I reckon ten months ain’t a real long time but when you’re livin’ with them Christians it sure as hell seemed like a long time. I try not to think much on them Christians no more and I keep my goddam ass away from them. Ain’t nothin’ nobody can do to suit them. They’re always yellin’ at you or beatin’ on you. If you try to be good and treat them real nice, they think you’re up to somethin’. When you’re with them Christians just ain’t no way to keep from gettin’ beat.
I didn’t know none of them Christians before I went to that orphanage and I don’t care if I never know no more of them. If all them Christians is like that damn preacher man and them fat lady Christians he had workin’ with him, them Christians is a mean goddam bunch, I’ll tell you.
Them Christians is so mean I changed my rule on how I think on folks. The only way to think on them is to hate them. It makes your belly all tight and it makes you want to cry or cuss or hit somebody but you got to hate them anyway. The way them goddam Christians do you, they need hatin’.
The worst thing about them Christians is they don’t know they’re mean. They think just ’cause they’re Christians whatever they do is good. They’re always tryin’ to get other folks to be Christians like them, you know, thinkin’ they’re better than everybody and treatin’ folks real mean and hateful.
That damn preacher man was all the time talkin’ about bein’ baptized and joinin’ the blood-washed throng. It makes you kind of sick when he’s talkin’ about bein’ washed in blood but he was all the time doin’ that. Every now and then, one of them young ’uns would tell that damn preacher man that they wanted to be baptized. When some young ’un said that, that damn preacher man would get all them orphans together and thank God that He had saved another wicked little sinnin’ creature from hell. Seemed like he couldn’t get done thankin’ God for that. He’d be talkin’ and yellin’ and cryin’ and you’d come to think it was gonna go on all night. You could always tell when he was done thankin’ God, though. I learned real quick that “Amen” meant the yellin’ and cryin’ was over.
After the yellin’ and cryin’ that damn preacher man would pour water all over the young ’un that wanted to be baptized and then he’d tell them they was now one of the blood-washed throng. That dumb son-a-bitch didn’t know the difference between blood and water.
Them Christians made real sure that everyone that come to visit that orphanage knowed what my mama done. I reckon by the time I got out of there, everyone in the county knowed that Sam Martin was the son of a harlot. Like I said, I really didn’t care what folks thought on me but I come to hate it when they treated me bad. Before I went to that orphanage, if folks done me bad, I could just take my ass away from them. But when you’re livin’ in a orphanage you got to stay right there. Don’t make no difference how bad folks do you, you got to stay right there.
Most of them other young ’uns wasn’t so bad. They’d talk to me some and even try to play with me but if that damn preacher man seen them, he’d say, "Don’t let me see you again in the evil company of this son of a harlot.”
It really didn’t make no difference if you had no friends or not. Nobody had no time to play in that place. That damn preacher man and them fat lady Christians was workin’ your ass off from before daybreak to way after sundown. Even them real little young ’uns was totin’ and carryin’. Most of the stuff they give them to do didn’t do nobody no good. But that damn preacher man was always sayin’ that idle hands was the devil’s workshop so they made them real little ones carry stuff to one place and then just carry the same stuff back. Some of them got so tired that they’d go to cryin’ and some of them even fell down from bein’ wore out. When them things happened, them fat lady Christians would yell at them and beat on them with a stick. A whole lot of young ’uns at that orphanage had them blue bruises all over them and some of them was even bleedin’ when them fat lady Christians got done with them.
Everybody was workin’ all the time. Some of them bigger boys had to milk the cows and clean out the cow shed. By the time they had them twenty cows milked and all the shit scraped out, it was time to start milkin’ again. Some other boys done croppin, what they could. This wasn’t good croppin’ country. Too dry. But nobody could tell that damn preacher man nothin’. He come from Pennsylvania and he said that everybody knew folks from there was good farmers. Some of them older boys tried to tell him that this ain’t Pennsylvania and got beat for their trouble. If it didn’t look like them crops was gonna do good, them boys got beat again.
The girls done the house things like washin’ and cookin’ and sewin’ and cleanin’. If you was a girl in that orphanage you was some better off. It wasn’t that them girls didn’t get beat. Hell, everybody got beat. But them fat lady Christians was mostly the ones that beat them girls and they only had switches from them cottonwood trees. Boys got beat by that damn preacher man and he had a cane that looked almost as big around as my arm. When he was beatin’ on somebody he was sayin, “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” When he got done, some of them young ’uns looked pretty damn spoiled to me. They was black and blue all over and in a day or two them black places would turn kind of yellow-green. When you think on it, reckon they didn’t looked spoiled. Hell, they looked just plain out rotten.
The only thing that damn preacher man loved better than beatin’ some orphan was gettin’ us all together after supper and tellin’ us that we was all real bad sinners and that we was goin’ to hell. I’d heard a whole lot of people tell folks to go to hell but I didn’t know where it was or nothin’ about it. My mama told me to go there a whole lot of times. But if hell was what that damn preacher man said it was, I sure wouldn’t want nobody, no even that damn preacher man, to go there. He said that in that hell they had fires that was hotter than them that was in a blacksmith’s forge. Them fires would burn on you but they would never burn you up and you’d be weepin’ and wailin’ and gnashin’ your teeth for all eternity.
When he got done tellin’ us about them fires he’d send us off to bed and them little ones was like me. Hell, they didn’t know what eternity meant either but they was so scared that they was cryin’ and, wore out as we was, nobody could go to sleep.
When a boy or girl got big enough, they was let out. That meant that some farmer or rancher took them in to raise. What they really took them in for was to make slaves out of them. I was always scared I was gonna be let out ’cause everybody said it was real bad and they knowed young ’uns that was worked or beat to death. After while, though, I stopped bein’ scared. I seen you wasn’t let out until you was about fourteen. Girls was mostly let out some younger, about twelve, almost thirteen. The ones that was mostly scared about lettin’ out was them littler brothers and sisters of them older orphans. One day them older ones was there and the next day they was gone. You never heard hardly nothin’ about them no more. Them little ones would cry and beg that damn preacher man to tell them where their brother or sister was. That damn preacher man would just say, “If God wanted you to live as a family and know the whereabouts of each other, He would have let your ma and pa live. Now go away from botherin’ me and accept the Will of God.”
If them little ones would still cry for their brother or sister, that damn preacher man would tell them they was sinnin’ by not acceptin’ the will of God.
The only time before I come to that damn preacher man that I ever heard of God was when some cowboy or them men who come to my mama or my mama herself was cussin’. But that damn preacher man talked on God different. It seemed like the God he talked about was two different people. Sometimes he was sayin’ how God loved everybody and then before you knew it, he was sayin’ how God was gonna be mean as hell to ya.
It come to me, after listenin’ to that damn preacher man for a while, that God was pretty handy to have around. If things turned out good, that damn preacher man was tellin’ folks how good a man he was and how good he done. If things turned out bad, it was always God’s fault ’cause them bad things was God’s will. If God is the way that damn preacher man says He is, I reckon I don’t hold much with Him but I ain’t sayin’ for sure. You can’t tell nothin’ by what that damn preacher man says.
I reckon I feel kind of sorry for God, the way He’s always gettin’ blamed for stuff. If you look real good, you can tell that most stuff goes wrong ’cause somebody was lazy or dumb or just plain mean. I’ll tell you what I mean. One time somebody rich died and they give a whole lot of his money for the orphans. That’s what he man who brung the money said: it was for the orphans. That damn preacher man was thankin’ God for His goodness and blessin’ and went right out and bought himself a new suit of clothes and a fancy new horse and buckboard. Reckon he bought a bunch of other stuff that I don’t know about ’cause when he was done with his buyin’, there wasn’t nothin’ left for the orphans. We was still eatin’ beans and he was tellin’ us we ought to be thankin’ God ’cause it was His will that we was eatin’ beans. It come to me that we was eatin’ beans ’cause that damn preacher man was selfish, but God got blamed for it.
Now that I think on it, there was one other thing that damn preacher man loved better than beatin’ on young ’uns and scarin’ the shit out of them. That was gettin’ after me. I already told you how he talked on me. I knowed I wasn’t no evil influence but he was always makin’ me out to be somethin’ I wasn’t. Like, I knowed damn sure I wasn’t cut out to be no damn shit hauler but that’s what that damn preacher man was makin’ me be. My job—the only fit job for the son of a harlot—was to carry out all the night shit pots and then spend the rest of the day scoopin’ out the shit house pit. I didn’t have no mudboat like I seen folks in Goodnight usin’ when they was cleanin’ out their shithouse. All I had was two buckets and when they was full, they weighted more than me. I could only fill them about half full or I couldn’t even drag them. That made that damn preacher man so mad, he was always yellin’ at me and beatin’ on me with that damn cane of his.
I had to scoop shit, carry it out on the range away from the house, dump it and than go back for more—the whole goddam day. It got so I was just doin’ it. Wasn’t thinkin’ on it or even rememberin’ I done it. I was that wore out. You got to remember that I was just seven years old when all that was happenin’.
In the mornin’s, before I got too wore out, I’d think on things. I’d get to wonderin’ where all that shit came from. There was forty young ’uns there and even forty babies can make a lot of shit. But they didn’t hardly feed us nothin’. I kept thinkin, “How can somebody shit so much when he ain’t hardly had nothin’ to eat?”
Reckon they shit out everything they ate, but if they did that why didn’t they starve? Everybody that lived there was real skinny but while I was there, nobody died. You’d think with forty half-starved young ’uns, somebody would die. Never did think that one out.
I never told that damn preacher man I wanted to be baptized but I reckon if I had a Christian upbringing there, I was baptized with shit. If I didn’t clean that pit to suit that damn preacher man or if somebody come to shit after I thought I was done and got him to come look, I’d get a beatin’. He kept tellin’ me that if I couldn’t do a better job of cleanin’ that pit, he was gonna make me sleep in it. I knowed he wasn’t just talkin’. He was mean enough to do it so I tried real hard. But it didn’t make no difference how good I cleaned it. Even if I dug way down in the dirt to make sure I had all the shit out, it was always wet. I could never dig deep enough to get past the mud from the shit and the piss. It didn’t make no never mind how hard I tried. That damn preacher man wanted me in that pit so I knowed I’d end up there soon or late.
The day it finally happened, you could see that I was in trouble when I went and got him. He was already mad about somethin’. He looked down there, said he’d warned me enough and pushed me into the pit. He put a big rock on the wood trap door behind the shithouse that you had to open up to scoop the shit out. I tried, but that rock was too heavy for me to push up on the door and get out after he went into the house. I knowed I was there for the night.
What the hell could I do? I was mad. My belly got all tight but I wasn’t about to cry. I didn’t want that son-a-bitch to know he was gettin’ to me. I found a kind of dry spot and after while I thought I didn’t hardly notice the smell no more. Reckon I did notice it though. Smellin’ shit gets me riled even yet.
I was all wore out from draggin’ that shit all day and I reckon you can get used to anything. Even was I in that stinkin’, wet shithouse pit, and was my belly all tight, I went to sleep.
Tired as I was, I was sleepin’ good. Reckon I slept until almost mornin’. But I didn’t wake up from bein’ done sleepin’. Someone shit on me. It wasn’t no young ’un shit neither. If a young ’un had to shit in the middle of the night, they shit in one of them shit pots. They had them in every room where someone slept. Them fat lady Christians locked the doors after they sent us to bed. No young ’un could get out of them rooms. It was either shit in them pots or shit the bed. I don’t know why they locked them damn doors. Them young ’uns was too wore out from workin’ their ass off all day. Nobody was gonna try to run off. I kept thinkin’, “If this place ever went to burnin’, there’d be forty fried young ’uns and one hell of a fire from all that fat on them fat lady Christians.”
It had to been that damn preacher man that shit on me. Them fat lady Christians was mean but I don’t think they was that mean. I didn’t have to stay in there too long after he shit on me anyway. When he done it, you could already see it was daylight outside. After while, I heard one of them other young ’uns say, “You gonna let Sam out?”
That damn preacher man went to preachin’ like. He said, “Now I want this to be a lesson to you all. This is the wages of sin. The wages of sin is death and, I reckon, that pit is as close to the grave as you can get. This son of a harlot is payin’ the price for his sinnin’. But I don’t want none of the rest of you talkin’ this around. I’m tellin’ you flat out, don’t talk this around. Disobeyin’ me is sinnin’ and if you disobey me, you’ll be right down there with him.”
That damn preacher man was always tellin’ them other young ’uns that I was sinnin’. I wasn’t doin’ nothin’ different than them others but ’cause my mama was a whore, if I done it, it was sinnin’. He made me damn mad but I knowed he was like all them folks back to Goodnight. He was tryin’ to make me be somethin’ I wasn’t. I knowed I was fit for other jobs besides scoopin’ shit and I knowed that what my mama did didn’t have nothin’ to do with what I was. But that’s how folks is, I reckon. They get you set in their thinkin’ a certain way and ain’t nobody or nothin’ gonna change their thinkin’ on you. That damn preacher man decided I was no good so didn’t matter what I done, to him I was no good. Even did them damn Christians make a body hate them, I was still what I knowed I was, not what they said I was.
Funny how things turn out. It was sleepin’ in that shit house pit that got me out of that place. Just when that damn preacher man was lettin’ me out of that pit a cowboy I knowed some good come ridin’ in there like his horse’s ass was on fire. That cowboy was big and he had red hair and every time I seen him, he was mad. He used to come to my mama a lot but it come to me when I was real little that he wasn’t comin’ there to whore with her. Seemed like he come to fight with her. I reckon they hated each other. I asked my mama all the time why they was fightin’ and who that cowboy was but she’d just give me a cussin’ and tell me not to think none on that goddam son-of-a-bitch. I remember thinkin’ when I was real little that that was his name. Funny now, but I really thought his name was Goddam Son-of-a-bitch. Even when I knowed better, wasn’t no sense in askin’ her. She wouldn’t tell me nothin’.
That cowboy was always real nice to me but from him bein’ mad so much, I was kind of scared of him and never did ask him his name. I had them questions in me even when I was real little, so I asked him a whole lot of other things but for some cause, I never did ask him his name.
Like I said, mostly I was scared of him but I was sure glad to see him now, even was he madder than I ever seen him before. His face was about as red as his hair and you could tell he was tryin’ not to let it, but his mad was gettin’ away from him. I thought he was gonna kill that damn preacher man.
He would knock him down and that damn preacher man was so dumb, he kept gettin’ up again. Seemed to me that if I got knocked down no more than twice, I’d know better than to get up again. Not that damn preacher man. Reckon he’d still be gettin’ knocked down if that big cowboy hadn’t got bored from that damn preacher man bein’ so dumb.
You could tell the cowboy was bored ’cause the last time that damn preacher man got up the cowboy just stood and looked for a spell. Then he throwed up his hands and said, “Aaah,” turned around and come over to me.
When it come to that damn preacher man that he wasn’t gonna get knocked down no more, he went to preachin’ to the cowboy. “I’m a man of God. The Lord will wreak His judgment on you, you vile sinner. The Lord has said, ‘Touch not my anointed.’ and the Day of the Lord will come for you—”
That damn preacher man didn’t get to finish his preachin’. The cowboy went back to him, grabbed the front of his shirt and said, “If you don’t shut your damn mouth, I’ll anoint you with what you anointed this boy with.”
I didn’t think nothin’ would shut that damn preacher man up when he went to preachin’ but what that cowboy said done it. That damn preacher man was scared. He was tryin’ to talk but nothin’ was comin’ out of his mouth. That cowboy come back to me, pulled them shitty clothes off me, took me over by the well and poured buckets of that damn cold well water on me. It was so damn cold I was shakin’ and my teeth was rattlin’ but I didn’t say nothin’. Even was he doin’ me good, I was still scared of that cowboy and cold or not, I was glad he was gettin’ shit off me.
After he washed me off he set me on his horse in front of his saddle. We rode over past the clothesline and he grabbed a clean pair of britches and we started off down the lane toward the road, me still naked as a jaybird. When we come to the road he stopped his horse, put me on the ground and handed me them britches. While I was puttin’ them on, he turned around and shouted back at that damn preacher man, “Don’t you ever come near this boy again. If you do or if I ever hear of you doin’ another child like you done him, I’ll kill you.”
He would have too. That cowboy was one of them who could shoot real straight and fast.
Copyright © 2003 Gordon L. Klopfenstein