“Yes, ma’am,” her nephew replied, with all the innocence his ten-year-old eyes could muster. “Billy and me, we’ll be with Billy’s mom and dad. I aim to get saved.”
Aunt Grace was having none of it. Since arriving on her doorstep, Timmy had been the very devil. Neighbours shook their heads and muttered, “There goes that Wichita kid.” Well at least they didn’t call him “that Rutherford kid.” She and her husband Albert had had the good sense to steer clear of children; they hadn’t wanted any, and the good Lord had answered their prayers. That is until they’d received that late-night telephone call from Kansas.
It was Albert’s sister Belle on the line — Belle, who’d been sent as a youth delegate to the International Assembly of Presbyterians in Wichita eleven years before, and made hay with the first farmer she set eyes on. Aunt Grace shuddered to think of the missionary funds squandered on her sister-in-law’s disgrace; it had been hard for the Rutherfords to live it down. Now here was Belle, calling from her neighbour’s farm at three in the morning, if you please, begging her and Albert to take in her mistake.
“It’s about Ralph,” Albert whispered, his hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s serious this time.”
Grace crossed her arms. It was always serious with Belle. She knew about Belle’s begging letters, the ones Albert hid in the shoebox under his side of the bed. If the Beeford farm wasn’t being eaten by locusts, it was dying of drought, or suffering dust storms so ferocious they buried livestock whole. Could Albert send a little money? Just a little? For seed? To fix the tractor? To replace the henhouse carried off in the last twister? “Please, Albert, I beg of you. Ralph and I will be eternally in your debt.” Wasn’t that the God’s own truth.
Albert always gave in. “Times are tough,” he’d say. Well, except for the likes of Rockefeller, life hadn’t been a cakewalk for anyone since the Crash, now had it? Besides, what was the point of buying seed, or repairs, or a henhouse, when Ralph Beeford couldn’t pay his mortgage? Sure enough, three months ago Ralph and Belle had lost the farm, and all the savings that Albert had shovelled their way had gone up the flue with it. Now, as the prodigals sat waiting for the bailiff to evict them, scarce a day went by without Belle scribbling even more letters; letters which, after much prayer, Grace had been led to intercept and misplace in her wood stove. With Belle so hard up, Grace wanted to know how she could afford so many stamps. And now this telephone call.
“It’s serious,” Albert repeated. “Ralph’s taken to reading the Book of Revelation. Tonight he brought the shotgun in from the barn. Belle’s with Timmy at their neighbours. There’s enough in the cookie jar to send Timmy here before Ralph does something we’ll all regret.”
Grace tightened the belt of her housecoat: How could he lay that guilt on her shoulders?
“The Lord never gives us more than we can bear,” Albert said.
Grace had her doubts.
Her suspicions were confirmed the morning she and Albert met Timmy at the station. Despite the long journey, he’d bounced from the train the image of mischief incarnate: dirty hands, smudged face, and clothes fit for the oil drum.
Grace recognized him from the Brownie snapshot Belle had sent the previous Christmas. “So you’re Timmy,” she said. “I’m your aunt Grace and this is Uncle Albert. Let’s save the hugs till we get you washed up, shall we?”
A scrub with a lather of soap and a rough facecloth had revealed dimples the size of dimes, like the dents of baby fingers plunged in pastry dough, and a mass of freckles — a spill of cinnamon on rice pudding. Aunt Grace sniffed. Oh yes, this was a face that spelled trouble; the acorn doesn’t drop very far from the tree.
“Don’t judge a book by its cover,” Albert said.
From what Grace could make out, the cover was the least of their tribulations. Bullfrogs, cowpies, firecrackers, and stink bombs fascinated the Wichita kid, especially in combination and indoors, as did bodily functions and any hair-raising experiment involving fire and combustibles. When she and Albert demanded that Timmy explain why he had done this or that, he had two cheerful all-purpose replies: “Because” and “To see what would happen.”
Why did God create little boys? Aunt Grace wondered. Give a girl a doll and she’d sit happily under the dining room table all afternoon and play house. Give Timmy a doll and within two shakes its limbs were clogging up the toilet.
Aunt Grace tried to curb Timmy’s instincts. When she caught him playing cops and robbers she confiscated the toy gun he’d swiped from Kresge’s. Without batting an eye, he replaced it with a stick. When she forbade him playing with sticks, he used his finger, cocking his thumb like a regular gangster.
Aunt Grace blamed it on the picture shows. Naturally, she refused Timmy permission to attend, but with or without her say-so she was sure he snuck into the Capital on Saturday afternoons with his little pal Billy Wertz. It frightened her to speculate on the sights he saw therein. If it wasn’t James Cagney shooting up the town, it was Boris Karloff robbing graves or Bella Lugosi sucking blood. What kind of example did that set the nation’s youth? Certainly not the kind found in the Good Book. At least when God ripped Jezebel into a thousand parts the better to be, consumed by wild boars, He provided young people with a cautionary tale of sound moral instruction.
Things came to a head the day Timmy blew up the tool shed in a chemistry experiment gone bad. He spent the next two weeks tied to the verandah by a rope. If the Rutherfords thought this punishment would curtail the mortification he caused them, they were mistaken. Passersby watched as the Wichita kid stood at the lip of the top step and practised long-distance spitting, self-induced belching, and the host of other skills with which little boys endear themselves.
Small wonder that Aunt Grace was suspicious of his desire to attend the upcoming revival. She knew all about the Tent of the Holy Redemption Tour. Run by a pair of American evangelicals, it breezed through town each fall before heading south to overwinter in the Florida panhandle. Folks praised the preaching of Brother Percy Brubacher and the charm of his partner, Brother Floyd Cruickshank, but the good reverends weren’t what drew the crowds, not in a month of Sundays.
Aunt Grace sucked her teeth. “Timothy Beeford, don’t tell tales. You’ve no intention of finding Jesus. What you really want is to get inside that tent. That tent with its history of horrors.”
“All right, okay,” Timmy confessed. “So can I? Please? I’ll be good for a whole week. I promise.”
Timmy’d heard about the tent the previous Saturday after seeing The Mummy with Billy Wertz. They arrived back at Billy’s to find an impromptu party in full swing. Mr. Wertz and a few of his friends, big hairy men like himself, were hunkered in a circle out back, while their wives were indoors exchanging cookie recipes. The way the men snickered, Timmy figured they were drunk.
Billy set him straight. “Us Pentecostals don’t drink. We just have apple cider.”
A whoop from the men. Cries of “kaboom, kaboom.”
“What’re they talking about?” Timmy asked.
“The revival tour. It’s coming next week.”
Timmy looked puzzled.
“You know, the tour, the tent?”
Timmy still looked puzzled.
Billy rolled his eyes. “Daddy,” he called out, “tell Timmy about the Tent of the Holy Redemption!”
The men blinked, then let out a collective guffaw. “Go on, Tom. Tell the kid. Make a man of him.”
Mr. Wertz cocked his head at Timmy. “If I tell, promise you won’t let on to your Aunt Grace?”
Timmy could hardly breathe: If this was a grownups’ secret, it must be important. “Cross my heart and hope to die.” He plunked himself cross-legged at the foot of the oracle.
“All right