The Heavenly Table Read Online Free PDF Page B

a couple year ago, and yet there he is, a-sittin’ in that tree just as pretty as you please. He always comes back.”
    Pearl thought for a minute, then asked, “You some kind of preacher?”
    The man shrugged his bony shoulders. “God speaks to me from time to time, and His bird shows me the way. Not much else to it.”
    Before he realized it, Pearl was telling the man about Lucille and the worm and all the ill fortune that had come after. He confessed that he was even beginning to wonder if God existed, for why would He treat some so badly and let others off the hook completely? It didn’t add up. There was no way his paltry sins were equal to the tribulations that had befallen him and his family. After Pearl finished, the man sat quietly for a long time stroking his long, matted beard. Then he glanced down at his callused feet. He leaned over and began tugging on one of his big toenails with his knotty fingers. Without so much as a wince, he tore it off and held it up for Pearl to see.

    “You got it all wrong, my friend,” the man said. “The truth is you been chosen. God’s giving you the chance for a better resurrection, just like he did your old woman. Without taking hold of some of the misery in the world, there can’t be no redemption. Nor will there be any grace. That shouldn’t come as no surprise if you study on it. Look what He let them Jews do to His own son. Most of us got it damned easy compared to the suffering that went on that day. But what they call ‘preachers’ nowadays, they don’t want to tell people the truth. Ol’ Satan’s tricked them into believing the way to salvation can be had for a little bit of nothing. Why, some of them even go around in their fancy clothes claiming that the Lord wants us all to be rich. How does such a man sleep at night, telling lies like that? Using God to fatten his own pockets? Pure sacrilege, that’s what it is. You wait and see, those kind will burn the hottest come the Judgment Day. It’s just a shame their flocks will end up roastin’ with ’em. No, you got to welcome all the suffering that comes your way if you want to be redeemed.”
    “You really believe that?” Pearl said, staring down at the man’s bloody toe while recalling the beaver hat and calfskin gloves the Reverend Hornsby back at the church in Hazelwood used to wear a bit too proudly.
    “Friend, you and those boys of yours could drown me in that river right now and it would be the most blessed thing ever happened to me.”
    “I don’t know,” Pearl said. “I can see where sleepin’ out in the cold and goin’ hungry from time to time might do a man some good, but, mister, we’re about starved clear out.”
    The hermit smiled. “I ain’t et nothing in over a week except a few tadpoles and the creatures I’ve found in this beard of mine. I wouldn’t want no more than that.”
    “If that’s so,” Pearl said, “what is it I get for all this redeeming you talkin’ about?”
    “Why, one day you’ll get to eat at the heavenly table,” the man said. “Won’t be no scrounging for scraps after that, I guarantee ye.”

    “The heavenly table?” Pearl repeated. He hadn’t heard of such a thing before, and wondered if maybe he had been dozing on whatever Sunday morning Reverend Hornsby preached on it.
    “That’s right,” the hermit said, dropping the toenail to the ground. “But keep in mind, only them that shun the temptations of this world will ever sit there.”
    “So what you’re a-sayin’ is that them that has it good down here don’t ever get to see the Promised Land?”
    “Their chances are slim to none, I reckon. Too many spots on their garments, too many wants in their hearts.”
    Gathering up some sandy dirt in his hand, Pearl let it trickle through his fingers. It was obvious the old man was a thinker. “Well, let me ask you this then,” he said. “What about this here noise I got in my head? I’d give the rest of my life for just one night without