Randall spoke for all of us. “Lord, I wished we’d burnt to death in the fire. Or at least been hurt.”
Pam nodded. “That way he’d have to feel sorry for us.”
Brother Terrell had never whipped me, but I had seen him slap after Randall with a belt. I was more terrified by the redness of his neck and the way he pinched his tongue into a hard little point between his teeth than I was of the belt. When my mother wanted my attention fast, she called out, “Don’t make me call Brother Terrell.” While none of us, kids or adults, wanted to get caught on the wrong side of Brother Terrell’s temper, it was equally true that none of us wanted to disappoint him. There was something about him, something powerful and at the same time fragile, that made us strive to please him. We wanted to be judged worthy, to be close to him, to bask in the blessing of those perfect white teeth, to be chosen by the chosen one. Every man, woman, and child worked hard to gain his approval. When we fell out of favor, it was as if we had been banished from all that we loved most. He was, as we say in the South, tenderhearted, with a soft spot for drunks, losers, animals, women, and kids. But that bucolic place often lay on the other side of treacherous terrain, not unlike the territory in which Pam, Randall, and I now found ourselves.
Randall pointed toward the field that lay beyond the house and barn. A sliver, no bigger than a speck really, white on top, black on bottom, emerged from the tree line on the other side of the field and moved toward us.
“Get ready. Here he comes.”
I blinked and the speck moved faster. When Brother Terrell drew even with the barn, he stopped, looked toward the flames, and then at the house. He was close enough now that I could see the Bible he carried under one arm. Randall considered taking off, but Pam grabbed his shirt.
“Randall, you’ll make it worse for all of us.”
He tried to twist away, but by that time his daddy had reached our mothers. As they talked to him, he looked over at us, then back at the barn. Two of the farmer-firemen wandered over to where they stood. The five adults turned to look at us. Randall looked over at Pam.
“What on earth are we gonna say?”
“We’re telling him the truth, Randall.”
“How much?”
Brother Terrell walked toward us slowly, sliding his belt out of his belt loops, his neck growing redder with every step. We scattered across the yard, screaming. Without saying a word, he caught Randall by the arm and began to swing his belt. Pam and I stood by the cottonwood and watched. Randall yelled and danced as the belt hit his jeans. For about the hundredth time, I wished it were not an abomination for girls to wear pants. Brother Terrell let go of Randall’s arm.
“Son, you’ve got to do right. We’re supposed to set an example, and here you are burning down barns. And it ain’t even our barn.”
Randall moved his head up and down, up and down.
Pam and I were next. I looked over at her. Tears rolled down her face and off her chin. She stepped away from the tree.
“I’m over here, Daddy.”
She walked over to him. “I’m sorry, Daddy. We shouldn’t have done it.”
“Pamela, you know I hate to whip you more’n anything. But I got to this time.”
“I know, Daddy. I deserve it.”
Brother Terrell raised the belt. She didn’t move. I noticed the belt always landed on her behind, not on her legs, and determined that I, too, would stand perfectly still. When the belt stopped, Brother Terrell caught Pam up in his arms and held her for long time. By the time he came for me, all the anger had left him. He gave me a few swipes with the belt. It wasn’t even as bad as when Mama whipped me.
After the whippings, Brother Terrell went back to the woods to pray. He said he’d lost all his sanctification. When the fire had reduced the barn to a pile of blackened rubble, the firemen said they’d see us at the tent and waved good-bye. Mama and Betty Ann put us into the bathtub two by two, washed the soot and grime from us, and dressed us in our church clothes. We always bathed and dressed early so that the adults had time to get ready for church. We sat in the living room, quiet and subdued for once. Randall actually looked through one of the books from his homeschool program. Pam showed me how to pop my knuckles. The fire had burned the badness out of us, and Brother Terrell’s whipping had chased away any residual demons. We felt relaxed for the first time in days.
We were sitting there being as good as we could be, when Brother Terrell walked back into the house. He stared at us from the dining room and I saw his face go hard. Before we knew what was happening, he had slipped his belt out of his pants and was on us, tongue pinched between his teeth. We did a St. Vitus dance around the living room as the belt popped over our legs. Mama and Betty Ann ran into the room, yelling for him to stop, pleading that he had already whipped us. Brother Cotton and his wife watched from the doorway, mouths open. Then it was over and the three of us kids were scattered across the room, whimpering.
Brother Terrell looked around in a daze, running his hand over his head. “I don’t know what come over me. I saw those kids and the thought of paying for that barn . . . we barely have enough money to pay the bills . . . I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry.”
He walked out of the room, the belt looped in his hand like a noose.
That night under the tent, he took the microphone from Brother Cotton with his head slightly bowed.
“I know we all like to shout and have a good time in the name of the Lord, but I feel a different spirit here tonight, a grieved spirit. We need to wait and see where it leads us.”
“Yes. Amen.”
“Brother Cotton, would you bring me my guitar?”
He sat on the edge of the platform and strummed his guitar.
“It’s been a hard week. The devil has stirred things up amongst the evangelistic team. Sometimes when you’re fight’en the devil, it’s easy to start fight’en each other.”
“Yes it is.”
“The people of God got to pull together. We got to help each other out, not knock each other out.”
He chuckled and kept strumming.
“I got a little song I want to sing ’bout how it’s s’posed to be.”
Brother Terrell’s mouth went to the side of his face and he sang about how the rough, hard way was eased when we shared one another’s burdens. The audience clapped along but did not join in, even though we knew the words. Brother Terrell with his guitar was a solo performance. He finished the song, unhooked his guitar strap, and stood up to put the instrument back in its case, talking to the audience while he did so.
“The Bible says confession is good for the soul, amen?” He snapped the case shut.
“Amen. Yes it is.”
He turned to face the crowd. “Well, sometimes the old natural man gets away from you and you do thangs you wish’t you hadn’t done. How many done things they was sorry for?”
Hands went up all over the tent.
He tucked the microphone cord through his belt loop and walked down the prayer ramp. “The Bible says don’t let the sun go down on your anger. I got mad today, mad at my kids, mad at Sister Johnson’s kids. They was just being kids. Y’all know how kids are?”
“Yes, Lord. We do. Uh-huh.”
“It’s okay to whip your kids when they need it. But I lost my temper. Kids, y’all come on up to the front. I want to make things right.”
Betty Ann motioned for Pam, Gary, and me to go to the front. Randall appeared from the other side of the platform. Brother Terrell knelt down and gathered us in his arms. His face was wet with tears.
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
Pam and Randall cried. Gary cried. I cried. He patted us all and sent us back to our chairs, still crying.
“Now, I want members of the evangelistic team who have grievances against each other to come down here to the altar and pray through.” He turned and waved the preachers on the platform forward.
“Dockery, Red, Brother Gunn, if y’all can hear me, come on up here.”
The tent men and their wives and kids walked to the front and kneeled. The families who followed the tent joined them. My mother slid off the organ stool and walked to the front of the platform and down the prayer ramp to kneel in front of it. Betty Ann told us to sit right where we were, not to move under any circumstance, and she, too, walked to the front and knelt. Brother Cotton left the platform and joined the others. His wife walked across the tent and stood with him. About twenty adults knelt together. Brother Terrell led the prayer.
“Father, we let the devil turn us against each other. We’re supposed to be the light of the world, but we buried our lights under anger and bitterness and jealousy and evil thoughts.”
“Have mercy, Lord.”
The grown-ups moaned and wailed their repentance, their faces buried in their hands and bowed toward their knees.
“Forgive us, Lord. Have mercy on us. Teach us to love each other. If we can’t love each other, what hope is there for the world?”
All over the tent, people stretched their arms toward the front. “Bless ’em, Lord. Bless every one of ’em. Bless ’em, Jesus. Bless ’em, Lord.”
Brother Terrell moved between the adults, laying hands on one, whispering in another’s ear. Everyone cried and prayed. The crowd of about three thousand slipped to their knees in front of their chairs or gathered around to pray for the evangelistic team. After about thirty minutes, everyone who traveled with the tent began to stand up. Red hugged Dockery. Mama hugged Brother Cotton. Betty Ann hugged Laverne. Dockery hugged Brother Cotton. Everybody hugged Brother Terrell. Everyone said, “Love yew, love yew,” over and over. Mama and Betty Ann patted each other on the shoulder. Neither a hug nor a profession of love passed between them.
Usually a good praying-through made everything better, but something had passed between Mama and Betty Ann and Brother Terrell on the road to Atlanta that could not be undone. It was neither named nor denied, but after that night in the car, it was always with us. I brushed past it when I ran by my mother and Brother Terrell in the hallway, his hand reaching out to steady her when she stumbled. It stood behind Betty Ann in the doorway as she watched my mother and Brother Terrell sit on the bed, and count the offering, careful not to touch, stacking the ones, fives, tens, and twenties, stuffing the pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters into the paper rolls from the bank. It elbowed its way to the breakfast table one morning as Brother Terrell related a vision of tanks rolling across the border from Mexico, and my mother stood and told him how the vision ended, because she had seen the same thing. I heard its voice in the muffled and not-so-muffled arguments that drifted from the Terrells’ bedroom. And I saw its shadow move across my mother’s face when Betty Ann announced her pregnancy.
Chapter Five
AT THE ENTRANCE TO THE TENT GROUNDS HAND-PAINTED SIGNS, AND later commercially printed banners, proclaimed in large red letters: END-TIME HOLY GHOST REVIVAL! SIGNS AND WONDERS. SALVATION! DIVINE HEALING! EVERYONE WELCOME. The last phrase was code for “segregation ends here.” The year was 1961. Our signs went up in Bossier City, Louisiana, as the first busloads of freedom riders made their way from Washington, DC. They were headed for New Orleans, but the rides ended in Alabama, where a succession of mobs organized by men who held dual membership in the local police department and the Ku Klux Klan firebombed the buses and beat the activists.
Brother Terrell stepped down from the tiny trailer he kept parked at the tent grounds and turned to walk toward the tent. Before he reached the tent curtain, three men approached him. The largest man blocked his path and two smaller sidekicks took up positions on either side.
The bigger man jabbed his finger at the preacher. “You David Terrell?”
“Yes, sir, but I cain’t talk right now. I got to preach tonight.”
“You can damn well talk to us.”
“Look, we can talk after service. Right now, I got to go.”
The three men tightened the circle around Brother Terrell. One grabbed his broken arm, still wrapped and cradled in a sling. “Preacher, you should’a talked to us before you set up this tent.”
“We got the permits . . . what do you mean?”
“He means we don’t like nigger-lovers in Bossier City.”
Inside the tent Brother Cotton made the introduction. “Put your hands together and welcome God’s man of the hour, Brother David Terrell.”
Brother Cotton turned to hand Brother Terrell the microphone, but there was no Brother Terrell. The ministers on the platform looked around uncomfortably. Brother Cotton cleared his throat.
“I hope this don’t mean there’s been a rapture, or we’re in trouble.”
The audience laughed and craned their necks, trying to catch a glimpse of Brother Terrell. My mother played the opening notes of “I’ll Fly Away” and Brother Cotton and the audience started to sing. When Brother Terrell had not appeared by the second verse, Dockery went to look for him. He found him surrounded by the men, one of whom still gripped his bad arm.
“Let him go, mister.”
“I don’t need no glorified carny tellin’ me what to do.”
“I’m not tellin’ you. I told you. Take your hands off him.” Dockery had the broad shoulders and ropy muscles of a fighter. He rarely fought since joining the tent team, but sometimes his temper got away from him, and he had to pray through at the next altar call. This would be one of those nights. He grabbed the man who held Brother Terrell’s arm.
“Now, Dockery, now hold on . . .”
As the words left Brother Terrell’s mouth, one of the men took a step toward Dockery, and another landed a punch on Brother Terrell’s jaw. That’s when Dockery went wild. Randall came running with the other tent men and gave us an eyewitness account later that night. He said Dockery punched and kicked and yelled and that it took Brother Gunn, Red, and a couple of others to keep him from killing the man who hit Brother Terrell. Once the tent crew had separated Dockery from the attackers, Brother Gunn, one of the more even-tempered tent men, turned to ask them what they wanted. The largest of the three men shrugged off Red and walked back over to Brother Terrell.
“You better git them niggers out from under that tent. I mean clear ’em out.”
Brother Terrell spread his good hand in front them, pleading, “Those people came to worship God. I can’t, I won’t, ask ’em to leave.”
“It’s on your head, preacher.” The men turned and walked away. One of them lit a cigarette. Dockery started to yell that there was no smoking on the tent grounds, then let it go when Brother Terrell waved him and the others closer.
“Look, I got to take the platform. Someone call the law.”
Dockery snorted. “Those men probably are the law.”
In a tradition that harkened back to the roots of the modern Pentecostal movement, sawdust-trail revivalists had long welcomed blacks and whites under their tents. It all started when the one-eyed son of former slaves, Reverend William Joseph Seymour, founded a storefront church on Azusa Street in Los Angeles. After praying for months for an outpouring of the spirit, Reverend Seymour and his followers began to speak in tongues one day in 1906. They kept at it for the next three years. What became known as the Azusa Street Revival drew thousands of blacks and whites and was characterized by the Los Angeles Times as “. . . a disgraceful co-mingling of the races . . .” Holy Roller churches based on the Azusa Street experience sprang up all over the world, with one notable difference: There was no mingling of the races. Tent evangelists such as Billy Sunday, Aimee Semple McPherson, Jack Coe, and others persevered in interracial worship, but seated blacks and whites in separate sections of their tents when traveling through the South.
Not one for half measures, Brother Terrell said others could compromise with the devil, but bless God, he wasn’t afraid to face Satan head-on. “Red, yellow, black, or polka-dotted, we’re all God’s children, and we all sit together under my tent,” he said.
Not that we identified with the civil rights movement. The same whites wh
o hugged the necks of black believers under the tent thought nothing of using the n-word in everyday life, and would not abide mixing with blacks under any other circumstance. Brother Terrell told racist jokes in private and most of us, with the exception of my mother, laughed at them. We saw no contradiction in using our “colored” brothers and sisters in Christ as a punch line while risking life, limb, and tent to worship with them.
Brother Terrell’s defiance did not go down well in the South. City officials delayed permits, issued noise violation citations for sound checks, and pressured local newspapers and radio stations to deny us advertising. Notes left under the windshield wipers of our cars threatened to cut down the tent and whup our cracker asses. It was clear someone or something was after us, but the adults would not say who or what. When I asked my mother, she hemmed and hawed and said something like, “Oh, honey, the old devil is after us, that’s all.” That’s all? Judging from the fear in her face, I figured the horned one must be close enough to spear our backsides with his pitchfork. When vandals slashed the tent in town after town, I was sure of it. The sheriff or constable or whatever brand of law enforcement that happened to show up walked around the tent saying, “Now, what’d y’all expect?”
The answer revealed itself that night in Bossier City. After the fist fight, Brother Terrell walked under the tent and up the ladder to the platform. Brother Cotton was in the middle of another song. Instead of continuing the song the way he usually did, Brother Terrell signaled my mother to stop the music. He walked to the podium and sat his Bible on it without opening it up.
Holy Ghost Girl Page 5