“Hypocrisy is what bothered him,” Leonard said. “Not religion.”
Reverend Fitzgerald refused to be baited. He was very pleasant when he said, “It’s unusual that your uncle and Illium Moon were such good friends. Mr. Moon is quite religious. Very involved in church activities. Especially those dealing with youth. And considering what I’ve read in the papers…”
“Don’t believe everything you read in the papers,” Leonard said.
“Very well,” Fitzgerald said. “I’ll keep that in mind. You know, I’ve been sitting here trying to recall what I’ve heard about you, Mr. Pine, and now it comes back to me.”
“I hope it’s flattering,” Leonard said.
“You’re a homosexual and you flaunt it,” Fitzgerald said.
“I don’t wear Easter hats and high heels and study floral arrangements, that’s what you mean,” Leonard said, “but I don’t hide out in the kitchen under a chair either.”
“You take pride in it,” Fitzgerald said.
“You’re no one I have to answer to,” Leonard said.
“No,” Fitzgerald said. “You don’t have to answer to me. The Lord is who you answer to. I’ve nothing against you. I’m merely saying, your way is not the way of the Lord. Are you acquainted with your Bible, Mr. Pine?”
“Me and Hap here were just quoting Bible verses on the way over.”
“Are you familiar with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah?”
“Yep,” Leonard said. “It’s a favorite Baptist queer allegory. I just get cold chills all over when I hear it. Which is pretty often. I especially like where Lot’s wife gets turned into a pillar of salt.”
“You know the story, then learn from it, sir. Lot met the angels of the Lord at the gates of Sodom and took them to his house for a feast, and the house was soon surrounded by homosexuals who wanted to know them.”
“‘Know them’ means ‘fuck them,’ right?” Leonard said.
Fitzgerald batted his eyes a couple of times but pretended not to hear and plowed ahead. “And the homosexuals gathered around Lot’s house and demanded that he bring the angels out and give them to the crowd, and the angels struck the crowd blind. Does that sound like tolerance for homosexuals, Mr. Pine?”
“All right,” Leonard said, “you didn’t get to the pillar-of-salt part, but you left out some good stuff. Like how Lot, wanting to protect these angels who needed no protection, offered his daughters to the crowd. Now there’s the exemplary father I’d like to have. ‘Hey, girls, we got these guests the queers want to screw, but, well, hell, they’re angels and they haven’t finished their chicken-fried steaks, so I’m gonna give them you instead. Shuck your panties and hit the porch.’”
“You have an unfortunate turn of phrase, Mr. Pine,” Fitzgerald said. “The problem you have is not dissimilar to that your uncle had. And for that matter, I’ve had. Yeah, even preachers can have a crisis of faith. But in time it came clear to me. What you’re doing is what I was doing. You’re looking for God to operate on human levels. Forget that. God lays down the law, and the law is there, and it’s not for us to question. It makes no difference if it seems just in our eyes or not. It is the law, and that is the long and the short of it.”
“Religion’s not the question here,” I said, “and we didn’t mean to get off on it.”
“It’s always the question,” Fitzgerald said. “Mr. Pine, be proud now, for when you leave this world of the flesh and meet your Maker and you are cast down into the fiery lava pits of hell, your pride will fail you. Rationale will fail you. The law is the law.”
“Now I know why you call this church primitive,” Leonard said.
I thought: That’s warming him up, Leonard. That’s playing the game . Only way we could have made a worse impression was if we’d come in with our pants off swinging our dicks.
“Sin is a primitive act,” Fitzgerald said. “Our beliefs here are as basic as I’ve stated. They’re not to be debated, because they are the law and the law is made by a Judge wiser and more powerful than we. In time, in the hereafter, we’ll understand His judgments. And if not, that is not ours to consider. It is our job to obey the law of God. It’s that simple. And if there was ever a time we needed the laws of God, it’s now. Look what this world is coming to. Forget the world. Look right here. We have a tremendous drug problem right here in LaBorde, Texas. Especially right here in the black sector. Kids sticking poison in their veins. Children prostituting themselves for money and dope. Did you know that many of the mothers here in our black community are unmarried? Their children are illegitimate?”
“I’ve heard that rumor, yes,” Leonard said.
“They don’t see that as sin, Mr. Pine. The world says that’s OK. Fornicating is acceptable. These girls, children really, as young as thirteen and fourteen, have produced baby boys conceived by lust and born of the bile of sin. And who is to take care of these children? The children who bore them? What sort of future will they have? The children of children.”
“What you need here is something practical,” Leonard said. “Not more religion. Lessons in birth control and disease prevention are the ticket.”
“That doesn’t stop the sin,” Fitzgerald said. “The act itself. Sex out of wedlock. Abstinence is what’s needed.”
“That’s all right too,” Leonard said. “But for those who don’t plan to abstain, they need rubbers.”
Fitzgerald took a deep breath, but when he spoke, he was as patient as ever. “That’s exactly the problem, Mr. Pine. Tolerance. Too much tolerance. There will be punishment for those who sin against God. That includes you. Homosexuals will not enter into the House of the Lord. Ask God to forgive you for the perverse things you’ve done with other men. Turn your life over to Him.”
“I ain’t gettin’ down on my knees for nobody,” Leonard said.
Fitzgerald turned his attention to me. “What about you, Mr. Collins?”
“Hey, I didn’t do anything,” I said.
“You have to believe to be saved,” Fitzgerald said.
“I’ll think it over,” I said. “Who knows? I might be back.”
Fitzgerald smiled politely. “Well, it doesn’t seem I can be of much aid to you gentlemen, in the areas of the spiritual, or with directions. I’ve told you all I know about Mr. Moon’s address. Somewhere off Calachase Road.” Fitzgerald put his hands on his desk as if to rise. “I’d really like to get back to my workout, now.”
Outside, where the church lawn met the lawn of the little blue house, a huge man stood in the yard. He was over six feet, wearing gray cotton work clothes and his skin was black as sin and everything about him was big and tight and round, as if he were made up of boulders carefully stacked. In fact, there may have been enough of him there for a mining claim.
He was moving the sprinkler and hose, and when he did, little boulders ran up his arms and crunched and ran back down again. His mouth was open and he was studying us. From a distance, he seemed to have very small teeth. He wasn’t concerned that the water from the sprinkler was spraying all over him. He watched us as we went, and may have watched us after our backs were turned.
Out in the parking lot, I said, “That went well, don’t you think? Seldom have I seen two people warm to each other so quickly.”
“Yeah,” Leonard said. “Bet me and Fitzgerald ride together to the next Baptist convention.”
17.
East Texas weather, being the way it is, by the time we got back from the church to the house, ready for lunch, it changed. Before we could get mustard plastered on our ham sandwiches, the hot, blinding sunlight was sacked by hard-blowing clouds out of the west. They swept down black and vicious and brought with them Zorro slashes of lightning and lug bolts of rain.
The rain fell cool and solid for two days, hammered the house, churned pea gravel out of the driveway, broke loose the packed red clay beneath, and ran it in bloody swirls beneath the porch and on either side of the house to collect in the sun-burned grass like gore in a crew cut.