Instrument

Among the gas stations and fast food restaurants standing on the south side of the city, the Standard station was well placed. It was surrounded by several motels, where people from Atlanta and Yankees and even foreigners stayed while visiting the Minnen Tabernacle Assemblies of God Church. It was also at the first stoplight people came to after pulling off the freeway, and they often came in to get directions to the church.

Roy Pullen, who managed the Standard station in the shift from four a.m. to noon, knew just where the church was, although he had never been there. They had put up the building, a couple miles down the road in a former tangerine orchard, a few years before. At first it had seemed like a mistake. The parking lots surrounding the huge cinderblock structure were larger than those next to the football stadium at the college, and were practically empty for more than a year. But then, because of the Anointing, the church became suddenly popular, then a local attraction, then a national phenomenon.

The people who stopped at the Standard station to get directions had an pleasant air of anxious curiosity, like people wondering whether they were worthy of Disney World. They assumed he went to the church regularly, because of its nearness, and he didn't dissuade them. He knew that if he told them he didn't believe in the Anointing, that he didn't really go to church, that he thought holy rollers were a bunch of stupid jerks, that they would try to make him see he was going to hell and convert him to the love of Jesus and a new life.

But he didn't want a new life. He especially didn't want to become like the muscular Christians driving through the station every day, with their striped polo shirts and their minivans, their four children and exhausted-looking wives. They had to be upright before the Lord and be the head of the family, and pay for the minivan and all the kids' clothes and also take their families on vacations where they would go to Disney World and the Minnen Tabernacle, whereas Roy could clearly see they would much rather still be hanging with their buddies, going to Hooters on Friday nights, and being a backslidden, occasional dope-smoking gas station manager with a paid-for Camaro and seven units of community college.

The people who stopped for gas, rather than directions, were more likely people who had been staying in the area for a few days visiting the church and taking part in the Anointing, and now were gassing up their cars on their way back to the airport. They had a different air, a mixture of purpose and sadness, though some acted positively obnoxious with glowing faces and expressions of praise every second. Once when Roy had checked the oil for a middle-aged couple in a Cadillac with Kentucky plates, and informed them that they were a quart low, the driver had exclaimed, "Praise the Lord, I'll have a quart!" This led Roy and his coworkers to repeat the phrase over and over for days -- "Praise the Lord, I restocked the soda!" "I'm going on break, praise the Lord!"

One morning, a young woman came through. As she climbed out of her car and slid her credit card through the slot in the pump, Roy appraised her healthy blondness. She wore shorts and a halter top which Roy found sexy, and he especially liked her car, a sporty Toyota. He wandered over, even though she had parked at the Self-Serve. "Anything I can help you with?" Roy asked insinuatingly.

She flashed him a big smile. "You might check to see if I'm lubricated," she said.

"Beg pardon?"

"Don't you check the wheels or the axle or something?" She stuck the hose into the gas tank with a quick, forceful move, and stood smiling at him.

"This is just a gas station; we don't have a mechanic or a lift," Roy said. "You need to, you know, have a lift or a bay to do a lube job."

She smoothed her hair, which was feathered and hung down to her shoulders, with her free hand, and looked around Roy's domain. "I see. 'Roy,'" she said, looking at his shirt, "That's nice; it reminds me of 'royal.' Are you royal, Roy?"

She was teasing him, a hopeful sign. "I'm a royal asshole, somebody said." His technique was to swear with girls as soon as possible; if they didn't seem to mind, he took it as a sign they would permit him other indiscretions.

She looked off to the side and smiled thinly. "My name is Lelani," she said.

"That's very pretty." He looked right in her eyes as he said it, and she chuckled softly, which encouraged him even more. "Are you from around here?"

"Not really. I have a gig tonight around here."

"Where at?"

"At the Minnen Tabernacle. I'm a singer." The gas nozzle made a quick filling sound, and the pump cut off. She removed the nozzle and replaced it in the pump without dripping. "I'm going to do a couple of songs in the service tonight," she said.

"Oh, really? I'm surprised."

"Why's that?"

"Not that you don't seem like a singer or anything, it's... I don't know, you don't seem like the type," he said, glancing at her halter top, or actually her tits. He realized she wanted to get past him and climb back into her car, but he stayed put.

She looked at him, still smiling, but less widely. "Roy," she said, giving his elbow a friendly squeeze while moving him aside before he realized it was happening, "We're all the type."

"Oh really?" Roy repeated, trying to recover his balance while she opened her car door and swung her butt and her legs in. She started her engine. A preacher blared from the radio, "-- wants you to be everything He created you to be --" before she turned it down.

"I'll be down there this evening," Lelani said, "if you want to come. You have to come early though, I hear people start lining up about three."

Roy had heard this too: people lined up in the hot sun three or four hours before the service began, so popular had it become. "You think we can talk later?" he asked.

She grinned, "You'd have to be there," and closed her door and drove off. He stood looking after her, watching her Christian fish placard disappear into traffic. He had a date that night and he didn't want to break it. His girlfriend had broken up with him almost a year before, and since then he had gone out twice with a waitress from Hooters. He suspected that she would soon agree to fuck him, maybe even tonight, but compared with the tingling he felt as he watched Lelani's car cut off a Coca Cola truck and roar off down the street, that seemed far away. He formed a tentative plan to attend the service for an hour or so, then show up at the waitress's apartment if nothing happened.

When he got off work at noon, he went home to nap, as usual. Instead of sleeping, he spent the time wondering what this Lelani girl was up to. He had met girls before who seemed like they were interested in him, and who invited him to church. This was not unusual in this part of the country; an invitation to church or a casual testimony to the Lord's goodness was part of people's everyday talk, something you heard almost as often as "How're y'all?" or "Have a good one," and he had learned not to take it personally. But he considered it unfair to use feminine wiles to draw somebody into a religious encounter. Sex was supposed to be the last thing on a religious person's mind, so to use it to draw somebody in, and then make them feel guilty about it, and then use that guilt as a crowbar to convince them of their need for Jesus -- it was worse than bad manners, Roy felt; it was mean.

What Roy couldn't figure out was how far this girl seemed to push it. "See if I'm lubricated?" He couldn't believe some strait-laced Christian chick would talk like that if she didn't mean it. Lying in his bed, the summer heat bubbling outside the drawn curtains, Roy imagined gently tucking his fingers between Lelani's pussy lips in answer to her invitation, imagined her whispering to him, "See? See?" as he plunged into the wetness, deeper and deeper.

He rose after two and drove over to the Minnen Tabernacle. The parking lot already had more than a hundred cars, and a line of people snaked under a tent that had been set up to cover them from the sun. In addition to the middle-aged and elderly couples he had expected to see waiting in line, he was surprised to see a lot of people his age and teenagers. As the afternoon lengthened and the line stretched past the tent and into the parking lot, many in the line praised the Lord for their canvas shelter. It sounded to Roy as if they were congratulating themselves for arriving early; he didn't see anybody giving up their place in line to somebody standing in the sun.

As six o'clock finally approached, people began to stir. Some high school girls started a singsong chant about the love of Jesus, and many joined in wearily. Not feeling like he had to impress anybody around him, Roy sighed and remained silent, his eyes focused on the door that was about to open.

At last they filed into the sanctuary, which looked to Roy like nothing more than an auditorium with a stage. There were no crosses or other religious symbols, only flowers in front of a Lucite pulpit. Young men on the stage began playing rock instruments, and song lyrics were projected onto huge screens on either side of the stage. The room filled with people who enthusiastically sang songs which echoed the phrases Roy had overheard in the tent: "He will raise you up on eagle's wings... Filled with the Spirit, drunk in His love... " They raised their hands and arms to heaven in receptive attitudes, and a few at the front were already swaying their heads deeply from side to side; they looked like kindergartners playing elephant.

Roy kept swiveling his head to find Lelani, but there was no sign of her. He looked at his watch; it was already 6:30. He moved to the end of an aisle, the better to slip out during the service if she didn't show up. Suddenly he felt a heavy hand clap him on the shoulder. Startled, Roy turned to find a large, beaming man in a polo shirt striped to emphasize his width. "Sure you can see okay from the side?" the man asked, grinning.

"I reckon so," Roy said.

"E. B. Bunting," the man announced, sticking out his hand. "I'm one of the lay ministers here who watches out for visitors."

"Roy Pullen," Roy said, and because the music was blaring out loudly at that moment, had to repeat it. "Roy!" he shouted into E.B. Bunting's ear.

Bunting let go of Roy's hand and swiftly grabbed his upper arm, as if he were going to throw him out of the building. With his other hand, Bunting made a little roof over Roy's head. "Jesus!" he exclaimed. "Bless this your little brother ROY as enters into your temple! May the Holy Spirit fill Roy as you have so many others, that he may get a double measure of the FIRE that is sweeping this place! May it burn him, Lord -- may it burn the sin out of him, and the drugs, and the sex, and the television, and all things that are not pleasing to you, and may you FILL Roy with a spirit that makes him new. Now lead Roy to repentance and brokenness before you, Lord, make him an instrument of your spirit, and we praise you!"

E. B. Bunting's grip had tightened progressively during this prayer, until he threatened to lift Roy right off the floor. Roy had to latch on to Bunting's shoulder with his free hand, and this gesture of solidarity encouraged the minister to pray even harder. He went on at length about repentance and sin, and delved into Roy's personal life in such detail that it seemed the minister had been following him to Hooters and the Cineplex and to buddies' houses every night. The man seemed to feel so genuinely bad about Roy's sinning that Roy started to feel a little bad too, if only because Bunting seemed so torn up about it.

"And the evil thoughts, Lord!" Bunting confessed, seemingly on the verge of tears, "the ones that grip him at night, and in the daytime, and even in this place, Lord! The thoughts that start out idly, saying 'That's a pretty girl,' and going on to 'What does she look like with no clothes on' and 'Where will she let me touch her' and 'How can I get her to act like a whore with me' -- O Lord, banish those thoughts right now," and Bunting actually smacked Roy on the forehead, not once but several times, as he repeated, "Banish the thoughts of sex! Banish the temptations of the Evil One! Banish the thoughts of pussy and girls and evil behavior, for this is your child, Lord..."

Roy was stunned by Bunting's blows, and the stranglehold on his arm, and couldn't believe the minister had actually said "pussy." The music, which had grown louder and more vigorous during Bunting's prayer, seemed to be reaching its climax. Everyone in the hall was singing at the tops of their lungs "Let the fire fall, Lord let the fire fall." The minister abruptly finished his prayer and released Roy, who fell into his seat. When his head cleared, he had to stand up to see, for everyone around him was standing and waving their arms.

On the stage a man in a suit carried a huge cordless microphone in one hand, and with the other he conducted. It wasn't clear whether he was conducting the band, the crowd, or the Holy Spirit; sometimes it seemed like all three at once. The people lifted up their hands and sang, or vocalized using unknown collections of syllables. The band came to a final chord and held it, thrumming louder and louder, as the crowd burst into shouts of praise and exclamations in tongues, creating a din that rattled Roy's brain more than E.B. Bunting's smacks on the head. He felt himself, despite himself, being drawn up into the noise, as if he and the rest of the people could somehow hitch a ride on the sound and be blown into the air like confetti. The shouts turned into a roar, until it was no longer the sounds of individuals combined into a cheer, but a single cosmic tone that threatened to buckle the walls of the building. This was the Anointing which people came from all over the country for. This was the movement of the Holy Spirit.

Roy knew about holy roller churches where people shouted to praise the Lord, but this was something else; it was hard to catch words of praise, or any words at all, in the noise. It was more like the noise of a huge wave at the beach, or of the hurricane that had hit when he was ten: a sound that filled your being and went off the scale. The sound was in the air he breathed, in the floor under his feet. When he closed his eyes in fright, the sound was behind his eyes, making them smart; when he opened them, his eyeballs rattled. Having been caught by surprise, Roy didn't or couldn't join in; he simply watched and listened, open-mouthed, and let the shouting buffet him.

Finally the minister on stage gave a signal and the noise lessened and seemed to evaporate. Another, quieter prayer began, accompanied softly by the band's keyboard player. The minister spoke in slow, measured tones that lulled the audience while at the same time his words were calling them to repentance. People around Roy were weeping now, still standing with their arms and hands raised to the skies, but in a sort of crushed, exhausted way, like a grove of trees after a hailstorm.

Then the minister, who was only a kind of warmup man, introduced another one called Huckbee. He told a long meandering story about a young man who was drifting through life, satisfied by nothing, until after a bad drug experience he found the Lord. It was finally the kind of thing Roy had expected to hear. To Roy it seemed like the young man in the story was pretty stupid -- anybody knew you didn't take a bunch of ecstasy on top of a bunch of speed -- but he listened despite himself. Huckbee renewed the theme of repentance that E.B. Bunting had introduced, and this irritated and surprised Roy, because he thought the whole revival was about people simply getting the Spirit and having a chance to cut up. Like a surfer who has missed one good wave and vows he won't miss the next one, Roy waited for more of the praying and singing and shouting.

Roy wasn't paying much attention when Huckbee introduced a young woman. She performed a syrupy pop song about how the Lord was there whenever she needed him to fill her with good things. Smirking, Roy reflected on how, if you listened to it a certain way, it sounded like she was singing about how happy she was that the Lord was porking her good and regular.

Then as the band began a new song, the girl started talking over the music, not so much about repentance but about changing your life. She had been trapped in a office job where the manager sexually harassed her. But when she accepted the Lord, he not only delivered her from that situation, but helped her pursue her true dream, to be a singer. Roy suddenly realized that the woman was Lelani, the girl at the gas station who had flirted with him. She had on stage makeup and wore a soft blue dress that made her look positively motherly, but in a sexy way, and Roy stared at her with new interest.

She went on about how you, too, could change your life. Jesus didn't want you all hunched over and useless in some lousy job where you were treated badly, a job any moron could do. "Jesus changes lives! He wants you to be everything the Father created you to be," Lelani exulted. "Think about it: were you created to do what you're doing now? Working at a car wash or on an assembly line or digging ditches? And if you're more fortunate, were you really meant to just sell insurance, or cars, or manage a gas station? Is that what the Lord Adonai Yahweh Great Creator God made you to be? You don't have to just get along in life; you can win in life! You can be the victorious child of God that is your birthright!"

Roy stood absolutely still. She was speaking to him. She saw him in the gas station today and somehow knew that he wasn't just another jerk at the station, he was the manager; and she knew it wasn't good enough for him; and she had invited him here tonight, and somehow knew he was here, and was saying these words to him, while the band repeated a chorus for the umpteenth time.

"What is it that God made you to be? you may ask. You know! Deep inside you, you know! And the Lord knows also! For it is written that 'I know what you pray before you pray it.' Look inside yourself now. What is it that you truly know you were created to be?"

Roy could scarcely breathe. He did have a secret dream. When Roy was a child, he had wanted to be a doctor, and had declared this to his teachers in high school. They had not discouraged him, despite his average grades, but when he got to Remer County Junior College, and tried to register as pre-pre-med, the counselor had taken one look at his grades and laughed in his face. Then, noticing how crestfallen the youth was, the counselor said, "I'll tell you something you could do, if you're interested in the medical field. No, it's not nursing -- you probably couldn't handle that either. But you could be an EMT, an ambulance attendant. That's the sort of thing someone like you does." Ever since then, even after he had dropped out of the junior college after a semester, and as he bounced around the town from job to job and finally caught on at the Standard station, Roy had thought about this goal. Whenever ambulances came into the station, Roy hurried out to serve them himself, and shyly asked the EMTs questions about their work and their training and what it would take to become one of them.

"You can have that life-changing experience here! and now! Tonight!" Lelani proclaimed. "But you have to give yourself to the Lord first! You have to call him Lord! You must take Jesus into your life! Jesus changes lives! But first he must be in your life!" And finally, releasing the tension that had built up with chorus after chorus, the band returned to the verse of the song and Lelani began singing about this life-changing experience.

Roy felt a twinge within him, a stirring of hope and possibilities; it was almost like a small creature, or maybe only a voice, had whispered inside him. He knew this to be his soul. The soul lived under all the crap inside him; the crap couldn't touch the soul, only stifle it, until a moment like this when you could reach down and pull it out like a puppy that had fallen into a ditch.

He prepared himself for some embarrassment. No doubt there would be some kind of altar call, and it would be necessary for him to confess his backslidden condition and give himself to Jesus, but he had done this twice before, as a teenager, and he knew it wasn't important. What was important was that this time -- maybe because of the Anointing, which could overwhelm the crap inside you and let the soul emerge, the way they water-blasted the driveway at the gas station from time to time -- somehow the ritual would take this time, and his life would be changed, and he could be an EMT.

Lelani finished her song, and left the stage to loud applause. Instead of a sermon and altar call, the minister who had led the shouting came out on to the stage with something that looked like a long horn. He lifted it to his lips and blew, and out came a flatulent squeal. The crowd reacted as if it were the most glorious fanfare they had ever heard; they broke into shouts of praise, and the speaking in tongues began again in spots around the room.

"The shofar has sounded!" exclaimed a man who had not been on stage before. He stood at the microphone with one hand lifted into the air as if it was being pulled up with a rope. "Let us now lift our voices against the powers of darkness! Let us battle in spiritual warfare against the armies of Satan!" There followed a jumble of prayers, shouts, tongues, wails and other noise. The volume and intensity didn't build into a single wave the way the shouting did; instead it formed a choppy sea of sound that made Roy a little woozy. A few people away from him, a middle-aged man dressed in a brown polyester jacket was rolling his head back and forth and side to side, uttering a growl that was relieved from time to time by a few nonsense consonants. Nearby, two teenage girls were bouncing up and down rhythmically like they were headbanging at a concert. Even the older woman next to Roy was making little chuffing sounds: "Achh...  uchh...  ooosh...  gkwummmmch..."

After a few minutes of this, the minister proclaimed, "We are breaking through! The walls around the enemy's camp are falling! Like Joshua, let us strike terror into the hearts of the enemy with our praise!" The other man lifted the horn again and blew again, and suddenly the audience began moving. "Let us sweep the campus with our power!" the minister hollered. "Let us drive the enemy from every nook and cranny of God's house." Everyone began moving toward the aisle, and Roy was swept with them down toward the stage, around the front of the auditorium and to the other side. The crowd was praying and weeping and chanting and speaking in tongues, and some of them were staggering and headbanging, and it seemed amazingly like a mosh pit, only some of these people were middle-aged mom types and fat car salesmen and skinny little 12-year-old girls. They were all ululating and groaning and tweeting and moving through the room.

They squeezed through the side doors of the auditorium into a broad hallway, into another big room that had low ceilings and those moving dividers for splitting it up into several Sunday School classes. They split up into smaller crowds that went from room to room, and even outdoors into the evening heat, and back inside. The crowd kept praying, in its way. From time to time Roy could hear a male voice, presumably one of the ministers, rising above the crowd, praying for the room they were in at that time -- the nursery, say, or the kitchen. Then they drove back into the sanctuary, massing again into a single praying mob.

It was now that the wave started again. Roy was mashed up against the side of an aisle, unable to fit inside and sit down, unable to get into the open. He was getting a little dizzy and frightened, but he was determined not to let the wave pass him this time. He opened his mouth and let a few experimental sounds creep forth. It did not enter his mind to actually pray, as he thought of it.

Suddenly Lelani appeared by his side. She grabbed his hand and magically led him through the crowd to an alcove near the side of the stage.

"Lelani," he said. "I-- I came like you said."

"You did, Roy. I'm glad you came. I want you to pray with me, Roy." She looked deeply into his eyes, her face close to his. She had washed off her stage makeup and stood before him glowing and looking fresh.

He felt sweaty and rumpled, but he returned her gaze. "Okay."

She stood with both of Roy's hands in hers, and turned them so his palms were upright, as if to catch something she would pour into them. "Jesus," she began. "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. I know you are there. Come into me, Lord, and into Roy, and fill us with your spirit." She opened her eyes. "Roy, you have to pray too."

"Okay. Um... Jesus, I want to change my life."

"Oh, yes, Lord," Lelani agreed, in a swooning voice, closing her eyes.

"I want you to, uh... I want to change my life, and be an EMT."

Lelani opened her eyes again. "You don't have to tell Jesus, Roy. He already knows. All you have to do is pray to him."

"Oh, okay."

"Repeat after me: Jesus, I want you."

"Jesus, I want you."

"Jesus, I want you to fill me up."

"Jesus, I want you to fill me up."

"And make me your own."

"And make me your own, and an EMT."

Lelani said, "Roy, I just feel the spirit coming on. Put your hand on my stomach, right here. You know that's the place the spirit likes to reside -- in me, anyway. And I'm going to put my hand on your heart. And I know we're going to receive the Holy Spirit."

Roy rested his hand on her soft, flat belly, and she rested a hand on his. They stood, practically embracing. "Oh Holy Spirit, come into us. Come into your child Roy and just make him into your follower, your creature, make him be what he was created to be, come into Roy, oh Jesus, Jesus, oh Holy Spirit." She repeated these words, in different combinations, many times, and Roy did his best to join in, except he was saying "Come into us," and Lelani soon accommodated him, saying, "Come into us," pressing gently on his hand on her belly.

They swayed together, praying, their hands on each other. The rest of the room seemed to be dissolving into chaos, while they stood apart, wrapped in intimacy. Lelani's breathing deepened and she began undulating gently, pushing his hand a little lower on her stomach. Roy wasn't saying much more than "Oh God... Oh Jesus... Come into us." Lelani's prayer had also grown simpler, more rhythmic, and sometimes they said in unison, "Jesus." This thrilled them and made Lelani bear down on his hand a little more. He felt as if he was on the verge of something. Roy opened his eyes and saw her face, inches from his, sweating, her head swaying from side to side, her body undulating, and felt her pressing his hand even lower. He closed his eyes again, but had to open them as they started to lose their balance. He put his free arm around her and murmured, "I've got you."

"Come, O Jesus," she gasped. "Come O Jesus! O Jesus, oh --" and her prayer soared into a flight of tongues as her body vibrated and she jammed Roy's hand hard against her belly and began to pound against his chest with her fist.

"Oh Jesus," Roy said faintly, sweating hard, holding her. She was pressing his hand into her belly so hard it was cramping, but he didn't resist. He was watching her torso twist and her mouth open in a silent prayer. The Anointing had come upon her, filling her with the spirit, and she writhed and bucked and gave herself up to it.

After a long time, she ceased vibrating and undulating and gasping. She released his aching hand and clasped it in hers. Looking into his eyes and breathing hard, she grinned at him. He smiled back, shy, confused. "May the Lord bless you, Roy," she said, and turned and disappeared into the crowd.

He only had time to open his mouth in amazement and she had vanished. He stood there for a few moments, bobbing in the ocean of noise and hands and spastic jerking back and forth. Then he left, stepping over a couple of people who were lying on the floor laughing uncontrollably.

Roy went to work at the Standard station as usual the next morning. He spent the hours of his shift quietly going about his duties, refraining from the usual horseplay, and pondering his experience. He knew he had not received the spirit the night before; but it had been promised and he now felt entitled to it. By the time he got off at noon, he had decided to go back to the Tabernacle to understand just what had happened.

He drove to the church, and after waiting a long time, was taken into a small office marked Prayer Counseling. It had bare cinderblock walls and a few scratched-up folding chairs. A minister in his 30s, named Windle, reluctantly sat down with him and listened to Roy's recounting of the night before. He looked off to the side mostly, nodded to Roy when it was appropriate, and looked at his watch more than once. When Roy was finished telling about Lelani, and how she had been touched with the spirit and he hadn't been, Windle asked, "And what can I do for you, now that you've told me this?"

Roy was brought up short. "Well..." he stammered. "I want to know whether I received the spirit, or if not, if there was anything I did wrong. I want to receive the spirit, you know, because I want to change my life, and I believe Jesus changes lives."

Windle nodded. "You know, I think what happened there..."

"Roy."

"I think what happened, Roy, is that you were an instrument."

"Beg pardon?"

"An instrument. You said you laid your hands on this woman, and she received the Holy Spirit."

Roy nodded dumbly.

"Well, don't you see, Roy? She received the Holy Spirit through you."

"How could that be?" Roy asked. "I didn't feel the spirit. I hardly felt like I was praying at all."

"The Lord is able to use us whether or not we're aware of it, Roy. I think you have a gift of power."

"I do?"

"The ability to bring the spirit to others by the laying on of hands. A gift that many of us would envy. You can be used of God, Roy."

"Well," Roy reflected.

Windle looked at his watch. "You're available regularly around this time?" he asked.

"Yes, my shift ends at noon every day," Roy answered.

"We have a Bible class that would probably use you," Windle said. "Come with me."

Roy followed the minister out of the room and down the hall. They stopped at a door and Windle held it open. Inside Roy saw five or six women of varying ages, seated in folding chairs. "Why don't you see what you can do with this group?" Windle said, and without waiting for an answer, turned and left.

Roy stepped into the room and smiled. "Hello, ladies." Two of them were his age or younger, he noticed, and they all smiled back at him with varying degrees of shyness and hunger.