“Ruth, honey,” said Vern. “Is there anything I can do? I’m worried about you.”

“Just take off that stupid tie,” she said. “You look ridiculous.”

Seventy
Dreams

Coot was having a dream. A wonderful dream. In the dream, he was a fourteen-year-old, standing on a platform positioned in a wide tent. He stood before hundreds—no, thousands—in Greensburg, Kansas, on a dry summer day. He could see his mother playing a pump organ. She was wearing a white dress, and she had flowers in her hair. Her face was as youthful as a teenager’s, younger than he’d ever seen it.

The child preacher was speaking in a wild voice, with hand gestures and dramatic movements. He was wearing a white linen suit and brown shoes. He felt good. He felt alive. He felt like he was doing something real. But it was only a dream.

He paced the stage and spoke to half of the congregation. Then he spoke to the other half. He shouted. They shouted. People hollered, screamed, threw their hands upward. Then he touched them. Folks fell backward under the power. People giggled, squirmed like worms. One man gobbled like a holy turkey. They cheered him. And he felt as though he was reborn.

Then the tent became bright. So bright it nearly blinded him. Through the back of the tent flaps, he saw her. It was just her shape, backlit by a white light. Her hair moved in a steady breeze, and the hem of her dress was flapping sideways.

Her violent red hair was like fire. She was wearing powder blue. And she stood in the center aisle, looking at him. She held one hand in the air. Her skin was milk-white, peppered with freckles. He wanted to speak to her. He wanted to know more about her. He tried to approach her, but a crowd of people stood between them. The more he tried to work his way through them, the more people appeared, until they were separated by a multitude of bodies. He saw her standing in the far-off distance. People surrounded her, closing in from every direction.

Coot clawed his way through them, one person at a time. He climbed over a sea of people. When he finally reached her, he was so taken by her beauty he could hardly speak. He opened his mouth to ask her something but was interrupted.

Tap, tap, tap.

He was startled awake. It was a high-pitched tapping noise. He opened his eyes and felt disoriented in a spinning world. He closed his eyes again. A sharp ache boomed behind his temples, and the back of his head throbbed something awful. He tried to make himself fall asleep.

There was the tapping again.

So he forced himself straight. He discovered he was inside a car with tan leather upholstery. He saw an embroidered cross dangling from the rearview mirror. It took a few moments to remember what had happened the night before.