Coo Coo be true worried.
“Boy,” he kept telling me, “when a picker hightails away from a field crew, there’s usual a reward for people who’ll help to haul him back.”
He didn’t trust a single solitary one of the Golden Prophets of Salvation, not even our leader.
“You mean,” I asked him, “that Holy Joe himself would turn us over to Mr. Boss, for the bounty fee?”
Coo Coo spat. “Most of the Holy Joes I met would sell their mother, father, sister, dog, or grandmother for a dime. And probable deliver all five for a quarter.”
The following evening, Coo Coo and I performed again. His gambling sin. My gimpy fakery, complete with crying and wood under my arm. Our Father discarded the stick I’d earlier used, sharpened a knife, and carved me a new crutch, adding a soft mound of padding for under my arm.
It worked a wonder.
For the bigger shows, at which sometimes even half a hundred hopefuls would attend, seeking to be Saved, our repentance act would have three actors, instead of two.
Delilah posed as my blind sister.
Our finale was more than even the hardest of hearts could bear. Coo Coo (the gambling, dice-rolling, pool-shooting, card-cheating no-good) continued to serve as our opening overture, as Our Father John called it. Then I limped forward on a crutch, trailed by our clincher, little blind Delilah, who groped her sightless way to embrace both Coo Coo and me.
A family united … and Saved.
Salvation.
Never before did I realize that there was so much human saliva in Salvation.
Whenever we put on our tent show Revival Meeting, there was somebody who’d sink to the ground and foam at the mouth. This was a happening that never seemed to upset Our Father John Patrick Mulligan. Instead, he appeared to revel in spit. The more the foam, the more heated come the fervor of his sermon.
At the first foaming fleck, Our Father would hasten to the stricken attendee, fall to his knees, circle his arms around the person, and loudly praise the Lord.
I didn’t know exact why. But, night after night, I started to believe what our Holy Joe was preaching. It took me a spell to understand. Final, it come. The reason I begun to believe Our Father John was because he believed in God. John Patrick Mulligan was becoming a Christian.
Whenever things went wrong, and it was certain that something would go awry, Our Father became less upset, and more helpful. In my eyes, Holy Joe was our father in aplenty of ways. Whenever a Sister didn’t feel up to snuff, Our Father John no longer urged the infirmed one to perform at our Revival.
“Ladies,” he told me in private, “are different than us gentlemen. Their bodies are quite unique, Arly, and someday you will discover this for yourself. I mean in wedlock, naturally.”
“How so different?”
He sighed.
“You are still so young. Please don’t think that you must learn, or discover, everything there is to know in one year. How old are you, Arly?”
I didn’t know.
“I used to be eleven.”
He smiled. “Perhaps now you’re twelve. From the size and height of you, yes, I’d say twelve years might be accurate enough.”
“What are you telling me?”
“Just so. Soon, our sweet Delilah will no longer be a child. Certain changes will take place within her. They, I believe, are called cycles. Her inner chemistry will change.” He laughed. “We fellows don’t experience such a phenomenon. But our lady friends do.”
“What sort of changes?”
“Sometimes our friend Delilah will be ill at ease. Then, at other times, she might become unruly, or tense, and even snap at you, and at the other Sisters.”
“I don’t understand.”
Our Father smiled. “Neither,” he said softly, “do I. Yet I’d imagine that a gentleman was never intended, by God, to fully understand all of the varieties of a female’s mood.” He placed a hand gently atop my head, mussing my hair. “When it occurs, please know that you, Arly, are not its cause. It is merely Mother Nature, in her way, and in her artistic variety.”
“How’ll I know?”
“Her hand may seek her stomach. Delilah may be in discomfort. I believe,” he whispered, “it’s called cramps.”
“Oh.”
“Remember this. When ladies have a stomachache, it is a gentleman’s duty to be gentle and forgiving. Later on, her forgiveness of your particular shortcomings will be offered in full measure.” Lowering his voice again, Our Father added, “Above all, when these so-called cramps take place, do not ask personal questions. Pretend you don’t even notice.”
Each day I’d watch Delilah.
At any minute, I expected her to clutch her belly, fall to earth, and faint away into a cycle, or bicycle, or even a tricycle if it suited her. Nothing like such took place. But, I noticed that one of our Sisters was complaining about cramps, holding her middle, and saying something about a curse.
Well, as good old Coo Coo would usual say, it was certain as shooting all Greek to me.
Our Father also noticed her. He looked direct at me, lifted his eyebrows, and then approached me in a most fatherly fashion.
“Cycle,” he whispered, twirling a little circle in the air with a chubby finger.
Then he winked at me, as though the pair of us shared a secret that only three folks knowed. Our Father John and Mother Nature and me.
I thought about all this cycle stuff for a few days. It made me trust Father John. Coo Coo, however, felt to the contrary.
“He’s a fake,” Coo Coo insisted, speaking of Our Father.
“No,” I said. “He actual ain’t.”
“Our show’s nothing except a phony fake.”
“Well,” I agreed, “part of it’s hokum. A sideshow. But his feelings about God, the feelings that he doesn’t really share with any of us, are as real as rain, Coo Coo. Honest. He loves God. And more, Our Father John loves all of us. Every single doggone man-jack of us.” I grinned. “Even you.”
Coo Coo shook his head. “Arly, I’m maybe too olden to believe in anything. Or believe in any person. Or any Lord.”
“Then,” I said, “I feel sorry for you.”
He frowned. “I don’t want no pity, boy.”
“No. Neither do I. All I’m asking is that you give old Holy Joe a break. Outside, he’s a slicker. Inside, he’s good.”
The two of us were sitting on a pair of turpentine barrels, outside a produce shed, near a town I didn’t know. It was early morning. None of the Golden Prophets of Salvation had ever worked even one single day as a field hand. At dawn, none of them did anything except roll over and slumber.
Coo Coo and I were usual first up.
And awake. Trying to scare out a breakfast.
We were eating right good. Business was flowering. The Golden Prophets of Salvation were saving souls right and left, and they certain had saved old Ace King and Arly Poole. We even got our truck engine repaired enough to start on the fifth or sixth try.
I felt prospering.
Almost a pound fatter.
Delilah even remarked that I was adding a ample lot of muscle, and that I would soon sprout up skyward, to be taller than she was measuring.
Looking up, I saw her coming toward me. Coo Coo was friend enough to leave, and limped away. It felt nifty to be alone with Delilah, and just be two kids.
I asked Delilah where we was at. She didn’t know. But then hurried off to inquire of Our Father John, and then returned, smiling.
“La Belle,” she said.
The name didn’t sound as though I’d know exact where we’d be. Certain not where we was heading.
“Why,” she asked me, “do you want to know?”
Before answering, I held quiet. No sense in telling Delilah that I was fixing to jump ship as soon as we’d locate close to Moore Haven.
As she sat beside me, I moved a inch or two closer to her, almost baking in the warmth of her nearness. We’d become more than sweethearts. Delilah and I were friends. And I knowed that nothing, or nobody, could ever change what we had. It belonged to only us.
Everyone else in our group was a grownup person. All except Delilah and me.
We were the only two people who walked together holding hands. And whenever Our Father John would mention love in one of his sermons, Delilah would look direct at me. I’d always do a likewise.
Right now, she was smiling at me. Her smile had a way of almost kissing my face with gentleness. It seemed I knowed her always.
“Delilah, what month are we in?”
“September. It’s September, 1928.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she said, giving my lips a gentle kiss. “And pleasant things always happen in September. I ought to know, Arly Poole.”
“What sort of pleasant things?”
“September’s my birthday.”