An atheist, a pentecostal, and a retired stripper

Here’s the opening of the first story in my forthcoming book, Two Dreams and Two Hollows. In this story, an atheist, a pentecostal, and a retired stripper end up together on a road trip to Baton Rouge.

xxx   “The Second Coming”

An open-trunked 1980s Cadillac Fleetwood, shined to a dull black, sits at a house on a Garden District street. Several potted cacti adorn the small front yard. A wooden gate to a side patio stands open. Two men in their late 40s, Justice (lanky, black leather jacket and Elvis Costello glasses) and KB (baby-fat cheeks and rotund girth, white button shirt, conservative business casual), emerge with a boxed computer, some smaller boxes, and cables to load into the trunk. They set it all down on the sidewalk. Then load the small boxes first.

“Hey, KB, hand me those cables.” KB passes the cables to Justice.

“Justice, these cables don’t have serial connectors.”

“You just worry about the software. I’ll handle the cables.”

Justice eyes up the cables like a cat assessing prey. He begins loading them.

“OK, KB, so Noah’s ark must have had 16 tons of insects alone. You really believe that shit?”

The two men, one on each side, pick up the boxed computer.

“You know what your problem is, Justice? Pride. Too much pride. You think all you need is your mind. I think your mind is too limited to figure everything out.”

The computer is heavier than they thought. They struggle to hoist it into the trunk.

“Put your end in first,” says Justice.

They finish loading and pause. The portly KB is already out of breath. Justice, always ready-at-hand for a dialectical skirmish to nourish his inherent belligerence, continues aggressively.

“You’re one of the 144,000 people in the history of the world to be saved and I’ve got too much pride.”

“I don’t know that,” KB says with no irritation. “I just have faith. You just can’t calculate how everything works and how everything’s going to end. God’s grace takes care of that.”

Justice aspirates in disgust as they disappear past the gate to retrieve more stuff. A woman, late 40s, petite but with the endowments of a former stripper, creeps up to the gate, peeks in. With lipstick smeared broadly, powdered cheeks, and patches of dark blue eyeshadow over big brown eyes, she seems deliberately dressed and coiffed into an almost surreal image of worn-out flamboyance. She pulls back from the gate quickly. The men re-emerge with boxed amplifiers and microphones. The woman paces in the background as the men approach the Cadillac with additional boxes. Justice takes off his black-rim glasses and wipes his brow.

“Why didn’t Gary take this shit to Baton Rouge yesterday.”

“Late call,” says KB. “We just found out they need the whole sound system installed and tested for something big tomorrow.”

Justice slams the trunk down with finality and the two men rest. Justice squats on the ground. KB, whose fleshy girth makes him less mobile, eyes his options and prudently sits on the stoop.

“Say evolution’s true,” offered KB.

“That’s mighty humble of you to admit that 99% of the world’s scientists are not idiots.”

“I’m just saying, Justice. Now look at those two cactus plants.”

Justice looks.

“Really look at them. How did they know to make those exact thorn patterns? Generation after generation moving toward that pattern. You don’t see any intelligence in that process? Look at this one.”

They look closely at a particular cactus. Like a lime-green fist it looks, clenched, each fat finger featuring a crusty white dot out of which shoots a galaxy of razor-thin needles.

“That is pretty cool,” grants Justice. “But all that shit can be duplicated with a computer generating random changes in a closed system.”

The fantastical woman has been slowly creeping up to the flanks of the Cadillac, and she steps in closer as the men study the cactus.

“Did I hear y’all say Baton Rouge?”

Justice jumps at the disembodied voice behind his head. “Jesus!” He turns to see the woman’s face, clownish but full of pathos.

“I’m trying to get to Baton Rouge,” she lolls, the sound of her voice an incongruous combination of tin pipes and flowing water.

“Maybe y’all can give me a ride.”

“I guess you can ride in the back,” Justice says.

“What!” cries KB. “Justice, we can’t fool around. Gary’s waiting. You don’t know if she’s holding drugs or, or has a criminal record.”

But the macabre creature has already mounted the heavy back seat with her bag. Justice takes the driver’s seat. KB takes the passenger seat and slams the door.

xxx

Here’s a tentative book cover:

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