Free The Dirty Parts of the Bible: A Novel by Sam Torode

cold. Blackberry juice and red oak bark stop diarrhea. If you’ve got the opposite problem, mayapple root will get your bowels moving. For worms in the stomach, eat crackled egg shells in syrup. Walnut hulls ward off ringworm. Milkweed for warts. Why, I can cure everything from baldness to flatulence.”
    I looked over at Craw’s head—he was still carrying his hat. “But you’re nearly bald.”
    He snapped his derby back on his head. “I said that I know the cures, not that I have all the necessary ingredients at hand.”
    Then he bent over, flipped up his coattails, and ripped a great fart.



CHAPTER 12
     
    W E walked along the tracks for what seemed like miles, and I began to doubt whether Craw had any idea where we were. Now and then he’d stop and sniff the air. “We’re almost there. I can almost smell it.”
    As far as I could see, there was nothing but red dirt and thistle bushes ahead. The sun was resting low on distant hills, casting a golden glow across the Oklahoma prairie. Back in Remus, it was probably raining icicles; who was I to complain?
    After a while, Craw picked up the scent and turned off on a rabbit trail, through the knee-high grass and towards a row of scrubby trees.
    “Smell that, boy?”
    “What—did you mark your territory last time you were here?”
    “ Smoke , boy!”
    I followed him through the trees and down into a gorge, towards a stream of water red as tomato juice. The air was pungent with the smell of dead fish, rotting vegetation—and smoke. Craw’s nose was right.
    Then I spied an encampment of sorts, up ahead under a cement bridge. There were four or five shanties pieced together from wooden pallets, sheets of tin, and boxcar doors. On the river bank, two hoboes flanked a cookstove made from a barrel with a grate on top. A plump hobo stood stirring, while his skinny companion sat hunched over on a milk crate.
    Craw gave a sweeping bow. “Welcome to Hooverville.” It looked more like a train wreck than a town, but all that mattered was the kettle of soup boiling on top of that stove. “We’ll eat like kings tonight,” Craw said. Then he called out— “Hey ho, jungle buzzards!”
    The man stirring the soup dropped his ladle and hurried towards us. “Why, look what just washed up—you filthy old bastard, Craw!”
    “When did you get out of the bughouse, Chester?”
    After they exchanged a few more insults, Craw introduced me. “This here’s the Remus Kid. As tough a greenhorn as ever rode the rails. Watch your language, though—he’s a preacher’s boy. I don’t want to catch you taking the Lord’s name in vain or saying damn or hell, neither.”
    “Damn it all to hell, Craw—them’s half the words I know! Can’t I say shit?”
    “Of course you can say shit,” Craw said. “That’s not a curse—it’s a colloquialism.”
    I tried to explain that Craw was only fooling and I didn’t give a damn what the hell anyone said. “Aw, don’t you mind us,” Chester said. “I done got religion myself once. Just can’t remember where I put it. And Craw, here—why, he knows the Good Book better’n any minister. He can recite all Ten Commandments by heart. Course, that’s cause he’s done broke ’em so many times.”
    “You’ve got to sin before you can be redeemed,” Craw said. “A man might as well enjoy it.”
    All this while, the skinny hobo stayed put with his back to us. When we got closer, I saw he was hunched over grinding coffee beans between two stones. “That’s Red,” Chester said. “He’s a comedian.”
    Red mumbled something. The words were indecipherable, but they sent Chester into a laughing fit. “Like I keep sayin’, Red—they’re gonna put you in the movies.”
    Red craned his neck around and grunted something vaguely threatening. When I saw his face, I stepped back; one of Red’s eye sockets was an empty, shriveled hole. But Chester only laughed harder. “Cut it out with them jokes, dammit. I done warned you—you’re