The Black Train

Sute lumbered up and began rubbing Jiff’s shoulders. “You’re letting the legends get the best of you. Come and lie down with me…”

But Jiff was spacing out. “Finally, I fall down. I’m so weak, see, that I can’t shovel no more coal, so…so —”

“What happened?”

“The soldiers throwed me into the furnace…”

Sute stroked Jiff’s face from behind. “It’s just the legend, Jiff, it’s the legend. Put it out of your mind.”

“That’s just it, J.G.—my mind. Why in hell would my mind serve up somethin’ so vile? And after I got tossed in, I just kept burnin’. I could see the flesh smokin’ right off my body, but the nightmare still wouldn’t end. Finally I did wake up, and I was screamin’ bloody murder. And you know what? ’bout a minute later, I heard Lottie screamin’, too—her bedroom’s right next to mine. How fucked up is that? Lottie cain’t talk, can’t barely make no sound at all. But she was screamin’, too, like she was havin’ a nightmare herself. Jesus H. Christ, I hope she didn’t have the same one as me.”

“I’m sorry to see you in such duress, Jiff.” Sute was nearly in tears. This was the first time that Jiff had ever confided in him, the first time he’d ever regarded Sute as more than just a kink trick. “Stay with me. Let me make you breakfast.”

Shit, Jiff thought. What am I doin’? He snapped out of it. He’s right, it was just a dumb dream, and I’m all actin’ like a baby about it. He pulled away from his client and began to dress. “Naw, I gotta go. Got work at the inn.” He blinked away the remaining dream fragments yet still felt his stomach souring.

Sute sat back down on the bed, morose that the love of his life was leaving. “If it’s any consolation, Jiff, a long time ago I spent the night at the inn when my roof was being reshingled. You were just a teenager then. But I had a nightmare, too, that’s similar to yours in some ways.”

Jiff paused to look at him.

“I dreamed that I was a Confederate general, who’d sold his soul to the devil, and the first man I met after making the pact was Harwood Gast.”

Jiff felt as though a tarantula had just skimmed up his back. He didn’t want to hear anything about the devil. But he had to ask, “J.G.? You think a place can make nightmares, ’cos of what happened in it in the past?”

“Well, that’s one endless rumor about the Gast House, Jiff. But in truth…no. I really don’t think so.”

“I hope not.”

“It’s ironic, though: the content of your nightmare as well as the history of your mother’s inn. That man from the TV show is quite interested in the topic. He’s almost obsessed with the Gast legend.”

Jiff eyed his client with suspicion. “Yeah?”

“Seems quite odd, doesn’t it? A book writer and celebrity from California, so taken by a Southern ghost story.”

Yeah, I guess it is…“He’s a nice guy and all but this town definitely ain’t the place for him.”

“Southern pride.” Sute managed a smile. “I’ll call you again soon.”

For a split second, he had the most noxious vision: Jiff was shoving Sute into the furnace’s fiery maw. His hand was shaking when he grabbed the doorknob. And, no, he wasn’t going to tell Sute yet that he was dumping him as a client. The tricks were so much easier at the Spike. He’d simply had enough. I’ll tell him next time he calls, he decided, and just said for now, “See ya later.” Then Jiff turned to leave.

“Gracious, Jiff. You really are out of sorts, aren’t you?”

Jiff turned. “Huh?”

“You were about to do something you’ve never done before.”

Jiff was getting irritated. “What’cha talkin’ about?”

“You almost walked out of here without your money,” Sute informed him and smiled. Then he gave Jiff a check for one hundred dollars.

CHAPTER TWELVE I

“There’s no gray area here, folks,” the minister said. “You can’t get more cut-and-dry than the Ten Commandments. There’s no interpretation necessary to understand Christ’s Golden Rule, ‘Do to others as you would have others do to you.’ When Jesus said on the Mount, ‘Blessed are the merciful for the merciful shall be shown mercy,’ we don’t need a literary analyst from Harvard to tell us what that really means. The Word of God is simple. It’s like boiling rice. If you follow the instructions on the bag, it works. God’s Word works, too, but our problem is we don’t really listen. We may try to, or we tell ourselves that we’re listening, but we really aren’t because as humans we exist in error. We’re unworthy in the shadow of our sin…”

Collier felt inhibited throughout the service, as out of place as a Washington Redskins jersey in a Dallas sports shop. The minister reminded him of the Skipper on Gilligan’s Island but was bald as Telly Savalas. He interestingly mixed fire and brimstone with lackadaisical good humor: “We’re all premeditated sinners worthy of nothing but hell, but God’s a pretty cool guy and he cuts us slack if we earn it. He knows we’re all screwed up but he loves us anyway! He doesn’t want heaven to be full of nothing but stone-faced boring pilgrims and monks who haven’t cracked a joke in their entire lives!” Collier figured heaven would indeed be Dullsville if exclusively populated by such folks.

Dominique held his hand through the entire service, save for intervals for hymns. She as well as most everyone there listened to the minister with the same attention that Collier had paid to those Girls Gone Wild commercials: with rapt veneration. Maybe that was the difference.

The minister pointed his finger at the congregation, like an accuser, then slowly aimed it at himself. “My friends, there really are seven deadly sins: wrath, lust, pride, greed, envy, sloth, and—my personal favorite— gluttony…” He stepped away from the lectern and hoisted a considerable belly beneath his vestments, which summoned laughter from the pews.

“But the other day I was thinking that maybe that’s why God put seven days in the week—a day for each sin. Why don’t we reserve each separate day to atone for one, and stick to it. Monday can be pride, Tuesday can be envy, Wednesday can be sloth, and so on. And today? Sunday? Let’s assign greed to Sunday, and use the Lord’s day to try to redeem ourselves of this sin. Let’s remember Jesus’ story of the widow’s mite, how a destitute woman gave her last two leptons to the offering box—only a fraction of a cent. That’s not much money but to Christ that woman’s selfless sacrifice was worth more than a mountain of gold.”

Collier grew suspicious. Here it comes. Open up your hearts and open up your wallets…

“Let’s remember that for every dollar we give, we get back a hundred in spirit. Let’s remember the word of James: ‘Every act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above,’ so that when we give in the name of God, we become like God. And the words of Matthew: ‘Freely we have received, so freely we must give.’ Just go out and give—let’s do that today instead of watching TV or washing the car—”

The collection plate’ll be making the rounds any minute now, Collier thought.

“—and for you wise guys out there who think I’m just pumping you up for the collection plate, I’m asking you to not give a penny to this church today. Give it to someone else instead—”

Collier frowned.

“—and if you’ve got no money, give your time. Or maybe we can follow our best examples”—he pointed to someone in the pews—“like Mr. Portafoy who spends every Friday night helping terminal patients at the hospice, or Janice Wilcox who runs the local clothing drive, or Dominique Cusher who prepares a hundred meals before her