Stars of Alabama

by Sean Dietrich

  “I joined the revival troop for sixteen dollars a week. I changed my name. And that was the end of Lulu the Lefty.”

  “So J. Wilbur isn’t your real name?”

  “No, sorry to say it isn’t. All the preachers back then were using initials instead of names.”

  “So what’s your real name?”

  “Herman Pickles.”

  The car neared the courthouse. Coot could see the crowds of people gathered like bees around a honeycomb. And he could see a change in J. Wilbur’s persona immediately. The man went from being relaxed to assuming the personality E. P. had once used—only this was no act. It was the man he’d heard on the radio. A man who had inspired a country during times of war, pestilence, and famine. The man removed his eyeglasses and handed them to his driver.

  “Bill,” J. Wilbur said to the driver. “Pull right up onto the lawn of the courthouse. These people wanna revival, let’s give ’em what they want.”

  The car leapt over the curb and jostled Coot and Joseph from side to side. Joseph was startled awake with a snort. He looked around and said, “What’s going on?”

  “We’re here,” said Coot.

  “Already?”

  “Yes.”

  “I musta fallen asleep. What’d I miss?”

  Coot shushed him, then said, “I ain’t never gonna let you eat another pinto bean in your life, old man.”

  The crowd parted and let the car through. The vehicle crept through the makeshift camp before the courthouse and ran over smoldering campfires and edges of tents. People pressed their faces against the windows. Coot could see children trying to get a better look at who was inside.

  When the car came to a stop, there were people on all sides of the vehicle, standing in herds like cattle.

  J. Wilbur straightened his collar and smoothed his hair. He leaned toward Coot. “I owe a lot to your daddy, son.” He patted Coot’s leg. “In fact, I owe your daddy my eternal salvation, you could say.”

  The dignified man bowed his head briefly.

  Coot could see he was praying. Coot bowed his head too.

  Then J. Wilbur Chaplain kicked open the door and stepped out. The man crawled onto the top of his car like a man half his age. His long legs were limber and his movements were quick. Coot was surprised to see the man move so fast. His shoes made banging noises on the automobile roof.

  He shouted. He clapped his hands. He stomped his feet until he nearly bent the dome of the car. He removed his coat and rolled up the sleeves of his sweat-stained shirt. He unbuttoned his collar. Coot could see Marigold’s face in the open window of the courthouse above. And he could still feel her kiss.

  J. Wilbur Chaplain spoke of God and miracles and power and angels and healers. The veins in his head showed. Coot was unable to take his eyes from the man. And when J. Wilbur called sinners to repent, he waved his hand over the crowd and people nearly lost their minds. Elderly women fell backward; men started shouting and hollering. One woman claimed she’d been healed of gallstones. Another woman told news reporters that a goiter had gone down in size by three inches.

  J. Wilbur Chaplain preached for ninety-one minutes. Fully clothed.

  One newspaper headline read “Revival Hits Alabama.”

  Ninety-Four

  Through the Static

  Ruth read the Friday morning edition of the newspaper in earnest. She was not normally a newspaper reader, but the image on the front page had caught her attention. It looked like hundreds of people, hands raised, surrounding a man standing atop a car.

  She leaned against the counter of the kitchenette and waited for the dollop of grease to get soft in the skillet. She adjusted the knob on the stove so the flame swelled.

  She felt like a grown-up, cooking and making breakfast. She felt even older when she gave the newspaper one swift shake to straighten it. She did it again, just because it made her feel so mature.

  She studied the photo with great care.

  She adjusted the hot skillet over the flame, then read about the most famous evangelist in America—a man she’d only ever known by name.

  The paper said several hundred people had spontaneously had a revival as he preached a sermon while standing on the roof of a car.

  She remembered Vern listening to this preacher on the truck radio every Wednesday night during her youth, sometimes seated in the truck cab by himself, staring through the windshield.

  When she came to the part about the woman people called the harlot, she paused and felt a shiver run through her. She remembered overhearing people talk about this.

  “Pete,” she said. “Do you believe people can come back from the dead?”

  Pete was wearing a white undershirt, shaving his face in the mirror. “What are you talking about?”

  The grease in the skillet began to crackle.

  “You know, like a miracle?” she said.

  “I don’t know,” said Pete. “Why?”

  The crackling sound of a skillet awakened the motel room and caused Stringbean to sit before Marigold’s feet with a look of importance on her face.

  Ruth ignored the hungry animal and kept reading the paper to herself.

  Stringbean licked her jowls and positioned herself a few inches closer to the skillet. Her body was still. Her eyes were enormous. She touched her nose against Ruth’s hand just to remind her that she was alive and hadn’t eaten in over eight hours.

  Ruth patted Stringbean’s head without turning from the newspaper.

  When the eggs were done frying, they sat at the small table. She loved this motel. She loved everything about it. She loved the mermaids on the wall. She loved the ceiling fan and the two-burner stove. The hot showers gave her life purpose. She felt something swell in her chest. She didn’t know what this feeling was, but it was good.

  Pete wasted no time digging into his food. But something about this felt wrong.

  “Wait, Pete,” she said.

  He stopped eating. He wore a bewildered look. Grease slid down his chin. Stringbean also looked at her with a grave face.

  “Ain’t you gonna say grace?” she said.

  “Grace? Over breakfast?”

  “Don’t you think we should start praying and saying grace, now that we’re married?”

  “Grace?”

  She folded her hands.

  Pete placed his fork on his plate and wiped his hands. He folded them together and cleared his throat. “What do I say?” he said.

  “I don’t know, just say something graceful. Pray that you can find a job today.”

  “Um, okay . . .” But he couldn’t seem to find the words.

  She interjected. “Thanks for everything . . . We just feel really happy about the way things are going lately. Keep up the good work.”

  She opened her eyes to see that Pete’s eyes were still shut tightly.

  “Pete?” she said. “You have anything you’d like to add?”

  “God, it’s me, Pete. Give my best to Mama, and Paul, and Louisville.”

  Silence followed. Only the sound of Stringbean’s stomach gurgling could be heard.

  Finally Pete said, “Are we supposed to say amen or something?”

  “I don’t think it really matters,” said Ruth.

  They unfolded their hands and started eating. And Ruth felt good inside, though she couldn’t describe why. Maybe it was the words they’d said over their food that had done it to her. She looked at the newspaper, there on the table.

  “Pete,” she said. “I wanna go to a revival tonight.”

  “Do what?” he said.

  “Revival.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t know, but I wanna go.”

  Ninety-Five

  Glory

  The large sign by the road read Holy Ghost Revival in large red letters. The word Revival was written bigger than the other words and had dripped.

  Cars were parking in the scalped field, forming a gulf of automobiles that blanketed the earth. The crowd was bigger
than anything Coot had ever seen—and he’d seen giant audiences in his day. Once a crowd in Iola, Kansas, had been so big they had to tear down the tent because it wouldn’t hold them. This was much bigger. Much, much bigger.

  In the center of the ocean of automobiles was a large pine structure the size of a baseball stadium. It was a tent made of wood.

  J. Wilbur had explained that this was only a temporary arena to house the revival and stand against the weather. It had been built especially for this weekend, and it would be torn down when the revival services were finished. The wood would be donated and reused by the needy, the large columns would be recycled into telephone poles, and the crossbeams would be used for public buildings. The building itself was a marvel. The tall support beams inside were towers, and the rafters were made from hewn logs that must’ve required a crane to lift them.

  Coot bent his neck backward staring at it. He whistled.

  The vehicles in the parking lot kept multiplying. Men in overalls and crumpled hats crawled out of them, accompanied by poor-looking families. Women holding children. Kids, skinny and quiet, dressed in faded clothes. And there were wealthy families too, dressed in light colors. Migrant workers riding in the backs of large trucks. Foreigners speaking in another language, with tan skin and dark hair. Entire church buses filled with men in suits.

  Everyone found seats on long wood benches beneath the pine canopy. Hats in hands, heads held low, faces drawn in reverence.

  Revival.

  A woman played the piano. A brass band took the stage and joined the woman. People stood from their benches and sang. Their voices were so loud Coot could feel the vibrations in his ribs. Even from outside the building.

  Marigold was seated on a bench beside him, behind the large building, just beneath an oak tree. He kissed her. She kissed him back. Coot could see she was trembling. Her eyes were staring at all the cars that stretched toward the horizon. He held her against him and took in the scent of her hair, like lavender.

  She took his hand and held it. He was lost in the rapture of her. She was the kind of person he’d always wished he could be. He could tell it by the way she talked. There was sincerity in her that he did not have. A kind of heart that believed in more things than his did. When she leaned against him, it felt as though he had found salvation.

  “I’m nervous,” she said.

  “Don’t be,” said Coot. He patted her knee.

  “Thank you for being with me. Thank you for doing what you did.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  This seemed to satisfy her. “I never wanted to be what I am,” she said. “I never wanted any of this to happen. I don’t feel like I belong here.”

  “You are the only one who does belong here.”

  He felt the familiar preshow jitters of his youth, and he felt the thrill of performance upon him. It was all coming back to him. And it made his heart sore.

  “You know,” he said, “for years I hated this.”

  “Hated what?” she said.

  “This.” He waved his hand at everything. “All my life, I hated every bit of this, and the cheats who were behind it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I grew up around these people, and there are a lot of dishonest men in this bunch, a lotta cheats, a lotta cutthroats and liars.” He laughed softly and stared at his shoes. “But they ain’t all like that.”

  She kissed him again. They’d been doing that a lot. And they both drew strength from those kisses.

  “When you touched Joseph,” he went on, “you did something to me too.”

  “I didn’t do nothing,” she said.

  “You did. And I know what you’re here for. You’re here to do what you did to Joseph and what you done to me. You’re here to revive people.”

  Ninety-Six

  Ruth Shall Set You Free

  The line of vehicles was a few miles long, stretching past the city limits. Ruth and Pete waited in a line of traffic until people began parking their vehicles in ditches and on hillsides, and some left them right in the center of the road. Pete parked in the ditch until his door was almost touching the earth and Ruth’s door was high in the air. He crawled out Ruth’s side and walked the dirt road where the other people were heading. Stringbean followed behind.

  They reached the white sign that read Holy Ghost Revival, and Pete whistled when he saw the large wood structure in the distance.

  “Have you ever seen so many cars in your life?” he said.

  “No.”

  She didn’t say anything else because she didn’t know what to say. The truth was, it did seem rather bizarre. The people they passed on the road all seemed strange. The looks they gave her were not like the kinds of normal looks you get in daily life. It was as though everyone suspected something magnificent was going to happen.

  When they neared the wood structure, she could hear the sounds of a tuba and other brass instruments, and a bass drum, and a snare, and singing. Lots of singing. There were so many voices she could swear she felt the earth moving. Stringbean looked almost frightened when she heard it. She stayed near Pete.

  The closer Ruth got, the more her vision was blocked by other people. Ruth leapt up to get a better view over the sea of heads and hats. She jumped a few times but couldn’t see where to go. The wood structure was surrounded by people like chickens gathered around a June bug.

  “We’re not gonna be able to get inside,” Pete said. “There must be two thousand people here. We might as well turn around and leave.”

  She was not about to leave. She felt something in this place.

  “You wait here,” she said to Pete. “I just wanna see what I can see.”

  “Ruth!”

  “Just wait here. I’ll be back, I promise.”

  “Wait!” he said, chasing after her. But she had already left him in the dust.

  Hordes of people surrounded the building on all sides. They were peeking into the gaps between the wood, and children were sitting on the shoulders of grown men. The crowd pulsated with brassy music. The closer she got, the louder the music became. People were standing outside singing along with the people inside, and it sounded like voices were either rising to heaven or coming from it. Ruth didn’t know the words to the song, but the people around her did. She closed her eyes and let the sounds of voices swirl around her.

  When the singing finished, there was applause from inside the wood building loud enough to blow the nearby trees out of the dirt. Then people outside the wood tent began to murmur among themselves. Eventually, one man standing in front of Ruth, who wore a white hat and a blue suit, turned to her and said, “The harlot’s on the stage now.”

  The news spread throughout the crowd like wildfire. People spoke of the harlot with true wonder. Ruth could hear it in their voices.

  The man beside Ruth was leaning on a crutch. “It’s her!” he said. He started pushing his way through the crowd, leaning on the flimsy stick beneath him. He was a big man, dressed in overalls. He could hardly move on his game leg. He tried to weave through the tight-knit group of onlookers.

  People were not gracious to him.

  One man pushed the disabled man, who then fell onto his hind parts. And people ignored the fallen man writhing on the ground. Ruth rushed to him before he was trampled to death. She helped him to his feet, and she could hear him grunting in pain.

  He leaned onto her for support and said, “Thank you.”

  “There’re too many people here,” she said. “We’re never gonna get through.”

  He was panting from exhaustion, and he started to weep. It was as though this realization was finally beginning to land on him. She held him, this stranger. She could smell his sweat when he cried into her shoulder.

  “Sshhh,” she said.

  “I gotta try,” he said. “I just gotta.”

  She shook her head. “There’s nothing we can do,” she said. “I wanna get through as bad as you do.”

  “Please help
me,” he said. “Help me try.”

  Something came over her. A kind of determination. She couldn’t explain where it came from.

  Before she knew it, Ruth was nudging people from her path. The man was holding her for balance, doing his best to keep her pace. Ruth shoved people aside and offered excuse-mes when she passed them. They weaved through the clots of onlookers, saying, “Pardon us! Excuse us! Coming through!”

  She was met with ugly stares from those who refused to let her by. But she worked through the maze of people a few inches at a time, using force when needed.

  They finally stopped for rest. She was out of breath and her legs hurt from supporting the weight of the big man who held her.

  “We’re never gonna make it,” she told the man. “This is pointless. We’re no closer than when we started.”

  At first he couldn’t answer, he was breathing so heavily. “Please,” he whispered. “I come all the way from Greenville to see the lady healer.”

  “You really believe she can heal you?”

  “If I can just touch her.”

  “And what? You think that will heal you?”

  “If I can just touch her.”

  They worked their way toward the building. Ruth was unsure if she was getting closer to the entrance or farther away until she saw clumps of children seated next to the wood walls with noses pressed into the gaps between planks. Ruth wedged between the children, working herself near the entrance. The man lost his grip on her and fell straight on his face. She helped him off the dust and saw that his nose was bleeding.

  “Are you okay?” she said.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “Keep moving. We’re getting closer.”

  “You’re bleeding.”

  “I’m fine.”

  She could hear people cuss them when they pushed past. She ignored them and kept moving. She clawed her way through a group of people until she finally neared the door. And she saw her. A woman. The woman stood only feet before her. She had brilliant red hair. And she was tall. And lovely.

  Ruth found herself unable to move.

  The woman looked at Ruth. She wanted to step forward, but her legs were stuck.