Michaela Thompson - Florida Panhandle 01 - Hurricane Season (5 page)

She got the cash drawer from the old safe in the back room and checked through the store’s dim interior to make sure everything was tidy. The comic books were straight on the wire rack; no bugs were caught in the glass jars that held gumdrops and jawbreakers and sour balls, the candies already oozing together slightly in the heat; and the nets—made for her by Sam Perry on St. Elmo—were correctly sorted by size.

“Praise the Lord,” a voice said.

Lily sighed. Outlined against the screen door was the lanky figure of Wesley Stafford, the youth worker at the Methodist Church.

Best to be sociable. “Good morning,” she said as Wesley came in. “Saw you out on the dock.”

He removed a stack of folders from the Bible he carried. “Got some tracts to give the folks when the ferry comes.”

As a Methodist herself and an admirer of Paul the Evangelist, Lily had nothing against proselytizing. She was, however, beginning to find Wesley’s company a bit wearing. He had been showing up to hand out tracts several times a week lately.

She took one of the folders from him and read:

“Miracles can happen in our Lives. Though your sins be as Scarlet they shall be as white as Snow. I have known in my own Life, my father made me get on my Knees and pray to Jesus when I was a Sinner. Though he slay me yet will I trust Him.

“There is Lust among us, and those that spread Lust among us. St. John says:
I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.

“There is Lust among us, and those who flaunt themselves among us. And there shall be great tribulation if they do not repent.

“Lay your burdens on Jesus. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Light.”

She put the leaflet on the counter. “You wrote this yourself?”

“Yes ma’am. Ran it off on the church mimeograph machine.”

Lily considered. While there were no sentiments in Wesley’s tract with which she would disagree, she felt that the tone wasn’t as measured as she would like. She wondered if the Methodist preacher, Brother Chillingworth, was aware that Wesley was using the church mimeograph to run off essays about Lust.

“Must be about time for you to go back to seminary,” she said.

Wesley clasped his big-knuckled hands. “I can do the Lord’s work just as well here as at a seminary in Montgomery.”

“Sounds like you think St. Elmo is an evil place.”

“Go ye into all the world
, the Bible says. There are sinners here, like everywhere else.”

“Shoo.”

“Yes ma’am. Drinking goes on, and well, I guess you’d have to say whoring, but when I say whoring I don’t just mean ladies who take money and all.”

Lily did not intend to sit in her own store and talk about whoring, even if it was with a seminary student. “Maybe a Christian boy shouldn’t listen to that kind of gossip.”

Wesley reddened. “I want to help Jesus save people.”

Lily wondered if Jesus’s cause suffered more because of his enemies or his helpers. She was glad to hear the first faint sounds of the
Island Queen.
“Here comes the ferry,” she said, and she and Wesley walked outside to watch it.

From this far away, the
Island Queen
didn’t look rusty at all but shone white in the early morning sun, cutting through the water steadily and, Lily always thought, triumphantly.

“Now, isn’t that a beauty,” said Wesley. Lily looked at him in surprise. There he stood with his ungainly body and his ideas about whoring and a trickle of sweat running down past the earpiece of his glasses, and he felt the same way she did about the
Island Queen
. She felt chastised.

“What you need,” she said, raising her voice above the steadily louder throbbing of the engine, “is to get back to seminary so you can be a full-fledged preacher. With a church and flock and all.”

Wesley shook his head. “My work is here.”

He looked so stubborn and uncertain that Lily relented. “Maybe you have the calling.”

They turned to watch the
Island Queen
—hulking and rusty but still, to Lily’s eye, beautiful—pull into the slip. When the engine was cut off, Wesley strode forward to greet the passengers, and his “Praise the Lord” drifted back to her.

Lily turned and walked to the store, prepared to say good morning to her first customer.

Sal’s Roadhouse was halfway between the St. Elmo city limits and the Trulocks’ store. The place had a name—Three Mile, after a stone marker beside the highway. There were other bars around St. Elmo, but Sal’s was the serious juke joint. If a man was with his wife, it was a good St. Elmo joke to greet him with, “Have a good time at Sal’s last night?” and leave him, unjustly accused, to stammer his way out of it. If a person wasn’t quite himself, it was common to say, “He must’ve been visiting Sal.” Sal’s was St. Elmo’s synonym for a clandestine good time.

Appearances gave no clue to why Sal’s had been anointed. The roadhouse was a flat-roofed building of fading, salmon-colored concrete blocks. Between it and the road was a parking lot of crushed oyster shells, and the woods—palmetto, scrub oak, pine—encroached in back. A not very bright neon champagne glass with three neon bubbles and
Sal’s
written in blue script adorned the front. It was possible to miss it completely in the dark and never realize you’d passed the most notorious site in the county.

No matter the time of day, it was dark inside Sal’s. The windows were painted over, and the only light came from the jukebox and a shaded bulb over the bar. Occasionally, on hot afternoons, the door was left open, admitting a beam of sunlight that caught and held the dust spinning in the air.

The door was open this afternoon. The lunch drinkers had returned to their jobs, and remaining were those who had nowhere else to go and nothing better to do. At a table in the corner, alone, drinking Southern Comfort, sat Diana Landis.

The corner table was customarily Diana’s. Many things had happened at that table over the time it had been her preserve—assignations made and broken, tears, vomiting, shouting, dancing. At the moment, all was quiet. Diana, looking strained and pale, drank silently.

The bartender, a young man named Moody Winchester who had sandy hair and slightly bucked teeth, ran a damp rag over the bar and eyed Diana. A year or so ago he had spent an instructive half hour with her on the dog’s blanket in the back of his uncle’s pickup truck. The truck had been parked around back at the time, and Moody’s cousin had taken over the bar duties so Moody could slip away.

Events had been moving swiftly toward a pleasant outcome, or at least so Moody thought, when Diana suddenly sat up and announced that she suspected the blanket had chiggers in it. She laughed at his surprise and discomfiture, and the memory of that sound made his ears feel scalded yet. By the time he persuaded her that there were no chiggers, or that if there were he’d get her some ointment for them, his possibilities for participation had deteriorated.

This had called for more mirth from Diana, and the encounter ended unhappily. Even though he had known ever since that Diana was poison, Moody still occasionally got an urge to finish what he’d started. Something told him, though, that today wouldn’t be a good time.

Diana had come in an hour ago, sat down at her table, and motioned to Moody for her usual. Since then, she had moved only to convey the glass to her mouth, but she had done that regularly and was now working on her third drink. Her eyes were fixed on the flyblown photo of Rosemary Clooney that Moody’s cousin had cut out of
Photoplay
and tacked up beside the door, but Moody would have bet that Rosemary Clooney wasn’t on her mind. Her glowering presence disrupted an otherwise peaceful atmosphere. The only other activity in the room was a three-way argument at the bar over what bait to use for bass.

The light from the half-open door dimmed, and a shadow ballooned across the floor as Wesley Stafford walked in with his Bible under his arm. Moody made vigorous circling motions with his rag, glaring at the smeared bar.

Wesley extracted a piece of paper from his Bible, slid it across the bar to Moody, and said, “Praise the Lord.”

“Praise the Lord,” said Moody. “You want a drink?”

Wesley ignored the question. “I’m here to tell the good news.” He shoved the paper closer to Moody. “The good news,” he repeated.

Wesley’s entrance had caught everyone’s attention. Diana set her drink on the table and stared at him. He opened his Bible to a place marked with a slip of paper.
“Wine is a mocker. Strong drink is raging
,” he read in a carrying voice.

“Lord Jesus, it’s the truth,” said one of the drinkers.

Moody leaned across the bar and put his hand on Wesley’s arm. “Excuse me, Preacher.”

Wesley stopped reading. “It’s the gospel.”

“I know,” said Moody, “but I don’t think—”

Diana’s voice cut through the room. “Hell, Moody, let the man talk.”

Moody straightened. “I got nothing against him, but I don’t want him bothering people.”

“Then he doesn’t have to talk to you. He can talk to me.” She patted the chair next to her. “Come on over here, Brother Stafford.” When Wesley didn’t respond, she patted more insistently. “Come
on
.”

Wesley moved toward her, sat down, and placed his Bible on the table. He cut his eyes back to Moody, who was rubbing the bar and watching the two of them.

Diana leaned toward Wesley and slid a tract out of his Bible. As she unfolded it, she nodded at Moody. “Bring Brother Stafford a Southern Comfort.”

Wesley’s mouth set. “No.”

Moody didn’t move until Diana fixed him with a look. “You hear me, Moody?”

As Moody poured the drink Diana smoothed the paper out on the table and read silently. Wesley ignored the whiskey when it was set in front of him.

“I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not
,” Diana read aloud.

Wesley stared past her. She moved his drink closer to him. “Why don’t you try a taste?” When he shook his head, she dipped her forefinger into the amber liquid, then brushed it lightly over his lower lip. Instinctively, his tongue slid out and licked at the wetness.

Diana giggled tonelessly as his face grew deeply red. “How can you preach against it if you don’t know what it is?” She dipped her finger in the drink again, but this time Wesley pushed her hand away from his mouth.

She licked the finger herself. “You write nasty things about me.” She tapped the paper. “Yes, I know that
is
about me. But you won’t be friendly. How do you know I don’t have
my
side?”

“There’s only the Lord’s side.”

“You won’t even listen to me.”

Wesley leaned forward. “I’ll listen.”

“You aren’t friendly. You won’t have a drink with me.” She pouted and turned away.

Wesley looked at his glass. He reached out a tentative hand toward her. “I can’t,” he said. “My daddy—”

Diana faced him, her lips curled. “I do all kinds of things my daddy doesn’t like. You go around the county spreading trash about me, and then you won’t even be nice.” She watched him intently. “You won’t even try,” she said, her voice hoarse.

Wesley gripped the edge of the table. “I can’t.”

Diana sighed explosively. “Then go away.”

“But I want to tell you—”

“I don’t care. Go away.”

“You’re sending away the Word.”

Diana poured the rest of her drink down her throat. “If I go to hell it’ll be your fault.”

Because his eyes were momentarily closed, his lips moving, he missed her quick sidelong glance. He took a breath, picked up his glass, and swallowed half the whiskey in it. His face was redder than ever. “There,” he said.

Diana’s mouth twitched. “Drink it all.”

He emptied the glass and sat swallowing, his Adam’s apple moving up and down.

Diana slid her chair closer to his. “Tell me the good news. I need some good news right now.”

“Wine is a mocker
.” Wesley’s voice was strained.

“I don’t care about that. Tell me about—” She read from the tract,
“There is Lust among us, and those that spread Lust among us.
That part.”

Wesley was silent.

“I know some Bible quotes,” said Diana.
“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.
That’s a Bible quote.”

Wesley picked up his Bible. “You’re making a mockery.” He opened it, searched for a moment, and declaimed, “
How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.”

Diana took the book and opened it to another place.
“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine
,” she read.

Wesley snatched the Bible from her and closed it. His eyes bulged behind his glasses.

“I was just reading what it said in the Bible,” said Diana. She leaned toward him and placed her hand against his chest. “I can feel your heart.”

Wesley swallowed. “I want to bring you to Jesus.”

“You like me that much?”

“Jesus loves you.”

“No. I mean
you
. I’m tired of men who act sweet at first and then treat me hateful. You like me?”

Wesley hesitated, then nodded.

Diana stood. She trailed her fingers along his chest and brought them to rest against the side of his neck. “Then let’s go.”

Wesley stood slowly and tucked his Bible under his arm. He followed Diana out the door. Moody Winchester stopped polishing the bar to watch them go.

The boat’s tiny cabin was stifling. Diana barely glanced at the bunk with its rumpled sheets. She took a bottle of Southern Comfort and two glasses from a cabinet and put them on the counter next to a fishing reel.

“No,” said Wesley. He steadied himself against the door frame.

Diana poured a drink and swallowed it.