Conflagration

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​The Reverend cleared his throat in silence so as to not break the cadence of his voice. The bible in his hand had been defaced with the skin of some unnamed reptile and it shimmered in dull light. An instrument of war made so by the wicked hand which held it. A servant of no god but a user of His tools the same way a chimpanzee would operate some technology that has not yet been discovered by man.
The book was large and heavy within his grip. In a moment he would need to set it down to relieve his forearm which was ablaze with lactic acid and fatigue. Its pages were clean and without dogears, worn only by years of handsweat. A gold ribbon protruded from its peak marking a page that had never been read. Its wisdom never received.
The heavy nylon tent sealed in the internal temperature and turned the patch of grass on the edge of the campsite into an inferno of body heat and the burn off of cheap torches. Fire light glistened off his forehead. Off his cheeks. The collared dress shirt he wore was actually a blouse and after mere seconds of being present it had already bled through with perspiration so that you could see the follicles on his chest below and nearly capture the rhythmic repetition of his heart kicked into hellspeed under the steady influence of pharmaceutical amphetamines.
As he spoke, his mouth spouted geysers of spittle that fell onto the girl who was resting on her knees below. As she received his word she could smell the bourbon he'd drank out of a plastic bottle minutes before he'd began his preaching. She paid it no mind. She had drunk from the bottle too.
The first portion of his sermon had been a slow simmer of muted prophesies and calming rhetoric that built until he was shaking with fury and jumping across the plywood stage that rested against one of the tent's flaps. There were pieces of the word he had picked up during his short tenure as a legitimate preacher back before his congregation had been confiscated from him and forced him to search for a new flock. Various shreds of versus from Testaments Old and New that he pieced together regularly to form a grotesque collage of scripture that could only resonate amongst those who like him had never found true religion. He hacked out amalgamations of Ruth, John, Leviticus, Psalms, and Genesis, always forming the same message. Always saving the souls of the wicked women, many of whom sat before him and serviced him with their wickedness. A bastardization of God's good word.
When he caught his breath he placed the palm of his hand on her forehead and closed his eyes. He looked like a blind man finding the shape of a stranger's face. His mouth whispered words that he claimed to be Latin and when he was finished he turned to the crowd and proclaimed her to be saved. She smiled and licked her lips before rising back to her feet.
"The wickedness has been exorcised," he yelled. "The devil's sin is no longer in occupancy."
The girl giggled as she stepped onto the ground, crop top jiggling as she went. Pink flip flops made a light impression on the grass under her frail weight. Two other girls were waiting to receive her.
The devil's sin may be out tonight, she thought. But it would be back home by tomorrow afternoon.


The woman they called Jasmine sat in the rusted beach chair near the side of the stage clapping feverishly and wearing the same wide eyed expression as the girl who was descending back into the crowd. Dynamite watched her while the rest of the congregation was transfixed on the preacher who had already risen back to the height of his animation.
She was missing several of her front teeth and those that remained were stained in a tie-dye of various shades of yellow and brown. Her hair was beginning to show the first signs of grey and rested in a way that looked nearly straw like. Lines had developed around the edges of her lips and on her forehead. Her skin was the color of a cloud backlit by the moon.
​Dynamite often found herself staring off during the Reverend's services. She had come to the Troop two and a half years before and knew him for the pimp he was before she had a chance to shake his hand. A man of god. That was the title he claimed, but she could tell without hesitation that he was his own god and that was about all she needed to form her opinion.
​She reached forward and picked up the water bottle she'd filled with vodka and stashed below the folding chair she now sat in before the revival began. Drinking was an inevitable evil in places like this. There exists a specific type of person who ventures into their profession and they carry their vices with them. You could limit how many existed in your operation but you could not get rid of them entirely. It was part of the reason she put up with the Reverend's ravings. Despite his own vices he made sure that both the women and their clientele were kept from violence and the drugs he himself consumed. The Garbage, as he called it. It was enough to keep both of his hands full.
​She helped the others when she could. Made sure that they had enough food and blankets and what not. There were times that he disappeared with one or two of the women and it was her who made sure that The Garbage didn't sneak into their commune while he was away. Some of the younger girls looked up to her the way they might look up to their mother, should they have ever had one.
​The man screaming and gyrating onstage was called Revered around the campsite but his true name was Wyrick Shae. He had come here from a respectable church after they relieved him of his duties less than a month into his tenure. How he managed to gain a congregation in the first place she did not know. In a way, he wasn't much different than the women he managed. A whore for money, one that drank straight from the bottle and consumed pills from glowing orange receptacles long bereft of any label. There were even rumors that he was peddling whatever of his supply he didn't manage to take himself. Among other things.
Under the steady influence of amphetamines he slept with any and every girl who would have him, burning through all four corners of the camp like brushfire. He had even made his advances on her but she turned him away time after time, only to have his thirst for her grow with each failed solicitation.
​ Yes, she put up with it. The alternative was a much uglier reality should someone else be appointed to watch over them. Someone who wasn't as particular with drugs or his women taking a beating during the course of their work. The influence of these things had a way of killing an operation like theirs from the inside out. The young would become old almost overnight. Their profession was already taxing enough. She thought of these things and turned her attention back to Jasmine.
​She had never known a Troop without her, and judging by the state of her she wondered if there had ever been a Jasmine without the Troop. Her true age was somewhere just north of forty but she looked another two decades beyond. Here was a woman who had remained with the outfit long past her expiration. She had witnessed with her own greying eyes the dollars in the hands of her patrons diminish. The value of her body dwindle. She first thought of her with pity but over time she found herself hating her. Hating what she represented. She was the manifestation of someone who came here and stayed because she didn't know of any other way to live.
​No where else to go.
Dynamite was familiar with these thoughts.
​Her hatred of the woman was spawned from a knowledge that her own face was beginning to wrinkle around the corner of her lips. Grey hairs had begun to sprout near the root. She dreamt of the moment where she would walk past a mirror and realize that she herself was losing teeth. And how long would it be until she began to heed the Reverend's words? When would this become her reality?
She was almost thirty one and there were less opportunities in town now than when she arrived and pitched her tent.
​The ugly truth about their business was not that women came and went but that some stayed.
​She watched the remainder of the sermon and sipped from the bottle. Some of those in front of her put up their hand at each mention of God and praised. Anything to rid themselves of the guilt they had accrued during the preceding day.
​She wondered how many more sermons she could take and realized that the true number was most likely far greater than she cared to admit. But one day she would face a reckoning, one brought on by the simple fact that this business would not keep her forever. She could only close her eyes and pray to the true God that that day would come soon.