TAKING THE JESUS PILL
by Charlie Terrell

I met her on the side of the road at a fireworks stand. It was a sweltering day in Alabama right before the Fourth of July. I had just walked from my car and around the back of the stand, when I saw her sitting, just fallen, squarely in the dirt with her head thrown back laughing. Her ivory throat was as beautiful and soft as a white, creamy birthday cake, fresh before the knife. I helped her up and offered my handkerchief for her dirty hands. She smiled and thanked me and we started talking. At first I thought she was a Yankee girl, but I think she was just trying to hide her accent. We walked back to her car and drove to her motel room. I pulled a leather flask from my coat and we sat on the bed and drank whiskey. It was easy to be with Tina. She was full of unforced magic and she had a great laugh. She told me she was on her way up to New York. She didn't say why, but I could tell she was running. Then you know, you know how things go...talking, laughing, little bit of whiskey...talking, laughing. The afternoon light came in across the room and fell across her skin. That was all I needed to believe in God Again.

When I woke up she was gone. She washed out my handkerchief and hung it on the lamp to dry. I stood by the window and looked out into the empty space of everywhere she could have gone. I started making up this little movie in my head....

Tina Winston was a mysteriously beautiful girl. It was said that she was so beautiful that the doctor who delivered her, actually cried when she was born. Tina grew up in Huntsville, Alabama--a quiet little town in the northern part of the state at the tail end of the Appalachians. She spent her childhood in the shelter of her father's house and lived with privilege and means. The whole town knew of the Winstons and their well-bred, eccentric heritage, but despite the promise for local gossip, Tina grew-up well-mannered and quiet. She was a perfect little lady. Tina's long red hair was always combed and her skin was smooth and flushed. She had delicate little hands that she kept still in her lap, but they were lightning quick and graceful. She was coddled and spoiled by everybody and held up like a prize. She had amazing light-blue eyes that looked like glass marbles filled with water. Her father was the Reverend Brandon Winston. He was a tall man with a close, red goatee and hair combed tight across his skull. His eyes were light blue and cold. He always wore a suit of hard decent black. His voice was deliberate; the voice of a man that demanded he be listened to not so much with attention but in silence. He was very wealthy. The Reverend had inherited all of his money from his father who, cunningly, had made a fortune during the Depression raising soybeans. The Reverend built a massive white mansion up on the mountain above the town and lived there with his only child, Tina and his wife, Josephine.

The Reverend was a strange bird and threw wild parties almost every night. Nobody ever knew why he was called a Reverend. He was never seen at church on Sunday morning and he wasn't known to pray aloud. Perhaps, it was just in the way that he carried himself. Some people said that as a young man he used the power of the Lord to heal people in the Snake Handlers church over in Georgia. It was just another mystery of the Winston legacy that was accepted. It wasn't polite to call a person crazy, so the Reverend and his parties were considered eccentric and quietly tolerated. At night the great rooms of the Winston Mansion filled up with people from all walks of life. All the misfits, crooks, freaks, pharmacists, carpenters and politicians in town had been to the mansion at one time or another. They came to drink and forget, out of curiosity and out of lust. The Ladies kicked their heels up and shed their satin shoes and the men stood around and lied about their fear. Late into the night after the Reverend had made his rounds and exchanged his pleasantries, he would wade up the great stairs and down the hall to some dark room. Behind closed doors, he would sit in a velvet chair and watch lecherous women tangle up together in fits of lust.

The Reverend also made visits to Tina's room. Many nights after he had worked himself up into a lustful state of rage, he would wander like a drunkard down to Tina's room and find her asleep and alone. These midnight visits went on for years, but nobody ever spoke about it. Silence is one of the great Southern traditions. Josephine, the Reverend's wife couldn't admit any of it to herself. She drank herself into a stupor and smoked cannabis all the time. Josephine was a tiny woman, hunched over, with something queer in her eyes as if whatever she saw or heard, she saw or heard through her husband. Sometimes, Josephine would catch her daughter's eyes from across the room and feel the prick of a million little needles in her heart, but she never said a word. Year after year went by and the parties went on. The midnight visits from the Reverend continued and Tina grew more and more withdrawn and more and more beautiful. It was late on a Monday night shortly after her eighteenth birthday that Tina packed a small suitcase and snuck out the back door at the height of one of her father's raucous cotillions. Tina's mother was in the maid's kitchenette at the time and saw Tina leaving, but she didn't say a word. It was the only kind thing that Josephine ever did for her daughter. She watched Tina walk into the lightning-bug night and lit another joint. Laughing, drunk and stoned Josephine stumbled back to the party and left a tiny roach burning on the floor. A couple of minutes later the maid came running into the dining room screaming that the whole kitchen was on fire. Everybody panicked and ran out of the house. The whole party was squirming on the lawn frightened and confused. A few men started to run for help, but the Reverend stopped them. Instead, he told his servants to bring some chairs out on to the lawn and invited his guests to sit there and drink and watch the fire. He convinced almost every one that it would be the greatest event in the history of Huntsville and they would all be sorry if they missed it. Well, the servants saved some chairs and about ten bottles of whiskey and everybody stayed. The Reverend sat there in his velvet chair and everybody gathered around and laughed and watched the mansion burn. He told stories of his childhood and strange tales of his days as a snake handler in Georgia. He never noticed that his daughter, Tina, was nowhere to be found. The fire burned out about the break of dawn and all the guests left. They climbed into their cars and disappeared into their days. Josephine was still drunk and eaten up with anger and despair. She fell into the ashes on the ground and cried. The Reverend looked down and saw his wife crying and suddenly realized his daughter, Tina, was missing. He grabbed his wife and shook her in the ashes. "Where is my little girl! Where is my little Tina!" Josephine lay there shaking like the hands of a clown. She stared into his eyes with exhausted silence. The day was all but broken. The smoke rose up into the sky. The dead house was hissing and the birds began to sing. Thinking that his daughter had perished in the flames, the Reverend stood there and looked into the ashes and silently went insane. He kissed his wife and walked out into the fields and far away from everything he had ever known. He never came back. Josephine didn't say a word. She figured that her husband got what he deserved. In the years to come, Josephine drank herself to death and never saw her husband or her daughter again.

Tina ran up North. She hitched rides with truckers and ex-cons and hippies and for no particular reason, ended up in Buffalo, New York. She never knew about the fire or what happened to her parents and she didn't care. She hocked a bag of silverware and jewelry that she stole from the mansion and, for awhile, lived off the money. She buried all the terrible nights with her father deep in the back of her mind. She felt like a damaged child and wanted to break free. For the first time in her life she was broke and alone. It made her feel alive. She stayed in cheap motels and wandered the streets during the day. Everything was dangerous and new. One day down on some corner Tina met up with a two-bit redneck from Louisiana named Johnny. Johnny was crazy. He drove a beat-up old black limousine with crosses and Bible verses painted on the sides. At one time, Johnny wanted to preach the word, but gave it up for drinking and smoking and lying with harlots. Everybody back home called him "Johnny 3:16"after that famous verse in the Bible. He was skinny and handsome. He had a thin little moustache above his lip and a little bit of cartoon murder in his eyes. Tina was like a magnet for misfits like Johnny. She had spent years as a little girl roaming the halls of the big mansion making friends with the drunks and the rowdies. She was used to such company and naturally preferred it. Tina and Johnny became inseparable. They roamed the street and got into trouble. Soon, Johnny had Tina into all kind of things. They stole purses and shoplifted and Johnny taught Tina how to roll a joint. One night after they hit the jackpot with a wad of cash from some old lady's purse, Johnny took Tina to one of his friend's apartments in the Whitley Flats and showed her how to snort some nasty pink powder up her nose. Tina didn't know it was methamphetamine, but she knew it felt just like going to heaven. Before long, Johnny and Tina were going down to the Whitley Flats every day. Johnny looked after Tina and they fell deeply-drug-in-love. He was so happy with his beautiful speed junkie. She looked so pretty to him even when she hadn't slept for days on end. Tina spiraled down and got more desperate. They went from snorting to shooting and started stealing more and more. She got the street name "Chicken Shit Tina" because she was terrified of needles and had to get Johnny to shoot her up. She had nothing she ever wanted.

Meanwhile, down in Alabama, the Reverend Brandon Winston's brain was turning slowly into sand. The Reverend left the day of the fire and walked and walked. He walked down the mountain and through the fields and along the roads of Alabama muttering to himself. He walked so long that he wore his shoes right out. Walked and forgot and walked and forgot the preacher started preachin' and the preacher couldn't stop. He came up on a little town in South Alabama right outside of Mobile called New Hope. He liked the name and so he turned off the main road and walked towards the town. He found some army boots in a garbage can. He put them on and walked to the local grocery store. He went in and tried to buy some food but they threw him out. Pissed off and whipped down, The Reverend jumped up on an Oldsmobile and started preaching. He preached about the second coming and the blood of the lamb. He yelled and stomped, but nobody would listen, so he started preaching to the empty shopping carts that were scattered around the parking lot. The Reverend stayed in New Hope and became known by everyone in town. He lived right outside the town limits by Highway 431 in a field full of monkey grass. He lived off the animals that were killed up on the main highway and became known as "The Roadkill Preacher". The Preacher would scrape up the mashed carcasses off the road and cook them on an open fire. With great reverence he always said a prayer to each little animal that he ate. He believed that the souls of little things could help a man to grow some wings and someday, fly up to that big mansion on the hill. On Sundays he would go into town and preach to the shopping carts wearing a raccoon shirt with a possum collar and his fingers covered with little rings made of toad skin. He ranted and raved, his greasy hair whipping around his head and his arms raised high through the tattered sleeves of his long, dirty hound dog coat.

Tina was still in Buffalo. She was all tweaked out on Speed and doing anything to get it. Johnny wasn't taking very good care of her anymore. It seemed like he was never around. One day Tina walked down to the corner to beg some change and met a man who thought she was a hooker. The man said he would give her twenty dollars for just a few minutes work. Tina felt dirty inside, but she really wanted to get high. She tugged at the bottom of her T-shirt and twisted it into her mouth and chewed on it with her little teeth and let that dirty little magnet crawl around her head. There was something about the man that tempted her. The man was older and spoke in a deep, calm voice. He made Tina feel at ease. They talked a little more and then Tina got into his car. The man's name was Jack Withers. He was an ex-con that had once strangled a man to death with a banjo string. He was a very quiet man with good manners. He carried himself with slow, deliberate confidence. Jack knew that Tina needed her Meth. He told her that he would drive her around the corner to her dealer and buy it for her, but that she would have to come home with him. He needed her company and she needed her medicine. Jack had met a lot of lost girls, but right away he knew that Tina was different. She was dirty and damaged, but her beauty seeped into him like some unearthly narcotic. After that day Jack and Tina started meeting all the time. Jack fell in love with her and became obsessed. They met in motel rooms all over town. To him she was like an angel with a broken wing. Jack gave her money and begged her to get away from Johnny. He hated Johnny and told her he was going to kill him. This scared Tina to death, but it also excited her. Jack Withers was older and his hands were strong. Tina was never scared at night when she was with Jack. Tina and Johnny were fighting all the time. Johnny would disappear for days and Tina got sicker and sicker. The Speed was wearing her down. One night, she bottomed out and ran to Jack and said she wanted to get clean. Jack held her tight and stroked her long red hair. He said he would make everything all right if she would meet him on Saturday night at his place by the river. Come Saturday night Tina showed up shaking and strung out. She was sick and hadn't had a fix in eight hours. He bathed her and walked her in circles above the splintered floors. She screamed and begged, but he wouldn't let her out of the house. Finally, exhausted and beaten she collapsed in his arms. They both fell asleep entwined in his bed and dreamed of nothing.

Johnny stood outside, smoked a cigarette and waited. He had followed Tina to Jack's house. He was insane with anger and jealousy. His brain was swimming with paranoid visions of death. He crept in the back door and walked down the hall to the bedroom. When he saw them lying together, he flew into a rage and pulled out a .38 and started shooting. The first few bullets flew wild, but on the third, Jack was struck in the heart and killed. Tina lay on the floor and screamed. The room smelled like sulfur. Johnny walked around the bed and stood over Tina. He raise the pistol and said, "God loved the world so much that he gave up his only son so that if you believe in him you won't perish, but have everlastin' life. I love you Tina. Amen!"

He fired one shot at pointblank range into Tina's head and then turned the gun on himself.

It was the foggiest morning in Alabama history when the Roadkill Preacher crossed the road to pick up a dead dog. It was some kind of Labrador mix and it was still fresh. The Preacher was very happy about that. He hated it when them dogs got all stiff on him. "Scra-a-a-atch scrape scratch..." the rusty flathead shovel dug into the asphalt and under the crushed skull of the dead dog. Little bits of rock stuck to the sticky blood around a big hole in its head. The Preacher bent down a gently raised the dead dog from the road. He was standing there covered in the skins of animals like some strange hunkering beast cradling a child in the fog.

A fat man with a tattoo of a peacock on his forearm was driving an Eighteen-wheeler poultry truck up over the hill when he saw a strange animal hunched over in the middle of the road. There was a horrifying squeal as metal and rubber exploded with the air. The Preacher was killed instantly and on the wings of little things to heaven he was bound.

When Tina woke up in she was in the hospital. The doctor told her that she had been shot in the face. He thought what a shame she was a beautiful girl. Tina had escaped with her life, but was hideously scarred. Tina spent two months in the hospital. She recovered slowly and never looked in the mirror. She felt dull and numb. The weeks went by and she lay in the bed thinking of the pores of her skin and the beat of her heart and the tips of her teeth and the curve of her lips and her skin against the sheets and the dim light through the seventh floor windows and her mother laughing on the cold tile floor in the kitchen and the hazy memory of the hot breath of her father and the smothering weight of his body and the weight of her time into nothing. Her body healed and she left the hospital and got her things and left New York for good. She had tasted all she wanted. She figured it was time to go back to Alabama and see if there was anything left of the good side of where she had come from.

Her night usually began with a couple of shots of Jack Daniels. It took a bracer to give her that jump start. She grabbed her purse and walked down the street a few blocks from her new apartment. Tina had moved back to Huntsville and started dancing in a strip bar. She walked past the laundry mat and the pawn shop and around the corner past the Mini-mart and the donut shop and another half block to work. A big marquis was flashing with red lights above the entrance like the eyes of a stupid clown. Tommy was working the door and he smiled. Tommy was a good guy. He was nice to Tina. He'd served four years in the marines and could break a man's neck with only three and a half pounds of pressure. Tina said hello to the manager and double-checked the schedule to make sure she was on. Sometimes things got screwed up and her name wasn't up on the board. Tina hated that. She was always on time and she needed the work. Time is a she bitch whore. Tina was dressed in a long black coat and wore a leather mask strapped across the left side of her face. She had made it herself. It was just like an eye patch, but it covered the whole left side of her face down to her chin and then wrapped under. There was a small delicate hole cut out for her eye. Because of the mask, Tina had become well known and started pulling in a lot of money for the bar. Some of the other girls talked behind her back. She was making good money and they hated that. They called her "The Freak" and "Floozy of the Opera". Tina didn't give a shit. She had been through worse. She just wanted to make some quick money and forget about Jack and Johnny and her father and the whole goddam mess. She walked down the hall through the dark and the music and into the crowded dressing room. It was warm and damp and thick with the smell of women and perfume. Some girls were high on Meth or Junk and sweating acrid poison through their skin. Tina knew all about that, too. They sat in front of the broken mirrors and talked about their cats and their boyfriends and their kids and the parties that kept them up all night and how the Germans down the hall kept banging on the door at all hours and how they had to give in and go over for some Vodka and a couple of lines. Tina sat down and put on her garters and her make-up and asked about the crowd. Sometimes the girls would stare when she took off the leather mask. Mostly, they were cool about it, but she knew that they were curious. Tina kept dancing at the club and saving her money. One night she came out to a packed house. Men were screaming and whistling. She told the DJ to turn off the music and she stood there quiet and still and slowly undressed. The bar went crazy and they all yelled like animals, "Take it off! Take it off, baby!!!" Tina stood there small and beautiful and started undressing. The last thing she removed was the leather mask from her face. The bar went quiet. Every man stared at Tina and her hideous scars and saw the ugliness inside themselves. She walked into the back, dressed and went home.

Tina quit dancing and went into seclusion. She thought about her mother and her father and wondered if they still lived in Huntsville, but she never tried to find them. The dark wings of the insect night wrapped around her and sent her dreams of death. Tina couldn't sleep and she stayed up late at night thinking and thinking and thinking. She played games with herself inside her head to keep from going insane. She took long walks through the city at all hours, never concerned for her own safety. She was starting to give up. One night she was out walking at midnight on the East side of town and she came upon a car run down in a ditch. She looked in and saw a man passed out drunk at the wheel. She pulled him out into the wet grass and stole his car. She drove around laughing. It was the first time in awhile that she had some kind of peace. She drove and drove. Following the broken line on the highway. She drove across the Tennessee River and into Decatur and down the back roads to Cullman into Birmingham. She chained smoked cigarettes and blasted the radio all the way through Montgomery and on into the night. She drove all the way to the red dirt of Mobile thinking about her strange life and all the stars lost up in heaven. It was almost daybreak when she pulled off the main highway into a small town outside Mobile. She drove in the foggy morning running red lights like a sleepwalker. Finally, the motion inside her wound down and stopped. Her breathing was long and calm. She pulled over behind a Funeral Home and had a cigarette. She smoked and watched some men put a coffin in the back of a hearse. She finished the smoke and got out of the car and waited for the men to go inside. No one was there for an instant and it was then that Tina stole the hearse. She drove the hearse down to the beach and pulled it over and got out. She went around the back and looked in the little window. A coffin was inside. Tina opened the door to the hearse and crept into the tight little room with the dark curtains. She sat on her knees and felt her whole life and all the bones in her body. The cool air from the ocean was slowly crawling into the hearse and mixing itself with the dark smell of wood and velvet. Tina closed her eyes and the moist salt air ran up into her nose and she uncracked the coffin.

It was her father that lay there dead before her. Tina touched his face and cried. She looked at his pale skin and his painted lips. She bent towards him and put her arms around him and lifted him up. She took him from the hearse and walked through the sand and into the waves, wading into the water and floating out with the body of her father. She pushed him out into the sea and it took him like a small copper penny in a fountain.