Ben’s tape recorder is on a chair across the room. Wesley gets it, gets his bottleneck practice cassette tape from his bedside table, inserts it into the recorder, sits back down against the headboard, presses the record button, and. . . starts preaching:
At first it was all dark. God was in the dark. Then it was like God had a wand. Whammo here, whammo there. Stuff starts exploding all over the place. I mean it was all clommed together and he starts separating out stuff one from the other.
Wesley reads from the Bible. He looks up at the ceiling. Then he preaches some more, loudly.
Whammo. Light. Bright as day. Bright shining light.
Now the question is whether or not God could see in the dark. Well, He must not could have, because if He could there wouldn’t have been no reason to make the light. If God could have seen in the dark it wouldn’t have been called the dark. It would have been light, too.
Whammo: water. Whammo: land. Whammo: fruit trees and all kinds of green plants. He was on a roll.
Wesley reads, thinks.
Whammo: sun, moon, stars. But here is a problem it looks like. In the Bible, God made only one sun, one moon. When was all the other galaxies and suns and moons and all that done? I don’t know. You don’t know, dear Mend. Do we need to know? No. It was probably all done at the same time. It’s just that whoever wrote it down didn’t know everything, it looks like. Else he’d been God.
Whammo: fish and animals.
Whammo: man and woman. And God said to the man and woman, You run the show, and increase, which means make love and have little children. And you eat the fruit and stuff that has seeds and you give the green leafy plants to the animals.
It took God six days to do all this and then he rested on the seventh day because he was pretty tired. And there was all these little animals and big animals running all over the place. And all these little fishes, and everything’s fine.
Wesley reads, studies. He flips back to the beginning, reads, flips forward.
Now friends, that’s the first version; and the second version is a little different. The second version comes in the Bible right after the first version and it says that God created man before the animals—instead of after. Did you know, friend, that there were two versions? I didn’t. What these two versions agree on is that God done it all. What it disagrees on is in what order. This teaches us not to sweat the small stuff. This teaches us that if you believe every word in the Bible is absolutely true like some kind of steel trap, then you believe both of those versions are absolutely true, and if you believe that then you ain’t using the brain God gave you and you should be making mud pies or something like that—keeping everything in neat little piles. Because on the earth God made, you can’t have two different things happen at the same time with the same people. That’s a truth in the universe.
The message of God Almighty is I AM, I put it all together, I put it out there.
Then God made a woman out of the man’s rib. In other words, God made man along with the animals, then he made woman. God made woman from bone after he practiced on man and animals. He made man from dirt. What does that say? Well, I don’t know.
Wesley hears the door unlatch as the knob turns. Ben comes in, walks to his bed, slips off his shoes. Wesley is reading quietly. Ben, his back to Wesley, starts to say something. “Did you—”
Now friend, we got the fall of man.
Ben looks over his shoulder. Wesley is pointing at him.
“What the—? You talking to me?”
And it ain’t here just for a story. It’s the core of all our problems, and what it amounts to is us doing something we ain’t supposed to do. It happens all the time: You get the deep voice from somewhere saying you ain’t supposed to do something, then you get this little shallow voice telling you it’s okay. You forget the deep voice, then you put in your two cents worth, which is, you go with the shallow voice, figuring out how it’s right, not paying any attention to the deep voice which you heard a long time ago, which is the voice of God. What you do is think about all the good little deeds you did last week and that means you don’t have to do what the deep voice is saying. Oh yes, brother!
“What are you . . . ?” Ben sits on his bed, pushes back until he’s against the wall, facing Wesley.
The shallow voice is a snake, but you listen anyway. And you got trouble, brother. The problem with all this about the serpent is we think it’s something that happened only one time with Adam and Eve but the fact is it happens every day, and we’re stuck with it because Adam and Eve started it all.
Wesley looks straight at Ben.
They had been walking around naked and they didn’t even know what naked meant, and they could do anything they wanted to do except eat the fruit off that tree of knowledge. This gets complicated, friend. In fact, it gets so complicated I can’t figure it out. Do we need to figure it out? No, we don’t.
“What the hell you talking about?” asks Ben.
“I’m preaching.”
“I know that. I ask what you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the voice of God. It just got jolted into me.
“Yeah, it sound like you got jolted,” says Ben, getting off the bed. “I’m going to fix a samitch.”
“I’ll be on in a minute. I got to finish this.”
“You crazy, man.”
The voice of God is loud and clear all the time. Today. This Adam and Eve stuff is going on with you today, maybe this very minute. And friends, the voice of the serpent is talking to the PREACHER. It’s telling him to put all the stuff off on the ones he thinks is the mean people in the world. Friends, sometimes the PREACHER is mean. YOU are mean. I am mean. The voice of the serpent is in all our ears, but it’s also in our blood. The voice of the serpent is true. All the voices in the Bible are true.
Wesley stands.
Oh sinner, sinner, sinner, you preacher sinner, you place yourself above mean people, the robber, the whore, the kind lady whore with a cat she feeds every day on the way out the door to work. And she gives him fresh water. The serpent speaks from the tree of knowledge, and you think you’ve got the tree of knowledge in your head. That is why you preach and rant and rave. You put people down. You say don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t do the other. And, oh friend, out there in radio land, know that the voices from the Bible are the voices in your head. You’re okay. You live now, then, and forever. Learn the difference between the deep voice and the shallow voice. And if you’re comfortable in life, if you have food and warm clothes and a nice mama and daddy and you hear a voice that says, What’s still wrong in the world?, that’s the shallow voice . . . no, no, I got it wrong —it’s the deep voice. It gets complicated. The deep voice is the voice of God. Oh voice of God, speak to me, speak to us here together now so we can figure out one from the other. Oh voice of God, speak that I your humble servant may hear.
Chapter 13
Larry is setting up his drums, moving a cymbal away from his seat, touching it with a drumstick, moving it back where it was.
Shanita looks at Vernon Jackson and then at his father, Holister. Two more pasty-faces, she thinks. My God. She leans towards Larry and whispers, “This thing getting to be like the city council.”
Larry moves another cymbal away from him a few inches. He slides his chair forward one-half inch.
“Y’all, this is the bass player I was telling you about, Vernon, and this is his daddy, Mr. Jackson. And this is the band —Larry, Ben, and Sherri. And this is Shanita.”
Holister says, “Howdy” to Shanita. She says, “Fine,” looks at a far wall, scratches her calf.
Holister is thinking, In music, race don’t matter.
Sherri Gold is late. When she comes in Wesley hands her a sheet of paper with tentative dates and times for the tour.
“Sears wants to talk to us about the tour,” says Wesley, “but he couldn’t come by tonight. On this first gig we can’t have any instruments because we’ll be on this hay wagon—at the Han
sen County fair. About seven songs is all we need. Larry, you can bring a snare and use your brushes like you did on the front porch the other day. Ben, you could bring the acoustic guitar from the TV room. It’ll have to mostly be good singing songs, acapulco stuff.”
“Do you all know ‘I Need Your Loving Every Day’?” asks Holister. He’s sitting near the door with his elbows on his knees and his chin in the palms of his dirty hands.
“Gospel tune?” asks Ben.
“No, it’s a love song. But it’s a lot like a gospel tune. It’s got good back-up singing.”
“Bring a tape of it and we can learn it. One won’t make a difference,” says Ben.
“You going to be coming to every practice?” Larry asks Holister.
“Oh, no.”
“Gets crowded down here.”
Crowded ain’t the word for it, thinks Shanita. Turded-up is the word for it.
Hanging from the side of a long wagon pulled by a large green tractor is a banner: Ballard University Musical Hayride. It’s a bright fall day, seventy-one degrees, warm for November, puffy white clouds. The wagon holds the band and about fifteen passengers, and there are at least twenty waiting to ride. The word has spread. Good music. The wagon takes on a load, and the tractor starts out bumping along the side of a small field at the edge of the county fairgrounds.
Larry starts a vamp with brushes on the snare drum he holds between his legs. Ben strums a chord and starts singing “Jesus Dropped the Charges.” On the chorus he has six back-up singers—the original band, and Vernon, Shanita, and Phoebe. They are all seated on two small benches, facing the listeners, who are sitting on the hay. On the first chorus a woman starts clapping her hands.
The tractor cuts across the corner of the field. The band does “I Am a Pilgrim” and “This World Is Not My Home,” both spiritual style. The tractor rumbles down a trail which leads between the twelve county fair Dempsey Dumpsters, six on each side. A suit of clothes hangs from a clothes hanger on the side of one. Flies and bees are all around. The air is suddenly thick with the smell of garbage, sour food. Several people in the wagon hold their noses.
On the long home stretch Ben stands and starts singing; “Whoa-whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I need your loving every day.” Shanita, Phoebe, and the others sing back-up: “I need your loving every day.”
Vernon, out of the blue, starts singing a bass guitar part—a bass line— “Boom-ba, boom-ba, boom-ba, boom-ba.” So that behind Ben’s voice is acoustic guitar, drum brushes, harmony back-up, and bass. It’s full and clean, on pitch.
When the song is over, the audience applauds loudly. Larry reaches over, pats Vernon on the back, catches himself, looks at Shanita. The audience wants more. The tractor is back at the starting point and people are waiting.
“You think you could drive this thing somewhere else this time?” asks Ben. He’s standing on the ground, looking up at the tractor driver. “That garbage stinks, man.”
“I have to stay on the trail.”
“Who says so?”
“Dr. Sears.”
“You’re driving.”
“I don’t make the rules. I’m just the driver.”
“Can’t you just turn around and come back this way before you get to the Dumpsters.”
“No way. You tend to your part and I’ll tend to mine.”
“Don’t your nose work, man?”
“Yeah, my nose works.” Uppity nigger.
“This is the smelliest gig I ever played. And I played some stinking gigs.”
“I drive the tractor where I’m told to. You sing like you been told to.”
“Shit, man,” says Ben. “Sh-nit.”
Last night Vernon dreamed about building a wall. His tools were in the grass and Wesley would say, “Trowel.” Vernon wouldn’t be sure if he was pointing it out or if he was asking Vernon to pick it up or if he was asking Vernon to pick it up and do something with it. When he would bend over to pick it up, Wesley would say, “Striker,” but Vernon wouldn’t be able to decide which was which. Then Wesley said, “Edger,” then “Chisel.” Vernon knew the chisel. He picked it up. He handed it to Wesley and Wesley stuck it in Vernon’s ribs. Vernon had cried out, waking himself up.
This afternoon after the fair gig, Vernon is driving his Plymouth to BOTA House to help with the wall.
Wesley is in his room, alone. He places an earphone plug in his left ear. A cord runs to Ben’s recorder, which holds the recording of his sermon. He pushes the play button, listens for a minute and then joins in, saying the words as he hears them —about a half-second delay, same tone, pitch, force. The regular volume knob is off so the only sound in the room is Wesley’s voice, preaching, just as he preached the first time.
Later, Vernon holds a hawk with mortar. He is rocking back and forth. He scoops mortar with Wesley’s trowel and plops it on a brick. His tongue is curled out over his upper lip. “I think I’m getting it. How does that look?”
“Looks pretty good, actually. Not bad at all.”
“I dreamed about all them things last night. Chisel and edger and all that. You stuck me in the ribs with a chisel.”
“I wouldn’t do that, man.”
“I know that. But that’s what I dreamed.”
“Listen. I’ve got this idea I want to try out when we finish working. All you’ve got to do is come up to my room for about ten minutes.”
Upstairs, Wesley pulls the cane-bottomed chair from against the wall into the middle of his room. He faces it toward the door. “Sit here,” he says to Vernon.
“What for?”
“Just sit down. Here. I’ll show you.”
Vernon sits.
“Now, all I got to do is hook all this up.”
Wesley pulls his bedside table to a spot in front of the door, places the tape recorder on it. He faces Vernon. A cord runs from his ear to the recorder. “Now. Everything is ready. All you have to do is pretend you’re in church. I’m going to preach you a sermon and I want you to listen. Okay?”
“How long is it? The only ones I ever heard were too long.”
“This is about ten minutes. Just a practice. Here goes.”
Wesley pushes the playback button.
At first it was all dark. God was in the dark. Then it was like God had a wand. Whammo here, whammo there. Stuff starts exploding all over the place. I mean it was all clommed together and he starts separating out stuff one from the other.
Wesley looks into Vernon’s eyes as he preaches, locks in, moves his arms, leans forward, back, then leans in and holds —as if leaning into the wind.
Wesley is hearing and saying the words, but at the same time he’s thinking: he stopped rocking.
Whammo: water. Whammo: land. Whammo: fruit trees and all kinds of green plants.
And finally, Oh voice of God, speak that I, your humble servant, may hear.
Wesley turns off the recorder, pulls the earphone from his ear, moves the table back to where it was. Vernon starts rocking slowly again, quickly getting back up to speed. “That was good preaching,” he says. “I didn’t used to ever understand any I heard before.”
“Did you understand this?”
“No. But it was short.”
“Well, I just needed to do it for somebody. I’m kind of deciding on a long-term career after I do music for a while.”
“You’d have to get some new clothes if you’re going to be a preacher. And them two shoes don’t look too good, either.”
“Shoes wouldn’t make no difference. You’d be standing behind a thing. I’d probably have to wear a suit.” Wesley thinks about the sparkling coats he could wear as a professional musician, the white doctor’s coat he would wear as a doctor, one of those dermatologists.
“How’d you learn how to preach?”
“It all started with this old lady that took me in.”
“In what?”
“Inside. I was a orphan.”
“You was from England?”
“No. No. I was a or
phan. I didn’t have a mama and daddy. I was raised up in a orphanage.”
“I thought all orphans was from England,” says Vernon, “and it happened to them in War War One and War War Two.”
“War War One?”
“Yeah.”
“You mean ‘World War’?”
“I don’t know. Ain’t that where orphans come from?”
“No. That’s crazy.”
The rocking stops.
“Wait! Wait!” Wesley stands, holds out his hand, palm up. “You ain’t crazy. You ain’t crazy!”
“AARRAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH.”
Wesley is out the door, running for the kitchen.
“Did you know that Lot slept with his two daughters?” Wesley asks Mattie next day at Sunday dinner.
“Here, eat some more of these,” says Mattie, passing Wesley a bowl of corn and butter beans. “I want them all gone. I’ve had them in the refrigerator I don’t know how long.”
“Did you know he did that? Slept with his two daughters?”
“We’re going to talk about this again?”
“I mean ‘slept’ like he had sex with them.”
“I think I might have heard something about that.”
“It’s in the Bible.”
“Well, there’s lots in there, son, that’s more interesting than that.”
“I think that was pretty interesting, myself.”
“There are all kinds of things in the Bible.”
“I know that. Now. But you didn’t—”
“Here, eat the rest of these. There ain’t enough to save.”
“I was reading all that stuff and, I mean, man, it’s something.”
“Do you read any from the New Testament?”
“I did. I started reading the red print, then I read it all. Jesus comes out different when you read it straight through. He caused a lot of trouble. Did you know that?”
“That’s one way to think about it. But it was a whole lot more than just causing trouble.”
“It just seems like causing trouble is more like Jesus than staying out of trouble. And all I been hearing for the last six or eight years in church is stuff about staying out of trouble. I’m thinking about writing a song about Jesus.”
Killer Diller Page 14