A Walk on the Wild Side Read Online Free PDF

‘Give them wine.’” Satan didn’t claim Jesus’ mother ’count of wine, ah reckon he won’t claim me ’count of a half-pint of busthead.’
    ‘What cause folk to git dispatched to Hellfire then?’ a believer demanded to know right now.
    ‘You don’t git “
dispatched
” to Hellfire,’ Fitz assured him – ‘You’re born right
in
it. Gawd got a fence clean a-
round
Hell. So a sinner caint git out! Sinner caint dig underneath! Too deep! Sinner caint crawl between! Caint climb over! It’s ee-o-lectrified!’
    ‘How’d
you
git out?’ the mocker asked softly. He was astride the barrel of the town howitzer, his face and figure shadowed like a cannoneer’s who has lost both battle and cause.
    ‘Ah
clumb
,’ Fitz explained, and clumb right into his theme – ‘Ah clumb the lowest strand ’cause that’s the strand of LOVE. Ah clumb the second strand ’cause that’s the MERCY strand. Ah clumb the third because ah been LONGSUFFERIN’!’—
    ‘—thought you said that fence wasee-o-lectrified,’ the cannoneer reminded him, but Fitz was climbing too hard to hear – ‘Ah clumb clean ovah the topmost one of HIS MOST PRECIOUS BLOOD! Brothers! Sisters! Step on the strand of LOVE! Step on the strand of MERCY! Step on the LONGSUFFERING strand and get ready – to cross the strand of THE BLOOD!’
    ‘You know, I was thinking along those lines myself,’ the cannoneer commented, and spat. Yet Fitz paid him no heed.
    ‘I know some of you boys come a mighty far way in hope I’d save you for the Heavenly Home,’ he acknowledged. ‘That
was
my pure intent. But now that I see your actual faces I’ve had a change of mind. Boys, I’m woeful sorry, but the Lord just don’t want a bunch of dirt-eating buggers walking the Streets of Gold. The Lord don’t mind sinners – but he just can’t stand rats. And I’ll be god
damned
if
I’ll
take the responsibility!’ – and openly took a defiant swig of his half-pint.
    Both skeptics and hopers cheered at that – the old man was warming up. ‘You tell ’em, Preacher! Drink ’er down! Don’t you play whore to no man!’
    Fitz smacked his lips, rewound his dirty bandanna about his bottle and replaced it in the hidden pocket.
    ‘
Now
tell us about Temptation, Father,’ the man on the cannon asked, trying to get Fitz pointed at the Pope.
    ‘I’ll tell you this much about Temptation, Byron Linkhorn,’ the old man answered directly – ‘there are so-called Christians right in this gathering tonight who voted for the Pope in ’28. Do you think the Lord caint remember two year?’
    Fitz could forgive a man for using marijuana, but not for voting for Al Smith. Others who had voted for the Pope in ’28 stood silent, letting Byron take the full brunt of their guilt. It was Byron who had ruined everyone’s chance for the New Jerusalem, that silence implied. Now no one could go.
    ‘Tell the
rest
of us how to be saved, Preacher,’ one hypocrite pleaded.
    ‘Or the time you fell in the cesspool,’ Byron stayed in there.
    Fitz was hell on the Pope, but Byron was hell on Fitz.
    ‘The Lord
does
work in mysterious ways, that’s certain sure,’ the old man found his text – ‘for example, the pitiful critter atop the county property happen to be my son.’
    ‘Here come the part
I
come for,’ somebody dug his naked toes in the earth with anticipated pleasure – ‘Here’s where thet busthead starts
really
taken holt.’
    ‘—a critter not long for this world,’ Fitz gave hope to all creation – ‘the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away – and the sooner he taketh away that particular civet, the air hereabouts will be considerable fitter for humans. His lungs is gone, his mind is weak, his heart is dry as an autumn leaf. The brickle thread of his life is ready to snap. I envy him his trials is about to cease!’
    The man on the cannon tried to reply, but was trapped by a cough so racking that every face turned to his own. He was good as dead,