Angelike had died on her sixteenth birthday. She’d made the sunrise.
The knowledge released some long held reservoir of pain. But she was free. Emily said she’d wanted to be buried on Woodpecker Island. She’d died believing her baby was alive and might’ve found a father or some protective spirit who would look after him. Casper’s tears hardened into the same resolve he’d found in the past.
The next morning he showed up outside the old Astrocruiser—thinking back on his long exile. How ironic that he should be welcomed by Cajuns and the ancestors of slaves—outside of the Jews, two of the most displaced peoples of the world. He felt their welcome calling him out of the wilderness. He felt called.
That word had often been on his tongue in days before. He’d used it every night in fact. And now it had come back to him on the Rinder’s Highway of his life. It hadn’t been just Poppy and Rose who’d made him Reverend America. He’d wanted to be a healer. Not just a tent show spellbinder—but a genuine figure of inspiration and teaching. If he’d used the language of Christ and the Bible, that was just like the bean can radio stations they often played. A medium. The message—the underlying message then, and the crystal sharp message now was—we survive through love—and love is hope. As long as you have hope, you have love to give—which will come back to you on the wind in its own storm time. “Fool folks good enough, you are who you claim to be.”
The southerly had risen again and more hurricane warnings were sounding along the Gulf coast. He could see the weather driving the birds—great flocks of pelicans and egrets against a sky the color of milk spilled on stainless steel. But he wasn’t thinking about the weather, he was thinking about Angelike—and Hoptree—Odessa—Emily and Myron—Ananda and Merrit—even gnarly old Mrs. Nedd. And he was thinking what he was going to say to the congregation of the Prophecy Creek Gospel Temple. It was the first time he’d faced anything like a congregation since the dark days. Yet it seemed time. He’d never had a chance to be a Radar Boy or a Young Wrangler—but he had been Reverend America.
Everyone filed onto the bus with its torn out seats and spider webbed windows. Odessa Pepper sat next to Hoptree and nodded at Casper who stood where the driver’s seat had once been. They’d all heard about Angelike.
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills. But there were no hills here, there were only people, the darkest and brightest miracle of all. Blessed are they. The true hoodoo.
“I want to thank you all for having me,” he began. “As you know, many of the teachings of the Bible are pretty confusing. James says that faith without works is dead—yet Paul writes in Ephesians, ‘For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves—it is the gift of God—not of works lest any man should boast.’ Can’t get more contrary than that. Can we save ourselves through the sweat of our care? Or must we, in blindness, depend on mercy for our redemption?
“I’ll tell you what I say—what the Bible of the Road has taught me—what my Sermon at the Wheel is to you today.
“In the Empire of the Greedy, there’s the perpetual celebration of the self-assured. In the Republic of the Generous, there’s always the smell of food cooking . . . in anticipation of the strangers soon to appear. If they ask for an egg, would you give them a scorpion? We’re all vagabonds in the earth. So, we must choose our fellow travelers well—by always seeing to the needs of strangers. Upon their safe arrival hinges our own. Home isn’t something you find—it’s what happens when others reach their destination in you.
“You’ve recently welcomed three strangers into your lives. Three white strangers. Three of the most utterly lost white people you could ever find.”
He glanced at Hoptree. The Rock Candy Mountain balladeer smiled back.
“After this service, we have another funeral to attend to—one of those strangers that we need to lay to rest. But I know none of you see her as a stranger—and that’s what sets you apart—and it’s why I can tell you the truth about myself.
“I used to be a preacher. I can still quote Scripture till the cows come home. I did it for money. Some would say I’d lost my way from the beginning . . . but I certainly lost my faith along the way. I’ve done bad things in my life. I’m a sinner and a criminal, and I’ve been locked up on more than one occasion. If you wanted to turn me over to the authorities right now, they’d find a way to lock me up for good. I deliver myself into your hands that way.
“So, I’m not going to talk to you about the Pearly Gates in any kingdom to come. Kingdoms don’t strike me as anywhere I ever really wanted to be. I’d always be wondering who was doing the dishes.
“Instead, I want to talk to you about something you all know too much about. That’s what good preachers do—they tell people what they already know—they just give it new meaning. I learned that many thousands of miles and moments ago.
“I want to talk about survival in this life—about helping others here and now to find the courage to carry on. I want to talk about the cruelty we’re all guilty of. Of being brave enough to get down in the mud and wrestle with our demons as only we can.”
“Ayymen!” Valentine Tate shouted, swallowing a slug of brandy.
“And through the courage of that combat, to make peace with our Murkers—to redeem ourselves by taking responsibility for our own complexity—the puzzle of sorrow and anger that often seems so far beyond our understanding that we tire and take our hands off the wheel of our own destiny—then try to wash them of any blood we leave behind in the wreckage. I say, let’s put our hands back on the wheel, right here today, and steer. Because we’ve all got a long way to go. Can I get a witness? Can even I—even now—get a witness?”
“Amen!” people shouted, as they had in days gone by. “Yass, brotha. Amen! Amen!”
“After the service, we’re going to have the funeral—but tonight we’re going to have what I think you call around here a fais do do. Laissez les bon temps rouler. Because the soul we’re sending forward loved to sing and dance—and now we’re going to sing too—in honor of her—and in needful hope for ourselves.”
Then, without pausing he began to lead them. It wasn’t a tune about shining angels. He knew in his heart that Angelike had said her goodbye, leaving him entrusted with her faith in life—not knowing the truth—but still believing. Faith is indeed a con. But without it, where do we find the fight and the grace to carry on?
He’d never see her alive again—and yet, she was alive in him. He was the real child she’d given birth to. A stranger met in the Lonesome Valley.
He launched into the simplest of the Only Men hymns, called “We Will Cross the Bridge”—written by the first known freed slave to become an independent Methodist preacher—John William Oxcart . . . “Dedicated to the memory of the American Composer Known as Tall Jim.” Cameron Blanchard would’ve approved.
When darkness is upon you
Just close your eyes and see
When darkness is upon you
You will find the light in me
In all lives there is a river
All travelers must go cross
And though your heart may quiver
The gain is greater than the loss
Souls that keep the road
Can never be denied
Helping others with their load
To strangers we are tied
There is a bridge that leads to glory
We build it with our hope
Only we can tell God’s story
So the bridge will never slope
We will cross the bridge together
No one walks that way alone
We will cross the bridge together
And together we’ll find home
He started by himself—the whitest man in that bus, and for miles around. But Hoptree was right—he had the gift. He’d known serpents and dungeons. He spoke with his own authority. Everyone joined in. They belted it out—and as they did, Aura Ryder kicked on the generator and came in on the Jensen. Valentine Tate picke
d up the electric guitar and Hoptree played the harp.
The flood blistered ark of the bus and the gopherwood shacks all around them vibrated with the life of the song. It wasn’t about Christ on the Cross or some throne in the clouds. It was about something bigger, quieter, and they sang as loudly as they could, sending the music out on the wings of morning, over the water and high up into the falling air.
The pale minister with the dark past heard his own voice rise above the rest—the voice trained in tents and hardwood churches overlooking ravines of rust eaten iron stoves. He heard it come forward like a spirit when the stone of the past is rolled away. A spirit consecrated to wander, and in wandering to be reborn. Could he be moved? Could he be moved to remain—to put down roots? Or was he forever a mustard seed on the wind, a Rinder haunting the crossroads just this side of Burma Shave and Damascus? There was no more sermon left to say—only the one kind of prayer he’d never finally lost faith in. He sang as only he could.
Kris Saknussemm is the internationally acclaimed author of eleven books that have been translated into many languages, including Zanesville, Private Midnight, Enigmatic Pilot and the short story collection Sinister Miniatures. His shorter work has appeared in Playboy, Nerve, The Boston Review, The Hudson Review, The Antioch Review, New Letters and elsewhere. More information is available at www.krissaknussemm.com.
Reverend America: A Journey of Redemption Page 25