Some Sweet Day by Bryan Woolley

silently from behind her skirt.
    â€œAw, women are funny, Gate,” he said. “They worry and worry and worry, but a man can kid them out of anything.”
    â€œHow come?”
    â€œOh, I don’t know. Maybe they don’t really want to believe anything’s wrong, and they’re just looking for somebody to tell them everything’s all right.”
    â€œ Is anything wrong?”
    He grinned. “Very little, I guess, all things considered. For a while there, things looked pretty dim, but they’re looking better all the time. I guess when a man’s been in the hospital as long as I was, it just takes a while for him to start feeling like a man again. I been thinking a lot about some of the other folks in that hospital, and I know things could have been a hell of a lot worse for me. I’ll be on my tractor plowing again before some of those guys figure out who the hell they are. Some of them never will figure it out, I reckon.”
    â€œCould I go hunting with you sometime?” I asked.
    â€œYou might. By the time I get ready to go again, you’ll be big enough, I reckon. Me and you and Harley’ll just sit by the fire and listen to the dogs all night.”
    We were passing the churches now, and all three congregations were singing. Gran was there, I knew, and I tried to find her car, but we passed too fast.
    â€œThe Christians sure are making things hot for the devil today, ain’t they?” Daddy said.
    â€œDid you have to go to Sunday School when you were little?” I asked.
    â€œNope. My daddy didn’t believe in it. My mother neither. It’s no place for a man.”
    â€œGran says you’re not going to heaven.”
    He laughed. “She’s probably right.”
    â€œWhat would you do if Jesus came back?”
    â€œOffer him a smoke, I guess.”
    â€œDoesn’t it worry you? Going to hell, I mean?”
    â€œNo. The company’s liable to be better there. The Baptists will be up there looking sour and singing and I’ll be down there chasing foxes with Harley, like I always have.”
    â€œBrother Haskell says people burn in hell, in lakes of fire, forever and ever.”
    â€œWell, that’s just what he hopes it’s like, since he ain’t going there. He sees people like me and Harley sleeping late on Sunday, and going hunting, and carrying on, and he says, ‘Well, those sinners seem to be having a lot of fun. More fun than me. That ain’t right, since I’m good and they’re bad. Why do you reckon the Lord lets them get away with it?’ So he sits and figures, and then it dawns on him. ‘I know!’ he says. ‘The Lord’s going to make me happy when I die, and he’s going to make Will Turnbolt as miserable as hell when he dies.’ And that makes him feel better. Trouble is, he can’t think of any way to be happy, even after he dies. He just talks about walking on golden streets and resting in the bosom of the Lord. If I had my druthers, I’d pick somebody else’s bosom.”
    â€œHow do you know all that if you never went to Sunday School?”
    â€œI went to a revival once, right after your ma and I married. Brother Haskell wasn’t preaching, but they all preach alike. Let’s stop here a minute.”
    We were on the old plank bridge that crosses Clear Creek. Daddy killed the engine and looked at me. “What do you hear?” he asked.
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œListen harder.”
    â€œI hear the creek.”
    â€œYeah. You hear the water splashing over the rocks under this bridge. When I was your age, this bridge wasn’t here. We had to ford the creek in the wagon. But the noise of the creek was the same. Water falling over rocks. The rocks down there are round and smooth. All the corners have been worn off of them by the water. They were already that way when I was your age. They were already that way when the first Turnbolt