Read Online DR07 - Dixie City Jam by James Lee Burke - Free Book Online
Authors: James Lee Burke
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light on a night trail
outside a pitiful Third World village stinking of duck shit and
unburied water buffalo.
Then I felt her hand rest in the center of my chest.
'Dave, there was a man outside this morning,' she said.
'Which man?'
'He was out by the road, looking through the trees at the
gallery. When I opened the screen, he walked back down the road.'
'What did he look like?'
'I couldn't see his face. He had on a blue shirt and a hat.'
'Maybe he was just lost.'
'Our number and name are on the mailbox by the road. Why would
he be looking up at the gallery?'
'I'll ask Batist if he saw anyone unusual hanging around the
front.'
She got up from the bed and began dressing by the back window.
The curtains, which had the texture of gauze and were printed with tiny
pink flowers, ruffled across the arch of her back as she stepped into
her panties.
'Why are you looking at me like that?' she said.
'Because without exaggeration I can say that you're one of the
most beautiful women on earth.'
When she smiled her eyes closed and opened in a way that made
my heart drop.
Later, I went down to the dock to help
Batist clean up the
tables after the lunch crowd had left. Parked by the boat ramp, pinging
with heat, was a flatbed truck with huge cone-shaped loudspeakers
welded all over the cab's roof. On the doors, hand-painted in a flowing
calligraphy, were the words
Rev. Oswald Flat Ministries
.
I remembered the name from years ago when he had broadcast his
faith-healing show from Station XERF, one of the most powerful radio
transmitters in the Western Hemisphere, located across the Rio Grande
from Del Rio, in old Mexico so that the renters of its airtime were not
governed by FCC restrictions. Sandwiched between ads for tulip bulbs,
bat guano, baby chicks, aphrodisiacs, and memberships in every society
from the Invisible Empire to the Black Muslims, were sermons by Brother
Oswald, as he was called, that were ranting, breathless pieces of
Appalachian eloquence. Sometimes he would become virtually hysterical,
gasping as though he had emphysema, then he would snort air through his
nostrils and begin another fifteen-minute roller-coaster monologue that
would build with such roaring, unstoppable intensity that the
technicians would end his sermon for him by superimposing a prerecorded
ad.
He and his wife, a woman in a print cotton dress with rings of
fat under her chin, were eating barbecue at the only table in the bait
shop when I opened the screen door. It must have been ninety degrees in
the shop, even with the window fans on, but Oswald Flat wore a
long-sleeve denim work shirt buttoned at the wrists and a cork sun
helmet that leaked sweat out of the band down the sides of his head.
His eyes were pale behind his rimless glasses, the color of water
flowing over gravel, liquid-looking in the heat, the back of his neck
and hands burned the deep hue of chewing tobacco.
'That's Dave yonder,' Batist said to him from behind the
counter, seemingly relieved. He picked up a can of soda pop and went
outside to drink it at one of the telephone-spool tables under the
awning that shaded the dock.
Flat's eyes went up and down my body. His wife began eating a
Moon Pie, chewing with her mouth or open while she stared idly out the
window at the bayou.
'Looks like you're a hard man to grab holt of,' he said.
'Not really. I was up at the house.'
'Don't like to bother a man in his home.'
'What could I do for you, sir?'
'I belong to the Citizens Committee for a Better New Orleans.
I make no apology for hit. The town's a commode. But I don't
like what got done to your colored boy.'
'Boy?'
His southern mountain accent grated like piano wire drawn
through a hole punched in a tin can. He took a toothpick from his shirt
pocket, worked it into a back tooth, and measured me again with his
bemused, pale eyes.
'You one of them kind gets his nose up in the air about words
he don't like?' he said.
'Batist is older than I am, Reverend. People
outside a pitiful Third World village stinking of duck shit and
unburied water buffalo.
Then I felt her hand rest in the center of my chest.
'Dave, there was a man outside this morning,' she said.
'Which man?'
'He was out by the road, looking through the trees at the
gallery. When I opened the screen, he walked back down the road.'
'What did he look like?'
'I couldn't see his face. He had on a blue shirt and a hat.'
'Maybe he was just lost.'
'Our number and name are on the mailbox by the road. Why would
he be looking up at the gallery?'
'I'll ask Batist if he saw anyone unusual hanging around the
front.'
She got up from the bed and began dressing by the back window.
The curtains, which had the texture of gauze and were printed with tiny
pink flowers, ruffled across the arch of her back as she stepped into
her panties.
'Why are you looking at me like that?' she said.
'Because without exaggeration I can say that you're one of the
most beautiful women on earth.'
When she smiled her eyes closed and opened in a way that made
my heart drop.
Later, I went down to the dock to help
Batist clean up the
tables after the lunch crowd had left. Parked by the boat ramp, pinging
with heat, was a flatbed truck with huge cone-shaped loudspeakers
welded all over the cab's roof. On the doors, hand-painted in a flowing
calligraphy, were the words
Rev. Oswald Flat Ministries
.
I remembered the name from years ago when he had broadcast his
faith-healing show from Station XERF, one of the most powerful radio
transmitters in the Western Hemisphere, located across the Rio Grande
from Del Rio, in old Mexico so that the renters of its airtime were not
governed by FCC restrictions. Sandwiched between ads for tulip bulbs,
bat guano, baby chicks, aphrodisiacs, and memberships in every society
from the Invisible Empire to the Black Muslims, were sermons by Brother
Oswald, as he was called, that were ranting, breathless pieces of
Appalachian eloquence. Sometimes he would become virtually hysterical,
gasping as though he had emphysema, then he would snort air through his
nostrils and begin another fifteen-minute roller-coaster monologue that
would build with such roaring, unstoppable intensity that the
technicians would end his sermon for him by superimposing a prerecorded
ad.
He and his wife, a woman in a print cotton dress with rings of
fat under her chin, were eating barbecue at the only table in the bait
shop when I opened the screen door. It must have been ninety degrees in
the shop, even with the window fans on, but Oswald Flat wore a
long-sleeve denim work shirt buttoned at the wrists and a cork sun
helmet that leaked sweat out of the band down the sides of his head.
His eyes were pale behind his rimless glasses, the color of water
flowing over gravel, liquid-looking in the heat, the back of his neck
and hands burned the deep hue of chewing tobacco.
'That's Dave yonder,' Batist said to him from behind the
counter, seemingly relieved. He picked up a can of soda pop and went
outside to drink it at one of the telephone-spool tables under the
awning that shaded the dock.
Flat's eyes went up and down my body. His wife began eating a
Moon Pie, chewing with her mouth or open while she stared idly out the
window at the bayou.
'Looks like you're a hard man to grab holt of,' he said.
'Not really. I was up at the house.'
'Don't like to bother a man in his home.'
'What could I do for you, sir?'
'I belong to the Citizens Committee for a Better New Orleans.
I make no apology for hit. The town's a commode. But I don't
like what got done to your colored boy.'
'Boy?'
His southern mountain accent grated like piano wire drawn
through a hole punched in a tin can. He took a toothpick from his shirt
pocket, worked it into a back tooth, and measured me again with his
bemused, pale eyes.
'You one of them kind gets his nose up in the air about words
he don't like?' he said.
'Batist is older than I am, Reverend. People
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