Interactions

Sundown in zion

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Our hero wanders the Earth

            “So there I was, little four-year old Clifton Sikes, holding up one of my Uncle John’s boots and looking straight up at Uncle John and Momma. She had her hands on her hips like an ass-whupin’ was comin’ for shore as soon as she got me by myself.” Clifton laughed. “Then, what are you doin’ with Uncle John’s boot, she wanted to know.” He laughed again. “I said, ‘Lookin’ fer snakes.’ Her face got real red she started to turn around but I said, ‘Didn’t you say Uncle John had snakes in his boots’ the other day?” This time he laughed long and hard, slapping his knee for emphasis. “Godamnest whuppin I ever got.”

            “I don’t understand,” Nelson said. “Were there snakes in his boots?”

            “Hell no,” Clifton said. “Don’t you see…?” He stopped in mid-sentence. “Oh,” he said. “You ain’t from around here, are you?”

            “No,” said Nelson, obviously confused. He was driving through downtown Connorville and enjoying Clifton’s stories.

            “She said Uncle John, he was my daddy’s brother, had ‘snakes in his boots.’ She’d said it at the dinner table the day before. Down in these parts that meant a man was a lyin’ asshole, a lyin’ deceivin’ asshole. Somebody that ain’t to be trusted. So Uncle John shore knew what Momma thought about him after that.” He laughed again.

This time Nelson smiled. He said, “I guess that description would still some folks.”

“We got our share around here,” Clifton said.

“Could I ask you a question?” Nelson said. “And ask you to forget I asked it?”

“I owe you,” Clifton said. “Ask away.”

“The big church here, the Connorville Baptist Tabernacle, would anyone connected with it fit that group, have ‘snakes in their boots?’”

Clifton turned toward quickly toward Nelson. His eyes squinted. “Why on earth would you ask that?”

“Just things I hear,” Nelson said, “make me wonder.”

“What sort of things?”

“Mostly about that group you were talking about. Aren’t they the ones who call themselves the Soul Warriors.”

“Oh,” Clifton said. “That bunch.”

“You know them then.”

“Hell son,” Clifton said, “Everybody knows them.”

“And?”

“Ain’t a snake on earth brave enough to hide in one of them boys’ boots.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning they’s lyin’ deceitful assholes that are mean as hell on top of that.”

“But they work for a church?”

“Hell, they don’t work for the church or nowhere else, much,” Clifton said.

“They don’t work for the church?”

“Not really. They hang around there scaring folks by talking about how they’ll beat the shit out of anyone that don’t love Jesus. That’s when they ain’t over at their so-called ‘deer club’ shootin’ their guns. Oh, and they hang out some at that concealed carry place you was at while ago.”

“How did you know I was there?”

“I seen your truck parked there,” Clifton said. “I notice things.”

Nelson returned the conversation to its previous course. “But back to the Soul Warriors,” he said, “what connection do they have with the church?”

“My opinion?”

“Your opinion.”

“Coverin’ their asses,” Clifton said, “so folks don’t start askin’ what goes on over at that deer club.”

“And what is that supposed to be?”

“Don’t ask me,” Clifton said. “I ain’t never been invited over. You can bet it ain’t Bible study, though.”

Nelson turned approached a main highway. “Speakin’ of that church,” Clifton said, “go straight and I‘ll show you a shortcut back to my truck. It takes you by the Tabernacle, matter of fact.”

Nelson continued straight. “What does the group do at the Ransom Center? I’ve heard they work there.”

“Maintain discipline, they say,” Clifton said. “And they help chase after runaways.”

“Are they good at it?”

“Not so I hear,” Clifton said. “They did find that Anderson girl, Bonnie Sue. That’s the only one I know of that they’ve found. The rest got clean away.”

“The rest?”

“I hear maybe ten girls run off from that place and ain’t never been found. They draw girls from all over the state.”

“The girls don’t like it there?”

“Some do. They’ve actually cured some.”

“Of drug addiction?”

“Mostly.”

“How did they find the one? What’s her name?”

“Bonnie Sue? Hell I could have found her. All you had to do was go to the nearest burger joint. That’s where they found her.”

Nelson looked confused.

“Girl likes to eat,” Clifton said. “Always has. That’s what she was in for.”

“Weight control?”

“You might say, “Clifton said. Before Nelson could answer, Clifton leaned forward and pointed. “Looky goddam yonder,” he said, pointing down the street.

Nelson leaned too. The Connorville Baptist Tabernacle campus started on the next block and the entire street was clogged with vehicles. Nelson immediately signaled and made a left turn to avoid the jam. “Jesus,” he said.

“They ain’t goin’ to see Jesus this time of day,” Clifton said. “Wonder what’s going on?”

“No idea,” Nelson said.

“Circle the block,” Clifton said. “Maybe I’ll see someone I know and can ask.”

“You aren’t afraid of being seen with me?”

“Hell no,” Clifton said. “It’ll build my reputation to be seen with that mysterious stranger who’s been hanging around town breaking the fingers of piss ants who cross him.”

“What makes you think I’ve broken …” He stopped. As he turned the next corner, he had stalled in traffic just as a figure stepped from a parked truck and turned to face Nelson and Clifton. It was the one they called Bully Bridges and he stopped cold from less than ten feet away. His face became stony and the glared at Nelson with a look of palatable hatred. The two locked eyes for a few seconds before Bridges nodded, displaying not a look of greeting but one that promised future intercourse, and that not of a pleasant kind. With that, he walked past them and toward the church.

“Who are you, Mister?” Clifton asked.

“Nobody,” Nelson said.

“You got to be somebody to rate a look like that. Do you know who that was?”

“I know,” Nelson said.

“Ya’ll ain’t in the same Sunday School class, I’ll bet.”

“No,” Nelson said. “We’re not.” He drove on.

As they neared the edge of town, Clifton was talking again. “So we never had no kids. But let me tell you, mister, we tried. We sure as hell tried. I loved that woman like Jesus loves a sinner and I’m pretty sure she liked me more than I deserved. We tried ever way we knowed how. Closest we came was one miscarriage. That nearly killed her and it nearly killed me when she died.” He stopped talking. He sniffed once and said, “It was just before her fortieth birthday. Cancer. I kept our dairy going until I turned 62 but my heart never was in it any more. So I sold out. What I got for it, and my Social Security, lets me live pretty well, but I’d give it all, ever last cent, for one more day with her. Hell, one more hour. You’d better believe I would.”

Nelson blinked. “You never remarried?”

“Son,” Clifton said. “A man who’s lived on steak for 20years ain’t never gonna be satisfied with hamburger again.” He stopped again, then, after a breath, resumed. “What about you? You married?”

“Not me,” Nelson said.

“Why in the world not?”

He thought. “I guess I’ve never been lucky enough to find one like you did. I guess if I ever do, I’ll know it right away.”

            “Son,” Clifton said. “It don’t work that way. It don’t work that way at all. What you got to do is find one that loves you, and will have you, and then you got to work long and hard to deserve her.”

            “I’ll keep looking,” Nelson said.

            “Not around here though,” Clifton said. “Slim pickings.”

            “You don’t like these folks?”

            “Oh, don’t get me wrong,” Clifton said. “They’s some nice folks left, mostly from the old families. Even some of the new ones who have moved here ain’t bad. But I wish you could have seen the place back in the old days.”

            “Good people.”

            “Good like you seem to be,” Clifton said. “People who wouldn’t a bit more pass a stranded stranger on the road than they would their own kin.”

            “That’s nice know,” Clifton said as he pulled behind Clifton’s truck. Clifton opened the door, climbed out and placed the new battery on the ground. He closed the truck’s door and spoke through the open window. “I can manage from here. Thanks a million.”

            “Couldn’t you use some help getting it in place?”

            “Evening traffic’s building,” Clifton said. “You’d better get on back to Little Rock. Just remember, though.”

            “Remember what?”

            “What you see now ain’t the Connorville that Marge and I knew. They were good honest folks who’d loan you the shirt off their back.” He paused. “If you was white.”

            Nelson said, “So that was important?”

            “They just never liked the coloreds.” Clifton said. “And that ain’t no crime these days, now is it?” He turned and reached for his battery. Nelson watched until he saw that Clifton had wrestled the new battery into place.

            Nelson drove back to Little Rock deep in thought. When he reached home, Charley’s care was pulled to the back of the drive but he wasn’t home. Nelson showered and changed to khakis and a knit shirt. He slipped on a pair of dark loafers and left a note for Charlie that read, “Going in harm’s way. You have the place to yourself tonight.”

            Arriving at Tina’s house he parked and walked to the door, carrying a bottle of wine. Before he could ring the bell, the door opened and Tina stood before him in the same kimono she had worn before. She ushered him through the door. Taking the wine, she read the label, looked at him, and said, “How thoughtful.” Stepping to him, she wrapped arm, hand, and wine bottle around his neck and pulled him toward her. She pressed her mouth to his and began a long, flickering kiss. Feeling a stirring, she reached down, felt, and smiled. She dew back, looked at the bottle of wine again, and said, “We’ll save it. ‘Sex first, wine and foreplay later,’ as the good old boys say. Don’t that sound nice?” With that she walked away and placed the wine on the kitchen table. She turned to face Nelson. “Follow if you dare,” she said as she turned and walked toward the hallway leading to her bedroom. With what was surely a practiced move, she unloosened the belt of her kimono,  executed a slight shrug, and let it fall to the floor. Naked, she continued into the hall. Viewed from behind, her perfectly-formed bottom moved in a fluid motion with her body, her shoulders thrown back with an arrogant promise. This brought forth a slight gasp from Nelson.

He followed.

            Later, the night began to close on the teeming masses making up the small spot of earth traveled by Gideon Nelson and on the people impacting his life. He lay beneath silk sheets thinking, with Tina Barrow snoring softly into his cheek. Across town, Charlie Winters punched keys on a keyboard and stared at a website on Nelson’s computer. In Hot Springs, Martin Barker studied numbers on a cell phone. In Armistead, Sheriff Gladson Love watched TV and read copies of notes his deputies had made for him. Not too far from there, Clifton Sikes finished another lonely meal in silence, looked at his wedding ring, wiped a tear from his eye, and reached for his check.