Everyone was talking about going home. There was a bride waiting in Kansas City, a mother and father in Bayonne, a business in St. Louis. There was nothing waiting for Toby. Except Fame.
He decided to go to Hollywood. It was time that God made good on His promise.
“Do you know God? Have you seen the face of Jesus? I have seen Him, brothers and sisters, and I have heard His voice, but He speaks only to those who kneel before Him and confess their sins. God abhors the unrepentent. The bow of God’s wrath is bent and the flaming arrow of His righteous anger is pointed at your wicked hearts, and at any moment He will let go and the arrow of His retribution shall smite your hearts! Look up to Him now, before it is too late!”
Josephine looked up toward the top of the tent, terrified, expecting to see a flaming arrow shooting at her. She clutched her mother’s hand, but her mother was unaware of it. Her face was flushed and her eyes were bright with fervor.
“Praise Jesus!” the congregation roared.
The revival meetings were held in a huge tent, on the outskirts of Odessa, and Mrs. Czinski took Josephine to all of them. The preacher’s pulpit was a wooden platform raised six feet above the ground. Immediately in front of the platform was the glory pen, where sinners were brought to repent and experience conversion. Beyond the pen were rows and rows of hard wooden benches, packed with chanting, fanatic seekers of salvation, awed by the threats of Hell and Damnation. It was terrifying for a six-year-old child. The evangelists were Fundamentalists, Holy Rollers and Pentecostalists and Methodists and Adventists, and they all breathed Hell-fire and Damnation.
“Get on your knees, O ye sinners, and tremble before the might of Jehovah! For your wicked ways have broken the heart of Jesus Christ, and for that ye shall bear the punishment of His Father’s wrath! Look around at the faces of the young children here, conceived in lust and filled with sin.”
And little Josephine would burn with shame, feeling everyone staring at her. When the bad headaches came, Josephine knew that they were a punishment from God. She prayed every night that they would go away, so she would know that God had forgiven her. She wished she knew what she had done that was so bad.
“And I’ll sing Hallelujah, and you’ll sing Hallelujah, and we’ll all sing Hallelujah when we arrive at Home.”
“Liquor is the blood of the Devil, and tobacco is his breath, and fornication is his pleasure. Are you guilty of trafficking with Satan? Then you shall burn eternally in Hell, damned forever, because Lucifer is coming to get you!”
And Josephine would tremble and look around wildly, fiercely clutching the wooden bench so that the Devil could not take her.
They sang, “I want to get to Heaven, my long-sought rest.” But little Josephine misunderstood and sang, “I want to get to Heaven with my long short dress.”
After the thundering sermons would come the Miracles. Josephine would watch in frightened fascination as a procession of crippled men and women limped and crawled and rode in wheelchairs to the glory pen, where the preacher laid hands on them and willed the powers of Heaven to heal them. They would throw away their canes and their crutches, and some of them would babble hysterically in strange tongues, and Josephine would cower in terror.
The revival meetings always ended with the plate being passed. “Jesus is watching you—and He hates a miser.” And then it would be over. But the fear would stay with Josephine for a long time.
In 1946, the town of Odessa, Texas, had a dark brown taste. Long ago, when the Indians had lived there, it had been the taste of desert sand. Now it was the taste of oil.
There were two kinds of people in Odessa: Oil People and the Others. The Oil People did not look down on the Others—they simply felt sorry for them, for surely God meant everyone to have private planes and Cadillacs and swimming pools and to give champagne parties for a hundred people. That was why He had put oil in Texas.