Tex: A Novel About an Unforgettable Bible-Thumping Texan

By Cooper

In the psychedelic Sixties, Tex Parsons travels to California to rescue his cousin Jillian from a cult that engages in sexual and religious practices which, he is convinced, threaten not only her chastity but her very soul. Unfortunately, while hunting down Jillian, Tex encounters the ravishing Conchitaa temptress who severely tests both his born-again Christianity and his marriage. During his California adventure, zany Tex discovers gold in the Sierra Nevada, kidnaps Cousin Jillian, sparks a melee or two, takes on the cults guru in a boxing match, and preaches a rousing sermon to the stoned cultists.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 16, 2009
• ISBN: 9781462830930

Cooper

Sonni Cooper is an artist and author of the Star Trek tie-in novel, Black Fire.

Book preview

1

Back in the psychedelic Sixties I met God’s entertainment director here on earth.

I was just out of a brief disastrous marriage and bumming around the country while figuring out how to escape the draft when, stranded in Elko, Nevada, I stepped into a local café to cadge a ride. A counter ran along the west wall of the dusty and rundown establishment and the east wall housed a row of brown booths; between the counter and the booths stretched a line of scarred tables the color of cow pies. The only people in evidence were a fat bald man behind the counter and a lone customer on a stool sipping coffee and wearing Levis and black leather boots and a red plaid shirt and a black cowboy hat and a fancy black belt with TEX hand-tooled on the back. Taking the stool beside him I addressed the side of his face: Say, you wouldn’t be headed toward Frisco, would you?

Sure wouldn’t.

He didn’t look at me: stared straight ahead through black-rimmed glasses, holding the coffee cup to his mouth with both hands, every now and then sneaking a sip. I could tell he was watching me out of the corner of his mind. I ordered a coffee and while serving it with pudgy hands the proprietor said to the cowboy, It’s really not for sale. His voice sounded like a tot’s squeaky-toy.

What would you take for it? asked Tex.

It’s really not for sale.

"If it was for sale, what would you take for it?"

I really couldn’t put a price on it.

"If you could put a price on it, what would it be?"

I’d have to talk it over with my brother.

Abruptly Tex rose and strode (didn’t walk, strode) to the south wall of the café and, bending, elaborately scrutinized a sturdy round table the size of a semi wheel, his thick glasses an inch from the shellacked surface.

It’s got a crack, he said after awhile.

Baldy shrugged. It’s an old table.

That crack . . . I don’t know.

Abruptly straightening, Tex strode back to his stool. Resumed sipping his coffee. Stared straight ahead.

I’ll give you fifty for it.

An arroyo of wrinkles formed between the proprietor’s brows.

I will have to discuss this with my brother.

I couldn’t help smiling at his formal tone, and he shot me a dirty look as he waddled through a door into the back of the café.

It’s kind of beat up, I said to Tex. Why do you want it?

For the first time he looked directly at me. Through the glasses his eyes were very blue; his talcum skin set off the blackness of his hair. Black Irish, I reckoned, and by association conjured up an acronym common in the nineteenth century: NINA. No Irish Need Apply. Tex’s nose was large and his mouth as small as a sphincter.

He said, I don’t want it. I’m just seeing what he’ll sell it for.

Funning him?

I’ve got him calibrated. He’ll take fifty-five for it.

Calibrated?

That’s exactly right. I read people like a book, boy. I calibrate folks so when I say ‘Jump’ they say ‘How high?’

I couldn’t help laughing.

Okay, I said, "if you’re so good at reading people, read me."

Tex gazed at me through his thick incongruous lenses. Like a bull elk with its head raised, I thought: a bull elk with specs.

That’s easy, he said after a moment of intense scrutiny. You’re an egotist on the bum.

How do you figure that?

Tex resumed his basic position: elbows propped on counter, raised coffee cup clamped between his hands.

I told you: I read people like a book.

Daddio, you haven’t even opened the cover.

At this Tex threw back his head and laughed: an actor’s laugh, prolonged and artificial—yet somehow also genuine. Three or four times he ran the scales, but when the proprietor suddenly reappeared in the middle of the performance, Tex instantly switched off the sound.

This is good coffee, he said seriously.

Baldy fussed his fat hands on the counter, swiped at it with a black-and-white checkered dishtowel. After awhile he said, We’ll take sixty for it.

Real good coffee, said Tex.

The proprietor continued fussing his towel.

Sixty, he repeated.

Excellent coffee. Abruptly Tex dished his cup, stood up. I’ll be going now. What do I owe you?

A dime.

Fishing a coin out of his Levis Tex clicked it on the counter. He said to me, Come on, boy. I’m going toward San Francisco.

Flipping a dime on the counter, I hefted my dufflebag and followed him to the door. On the way out he abruptly turned and said to the proprietor, We’ll see you now.

Fifty-five, squeaked baldy, still fussing.

I’ll think about that. I’ll think about that. We’ll see you now.

The screendoor banged behind us.

Squinting against the sudden sunlight, I acknowledged Tex’s accurate prediction.

I told you, boy. I read people like a book.

2

Iexpected Tex to be driving a big white Cadillac with a pair of polished longhorns over the grille but the reality was considerably less impressive: a nondescript beige car, not much to look at, a Plymouth Valiant as I remember. We headed toward Reno.

While driving Tex said nothing, stared straight ahead. After a bit I noticed his eyelids sagging.

Hey—you all right?

His eyes popped open.

It’s the coffee, he said.

The coffee?

Coffee makes me sleepy. Always did. Best sleeping potion I know.

Cranking his window halfway down he admitted a buffeting wind.

Fresh air, he said. Best antidote.

Another long silence as a barren brown landscape swept by us on both sides. The sun was very bright; seemed so much brighter in the West than back East. Not only big sky country, I thought, but bright sun country. Bright and sharp, like splinters of glass flying in all directions. I pulled down the visor.

Tex asked, Why are you hitching to San Francisco?

Out of college, I said, quickie marriage and divorce, bumming around to see the country while deciding between Canada and graduate school.

That’s interesting. (He pronounced it in-ter-est-ing.) That’s interesting. But you’re a dumb shit. You win the Dumb Shit of the Year Award.

What’s that supposed to mean?

When you get married, boy, you’re married for life. It says so in the Bible. ‘What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.’ Mark ten nine. A real man doesn’t treat a woman like you did your wife. If you have to bum around you should do it together, as man and wife.

What’s the Bible got to do with the price of eggs?

Everything, boy, everything. It’s a sacred document. The word of God Himself, your Lord and Master. It tells you not to commit adultery and I bet you’re out to plug every woman you meet. You wait, boy. The moment of truth will come when you ram it home in another woman.

I looked at the side of his face. Pale skin, big nose.

Moment of truth. What does that mean?

The moment of truth will come when you ram it home in another woman.

Balls.

He turned his head to look at me.

You’ll see your wife’s face.

What?

When you ram it home in another woman you’ll see your wife’s face.

I laughed.

Laugh if you want to, but I speak with straight tongue. You’ll see your wife’s face.

You’re dead wrong.

I speak with straight tongue, boy.

"You’re wrong. First off she’s no longer my wife. And sec—

She’ll always be your wife, boy, always. The Bible says so.

And second, it didn’t happen.

What’s that?

"When I rammed it home in another woman, I didn’t see my ex-wife’s face."

For a long while after that he said nothing, staring straight ahead at the road as though I didn’t exist.

Finally I asked, You’re a fundamentalist, right?

That’s right. That’s exactly right. I’m a Christian. Follow the Good Book and you can’t go wrong, boy. Before I got married I was a real cutter, I topped every woman I could. But since I married I haven’t touched another woman. It would be a sin.

"Has anybody mentioned to you lately that this is the Sixties? The nineteen sixties?"

Are you a Christian? he asked.

That’s a meaningless question.

It’s the most important question there is.

Okay, then I’ll just say I’m not a practicing Christian but I do admit we live in a society that’s been deeply influenced by Christianity. For better or worse.

Either you’re a Christian or you’re not. It’s that simple.

I don’t agree it’s that simple.

Are you or aren’t you?

Actually I’m more sympathetic toward Buddhism. Especially Zen. You might try reading Watts or Suz—

Are you a Christian or aren’t you?

It occurred to me then that if I said no he might kick me out of the car in the Nevada boondocks.

He repeated, Are you or aren’t you a Christian?

If you insist, I guess I have to say I’m not.

He gave me a sidelong look.

I don’t believe you, boy. In your heart of hearts you know you’re a Christian. Always were and always will be.

I didn’t feel like arguing so I shut up. Let the wind whoosh, the landscape rush, the sun splinter. Tex must not have felt like arguing either because he said nothing for maybe ten minutes. Then suddenly, I can use the finger.

What?

The finger. I can satisfy a woman with my finger.

Without looking at me he held up and wiggled a long white forefinger.

You’re saying it’s okay to use the finger but not the instrument of procreation?

That’s exactly right.

The Bible says that?

That’s exactly right. And if the finger doesn’t satisfy her . . .

Sticking out a surprisingly long pink tongue he swiveled it lasciviously from side to side. Then suddenly ran the scales, once, twice, three times, filling the small car with stagy laughter. Then lapsed into another self-absorbed silence. I was still wondering in which book of the Bible he’d found words to sanction the finger and the tongue when he abruptly asked, Did you eat your wife?

What?

Did you eat your wife?

Did I eat my wife?

That’s right—did you eat your wife?

No more than a dozen times a day.

"I eat mine. Do you know—you may not believe this—but I can make a woman come with my nose."

With that nose, I believe it.

Why thank you, he said. Thank you very much. I take that as a fine compliment.

We passed by Battle Mountain, I remember the sign, and through a town called Winnemucca. Barren country compared to the East. Ever since that trip I’ve thought of the East as cozy and intimate, on a human scale, and the West as too big for the human being, awesome, holy, uninhabited, asweep with a grandeur reserved for the gods. When Pascal said, Those vast spaces frighten me, he might have been speaking of Nevada or Montana rather than the heavens. A lover of flapdoodle, I was probably mulling such things when Tex suddenly said, It tastes like pineapple.

What does?

He gave me his sidelong look.

A woman.

A woman tastes like pineapple?

That’s exactly right. Warm pineapple, that’s been laying in the sun. That’s exactly what a woman tastes like.

Hmm. I don’t think so. I’d say more like celery soup.

Tex looked at me in surprise—and guffawed. Ran the scales, rocked back and forth and pounded the steering wheel.

Oh turd, that’s too much! Celery soup! Oh turd!

It took him several minutes to settle down.

Celery soup. That’s too much. I like you, boy. You have a hair of the bear in you. I like that. But naturally you’re wrong—it tastes like warm pineapple.

Celery soup.

Boy, I tell you I’ve topped more women than you’ve had wet dreams about. I made them come with my tongue, with my nose, even with my toes. I almost made them come just by looking at them, like Johnny Cash does. Do you know that, boy?

For a moment I didn’t answer. Then, Your preoccupation with this subject makes me think you’re tempted to find some action away from home.

He gave me the humorous version of his sidelong glance.

Just the finger, boy, just the finger.

That’s why you don’t have your wife with you, because you want to test the finger?

That’s exactly right.

Suppose the lucky woman refuses to let you stop with the finger?

Just the finger, boy. Just the finger.

But suppose she insists on the real thing?

His face dropped.

It would mentally destroy me.

Oh come now. You exaggerate.

It would mentally destroy me. I’d see my wife’s face—oh turd!—I don’t even want to think about it.

Yet he was obviously all buzzed up, thinking about it.

It would wipe me a new one, he said. "Adultery. Don’t you realize that’s a sin? I’d roast in hell for that."

But imagining it, or using the finger or the nose or the tongue or the toes or the elbow or the knee—that doesn’t count? That’s not a sin?

That’s exactly right. Those are not adultery.

It was my turn to laugh, though without his thespian flourish.

Then I said, Okay, what about this. Suppose your wife let some other guy use the tongue and the chin and the nose but didn’t let him stick her. No problem, right?

She wouldn’t.

But suppose she did.

She wouldn’t.

"But if she—

I’d throw her out.

I stared at him.

You didn’t even have to think about that.

Look, boy, I’ve popped two cherries in my life and the second one was my wife. I wouldn’t have married anything but a virgin. My wife is the purest woman I ever met. I wouldn’t have any other kind.

I giggled.

You’re unbelievable, Tex. You boggle my mind. You’re like a tree split right down to the roots by lightning.

We drove on for a long while in silence, Tex deep within himself. Many miles down the road, announcing Time to eat, he suddenly swerved off the highway and into a little town called Lovelock.

I said, Your kind of town.

Staring straight ahead, he said not a word.

3

As we cruised the asphalt between Lovelock and Reno I asked Tex why he was headed for Frisco. After correcting me (The natives hate the word Frisco, boy, they call it San Francisco) he told me he was on a very important ( im-por-dant) mission: he had to find a cousin, a young woman of twenty, who had suddenly dropped out of college in Texas and run off to join some hippie group, some Devil-worshipping cult, in northern California. With the Good Lord’s help he intended to track Cousin Jillian down and take her back to Austin where she belonged. And what, I asked, if she doesn’t want to leave? Tex said this was not a problem, that by the time he got through talking to her she’d be eager to jump through anything he set before her, up to and including a hoop of hellfire. I’ve got the vocation, boy. I thought you would have figured that out by now.

What vocation?

The preaching vocation. The only reason I’m not preaching right now is I had trouble making up my mind between religion and politics.