Come, the Restorer by William Goyen

Author:William Goyen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Come, the Restorer
ISBN: 9781941531136
Publisher: Dzanc Books
Published: 1974-08-23T16:00:00+00:00

About this time a very significant event in the life of Addis Adair was happening. Just when he was so lonesome that he thought he would die, walking on a road of dust that led, it seemed, to nowhere, he saw a sign nailed to a tree which announced a special Tent Meeting in the town ahead. It was here that Addis saw what he thought was surely one of the most beautiful things in the world—Jake the white rattlesnake. Jake was lying upon the breast of a big warm man who called himself Oil King, ex-preacher, confessor to sinners and healer. It was then that Addis learned of the special powers of Jake and of the bleak future ahead of him unless someone befriended him.

And then Addis heard Oil King make his famous speech that he used to make when he was traveling around as a faith preacher with Jake. “Folks this is old Jake, and he’s stung me I bet a hundred times and never laid me low. But that was when he got to where he couldn’t help it; and it never laid me low. I rose up refreshed out of it every time, renewed by the power and strength of my own faith. I’ve seen old Jake lie up against me soft and calm as a kitten asleeping. But I know the thunder and lightning in him. Jake can strike like scissored lightning. And in him is the poisoning that can lay a man down and blow him up purple till he busts with the gall of Satan. See how he writhes! See his green eye! And all that cottony soft white mouth. You ole slippery codger. Sin lover! Coo coo coo coo coo coo!”

Addis was so drawn to the beautiful Jake that he knew he had to have him. As he started down the aisle of the crowded tent, the people turned and stared at him in his frazzled Switchman’s cap, dust-covered and weatherbeaten, his old cowboy boots with the rusted stars on them, and his clothesline coiled around his shoulder. The congregation was hushed and Oil King stopped talking and fastened his eyes on the curious figure coming up the aisle to him, walking on the sawdust, holding a ten-dollar bill in his hand.

When Addis came before Oil King’s face and showed him his own forlorn and visionary face, Oil King said, “Boy, you look blue. You got somethin on your soul that’s making you blue. You got some pain on you.”

Addis held out the ten dollars. The tent was hushed. Oil King stared and seemed to be filling with some deep filling. And then it brimmed out of him.

“Great good God, all of a sudden seems like my youth come on me again, looking upon you. I remember my youth suddenly crawling all over me like a thousand hot tongues all over my body. I walked, I bet, a thousand miles over Texas, trying to get the crawling hot tongues of my youth off me.

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