“In life, we’re all called upon to make significant decisions,” Preacher Naughton said with his hands lifted to the heavens. “This is one of those decisions. By making it, you dedicate yourself to our heavenly Creator. May the Lord bless you and cast the demons from your body!” Reaching first for Little Esther, Preacher Naughton placed one hand in the small of her back and with the other pressed her backward under the muddy current. “I baptize thee in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit! You are a sinner no more!” As he lifted Little Esther from under the murky water, she spat and coughed the foul water from her nose and mouth.
Moving down the line, the Preacher Naughton repeated the process with Polly, Big Esther, and finally Jolene, who put up a pretty good struggle but finally went under. After Jolene emerged from the canal water, Preacher Naughton, his white suit pants and shirt stained a muddy brown color from the dirty canal, led the congregation and its newest members back inside. Dripping wet, with smeared makeup and disheveled hair, the four girls waited at the back of the room, standing on towels, until the service had finished. Walking back across the parking lot to Polly’s car, Pearl examined the soggy, motley group of women with ruined dresses.
“Lord have mercy,” Pearl cackled. “I sure do enjoy a good Sunday service.”
Later that afternoon, Avery flew along a barren stretch of Texas highway in Kip’s rental car. An old Journey song blared from the car’s stereo.
“Blast,” Avery muttered as he cursed Kip for not getting a full-sized rental instead of the green mid-sized sedan that thumped over the rough highway. Cruising past scattered farms and ranches, Avery hammered down his eighth Mountain Dew of the trip. Ahead, a slow-moving pickup truck towing a small chicken hauler puttered down the right-hand lane. Feathers fluttered out of the wire screened chicken cages. Coming up behind the truck and chicken trailer, Avery began to change into the left-hand lane in order to pass the offending poultry wagon. The deafening blast of an air horn startled Avery as a fast-moving semi in the left hand lane barreled past him. The trucker had to run his left-side tires onto the median to avoid hitting Avery’s rental. Swerving sharply back to his right, Avery found himself right on top of the chicken trailer. As he mashed the brake pedal to the floor, Avery’s car skidded off the highway and onto the shoulder of the road. Running over an abandoned hubcap, the left front tire of the rental car exploded. Frantically correcting, then over-correcting, then over-correcting again, Avery managed to bring the small car to a skidding stop on the gravel of the shoulder. An air horn blared again as another semi roared past.
Avery’s chest pounded with adrenaline, and sweat beaded on his forehead as he turned off the blaring radio. He was pleasantly surprised to see that the cup holder had held his beverage bottle securely in place during his traumatic ordeal. Draining the rest of his Mountain Dew, he gingerly stepped out of the car to peruse his situation. Realizing that he should have actually sent in the AAA application, now resting in a pile of junk mail in the in-box on his workstation, he leaned on the hood of the car and pondered his options. One, he could change the flat himself. Two, he could find someone to do it for him. Two was clearly the more preferable option, as Avery was not predisposed to manual labor. For the next fifteen minutes, Avery attempted in vain to convince passing motorists and truckers to pull over. Maybe the site of a shaggy bearded man in a yellow tracksuit jumping up and down and vilely cursing at passersby didn’t help his plight. He wished he hadn’t executed his cell phone. Eventually, an elderly man in a rusted pickup truck swung off the highway and onto the side of the road. The pickup backed up along the shoulder until it reached Avery and his disabled vehicle.
“Got ye a flat tar, sonny boy,” the old man wearing faded denim overalls said as he climbed out of his truck.
“Obviously,” Avery replied. “Some deranged lunatic behind the wheel of semi, most likely high on amphetamines and looking at a porno magazine, tried to kill me.”
“Yep. Gotta keep ye eye on them there rigs. By the way, sonny, why in tar nation are ye wearing ye pajamas?”
“It’s a tracksuit. It’s the height of fashion in eastern Europe.”
“Well, I wouldn’t know nothing ’bout that. Ye want I should help out fixin’ that busted tar?”
“If by ‘tar’ you mean tire, of course I do.”
“Well, pop the back and let’s take a gander at ye spar.”
“My what?”
“Ye spar. Ye spar tar.”
“Just to be clear, I don’t have all day and I won’t pay you,” Avery said as he opened the car’s trunk.
“Ye know, ye dang ornery for someone needing a hand.”
“Look, old-timer, I’ll give you a Mountain Dew if you’ll help me out.”
“That something like moonshine liquor?” the old man asked interestedly.
“No.”
“Ye got any liquor?”
“No. Just Mountain Dew.”
“Well, then, I reckon I’ll pass. Now take that jack whilst I wrestle this spar tar out.” A few minutes later, the rental was operational. “Now, I wouldn’t put too many miles on that there spar. It’s a temporary. ’Bout twenty mile yonder is a truck stop near Van Horn. They’ll right fix ye up. With a new tar or whatever ye want,” the old man said as he winked at Avery.
“I don’t speak crazy, old man. What are you referring to?”
“Oh, you’ll find out, I reckon,” the old man laughed as he headed back to his pickup. “Watch out for them lot lizards!” he shouted back over his shoulder before climbing into his truck and pulling away. Avery fished another couple of Mountain Dew bottles from the ice chest, closed the trunk, and continued on his way down the desolate highway. Fifteen minutes later, Avery spotted a large road sign shaped like an armadillo advertising THE FLYING ARMADILLO TRUCK STOP – SECOND BEST BBQ IN TEXAS – FIVE MILES AHEAD.
A few minutes later, Avery pulled his rental past the long rows of gasoline pumps and into the crowded truck stop parking lot, filled with eighteen-wheelers of all colors and designs and license plates from a dozen states. The truck stop’s main building had an enormous fiberglass replica of an armadillo with wings perched on its roof. Next to the main building was a restaurant with a pay phone off to the side. Avery climbed out of his car and made his way to the occupied payphone. The air was filled with the smell of diesel fumes, exhaust, and mesquite smoke.
“Hi there, handsome.” A thin woman wearing a denim mini skirt, white tube top, and tall red heels stood in the pay phone booth, watching Avery as he approached. “My name is Fantasia Velvet. What’s yours?” she asked with a playful growl.
“I’m not giving you my name. Now get out of the phone booth. I have an urgent call to place.”
“Fantasia just can’t do that, sugar,” the tall woman, who wore a peroxide-blonde wig, purred. “She’s waiting for a very important call from a client.”
“I don’t care if you’re waiting for a call from the President. Out, now.”
“Don’t be grumpy, sugar. You know, Fantasia Velvet, that’s my stage name, although sometimes I use Fantasia Sweetcream. It just depends on my mood. Anyways, Fantasia provides commercial services for the road-weary at very competitive prices. You interested in some company? You look awfully tired. Fantasia knows just how to put a little pep in a man’s step. Particularly a strong, handsome man like yourself.”
“Not interested,” Avery replied as he took Fantasia by the arm and pulled her out of the booth.
“Ouch!” Fantasia cried as she stumbled out of the pay phone. “Take it easy, baby. Bruises are bad for business.” As Avery stepped past Fantasia and climbed into the booth, he noticed that she had an extraordinarily large Adam’s apple, and he thought he might have caught a glimpse of dark facial stubble underneath her heavily caked makeup. Avery fished in his fanny pack for some change. Finding only a quarter and a nickel, he inserted the quarter into the phone and began dialing a number from a wrinkled piece of paper.