The Fortunate Pilgrim - Mario Puzo [44]
The children, sensing they had been lost track of, sneaked away. Gino, Vincent, and Job went down the corridor to the front room. Mr. Colucci went on. Lucia Santa listened with polite calm. These people were going to get her husband work. Bravo. They could have his prayers. All her children except Sal and Lena had already made their Communion and Confirmation in the Catholic Church, but she had done this as she dressed them in new clothes on Easter Sunday, as part of a primitive social rite. She herself had long ceased to think of God except to automatically curse his name for some misfortune. There was no question; when she died she would prudently take the last rites of her church. But now she did not go to Mass even for Christmas or Easter.
Octavia was more impressed. She was young and a belief in goodness and a desire to do good works inspired respect in her. She wished she were as beautiful as Mrs. Colucci and she thought for a moment that it was a good thing that Larry wasn’t home to exercise his charms on her, as he surely would.
The father watched and listened, as if he expected Mr. Colucci to say something he desperately wished to hear, as if Mr. Colucci were very close to saying some magic words that would be a key for him. He kept waiting.
In the front room Gino took his deck of cards from the round hole of the wall that housed the stovepipe in winter. “You wanta play Seven-and-a-half?” he asked Job. Vinnie was already sitting on the floor and taking pennies out of his pocket. Gino sat down opposite him.
“Card playing is a sin,” Job said. He was a small earnest boy, almost pretty, resembling his mother, but in no way effeminate. He sat down on the floor and watched.
“You want a hand for Chrissake?” Gino asked mildly.
“Swearing is a sin,” Job said.
“Bullshit,” Vinnie said. He never swore himself, but who did this snotnose think he was, telling Gino not to swear?
Gino tilted his head and looked at Job wisely. “You talk like that on this block, kiddo, they take off your pants and hang them on the lamp post. You have to run home and everybody sees your bare ass.” The frightened look on Job’s face satisfied them. They played cards and became absorbed in the game.
Job said suddenly, “Well, all right, but you two will go to hell, and pretty soon, too.”
Gino and Vinnie couldn’t be bothered.
Job said calmly, “My father said the End of the World is coming.”
Gino and Vinnie stopped playing for a minute. Mr. Colucci had impressed them.
Job smiled with confidence. “It’s people like you that will cause it. You make God mad because you do bad things like gamble and curse. If people like you did everything that me and my father told you, maybe God wouldn’t make the world end.”
Gino frowned. He had made his Communion and Confirmation the year before and the nuns who taught him the catechism had said nothing about this. “When does it happen?” he asked.
“Soon,” Job said.
“Tell us when,” Gino insisted, still respectful.
“It’s gonna be by fires and floods and guns coming out of the sky. Everything is gonna explode. The earth is gonna open up and swallow people into hell and the ocean’s gonna cover everything. And everybody is gonna burn in hell. Except just a few who believe and act good. And then God is gonna love everybody again.”
“Yeah, but when?” Gino was stubborn. He always wanted an answer when he asked a question, no matter what it was.
“Twenty years from now,” Job said.
Gino counted his pennies. “I’ll bet a nickel,” he said to Vincent. Vinnie dealt. Anything could happen in twenty years.
Vinnie lost. Old enough to be witty, he said, “If I had a name like Job the world couldn’t end too soon for me.”
The two brothers watched Job slyly and for the first time he became angry. He said, “I’m named after one of the greatest people in the Bible. You know what Job did? He believed. So God tested him. God killed