Thalia

by Larry McMurtry

  Joe Bob might have got through the summer all right if it had not been for the scandal caused by Mr. Cecil’s dismissal. That set the town on its ear so that it made things hard for all sinners. The church ladies decided the time had come for some widespread soul-saving. If a homosexual was teaching English in high school, there was no telling what state of degeneracy the ordinary populace had fallen into. Ruth Popper herself was known to be sleeping with a high-school boy. They decided to have an All City Revival, and they didn’t waste any money bringing in a slick traveling evangelist who would have charged them three hundred dollars. There were six active preachers in the town, plus Joe Bob and a few old ones that were retired, so the ladies decided to put aside denominational differences and make do with the native preaching stock.

  Everybody but Joe Bob thought it was a fine idea. He didn’t because it meant he would have to preach two sermons.

  “Yes sir,” Brother Blanton told him. “We’ve all got to get out there and preach our hearts out if we’re going to get this town back on the right track.”

  Joe Bob agreed, but he was afraid he could preach his own heart completely out in just a minute or two. During the winter his ministerial flame had burned very low—he was not even confident that he himself was saved. He knew that he harbored hatred in his heart for about three-quarters of the boys of the town, and that was surely not a Christian attitude. He had no idea what he could say that might prompt anyone in the congregation to rededicate their life to Christ, and so far as he knew, getting people to rededicate their lives was the only point of a revival.

  He worried about it for two weeks, and it turned out his worries were fully justified. Joe Bob had to preach the last sermon in the first go-round of preachers, which meant that he had to preach on a Thursday night, the worst possible night to preach. The first wave of revival spirit had had time to ebb, and the second wave had not yet begun to gather. The revival was held in the local baseball park under the lights, and when Joe Bob got up to preach there was just a sprinkle of a crowd, old faithfuls from all the churches in town, people so habituated to churchgoing that they never missed a sermon, no matter how dull. Joe Bob was dressed in his black wool suit, the only suit his father would let him preach in. The night was sweltering. For days Joe Bob had racked his brain, trying to come up with a sermon, but the only moral advice he could think of was that people ought to read the Bible more. That was his theme, and he sweated and stammered away at it for twenty minutes.

  “When I say back to the Bible I don’t mean just a chapter here and there,” he tried. “I mean the full Gospel, the whole Bible, all of it! Ever bit!”

  He kept working that point over desperately, hoping somebody, at least one person, would come down and rededicate his life. Finally, to his great relief, the Pender family got down out of the stands and came. It was not much of a triumph, because the Pender family rededicated their lives regularly, several times a year, but it was better than nothing. The Penders lived in a cabin down on Onion Creek where they shot squirrels and farmed sweet potatoes. Every two or three months, when things got boring, they came to church and rededicated their lives, hoping thereby to move the community to charity. They were a generally scruffy lot—in fact old man Elmer Pender spat tobacco juice right on home plate as Joe Bob was calling for the closing hymn.

  Because of the Penders, the first sermon was not a total disgrace, but Joe Bob still had the second one to preach. That one was scheduled for a Saturday night, only one night before the revival was due to end. Hysteria would be at its height, and Joe Bob knew he would need something more potent that the Full Gospel to exhort on that night. On the next-to-last night of a revival it would be a black disgrace not to get twenty or thirty rededications.

  All week he brooded about the final sermon. He knew good and well there was no way he could get out of it, and as the week wore on the only way he could get it off his mind was by abusing himself. By Saturday morning he was in a serious state. He stayed in his room until noon and abused himself twice. Then he talked his father into letting him use the family Plymouth, on the grounds that he needed to go off and commune with nature in order to get inspiration for his sermon. Nature that day was about as hot as the place Joe Bob was supposed to be saving people from. He drove out to the lake and sat staring at the water for a couple of hours, thinking how much he didn’t want to preach that night. Finally he tired of staring at the bright sun-whitened water and drove into town to get a Coke. That move turned out to be his downfall.

  The facts of it almost passed belief. Nobody in Thalia would have supposed that Joe Bob could get in so much trouble in Thalia, Texas, right in the middle of a hot Saturday afternoon. Sonny heard about it almost as soon as the news got out. The sheriff happened to be in the poolhall shooting a quiet game of snooker when Monroe, his skinny deputy, came bursting in, white as a sheet.

  “Sheriff, Johnny Clarg’s little girl has kinda been kidnapped,” he said. “They seen the preacher’s boy putting her in his car about an hour and a half ago, in front of the drugstore.”

  “What the hell?” the sheriff said, taking aim at a red ball. “Maybe Joe Bob gave her a ride home—be doing her a favor, hot as it is. Why should Joe Bob want to kidnap Molly Clarg?”

  “Don’t ask me,” Monroe said. “She ain’t at home, though. Miz Clarg’s all upset—she’s done looked everywhere for ’em. They was seen drivin’ out of town toward Olney. Miz Clarg’s afraid Joe Bob might be goin’ to mo-lest her or something.”

  At that the sheriff quickly slapped his cue into a rack. He was getting beat anyway, and a sex crime called for immediate action.

  “Some of you boys might come with us,” he said. “If that’s the way it is, no tellin’ what we’ll find.”

  In all, three cars set out on the search. Brother Blanton was in one, with his wife and some good church deacons. Mrs. Clarg was in another, with a deputy and some of her friends, and the sheriff and several men were in the lead car. Sonny was with the sheriff.

  Fortunately, no particular searching was required. It was clear to everybody that Joe Bob had taken Molly out to an old lovers’ lane, three or four miles south of town.

  “Boys, I don’t know what to think, but I fear the worst,” the sheriff said, wiping his sweaty face on his shirt sleeve. He drove like sixty, roaring over the rattly cattle guards as if they weren’t there. If they hadn’t been lucky and encountered Joe Bob on an open stretch of dirt road the sheriff might well have plowed right into him and killed Molly and several other people. When they spotted him Joe Bob was on his way back to town, but he was coming reluctantly, at a speed of five miles an hour. He stopped instantly when he saw the three cars coming toward him.

  The sheriff quickly got out of his car and rolled down the cuffs of his shirt sleeves, while Joe Bob sat in the Plymouth, looking miserable. Everyone but Brother Blanton and his wife got out of the cars and stood looking indecisively at the Plymouth. After a moment Mrs. Clarg became hysterical and ran over to the Plymouth and yanked Molly out. Molly was five, and had been sitting quietly in the front seat eating a lemon all-day sucker Joe Bob had given her. When her mother yanked her out everybody noticed that she didn’t have her panties on.

  “Get him, ain’t you goin’ to?” Mrs. Clarg cried. “He’s the one done it, here’s my little girl, why don’t you get him. If my husband was here he’d kill him dead.”

  At that the sheriff and Monroe leaped in and pulled Joe Bob out of the car.

  “What’d you do to that child?” the sheriff said. “We all know you done somethin’.”

  Joe Bob started to say something but he was too scared and nervous to get it out. Instead he collapsed, and they carried him to the sheriff’s car and rushed him back to Thalia.

  Sonny volunteered to drive the Blantons’ Plymouth into town. Seeing Joe Bob so scared depressed him and he drove slowly. Molly Clarg’s panties were lying in the car seat—no one had noticed them, but Sonny supposed they were evidence so he left them there. By
the time he got back to town the poolhall was full of men, all of them talking about the crime. It was generally agreed that Johnny Clarg would go to the jailhouse and kill Joe Bob as soon as he came in off his rig.

  Then Monroe came in with news that the doctor had said Joe Bob hadn’t actually done anything to Molly. Apparently he had just given her the lemon all-day sucker as a bribe to get her to take her panties off, and that was all he had done. It was kind of a letdown.

  “Never had the guts,” Andy Fanner said. “Preacher’s boy.”

  “Well, the sheriff figures he might have mo-lested her a little bit,” Monroe said. “It stands to reason.”

  “I’ve thought for years the boy was that kind,” Coach Popper said, when he found out about it.

  At any rate, Joe Bob had found the one method available to him for getting out of his second revival sermon. He spent that night and many others in jail, but in a way, what did happen at the revival that night was his triumph. His disgrace made possible the greatest upsurge of religious feeling the town had ever known. Brother Blanton insisted on preaching his son’s sermon, and what he said did it. He rose above calamity and got right out there on home plate to lay matters on the line.

  “Good people,” he said, “I guess today I’ve suffered about the worst shock that can come to a man of God. My own son sits in jail tonight, sick with corruption. This very afternoon he was caught in an act of carnal trespass, a thing so foul it’s almost unspeakable. How that tears my heartstrings I can’t say, but what I want you to know tonight is that I’ve come through. The Lord has held me up. I’ve not lost one bit of faith. As for Joe Bob, I’ve given him up to the Lord. I’ve prayed to the good Lord this very night that they’ll send my boy to prison. Yes, to prison! Sometimes in this life things just don’t work out, and I believe it is God’s merciful will that Joe Bob go to suffer with the murderer and the thief. It will be a hard thing but a just thing, and I know Joe can count on God’s help.”

  At that Brother Blanton broke down, stretched his arms to the crowd, and began to cry. “Oh, my friends,” he said. “If only you would take heed from my trouble. If only you would listen and realize that Jesus Christ is the only answer. If only you would come down tonight, just come down and pray with me and let all of us rededicate our lives right now to the pure way, the righteous way. . . .”

  The crowd was overcome by Brother Blanton’s self-sacrifice. They flocked down, weeping and hugging one another, the women all slapping at their faces with damp powder puffs, trying to keep their makeup from running completely off. The Penders even came again, Elmer, Lee Harvey, and Mag, the three of them swept away by the general fervor.

  There was one strange moment though, right at the start of the sermon: Lois Farrow walked out. As soon as Brother Blanton said he hoped Joe Bob would go to jail, Lois left the stands, got in the Cadillac, and drove away. A lot of tongues clicked—most people thought Lois needed saving worse than anyone in town. Even Brother Blanton felt a momentary irritation when he saw her leaving. Saving a soul as far gone as hers would have really gained him some heavenly credit.

  What Lois did after she left was even more unusual: she went down to the jail and made Monroe let her play checkers with Joe Bob. It almost passed belief, but she sat right in the cell and played Joe Bob three games, two of which Joe Bob won. He was not feeling too bad, really. Getting out of the sermon had taken a big load off his mind.

  Jacy stayed home from the revival and spent the evening watching television. While Gunsmoke was on, her Daddy and Abilene came in. She could hear them in the kitchen, drinking and talking about some drilling problem. After a while Abilene came into the room with a whiskey glass in his hand and stood looking at her.

  “Hi,” she said. “Where’s Daddy?”

  “Gone to bed.”

  “Want me to turn the TV off?” she asked. She was never quite sure what Abilene expected of her.

  “Naw, I’m going to the poolhall soon as I finish this drink,” he said, leaning against the doorjamb. She was in shorts and her legs were stretched out on Gene’s footstool.

  “Wish I could go to a poolhall,” she said, with a small pout. “I’ve always wanted to. It’s terrible the things girls aren’t allowed to do.”

  “Why hell, come on,” Abilene said. “No problem there. I’ll show you the poolhall. I got my own key.”

  He had always thought of her as a prissy kid, but her legs convinced him he hadn’t been watching close enough.

  “Aren’t there people there?” she asked.

  “If there are they’ll be upstairs asleep,” he said. “They won’t bother us.”

  “Okay, I will go then.” She felt a little nervous, but she knew he would be irritated if she backed out. She stepped out into the night in front of him. Just getting in the Mercury was exciting: it was the most famous car in that part of the country, and the seat covers smelled of tobacco and beer. Abilene kept it very neat. There was nothing vulgar in it, no dice hanging from the rearview mirror, but there was something on the dashboard that fascinated Jacy. It was a tiny, expensive-looking statue of a naked woman. A magnet held it to the dashboard, and as the car moved the statue wiggled provocatively. The woman had a gold stomach and tiny little bloodstones for nipples. Jacy tried not to stare at her.

  When they stopped in front of the poolhall Abilene took a comb from behind the sun visor and slicked his hair back a little. The building itself was very dark. Abilene went in first and turned on a little light behind the cash register; he looked at her so inscrutably that Jacy began to be nervous. After he locked the door he got his special cue out of its drawer.

  He pulled the light string above one of the snooker tables and the fluorescent tubes blinked on and spread bright light over the green felt and the neat triangle of red balls. As Jacy watched, Abilene put the jointed cue together and glanced appreciatively down its polished length. The cue had an ivory band just below the tip. Jacy was fascinated. She had never been in such a male place before, and it was thrilling.

  After he had carefully chalked his cue, Abilene took a white cue ball out of one of the pockets and rolled it slowly across the table. Then he nudged the ball gently with his cue and it went across the table and came back, right to the end of the cue. Abilene smiled, and Jacy came over and stood beside him, so that she could see better. He handled the cue as lovingly as if it were a part of his body.

  “Can I see it a minute?” she asked.

  Abilene held it out to her a little reluctantly, clearly unwilling to let it leave his hand. Jacy held it awkwardly, trying to sight along it as expertly as he had. When she leaned over the table and playfully attempted to shoot the cue ball Abilene stepped in and took the cue away.

  “I don’t let nobody shoot with this one,” he said. “There’s plenty of others to shoot with, if you just want to practice.”

  Jacy pouted a little, not really interested in the other cues. She sat down on a bench and watched Abilene as he got ready to shoot. She had never seen a man who was so absolutely sure of himself. He put the white cue ball in the center of the table, sighted quickly, and then with a quick hard thrust of his hips sent the white ball ramming into the tight triangle of red balls. There was a sharp crack, and the red balls scattered and rolled all over the table, a few of them bumping together with soft little clicks. Abilene began to shoot them into pockets, moving lightly and purposefully around the table. The cue was never still. Sometimes he held it up and rubbed a little more chalk onto the tip, or propped it briefly against his hip as he contemplated a shot, but most of the time he didn’t contemplate, he just moved rapidly and smoothly from shot to shot.

  Jacy began to bite a hangnail on her thumb. She had never seen anything like what she was seeing. Sometimes Abilene seemed to be teasing the red balls across the table, nudging the white ball softly and gently and barely easing the red ball into the pocket. Sometimes he was quick with one stroke and slow with the next, and sometimes, as if excited or annoyed, he suddenly shot a bal
l very hard, ramming it into a pocket with a quick disdainful thrust of the cue. The balls made a solid thonk when they were whammed into the pockets. Abilene was totally absorbed in the table full of balls, and Jacy became almost as absorbed in the lovely movements of the cue. When all the balls were gone Abilene racked them and quickly broke again. The hard crack of the cue ball affected Jacy strangely. She felt a trickle of sweat roll out of her armpit and down her ribs. She was vaguely aware that she wanted something, but she couldn’t take her eyes off Abilene long enough to think what. He took his time with the second rack, moving around the table more slowly, now lifting the cue and dropping it, withdrawing it and shoving it forward, drawing out every stroke. Jacy was almost annoyed that he had forgotten her—she squirmed a little on the bench, feeling sweaty. She wanted to run and grab the cue away from him, so he would realize she was there. But she merely sat, and he kept shooting until only the cue ball and one red ball were left. That one he shot terribly hard, without caution, thonking it into one of the corner pockets. The sound made something happen in Jacy, something like what used to happen when she and Duane courted on the basketball trips.

  Abilene must have known it happened. He laid the cue gently on the green felt and the next minute was kissing her, one hand rubbing her shorts. Jacy found she had no muscles left—she was limp, leaning back against the wall. But when he stepped back a little her hand followed and caught his wrist. Abilene shook her hand off and went and got an old pair of overalls that were hanging on a nail near the door of the poolhall. He turned off the light by the cash register and then carefully spread the overalls on the snooker table before he switched that light off too. When he came back to Jacy the hall was dark except for the rows of light coming through the south windows from the lampposts along the street.