The Servants of Twilight

"And now, of course, you're fearless," she said with irony.

He smiled." How simple it seems when you're just a kid."

A car pulled into the lot, and both of them stared at it until the doors opened and a young couple got out with two small children.

Charlie poured more Sanka for both of them and said, "I used to lie in bed, listening to the rats, praying that both my parents would die before they got a chance to kill me, and I became real angry with God because He didn't answer that prayer. I couldn't understand why He would let those two go on victimizing a little kid like me. I couldn't defend myself. Why wouldn't God protect the defenseless? Then, when I got a little older, I decided God couldn't answer my prayers because God was good and wouldn't ever kill anyone, not even moral rejects like my folks. So I started praying just to get out of that place. 'Dear God, this is Charlie, and all I want is to some day get out of here and live in a decent house and have money and not be scared all the time." "

He suddenly recalled a darkly comic episode he hadn't thought about in years, and he laughed sharply at the bizarre memory.

She said, "How can you laugh about it? Even though I know things turned out pretty well for him, I still feel terrible for that little boy back there in Indianapolis. As if he's still there."

"No, no. It's just. I remembered something else, something that is funny in a grim sort of way. After a while, after I'd been praying to God for maybe a year, I got tired of how long it took for a prayer to be answered, and I went over to the other side for a while."

" Other side?"

Staring out the window as a squall of rain whirled through the darkness, he said, "I read this story about a man who sold his soul to the devil.

He just one day wished for something he really needed, said that he'd sell his soul for it, and poof, the devil showed up with a contract to sign. I decided the devil was much more prompt and efficient than God, so I started praying to the devil at night."

"I assume he never showed up with a contract."

"Nope. He turned out to be as inefficient as God. But then one night it occurred to me that my parents were sure to wind up in Hell, and if I sold my soul to the devil I'd wind up in Hell, too, right there with my folks, for all eternity, and I was so frightened I got out of bed in the dark, and I prayed with all my might for God to save me. I told Him I understood he had a big backlog of prayers to answer, and I said I realized it might take awhile to get around to mine, and I groveled and begged and pleaded for Him to forgive me for doubting Him. I guess I made some noise because my mother came in my room to see what was up.

She was as drunk as I'd ever seen her. When I told her I was talking to God, she said, 'Yeah? Well, tell God your daddy's out with a whore somewhere again, and ask Him to make the bastard's cock fall off." "

"Good heavens," Christine said, laughing but shocked. He knew she wasn't shocked by the word or by his decision to tell her this story; she was shaken, instead, by what his mother's casual crudity revealed about the house in which he'd been raised.

Charlie said, "Now, I was only ten years old, but I'd lived all my life in the worst part of town, and my parents would never be mistaken for Ozzie and Harriet, so even then I knew what she was talking about, and I thought it was the funniest thing I'd ever heard. Every night after that, when I'd be saying my prayers, sooner or later I'd think of what my mother had wanted God to do to my father, and I'd start to laugh. I couldn't finish a prayer without laughing. After a while, I just stopped talking to God altogether, and by the time I was twelve or thirteen I knew there probably wasn't any God or devil and that, even if there was, you have to make your own good fortune in this life."

She told him more about her mother, the convent, the work that had gone into Wine & Dine. Some of her stories were almost as sad as parts of his youth, and others were funny, and all of them were the most fascinating stories he had ever heard because they were her stories.

Once in a while, one of them would say they ought to be getting some sleep, and they both really were exhausted, but they kept talking anyway, through two pots of Sanka. By I:30 in the morning, Charlie realized that a compelling desire to know

each other better was not the only reason they didn't want to go to bed.

They were also afraid to sleep. They often glanced out the window, and he realized they both expected to see a white Ford van pull into the motel parking lot.

Finally he said, "Look, we can't stay up all night. They can't find us here. No way. Let's go to bed. We need to be rested for what's ahead."

She looked out the window. She said, "If we sleep in shifts, one of us will always be awake to keep a guard."

"It's not necessary. There's no way they could have followed US.,$