Read Online Welcome to Fred (The Fred Books) by Brad Whittington - Free Book Online

hiding her face.
    “What do yer want ta know?”
    “Are you Pauline Jordan?”
    “Yes,” she whispered.
    “Why do you live in a box? Sometimes,” I added, remembering she had disappeared during the winter.
    “I didn’t mean to. I mean, I didn’t start out meanin’ ta live in a box.”
    I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.
    “I ran out of money. I couldn’t stay at the shelter when . . . if . . .” She cleared her throat. “I couldn’t stay at the shelter. And the box ain’t so bad. Nobody bothers me here. ’Cept you.”
    “Why do you keep that Bible?”
    She made a noise that was either a laugh or a cry, I couldn’t tell which. “My parents give it to me. Daddy was . . . is . . . a preacher.”
    “A preacher?”
    “Scandalous, ain’t it?” She laughed, but a tear dropped to the Bible in her hands. She wiped it away. “Yeah, he was a welder down in Mansfield. That’s in Texas.” She looked up at me, her eyes shining from the darkness in the box. “Yer from Texas, ain’t ye?”
    “Yeah, but I didn’t tell you that.”
    “Yer didn’t have to. Yer got the accent.”
    I didn’t think so, certainly not one like hers, but I didn’t interrupt the flow.
    “So, he was a welder down in Mansfield, but he got the call, so he sold the house and bought a truck, a trailer, and a tent, and we hit the road, spreadin’ the gospel. It was just before the war. I was five. It was a different town ever week, exceptin’ when the Spirit fell and there was a revival. Then we might stay a month or two.”
    “It weren’t so bad, really. Got to meet a lot of interestin’ people. Daddy always liked to find out who was the toughest guy in town, hunt him down, and challenge him to come to the meetin’. And he’d usually get saved. Daddy sure knew his business. Knows his business,” she corrected.
    “When I was sixteen, right after I got this,” she clutched the Bible, “he got a live one in Tucson, a nice-lookin’ feller, about twenty-two. He was a ring-tailed-tooter, this’un. He used to tear up the town; they called him a holy terror. Daddy would always say, ‘The bigger they are, the harder they fall.’ And this’un fell all right. First he fell in the Spirit and come up saved, all in a flash, like Saul. Then he fell fer me.”
    She looked up at me, shyly, her head leaning to one side so that her hair hid the mark. It was such a transformation that I almost didn’t recognize her. Peering from behind the leathery skin and wrinkles in the warm glow of sunset was an innocent girl of sixteen, overwhelmed by the unexpected attentions of a dynamic man.
    “I wasn’t used ta bein’ looked at the way Vic looked at me. Because of this,” she said, tossing back her hair. The mark burned darkly in the shadows.
    “Once we saved all the folks worth savin’ in Tucson, we moved up to Phoenix, then to Flagstaff, and on up into Nevada. Vic follered along in his truck and begun preachin’ along with Daddy. They was a powerful team, and just about ever tough guy west of the Mississippi got saved. He traveled with us fer a long time, all over the country, savin’ sinners and courtin’ me. This is all before yer was born. What are yer, nine?”
    “Eleven,” I replied indignantly.
    “OK, eleven then. It was still before yer was born. We finally married when I was seventeen. Daddy did the ceremony.” She let out a bitter laugh. “Did it himself.”
    “After a few years, the more Vic preached, the more people got saved, and he thought he should be getting half the offerin’. Daddy didn’t see it that way, Vic bein’ like his apprentice and all, but Vic said he was better’n Daddy and the only reason the offerin’ was so big was because of him. They had a big fight in Nauvoo, Illinois, and Daddy threw him out. I don’t think he realized he was throwin’ me out too. I guess it never sunk into him that we was married.”
    She shook her head. “Next mornin’, we was gone, Vic and me.” She fell