Butterfly (29 page)

“Here’s what I got to offer you,” Billy Bob Magdalene said after downing a second

glass. “How’d you two like a job?”

“Job?” they said together.

“Yeah. Workin’ in my show. I need a coupla shills in the audience. Since Sister Lucy

and Brother Abner ran off together last month, my nightly take’s fallen off. You two know

what a shill is?”

They shook their heads.

So Reverend Billy Bob Magdalene explained how his operation worked. And while he

talked he opened a basket and took out some sandwiches—thick roast beef with mustard

and tomatoes—and some cold fried chicken and chunks of angel food cake. Which he did

share with the boys and which they devoured hungrily. But the whiskey he never offered.

“I’m in the protection racket,” Reverend Billy Bob Magdalene said. “First I remind

folks that God is so angry with them that He’s got it on His calendar to squash them

soon’s He can get around to it. Then I kind of hint that I got some special
in
with the

Lord, like I got His ear. And then I sort of let it slip that for a small sum I might just whis-

per a few words in God’s ear in their defense. It never fails. They come into my tent as

scared-shit sinners, and they leave feeling fully insured.”

He picked a drumstick clean, threw it out the open window and refilled his glass.

“Now, here’s how I work it. I go on ahead of this here bus and come into town quiet-like,

where I make a deal with the local ministers. For half of my take, they agree to close their

own churches and urge folks to come to my tent. That way everyone’s happy. I get paid,

the ministers get paid, and the folks have a brief reprieve from God’s wrath.”

Wishing he had a cold Nehi to wash down the sandwich, Danny said, “Where do we

come into this?”

“I need some plants in my audience, to kinda get things rolling. It’s a good practice to

have one shill for about every twenty-five people. When I give a certain prearranged sig-

nal, you start the folks to clapping. When I give another signal, you stand up and shout

Hallelujah. By the time the plate comes around, you’ve gotten them so worked up they

literally empty their pockets.” Billy Bob Magdalene sat back and belched loudly. “So,

what do you boys think?”

“What’s our cut?”

“Your cut?” Billy Bob Magdalene threw back his head and roared with laughter.

“Hell’s bells, son! Your cut is that I don’t turn you over to the sheriff for what you done

tonight!
After
I shoot your balls off.”

He fell silent then, picking his teeth and measuring the two boys. He was thinking

how the ladies always put more into the collection plate when they thought there was the

possibility of being personally brought to Jesus by good-looking young studs like these.

Nothin’ like young Texas manhood to bring the ladies to the Lord, he thought.

“Five percent of the take,” he said. “Split between you. Plus, you ride in this bus and

get your meals free. I got a circuit that goes clear into Louisiana and Oklahoma. The pos-

sibilities, sons, are boundless. Whaddya say?”

124

Kathryn Harvey

Bonner looked at Danny and the two exchanged a smile.

That morning, she had fed them fried ham with buttermilk biscuits. Now she was

putting great bowls of chili in front of them, along with corn bread and ice-cold milk.

Danny smiled his special smile, looked her up and down with his lazy green eyes, and said

softly, “Boy hidey, ma’am. Ain’t no one can make chili like a fine Texas woman. And that’s

a fact!”

He looked across the table and winked at Bonner. They had both had her last night—

all three of them together in the same bed.

Soon after joining Billy Bob Magdalene on his preaching circuit, the two boys from

San Antonio had discovered that a lot of these isolated farm wives were starved for a bit of

excitement. With husbands too tired from working the fields all day, or too Bible-strict to

vary from the missionary way, many wives found an outlet in these handsome young men

who could be coaxed into doing anything. Last night, this young wife of a cotton farmer

who was away in Abilene had wanted Danny and Bonner inside her at the same time. It

was a first for Danny, and he decided he liked it.

Besides, there was a ten-dollar bill on their plates for each of them the next morning.

“It’s too bad you-all can’t stay awhile longer,” she said, bringing a fresh pitcher of cold

milk.

Danny rocked back on his chair and gave her his smoothest smile. This farm wife was

doubly talented; not only was she a hellcat in bed, she put out a table spread that was

nearly as good as old Eulalie’s had been.

Soon after joining up with Billy Bob Magdalene a year ago and after a quick visit to

Bonner’s house to gather their things and leave without saying good-bye to Mrs. Purvis,

the two friends had discovered that they had no need of sleeping in that smelly old bus

with Sister Hallie and Brother Bud and the Reverend. Every town they rode into, there

was a competition to see who would have the honor of feeding and bedding down the

boys for the night. The Reverend didn’t mind, when he saw which way the wind was

blowing. It was just as he thought: handsome young bucks like these, full of piss and vine-

gar, were the best draw he had ever had.

Almost at once his nightly takes went up. What with Danny and Bonner moving up

and down the aisles, smiling their heart-melting smiles and urging people to praise the

Lord, folks just seemed to part with their money easier.

And then one night outside of Austin with Billy Bob Magdalene down sick with

something he ate, Danny decided to give the preaching business a try, and discovered that

he was miles better than the Reverend. His natural energies and magnetism rolled out

over the heads of the congregation and they were his within minutes. He strutted his stuff

on the stage, gave them sex and charisma and hellfire, and that night their take was the

biggest it had ever been. Afterward, Danny had had his pick from the mob of women

seeking private counsel in the bus.

It was right around then that Bonner had suggested that maybe they didn’t need Sister

Hallie or Brother Bud. After all, nearly every town church had an organ, and nearly every

town organist was female. And as it was considered an honor to play at Billy Bob

BUTTERFLY

125

Magdalene’s revivals, there was no thought of payment. The boys had been able to per-

suade Billy Bob Magdalene to abandon old Hallie and Bud in Shreveport once they

showed him on paper how much greater their three takes would be without the other two.

Still, it wasn’t enough. As he ran his bread around his bowl and said “Yes, ma’am” to a

slice of apple pie, Danny got to thinking again. It had been on his mind a lot lately, the

fact that they weren’t realizing their full potential.

Every night, in every town, it was the same thing. Billy Bob Magdalene shooting fire

and brimstone over the heads of the terrified congregation, then handsome Bonner and

Danny moving smoothly among them to take the money. The problem was, they just

weren’t special.

In fact, they were pretty much like any revival troupe traveling the South. A few times

Danny had gone on over to other meetings to see what they were doing. He’d seen a

scantily clad “virgin” writhing with snakes, a seven-year-old preacher in a miniature white

tuxedo, people being faith-healed out of their wheelchairs, total-immersion baptism, and

so on. Everybody, it seemed to him, had a gimmick. And that’s just what he and Bonner

needed in order to get ahead. Otherwise, they were just another dime-a-dozen act.

Not that Danny complained. It had been a smart move to join up with Billy Bob

Magdalene. It got him out of San Antonio and away from the fly boys and whores; it got

him on the road and moving and seeing what the world was like; it gave him new beds

and new bed partners almost every night; and it fed him and kept him in money until he

came up with plans for his future.

Because one thing was for certain, Danny wasn’t going to do this for the rest of his life.

Just look at Billy Bob Magdalene. Fifty, if he was a day. And a whiskey-toting nobody

who was going to die in mediocrity. Not so for Danny Mackay. He had finally tasted the

power of controlling a crowd, of manipulating them, of making them dance to his tune.

And having once tasted such power, he wanted to experience it again.

“I’m afraid we can’t stay on, ma’am,” he said now as he pushed his empty pie plate

away. “The Reverend says we have to be in Texarkana by nightfall.”

“A pity,” she said.

He looked at her behind in the tight print dress—the most perfect teardrop ass he had

ever seen. Just thinking about last night started getting him excited again.

When he looked across at Bonner, Danny saw that his friend was thinking the same

thing.

They grinned at each other.

Hell, they’d done it before, hadn’t they? Gotten Billy Bob Magdalene so stinking

drunk that they had to stay over? Like that time those two twins had nearly sucked them

dry in Wichita Falls. Danny had been sore for a week afterward, but it had been worth it,

to get Billy Bob Magdalene so skunked that he’d slept for three days while Danny and

Bonner enjoyed the Macfee sisters.

After they thanked the farm wife and left through the kitchen door, Danny murmured

to Bonner, “What say we go into town and buy ol’ Billy Bob a bottle?”

126

Kathryn Harvey

It was around about midnight, as the three of them lay naked and sweating and inter-

twined on her bed, that the idea came to Danny.

We don’t need Billy Bob Magdalene anymore.

The boys bided their time and waited until it was the dead of summer and they were

on a lonely stretch of highway. Waves of heat shimmered up from the baking asphalt;

pools of fake mirage water lay like melted silver out on the desert. Nothing but mesquite

scrub for miles, and prickly pear, the scourge of West Texas. They were tuned into a sta-

tion that was playing “Heartbreak Hotel” by that new country-western singer named

Elvis Presley. And Reverend Billy Bob Magdalene was nursing another hangover.

He hadn’t been doing well these last couple of months. His health seemed to be

declining rapidly. He didn’t know what he would have done without the two boys, who

were so concerned about his health and so good to him by always buying him a bottle.

“Hey,” said Bonner from the back of the bus. “What do you all know about this town

Odessa? You been there before, Billy Bob?”

But the Reverend was too busy cradling his head. Once again, he wouldn’t be preach-

ing tonight. Danny would be doing it. But that was all right. Although Billy Bob

Magdalene wouldn’t admit it to the boys, Danny was a better hellfire preacher than he

was. And just so darned good-looking, flashing that sly, sexy smile at the audience.

Couldn’t deny it—the boy brought in the greenbacks.

“Hey,” said Danny all of a sudden. “You feel that?”

“Feel what?” said Bonner.

“I don’t know…” Danny frowned and gripped the steering wheel. “Something doesn’t

feel right.”

“Might could be a tire,” said Bonner, coming forward and leaning down to peer

between his friend and the Reverend at the endless stretch of highway before them. They

hadn’t seen another car in hours.

“Better check it,” Danny said, slowly easing the old bus over to the side.

“You stay there, Billy Bob,” Bonner said when they got out. “It’s way too hot out here

for you.”

But when he saw them standing there lighting up Camels and shaking their heads at

the front wheel, Billy Bob just had to get out and see what was wrong.

And he found out just exactly what was wrong as soon as the boys climbed back into

the bus, saying they were getting the jack and some tools, and started up the engine

instead and drove away.

Bonner and Danny watched him in their rearview mirror, a small, bewildered figure

growing smaller as they sped away. A shirtless, hatless, half-drunk old man with no water

in the middle of a merciless desert.

“Whoo-ee!” shouted Bonner.

“We’re on our way now, boy!” cried Danny as he pressed down on the accelerator and

sped on down the highway in their BILLY BOB MAGDALENE BRINGS JESUS bus toward what

he knew were going to be better things.