“Now, I sure as heck never been to no NASCAR race and I never seen no Afric-American drivers, neither. So I wouldn’t know. ” Hooter paid no attention to the endless line of impatient motorists. “Maybe I take the whole day off! I ain’t had no vacation since my sister got married and I was in the wedding. The mattress of honor. ” Hooter beamed at the memory of being decked out in that long pink dress with see-through sleeves and beads and bows. “That was sure a time, let me tell you, girlfriend. ”
“Yeah! How about visiting with your fucking girlfriend some other time, you queerbaits, and hurry up!” Bubba Loving was back in his truck with mud flaps.
“What on earth is queerbait?” Barbie asked as she jotted down her phone number on a Post-it. “Something you catch strange fish with? And why is that same vulgar man screaming about fishing?”
“Take one to know one!” Hooter yelled back at Bubba.
“Here, sweetie, ” Barbie said to Hooter, “you ring me up in the next few hours. I’ll be at the Baptist Campus Ministry, and you just call and let me know if you can come to the race so I don’t give the ticket to some other lucky person. Please come! Oh dear, I just love having girlfriends to talk to!”
“I just might do it. In fact, I will, I will. Damn right I will. ” Hooter was getting excited by the idea. “You count me in unless I can’t get no one to cover my booth for me. How ’bout you pick me up right here at, well, let’s see. What time?”
“Two o’clock sharp. ”
“I’ll slide on home and change and be waiting for you right here at my booth unless something come up. Then we have plenty of time to talk about your rotten sex life. ”
“Wouldn’t that be wonderful. ” Barbie cheerfully waved good-bye as she drove on and forgot the seventy-five cent toll, setting off the alarms. “The rainbow is working! Magic, magic everywhere!”
“Sweet-talk your girlfriend another time when we aren’t waiting until Heck freezes over to go through the tollbooth!” Lamonia yelled from her Dodge Dart.
Lamonia was understandably in a foul mood. First, she had gotten handcuffed because of her bad night vision, now she was stuck in traffic because two interracial lesbians were flirting at the tollbooth and a racist redneck was engaging in road rage. What had gone so wrong in the world? Dear Lord, have mercy, Lamonia thought. The entire planet was self-destructing and it was just a matter of time before Jesus would get fed up and come back, and Lamonia wasn’t ready for the Rapture. No, sir. She told Jesus every Sunday to please hold on for a while, because Lamonia had so many friends and neighbors who were going to be left behind if He came in on a cloud and the Rapture lifted up all Believers.
“Give your life to Jesus, ” Lamonia said to Hooter as she fed a dollar bill into a cotton-gloved hand.
“You tell it, girlfriend, ” Hooter said, dropping three quarters into the bin and returning a quarter change.
“I’m not your girlfriend or anybody’s girlfriend!” Lamonia wasn’t the least bit subtle about it. “Ask forgiveness for your sins and pray to Jesus. Ask Him to take your life and do something with it, you hear me? Because He’s coming soon, and you don’t want to be sitting in that little booth of yours and giving in to perversions with strangers and suddenly find half the cars coming through don’t have drivers ’cause they’ve been Raptured up into Heaven!”
“Tell it, ” Hooter encouraged the pulpiteer. “You tell it, girl. ”
Lamonia needed no encouragement. “Two men are working in a field, and suddenly one of them is gone. Two women are doing laundry in the Laundromat, and suddenly, one of them is gone. You’ll be taking toll money, and suddenly half the drivers will be gone and you just better hope you aren’t still sitting in your booth, because if you are, that means you’ve been left behind!”
“I ready for the Rapture, girl, ” Hooter assured Lamo-nia as the two of them exchanged phone numbers. “Oh yes, I ready and looking forward to it. Always have been looking forward to it! Jesus be coming back. I always knew He would. ” Hooter stared up at the ceiling of her booth. “You come on now, Jesus. You just come right on. I be waiting for you and won’t even charge you no toll when you float down on your cloud!”