THENEWYORKER, NOVEMBER 4, 2019 59
T
he boys were crouched in the
dirt, the marbles pinging be-
tween them. Earl Lovett’s big-
gie oily marble was blue and white, like
the earth seen from the heavens. He’d
already won twenty marbles by the time
he noticed the music. Back home in El-
lenwood, there was always singing or
music playing. All day, every day. The
music was constant noise for Earl, some-
thing easy for him to relegate to the
back of his mind. So his marbles smashed
straight while the other boys’ jigged. Even
Earl’s cousin, Brent, who had taught him
to pitch that summer, couldn’t keep up
with Earl’s streak. He’d gotten so good,
he wondered if he could grow up to be
a marble player. His father was always
going on about finding a trade.
Then the music arrived and the boys
stood to receive it. Except for Earl, who
stayed crouched over his catch, watch-
ing the van cruise in, realizing the music
a bit after the others: “I’ve come from
Alabama with a banjo on my knee.”
The electric megaphones were tied to
the roof of the van, as if the van itself
were singing.
Earl carefully placed his trophies,
smooth as globes, in his pockets. Brent
was older than Earl, but Earl was taller.
He was teased for this—“long string
bean,” Brent called him in front of the
others. But now, when Earl stood, Brent
nodded at him, as though he were finally
proud to be Earl’s kin. The two boys
waited as the van drove into the dusty
lot. On the side of the van the boys
could see the words “God’s Caravan”
painted in red letters. “Blood of Jesus”
red, they would later learn.
The van parked beside the ice-cream
truck. The tinkling of that sweets truck
suddenly sounded insignificant. And
now this van, God’s Caravan, reversed
so that its back faced the boys. On the
door was written “To Heaven or Bust”—
also in Jesus’ blood-red. The electric
mouths sputtered, and a man’s voice
came out. “When I say, ‘Ride or die,’”
the voice announced, “you say, ‘Amen.’”
Now. This was the South. Memphis,
Tennessee, to be specific. Soulsville, the
black part, to be exact. The marble-playing
boys all understood call-and-response.
“Ride or die,” the electric mouths shouted.
“Amen,” the mouths of the boys shouted
back. Earl, big-city boy but shy, rolled
his loot of marbles around in his pock-
ets. This fondling would have looked
indecent if anyone had been watching.
But everyone was watching the Dodge
Caravan. The door, To Heaven or Bust,
opened like the eye of God. And there
was the pastor. Dressed in black judge’s
robes. There was no banjo on his knee.
There was a microphone in his left hand
and a Bible in his right.
The marbles in Earl’s pockets grew
moist from his sweaty palms, but he
kept jostling them, gripping and releas-
ing their slippery curves, knocking them
into one another. “Young men,” said the
pastor, “welcome to God’s Caravan.” Earl
stepped in a little closer. “Welcome,” the
pastor said again, and this time looked
right at Earl.
Back in Ellenwood, Earl’s parents
used their music like music was a weapon.
Mom would put on her soul music first
thing Sunday morning. Dad would wake
up late and blast his gospel-choir hymns,
or chant his Hindu meditations at a
shout. Mom would always surrender
first, say it was because of Dad’s voices.
Schizophrenia: Gary Lovett’s official
diagnosis, though Earl’s dad never used
the word. Either way, Earl always did
love his father’s voice, the big brass of
it singing out the Muslim call to prayer
in melodic Arabic.
Pastor John introduced himself as
the driver of God’s Caravan. He had
one of those voices, but with a confi-
dence that had never alighted on Earl’s
father. The other marble boys tilted their
heads back, looked at this newcomer
the way they’d looked at Earl on his first
day there that summer, as if a stranger
might be a lit match.
“I’ve got sweets for your heart,” the
pastor said, waving his hand dismissively
in the direction of the Mister Softee ice-
cream truck. The truck tinkled. The ice-
cream man, Mr. Dick he called himself,
opened his driver’s-side door so that the
tinkling stopped. Earl saw this, saw it as
a sign, and again stepped a little closer
to God’s Caravan. In his pockets, the
marbles were glass worlds, a constella-
tion quaking furiously against his thigh.
Earl wasn’t a bold boy. He couldn’t
sing as well as his father, couldn’t dance
as well as his mother. Didn’t have sib-
lings to show him that failure was rou-
tine, that a child could never outrun a
parent. Siblings, his mother sometimes
said pitifully, were the ones you sharp-ened yourself against. In fact, this was
why Earl had been sent to Soulsville
that summer—his mom said he was
getting too soft. His cousin was the per-
formative one. Older, better at masking
his typical insecurities. Teaching Earl
how to dance, Brent had told his cousin
to imitate him, jerking his waist back
and forth and singing “El, take my wood”
in a moan. Earl, too young, didn’t un-
derstand the reference to wood, but he
did understand that the moaning was
about sex, somehow. Which meant that
it was bad, and worse, because Earl’s
mother’s name was Ellenora: Ellie to
his dad, but El to her family. Aunt El
to Brent. Still, Earl, knowing his inad-
equacy, mimed the movements and the
words until his cousin squatted into hic-
cupping laughter. So, of course, punk as
any eight-year-old, Earl had ratted this
cousin out. Demonstrating for their
grandparents the moan and shakes, the
made-up lyrics, even. His grandfather
had smacked him, Earl, over the head.
Told him to stop being such a snitch.
Earl had cowered and cried, cold-hated
his grandfather for a full two days. Was
determined to hate Pop and Brent for-
ever. Called his mom and begged her
to come get him. “Did Pop hit you?” she
asked with the same voice she used to
ask his father if he’d taken his pills. Earl
had lied, said “No”—that snitch accu-
sation had gotten to him. “Then don’t
be crazy,” his mother had said. Earl
would serve the summer out.
But then Pop had brought home
a video of “Thriller” and played it for
the boys—all the horror and the girl-
friend-boyfriend kissy stuff. And Earl
could see that his cousin’s moves, the
moaning, even, were straight from M.J.
Which made it better, somehow. Earl
practiced the moonwalk in privacy.
Though it never felt smooth, always
felt forced.
But, that day in Soulsville, the music
wasn’t Michael Jackson. It wasn’t even
“Oh! Susanna,” as the singing van had
suggested. “Susanna” was Pastor John’s
signature. His entrance and exit music.
But, once the pastor burst out from the
back of the van, he’d preach a new song.
They called it “music ministry” at Grace
Baptist, Gram and Pop’s church. Pastor
John’s music was coon, not hymn, though
Earl didn’t know that terminology yet.
“You are not the future,” Pastor