Test Chapter Whitfield’s Boots

Sometimes you got to run from home to see it again.

Working Title 1: The Book of the Preacher's Boots?

Working Title 2: Whitfield’s Boots?
Prologue

Draft 2

By: Chase L. Currie

 

Sometimes dreams die.

                It was a truth of life. I didn't think I was ready to face, but fate or God's hand was making me do so the last week of my life.

                The northern fall had started only six hours ago, the chill still with me like a black cat looking for a meal. It was grumbling at my leather boots, which needed a bath. There was a hole in the right one, like the hole in my faded years. The shoelaces were on the edge of shrugging off of my feet, thumping down the road, and jumping into the city dump themselves.

                 I didn't blame them.

                Jumping in the Hudson River to clean this bloody mess of a soul. Or Hell, meet my end in drowning waters instead of drowning in my life seem all the better.

                But the cat moved around these old boots peering from inside my stomach. Couldn't tell you the last thing I ate, which wasn't s****y fast food. Too long if you asked my health.

                I sat back on the bench, waiting for the bus of shame and defeated to shuffle me on down to the south, heading home, back to the meek dead-end hands of the poor. The bus was late or s**t, maybe, I was running late to tell you. My hungover from three days ago chilled with me on the bench for bad company. The beer, the pills, and whatever else I pushed into this head to numb the agony of failure made sure I didn't forget it. I tossed my head back, trying to calm the worry of my mind. The troubles laid on it was a bit much this midday.

                Lost my job.

                Lost my lady.

                Lost my apartment.

                Couldn't afford a plane ride south, so instead, I was catching the piss-soaked bus home. I think I had twenty-five dollars to my name. I didn't dare check my bank account because if I did, then the Hudson might sound like the best to take up rent.

                The earbuds blasting tunes of rock into my banging skull were ten bucks at the gas station. The left one was blown out, didn't work at all, but I didn't care.

                Going back home was all I cared about right now.

                Going back to the nothing in my life. God, what did I do? Did I kick Your puppy or something? Hm?

                I closed my eyes to the drums of sin, crashing behind them with flashing dreamful hues of Hell. I open them to stop the pain to see a tall, smiling man standing in front of me. He was dressed from head to toe in black with new dresses shoes, a gentleman's hat resting on his dazzling face in need of a good shave. The golden and silver cross hung in the center of his chest. A Bible and a smaller book in his left hand, while in the right, a road bag looking worse for wear, much like myself.

                "Howdy?" He said a southern draw and a pep in his tone.

                His smile, oh, boy, it stayed glued on his face the whole time he was standing there. It was as if he had stolen the smile from Jay Gatsby himself, rare, full of pure sincerity.

                "Uh, hey," I said, lost in his dark blue and green eyes. The same color as a lake after a summer thunderstorm.

                "May I sit?" he asked, nodding beside me.

                "Sure," I said, and he almost jumped to the place next to me. He sat his Bible and small journal, I think, between us. He stuck out his hand to me.

                "Whitfield Inkk," he said as I took his rough hand of a framer, "with two K's."

                "Nice to meet you."

                "You as well," he said with a zeal matching Ray Charles shakes. "You a southern boy, aren't you?"

                "Why, yes, sir, I am."

                "Hot dang, I knew it," Whitfield said, clapping his hands. "I could tell, sure could, by the way, you spoke. Born in the south, not just of it, hm."

                "Yeah, sir, I am," It had been easy for anyone born in the city to know I wasn't from it. I could say hello, and it was enough for them to nail where I was from, not the state, but the area.

                "Me too," Whitfield said. "Where you from?"

                "North Caroline, sir."

                "Good Ol' Cackalacky," he said, almost shouting it. "Well, how about that me too."

                "Yeah?"

                "Yes, sir, sure am," Whitfield said with a hard nob. "Born and raised in Cackalacky."

                "What are you doing here in New York?" I asked.

                "I’m somewhat of a traveling preacher,” he said. “Been here and there with the Good News.” He tapped the old and used leather of the Holy Book.

                “You see,” he said, nodding across the street, but keeping me in a sideways glance,” I was over there in that café drinking what these Yankees call coffee.

                “I met this French gal down in New Orleans,” he quickly said with a wink in his eye, “she could make a cup of joe from the angels. I thought about bring her coffee here to these northern heathens, but they don’t listen to a southern lad like myself.”

                All I could do was nod. Normally, I would be making like a bat of Hell away from a guy like Whitfield, but it had been too long since I heard a story told with a southern flair. It was a need I hadn’t noticed until then, a moment of home. The smell of sweet cornbread, livermush on the iron, and that long drawl on words.

I stayed and listen, and he knew I wanted to hear more.

Whitfield had a way of pulling you into his words, blanking them around you in a heatless room on a snowy night.

“There I was,” he said, “looking at you, sitting in my place.” He glanced at me. “You see, my sister is going to be picking me up here at this bus stop, on this bench, good sir.

“And here you’re sitting as a fellow traveler like myself. Lord Almighty said to me.”

“Whitfield, that man is a southerner.”

“I said,” nodding his head hard, “he sure looks like it, Lord.”

“He looks like he has troubles on his mind, the Lord said.”

“He sure does, O’ Lord,” Whitfield said, almost swaying back and forth as if sitting in a rocking chair.

For some odd reason, this made me smile, and I looked away. It had been a long time since a random person cared about me. It had been even longer since someone wanted to free me of my troubles for the mere enjoyment of it.

“So, I thought I would come over here,” Whitfield said, “to tell you about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but you looked like an educated man and have heard the news.”

I nod, thinking about how my dad in my youth would make me go to church, but since I’ve been in the North, the church hadn’t been on the list of places to see.

                “A few times,” I told him.

                “Hey, a few times is better than none,” he said. “So, I thought I would tell you a funny story instead. You want to hear a funny story?” He asked as if I could say no and lean in close to me.

                “Sure.”

                “Back in Cackalacky, I was at this mighty big church doing some baptisms, and this eight-year-old boy was there. He stepped up to the tank pale as a ghost.

                “I guess he forgot the whole congregation was goin’ be watchin’ him.

                “Anyways, I reach out, touchin’ his shoulder all nice like.” He made a move as if the ghost boy was standing there.

                “And I said, son, this is just between you, me, and the Almighty. Now, you come on.” He pushed the ghost boy into the tank. “He stepped into the water,” this wandering preacher man said, “I spoke the words, ducked him and - “

                He paused, letting his eyes smile with the first ways of dawn. “The boy came up ballin’ his eyes out,” Whitfield said,” and the congregation started to shout, howler, and get into a big up roared thinkin’ he was crying because he gave his soul to the Good Lord.”

                Whitfield learned in nodding hard as if I had asked him otherwise. “Which he did, he did, yes sir, sure did, but the little guy whispered to me, pastor, pastor, I peed.”

                “Oh.”

                “I’m sure, the boy said, God will forgive me.” A smile had already bloomed on my lips. It hurt at first as if someone had stabbed me with a pen, but the ached faded, and the smile rested perfectly. “But, I don’t know how He’ll feel that I’m first in line.”

                The laughter rushed up from inside me. The pain from the last week of my life tried its best to push the laughter down hard, but the joy won out.

                “That’s great,” I said.

                “It always gets a smile,” Whitfield said, rocking back against the bench.

                I shook my head and asked, “Did you come all this way to tell me a joke?”

                “Might’ve, son,” he said. “I don’t believe in random happenstance. I believe God puts all of us on our paths, it’s our duty to walk it, but one way or another, we’ll end up like John or Judas in the end.”

                “The path brought you to me?”

                “Might’ve,” Whitfield said. “See, I went looking for God because I believe He left Cakclakacy. I wanted to duke it out with Him over some matters. The thing about looking for God is you find Him because He’s already there. But the devil sends his hounds after you. O’ boy, did I meet those damn hounds.

                “They chased me all the way to Charleston, where I jumped over to Savannah for some time, and then I wanted to go see the Mississippi River, where I met a Steamboat captain, didn’t think where around anymore.

                “He took me down to New Orleans, where I met that French gal. I also gamble my heart away a little. So, I headed back to Nashville, running into a bank robber and his gal. We flee the law into Virginia, going our separate near Richmond.

                “I went to Kentucky for a while, and then I guess it was time to go home.” He looked over at me. “Home isn’t a place, but family and my sister live up here. So, here I am telling you a funny story.”

                “I guess so,” I said, hanging on every word he spoke with childlike awe.

                “What about you?” He asked. “What are you doing here?”

                “I was a comic book artist,” I said with defeat.

                “Was?” he asked with a raised eyebrow and studying my hands.

                “Lost my gig,” I said.

                “Ah, why so?” Whitfield asked.

                I smirked, shaking my head a bit. “Seems silly now,” I said, “but, uh, I didn’t want to play ball with the politics.”

                “They went against your beliefs?” He asked, crossing his legs so I could see his new shoes. They looked to be only walked in from the store to here.

                You can tell a lot by a man’s shoes, my old man was fond of saying.

                You sure can, dad.

                “Yeah.”

                “Better you left then,” Whitfield said,” beaning the knee by force or by lying to yourself is the worse Hell there is, son. It’s for the better, sure is. God got you.”

                “Sure, hope so.”

                “Oh, He does,” Whitfield said. “He has us all.”

                Before another word could be utter, a GT Mustang came roaring to a stop in front of us. It rolled down the window to a young thing with jet black hair, not her real hue, and tattoos everywhere on her arms and neck and face.

                “Whitfield,” she called.

                “That’s my sister,” he said, jumping to his feet, “and her Yankee boyfriend.” He stuck his hand, and I took it, feeling the bitter weight of a farewell coming over me. All I got with this man was a few moments and a smile.

                “Nice meeting you,” He said, dashing for the car.

                His left hand was empty, my eyes shot to his books, and I gathered them up in hash. I jumped up as he jumped into the back of the car. The car roared, and I shouted, waving the books in the air.

                “Whitfield.”

                He smiled big and shouted, “Keep them; you need them more than I. I’ll come to find you in Ol’ Cackalacky. I’ll find you.” The car flew down the road, leaving me alone with an old used Bible and the handwritten tale of Whitfield Inkk with two K’s.

Author's Note

Not sure which title I like ...