Days of Little Texas Read Free

one got out.”
    Miss Wanda Joy beats her fist on the kitchen table. She beats it so hard, the legs are jumping. “That little
fool
. The stupid little fool.”
    The sheriff says he’s sorry and leaves.
    Miss Wanda Joy gets up from the table. “Get your things, Ronald Earl,” she says.
    “Where’s Momma?” I say.
    “You’re coming to live with me,” Miss Wanda Joy says.
    She gets my clothes and lets me bring some of my other things in a box she gives me. It’s a box that some shoes came in.

I know without even looking, most of the women in the congregation are already crying. Now it’s time to tell them. Tell them about the day of my anointing.
    The day I found my name.

San Angelo, Texas.
    Now I’m ten years old, sitting at a picnic table with Sugar Tom and Certain Certain.
    I can see a sun-blinded lake, bass boats racing by a gray wooden dock. We’re here to bring the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to the World-Famous Lake Nasworthy Lamblast and Chili Cook-off.
    I’ve spent the morning earning my keep, helping Certain Certain, running errands, setting up folding chairs, hauling water. This is the first chance I’ve had to sit down all day.
    “You know why Lake Nasworthy is world famous?” SugarTom is saying. He taps a skinny paperback book laying on the table with a bony finger. “I’ve read about it right here in
Stories of the Strange
. In the 1960s a boy jumped off that very dock and came up covered in water moccasins.”
    A chill runs all through me.
    “Sounds like a damn fool,” Certain Certain says. “Jump in Lake Nastywater. You ever seen water so brown?”
    “Matthew, chapter five, verse twenty-two,” Sugar Tom says. He’s talking about the verse in the Bible that says you will go to hell for calling someone a fool. He takes a mouthful of chili.
“Lord
, that is good. But I swan it’s incinerating my gullet!”
    “Exodus, chapter twenty, verse seven,” Certain Certain says. “‘Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.’”
    These two have done this long as I can remember— battled back and forth with holy scripture.
    Sugar Tom gulps sweet tea. A mariachi band is booming over the loudspeakers. There’s hot food, folks are dancing, and even the air smells like something you want to bite.
    But later in the evening when Sugar Tom begins his sermon, a huge storm comes up. Long thunder bumpers roll in off the lake, one after another. Even Miss Wanda Joy’s hair can’t stand up to the squall.
    Right in the middle of the sermon, one of the tent poles comes loose, and me and Certain Certain rush over to fix it. We struggle with the pole while the canvas flaps around ourears, making a snapping sound. I’m too little to do much of anything but hang on tight and watch the sky flash. That’s when I see the boy.
    He’s a couple years older than me, standing a few yards away. His long hair is sticking straight up all over his head, like seeds on a dandelion. It’s the strangest sight I’ve ever seen.
    The boy is grinning, saying over and over, “Look at this! Look at this!”
    But everybody is paying too much attention to Sugar Tom and the storm. It’s like that boy is there just for
me
. My skin prickles all over watching his crazy smile and floating hair. I can feel it; something awful is about to happen.
    My whole world goes white. A white so pure it’s what I figure it would be like staring into the face of the Lord. My eyes are knocked clean back in my head. The same instant there comes an almighty
boom
, and everything disappears.
    When I come back into myself, my ears are clapping like bells and I’m not in the tent anymore. I’m sitting outside in the rain feeling cold, muddy water leaking into my pants. The colors of the trees on the shore look
reversed
.
    Sugar Tom has stopped speaking—everything stands still for a heartbeat or two, then somebody screams.
    But where is Certain Certain? I can’t see him anywhere. Then I see his legs wrapped in a piece of