer.” Chester folded the paper to read the next page. He looked back over his shoulder. “Not much of a baseball fan, are you?”

Alvin stuck the comb and mirror into his shirt pocket. “I don't like games at all. They're for babies.” Also, he hated getting sweaty from running about in the hot sun. Sports were for dumbbells.

“Don't be a philistine, kid. Baseball's great for the country. Keeps us square and healthy.”

“Sure it does.”

“You're smart, kid. Anyone tell you that before?”

“Nope.”

“Well, it's true. Stick with me, you'll go far.”

“Thanks.”

“You sick or something?” Chester asked, looking Alvin in the eye with a worried frown.

The farm boy turned away, scared of being found out. “No, sir.”

“Got the Heebie-Jeebies?”

“Maybe a little.”

“Don't let it stir you up too much.”

“I won't,” Alvin said, strolling off to the edge of the river bluff. At home, he might have been finishing up with his chores right about now, getting ready to go fishing with Frenchy. They had a spot all picked out for springtime, a little shelter dug into the riverbank by the winter storms on the Mississippi where they could sit in the shade with a tree branch dangling trotlines in the current. Frenchy had been collecting bait for a couple of months, ten dozen nightcrawlers in one gallon fruit jar alone. Frenchy hated fishing alone, so without Alvin there he'd call on Herbert Muller who didn't know a catfish from a groundhog, but who wanted to pal around with Frenchy, hoping to line up some work in the summer. If Alvin ever went home, he planned on crowning Herbert Muller with a rock.

Looking downriver, he thought about Doc Hartley coming out to the farm to see if the consumption had returned. He hadn't traveled to the sanitarium with Alvin, nor had he ever visited. He hadn't told Alvin or his folks about the artificial pneumothorax treatments or how the wards smelled of formaldehyde and death. During that first month at the sanitarium, Alvin watched two brothers no more than nine or ten years old die in the ward together, side by side, like two little pasty white ghosts, hacking their tiny lungs out. Alvin had expected to die himself. He'd thought that's why he had been sent away: to spare his sisters the pain of seeing him croak at home. He saw sixteen people die in his ward during the year he spent at the sanitarium. How could his folks think he'd ever go back there? He'd rather jump off a bridge or dive under a train. If they were intending to send him back to the sanitarium, maybe he wouldn't ever go home again at all.

Chester honked the motor horn.

Alvin spat over the bluff, then returned to the auto and climbed in. Man-sized sunflowers flanked the ditches on both sides of the road and swayed in the draft of the Packard as Chester sped off toward town. There was no traffic for miles. Nobody on the highway at all. It was a funny day, Alvin thought. Not even many birds whizzing through the air. After a while, they ran by the Hadleyville city limits sign. It was almost noon. Shade trees lined the road that led through the back neighborhoods. Flowers bloomed on the white fencelines that marked a few dooryards. A sign read:
Lots for Sale—Easy Terms.
Chester kept the automobile in low as they motored toward the center of town. The quiet sidewalks shimmered in the heat. A couple of blocks farther on, Chester pulled the car over into a Dixie filling station under the shade of a huge weeping willow and let the motor idle. Alvin looked around. Storefronts and flags. Leo Brooks Boots & Shoes, Franklin Bogart's Grocery Emporium, Barton Brothers Clothing and Furnishings, a Ford agency and repair garage, and a furniture store with a fluttering advertising banner:
Let us feather your nest with a little down!
Half a dozen automobiles were parked across the street, a few pedestrians strolling about. It was a nice town.

“Why're we stopping here?” asked Alvin, watching a small hound dog chase a bird across the street. He was feeling jumpy all of a sudden.