Bootleg Freight

It was too late to edit on here when I realized how dated "FAX" sounded but I changed it on my Word program to email, thus enabling Steve to get it on his Android. I'm reminded of reading older mysteries where the cop has to pull over at a pay phone just like us old truckers used to have to do.

 

EIGHT

He was known simply as Preacher in the obscure rural towns where he showed up unannounced with no fanfare, often during a tent revival week, just drifting in like a predawn fog; one that you see from your window in the morning, never questioning its presence or intentions. Nor does one ever notice the departure of fog. It just isn’t there anymore.

The Preacher preferred Appalachian towns such as Bent Fork, Kentucky or Sparrow, West Virginia, for their isolation and purity of spirit. He would sometimes venture north into places like Knockemstiff, Ohio or Low Creek, Pennsylvania.

It was all the same to him, for there were needy people everywhere. But the ones he sought weren’t apt to accept charity from strangers or the government. They would, however, accept a blessing from the Lord, or in this case, one they sincerely believed to be bestowed by the Lord’s representative.

*

He sat in one of the metal folding chairs near the rear of the tent that was packed with humanity, nearly all white, poor, and thirsty to hear the gospel as issued forth by the Reverend Johnathan Goode from Waco, Texas. He took his show on the road via a forty year old tour bus that belched thick black diesel smoke wherever it went. The paint was faded from the elements of nature and countless miles but it was clearly pink. It was rumored the old bus once belonged to a girl group from the Motown sixties that faded into obscurity. The disrepair and appearance of the vehicle bolstered Goode’s claim that he worked for the Lord, not for material gain.

That idealism didn’t extend to his clothing, however. Tonight his white linen suit practically glowed under the spotlights erected on the plywood stage, his shoes glowing as if under their own volition. The rubies in his cuff links matched the one in his tie pin. The jewels on his hands could have financed a new bus with fingers left over. His hair, all his except for perhaps the color, was as perfect as any ever bestowed upon a human being.

The reverend would probably tell anybody with the nerve to question his flamboyancy that he merely wanted eyes focused on him in order to more effectively deliver his message of faith, love, and hope.

The man in the cheap suit dropped a wrinkled dollar bill into the offering plate as it came by under the watchful eyes of one of Goode’s entourage. The man noted one of the bouncer looking types would empty the plate every third or fourth row into a burlap sack before sending it across a new row of seats. It was Friday and by the grand finale on Sunday they would be dumping the plate at every row.

The man they knew as Preacher would begin his work on Monday, the pink bus moved on by then to fleece another flock.

 

Thank-you, carolinacrazyhorse and viper09. It's great to have new readers and I appreciate you longtime readers as well for your patience.

I promise I'm doing my best to get myself together and post some new installments soon.

 

Chapter Eight revision and addition

He was known simply as Preacher in the obscure mountain towns where he showed up unannounced with no fanfare, often during a tent revival week, just drifting in like a predawn fog; one that you see from your window in the morning, never questioning its presence or intentions. Nor does one ever notice the departure of fog. It just isn’t there anymore.

Preacher preferred Appalachian towns such as Bent Fork, Kentucky or Sparrow, West Virginia, for their isolation and purity of spirit. He would sometimes venture north into places like Knockemstiff, Ohio or Low Creek, Pennsylvania.

It was all the same to him, for there were needy people everywhere. But the ones he sought weren’t apt to accept charity from strangers or the government. They would, however, accept a blessing from the Lord, or in this case, one they sincerely believed to be bestowed by the Lord’s representative.

*
Preacher sat in one of the metal folding chairs near the rear of the tent that was packed with humanity, nearly all white, poor, and thirsty to hear the gospel as issued forth by the Reverend Johnathan Goode from Waco, Texas. He took his show on the road via a forty year old tour bus that belched thick black diesel smoke wherever it went. The paint was faded from the elements of nature and countless miles but it was clearly pink, or once was anyway. It was rumored the old bus once belonged to a girl group from the Motown sixties that faded into obscurity. The disrepair and appearance of the vehicle bolstered Goode’s claim that he worked for the Lord, not for material gain.

That idealism didn’t extend to his clothing, however. Tonight his white linen suit practically glowed under the spotlights mounted on the plywood stage, his shoes glowing brilliantly as if they were electrified. The rubies in his cuff links matched the one in his tie pin. The jewels on his hands could have financed a new bus with fingers left over. His hair, all his except for perhaps the color, was as perfect as any ever bestowed upon a human being and was tended to by his personal stylist.

The reverend would probably tell anybody with the nerve to question his flamboyancy that he merely wanted eyes focused on him in order to more effectively deliver his message of faith, love, and hope.What he didn’t tell them were the true reasons he played the small rural venues such as this one.

*
In the eighties, Johnathan Goode was Jeremy Goodlet. He played the big circuit then: Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Nashville, New Orleans, Charlotte. He could fill the big stadiums nearly anywhere, but preferred working in the south. His message was better received there. He considered them his people.

Reverend Goodlet was well respected then. The governor of Mississippi once came to meet him at an event in Jackson. The mayor of Chattanooga gave him the key to the city. His proudest moment was dining with the Reverend Billy Graham in Charlotte.

Cocaine was all the rage in the eighties. It was the ultimate party favor. A lot of folks used it, or at least tried it at one time or another. Teenagers, teachers, bikers, gangsters, cops and housewives. Even the Reverend Goodlet would partake in the alluring crystalline concoction.

He had staff members acquire it for him whenever they arrived in town, and being the quasi rock star he was, he often didn’t even have to pay for it. Sometimes delightful young women would insist on sharing the gifts they brought their king and that was a welcome bonus.

The party ended abruptly on Interstate 10 one sunny June afternoon as Goodlet and crew were travelling from their gig in Miami, Florida, en route to a one nighter in Mobile before heading home to Texas for an extended break.

The Florida State Police had other plans for the folks in the million dollar Prevost luxury bus.

Heads up boss. The voice coming through the intercom was calm and businesslike. The driver wasn’t worried. Not worried about doing eighty in a seventy. Not worried about the two young women who hopped aboard outside of Pensacola. Nor was he worried about the ounce of cocaine that hopped aboard in Fort Lauderdale. The boss could handle it. He always did.

Hey boss, got a copy? A little urgency now as the cruiser closed in tight on the shiny land yacht.

The boss was busy inhaling a fat rail of blow at the moment from a silver serving tray, a gift, ironically, from the wife of the police chief of Arlington, Virginia. She became an ardent fan after he addressed the Christians Against Drugs convention in Washington DC the prior summer.

His new friend Candi squeezed his inner thigh as he threw his head back, face flushed from his rising blood pressure, enjoying the drain of the residue as it made its way down the back of his throat, the coke rush kicking into high gear.

Hey boss! This is ####### serious. Get your ### up here. Urgency became panic in only a few beats of the driver’s heart when he recognized the vehicle closing in on the state patrol car for what it was. The driver wasn’t exactly a choir boy when Goodlet hired him and he knew a Fed when he saw one. The black SUV with the darkened windows was all business as it sped from seemingly nowhere, blue lights pulsing behind grille bars. As unlikely as it was, the former pot smuggler’s anxiety ratcheted up another notch as a second black SUV coming from the west crossed the median a few hundred yards ahead.

By now Goodlet’s other new friend, Cyndi, sensed the desperation in the disembodied voice coming through some unseen speaker and was the only one of the three partiers to realize someone was pounding frantically on the locked door of this secluded chamber of sinful pleasures.

No choir girl herself, and currently on probation, Cyndi was overcome with a combination of déjà vu and claustrophobia at the image of uniformed men forcing their way through that door.

“You crazy #####!” Jeremy Goodlet screamed as Cyndi swiped the silver tray off the table and onto the floor, the mound of coke swirling through the air like snow spraying from the tips of a downhill skier’s skis.

Candi hollered when the enraged reverend attempted to leap to his feet, hampered by her head, now between his legs and banging on the underside of the table. She had unzipped his trousers but had yet to go any further, which could have been literally a bloody mess.

The distraction enabled Cyndi to dart into the onboard restroom where she hurriedly began emptying the contents of her pockets into the toilet, hindered somewhat by the tightness of her jeans.

Despite the confusion and the new, unfamiliar voice shouting commands from the other side of the door, Goodlet had the presence of mind to surmise his playmates had been tag teaming him; while Candi applied her seductive talents, Cyndi stuffed her pockets. A gram here, a gram there, it all adds up after a while.

Jeremy was said to be screaming, “You thieving harlots!” as the DEA battering ram came through the door.

Celebrity busts generally make the national headlines and this one was no exception. All the titillating ingredients were there: money, sex, drugs, corruption, and a glorified pastor proving himself to be a mere mortal.

But, as somebody once said, this too shall pass, and it did. Plea bargains were struck, stacks of cash where slid across the appropriate tables, evidence was mishandled or lost.

The public either forgot the whole thing or just didn’t care anymore. Some country in the Middle East had attacked another country over there. Oil wells were ablaze and now the media was focused on the threat of rising fuel prices.

Life went on and Reverend Goodlet was back in business, albeit in smaller venues. Dallas and Houston were replaced by Tyler and Odessa and Crossville took the place of Nashville, but he still did okay.

Until the next tragedy struck, one not so easily forgiven. This time it involved children. Jeremy was genuinely outraged and distraught over the revelations of the actions of his employee. He made no effort to pull any strings and watched the man go down hard for his crimes. The molester was killed by another inmate within a year.

The reverend reached out to the affected families, offering consolation and compensation, but to no avail.

Details of his bust years before in Florida bubbled to the surface as the news vultures sought to dig up whatever they could to pile on top of the story, relevant or not, thriving on the misery of others.

Goodlet had found his own Scarlet Letter, a stain that wouldn’t wash out, an odor that had permeated the sofa.

So he did the wisest thing he could have, considering the attention span of the American public. He simply disappeared.

He may well have had the money to stay out of circulation until his final days but in the end he could never rid himself of his unshakeable desire to preach. Cocaine could never match the rush he got from the crowd. He loved it when he had them rolling in the aisles, when the old women fainted, the young ones confessed their sins, and the truly devout spoke in the mysterious language of tongues.

The name change was merely cosmetic and he doubted it was even necessary. Many of his current clientele didn’t own televisions and few of those that did spent any time watching cable news. Those that attended his revivals loved him as a man of God and that was that. These were literal minded people. They believed what they saw and to hell with any outsiders who would try to convince them otherwise.

*
Preacher, wearing his usual nondescript dark suit, dropped a single dollar bill into the offering plate as it came by under the watchful eyes of one of Goode’s entourage. He noted one of the bouncer looking types would empty the plate every third or fourth row into a burlap sack before sending it across the next row of seats. It was Friday and by the grand finale on Sunday they would be dumping the plate at every row.

He sat near the back tonight, as he had every night since the revival began on Monday. He had no interest in the man on stage. His interest was in the spectators and he was in a better position to study them from here. A contributing factor to his seating preference was the meeker folk tended to be back here, whether by choice or they allowed themselves to be hustled back by the more aggressive worshippers was unclear.

A married couple sat in the row in front of him, only a few seats to his left. They were each perhaps thirty years old. A boy he guessed to be seven sat between them. The man had worn the same worn, ill fitting suit each night for the entire week. He was probably married in that suit. The woman was wearing the yellow striped dress she wore Monday and Wednesday. She wore a different one on Tuesday and Thursday and would most likely have it on tomorrow night as well.

The man was missing half of his little finger on one hand and parts of two fingers were gone on the other. He had the worn down look of one who has been walking uphill his entire life, physically and emotionally.

The woman was pretty despite the total lack of makeup and a haircut she may have performed herself. Her gray eyes would be beautiful were it not for the sadness in them and the lines in her flesh emanating from them befitting one twenty years her senior.

If they had a car, they weren’t using it to attend the services; either due to disrepair or a lack of funds for gasoline. One could only guess how far they were walking to and from their home each evening, but they never failed to put a dollar in the plate when it came their way.

Preacher introduced himself the night before by way of an orchestrated encounter by stumbling into the boy as the crowd dispersed from the tent.

“Oh, Lord, how clumsy of me!” Preacher exclaimed as he walked into the back of the young boy, his attention seemingly focused on the Reverend Goode holding court with a throng of admirers a hundred feet away.

The boy’s fall was actually no more than a gentle tumble onto the grass, but Preacher dropped to the ground as if it were a dire crisis, helping the lad to his feet.

After first seeing the boy from twenty feet away several nights ago Preacher was fairly certain he had found a valuable commodity; now after making eye contact from inches away he was dead certain.

“I am so terribly sorry. Please forgive me. I pray you are unharmed,” Preacher said with anguish in his voice.

 

“Oh, I’m okay Mister, didn’t hurt a bit, no more than a flea dropping off a dog’s belly anyway,” the boy said with a grin as he brushed dried grass from his trousers.

Oh my, thought Preacher; bright, articulate, a sense of humor, and barely a trace of the mountain accent so prevalent in this area.

Cute as a speckled pup under a Christmas tree.

“Did you know my Grandma?” the boy asked.

“No, I didn’t, why do you ask?”

“She used to say that, but she’s dead now. My Grandpa’s still alive but he doesn’t say much. He mostly just sits in his chair and stares at nothing, only it looks like he sees something that we don’t.”

Preacher was pleased that his new friend not only picked up the unspoken thought but responded to it as well, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do.

“Maybe he does, Timmy, just as some people can hear things others don’t.” Not the slightest register of surprise at the man knowing his name.

By now Timmy’s parents missed him and turned in a frantic circle searching the area before spying their son talking to a stranger thirty feet away.

An odd combination of relief and fear swept over their faces as they rushed to their son as he was engaged in conversation with the vaguely familiar man kneeling before him.

“What’s going on here?” the man asked to either or both of them in a somewhat accusatory tone.

“I’m sorry if I created a problem, sir,” Preacher spoke up. “I wasn’t paying attention and walked right into the young lad, your son I’m guessing, and knocked him right over. I’m terribly sorry. I was just apologizing to him.”

“It was all my fault, Dad,” Timmy interjected before his father could respond. “I was daydreaming, not paying a lick of attention to where I was going and just banged plumb into the man.” Pleased again, this time at how quickly Timmy came to his defense.

“Well, the important thing is that nobody was hurt and there are no hard feelings,” Timmy’s mother said.

“My name is Tammy Sue Burton and this is my husband Wendell Burton,” Tammy continued as she extended her hand. Wendell stepped forward grudgingly and did the same mumbling a half hearted “pleasure to meet you.”

“And a pleasure to meet both of you. My name is Isaac Hill,” Isaac said, accepting their handshakes. “I’ve been visiting family down in Beckley and decided to visit the revival on the way home.”

Isaac found it made things easier when dealing with strangers to offer some information, although false, about himself. It generally put folks at ease when they believed whomever they were dealing with was being open and honest.

“I’ve heard much about the Reverend Goode over the years and didn’t want to pass up an opportunity to finally see him in person,” he explained.

“That’s wonderful you could take the time to do so now. I hope all was well with your family in Beckley?” she asked.

“I’m afraid a dear uncle of mine has passed, the day before my arrival, actually. I so regret I wasn’t there in time to see him but my faith tells me the Lord called him when he did to not prolong his earthly suffering.”

“That is such a thoughtful way to phrase it. Are you a preacher yourself?”

“Oh, no. My father, Jeremiah Hill of Alda, Kentucky was though; full Pentecostal, fire and brimstone, handling snakes, the whole shootin’ match. Maybe some rubbed off on me but I’ve never delivered a sermon in my life.”

“Well, you certainly have the temperament of a pastor. I bet you would make a fine one if you ever chose to pursue it.”

“Thank-you, you are too kind, but I do try to serve Him in other ways. We all have our own parts to play, no matter how insignificant they may seem to us.”

It didn’t take Isaac long to understand the family dynamics at play here. Wendell had barely spoken and was trying unsuccessfully to disguise his resentment of his wife carrying on a conversation with a total stranger as if he wasn’t even present.

Isaac’s father ruled his home with an iron fist. Wendell obviously did not. Despite his sizeable stature, and his scarred callused hands, Wendell Burton was not an alpha male, at least not in his own family.

Normally this would be an advantage for Isaac, for men tended to be right brain thinkers, and when a weaker man was pushed from the forefront, that left him to appeal to the woman who more often led with her emotions, and her heart.

Tammy would pose more of a challenge however. For despite her faded clothes and homemade haircut, Isaac suspected he was dealing with an intelligent, willful woman. He idly wondered how she came to be here and why she chose her current mate but wouldn’t allow himself to be distracted by these matters. But whatever challenge she posed, Isaac was up for it, for when playing his game by his rules, he always prevailed.

 

“That is a thoughtful way of phrasing it. We forget that the small things we do for others are larger in the eyes of those we help,” Tammy responded.

“I may use that quote myself one day, with your permission of course,” Isaac said with a twinkle in his eye, his back to Wendell.

“Permission granted, kind sir,” she answered, laughing as she did so. Isaac had the impression she was enjoying herself in a fashion that rarely, if ever, occurred at home.

“May I offer you folks a ride home?” Isaac asked, directing the question at the silent husband, allowing him his role as family leader. The last thing he wanted to do was to alienate the man. He may be the weak link but in the end his vote was still needed.