With the whole church laughing, Dovey whispered to Pete, “Y’all laugh in church?”
He nodded.
“Now, I hope you know, Brother Leon, that the only reason you Methodist brothers got to come is on accounta your ladies being such fine cooks,” Brother Jip was saying as the congregation kept laughing. “And of course we like to pay tribute to our Methodist friends since they named our town. Did you all know that? Sure enough, it was the wife of the very first Methodist minister here, way back in 1811, who said this little valley was the closest thing to heaven on earth and recommended that the settlers call it Glory. Brother Leon, you can put a little extra in the offering plate since I’m paying such fine tribute to the Methodists this morning.”
“Mighta known a Baptist would get around to that offering plate!” Brother Leon called from his pew, which made the congregation laugh again.
“Before we bring Brother Alvin back up here for some singing, if you’re visiting with us today, would you stand up right where you are and be recognized?” Brother Jip said.
Dovey shot Pete a look. He shook his head—don’t do it. All over the church, the visitors stood up, and the ushers went around handing them little cards to complete and drop into the offering plate.
“The deacons will show up at your house if you fill out that card,” Pete whispered, “and your daddy will strangle me.”
“Aw, what a blessing. Praise him with our hands!” Brother Jip cried. And everybody clapped till the visitors sat down.
“Now, I know y’all didn’t come to hear me preach today—”
“Amen!” came a man’s voice from the back, which brought more laughter.
“That musta been the chairman of my deacons,” Brother Jip joked. “And just so you’ll know for sure that you have received a blessing this Lord’s day, I ain’t gonna preach—can I get an amen?”
“Amen!” the congregation yelled, playing along.
“I just have a couple of quick announcements,” Brother Jip said. “First of all, Willadean needs all the church hostesses in the kitchen as soon as y’all can get over there after the service. Now, ladies, if the Spirit’s working with you and you need to come down here and pray with me at the altar, why, don’t you worry about that fellowship table. It’ll take care of itself. But if you’re right with the Lord and there’s not a doubt in your mind where you’ll spend eternity when that trumpet sounds, why, it won’t hurt my feelings one bit if you scoot on over and warm up them dinner rolls during the invitation. I’ll leave that decision up to you. Second, our offering today will be going toward this wonderful air-conditioning that’s keeping us all so nice and cool, so whatever you can spare, we appreciate it, and if you can’t spare a dime, we’ll be happy just to have your fellowship.”
After that, Brother Jip said a word of prayer and then turned the podium over to Brother Alvin.
Pete took The Broadman Hymnal from the rack in front of them, found the hymn Brother Alvin called out, and held the music so that Dovey could see. He could tell she was scared to sing at first, but by the time they got to the chorus, she appeared to be so caught up in the music that she couldn’t help herself.
Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms;
Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms.
Pete noticed with great pride when several people on the pew in front of them glanced back to see where that voice was coming from. Dovey could sing like Anita Carter.
Next, Brother Alvin introduced a quartet from Childersburg. There were three men and a woman singer, plus two guitar pickers and a bass fiddle. When they began to sing and play, the whole congregation came alive, clapping along in time.
Oh, they tell me of a home far beyond the skies,
Oh, they tell me of a home far away;
Oh, they tell me of a home where no storm clouds rise,
Oh, they tell me of an uncloudy day.
They sang two more songs after that, including one of Pete’s favorites, “I Feel Like Traveling On.” Several more groups and a few soloists got up, and before everybody knew it, Brother Jip was offering the invitation and then blessing the food.
After the blessing, the whole congregation herded into the fellowship hall, where the church hostesses had arranged six or seven folding tables into a big U-shape and covered them with so much food that they were beginning to bow.
Pete and Dovey filled their paper plates with fried chicken, potato salad, baked beans, sweet potato casserole, deviled eggs, dinner rolls, and chocolate cake (best to go on and get your dessert, Pete knew, or anything chocolate would be gone when you came back for it). He found two empty folding chairs in some shade, where they sat and ate with their plates in their laps.
Just as they were about to finish, Judd Highland walked over. Pete despised him. He was a year older, a head taller, and thought that because his daddy was a big shot in Birmingham, he was better than everybody else. The Highlands had moved here several years ago—into what they called “the country house”—and Judd’s daddy commuted back and forth to the city. Pete had once overheard Aunt Geneva tell his mother that there was something fishy about the whole thing and that Judd’s mama was a real piece of work.
Judd played football and liked to lecture anybody who was dumb enough to listen about the importance of athletics. Worst of all, he was too arrogant to realize that he wasn’t very good at sports, but even so, some of the girls liked him—probably because they wanted to be seen in his red Thunderbird. He didn’t even have his license yet, but he had a car, and there was never any shortage of older boys who would tag along with him just to get a turn at the wheel.
The Highlands didn’t go to First Baptist. They were Presbyterians who had to step down a notch and join the Methodist church when they moved out here since the nearest Presbyterian congregation was twenty miles away. But they always came to the August singing, probably because everybody else did and they thought they needed to be seen.
“McLean, my man!” Judd said, sauntering up with his hands in his pockets.
“Hey, Judd,” Pete said.
“Who’s this?” he asked, pulling up a chair right in front of them. He was leaning back with his legs stretched out in front of him, his arms crossed over his chest, and a big know-it-all grin on his face.
“This is Dovey,” Pete said. “Dovey, this is Judd.”
“Hello,” she said.
“Dovey. Well, well, well. I don’t know where McLean’s been keeping you, but I’m about to take you off his hands.”
“Hey—” Pete started to object, but Judd ignored him.
“You see that smokin’ red T-bird parked right over there?” He leaned toward Dovey like he was telling her a secret.
“What’s a T-bird?” she said.
“What’s a—that car over there, sugar!”
“I see it,” she said.
“Well, it’s got a fine leather seat with your name on it,” he said, as if he had just done her the biggest favor of her life.
“What are you talking about?” she asked, looking him square in the eyes. Pete knew that look. But Judd didn’t.
“I mean, you and me and maybe one of my linebackers in that T-bird, cruising down the highway to the Dairy Queen the minute this shindig’s over,” he said.
“Why would I do that?” Dovey calmly stared him down.
“Sweetheart, my daddy is an executive—in Birmingham.”
“But who are you?” she asked with that unflinching stare.
Judd suddenly spotted some people in the churchyard he needed to speak to.
Pete had never been happier in his life.
Thelma Bunch sat in front of a pretty little plum tree, enjoying her third piece of cake before her afternoon solo. She wore a bright blue dress with a pink silk flower as big as a salad plate on the right shoulder. Her wide-brimmed, white straw hat was crowned with silk flowers in every color of the rainbow. Everything her girdle couldn’t contain was spilling over the sides of an overburdened
folding chair, which gave her the appearance of a big blue hen trying to hatch an egg.
No one was looking when a little green snake dipped down from a low-hanging branch in the plum tree and settled into the flowers on Thelma’s hat.
Back in the church, the singing resumed with quartets and duets and a choir special or two. Pete knew Dovey could handle The Broadman Hymnal just fine by now, but it made him feel good to find the songs and hold the book for her. Everything was going so well till around two thirty, when the inevitable could be avoided no more. Like the children of Israel who had to wander in the wilderness before they reached the Promised Land, the congregation of First Baptist would have to endure Miss Thelma’s solo before they could go home. She had the shrillest soprano in ten states and didn’t bother herself with staying on key, but a handful of old folks in the church kept requesting her solos—most likely because they couldn’t hear it thunder and had no idea what she sounded like. It fell on poor Brother Alvin to introduce her.
“I apologize in advance,” Pete whispered to Dovey with a grin as Miss Thelma came to the podium.
“Thank you, Brother Alvin, for that kind introduction,” Miss Thelma said. “As you all know, I do not sing for the praise of man but for the glory of the Almighty. And because this is a time of worship, I’ll ask that you hold your applause till the very end.”
She gave a dramatic nod to Pete’s Aunt Geneva, who rolled her eyes and began playing the intro to “He Lives,” which, Pete was painfully aware, had a very high note near the end. Their ears might actually bleed.
Miss Thelma hadn’t even made it through the first verse when an odd murmur rolled through the congregation like ripples on a pond. She closed her eyes and sang louder. Knowing Miss Thelma, she probably thought everybody was so overcome by her music that they were struggling to contain themselves.
The murmuring was quiet at first because the congregation wasn’t exactly sure what they were looking at—or maybe they just couldn’t believe it. But by the time Miss Thelma got to the chorus, there was no denying that something was moving on her hat—that something on her hat was, in fact, alive.
Pete and Dovey looked at each other, then back at Miss Thelma, then back at each other.
A little green snake was having a look around. He had slithered his way to the front of Miss Thelma’s spacious hat brim and raised himself up, flicking his tongue and moving his head from side to side. The whole church—the whole church—sat in stunned silence, mouths hanging open, unable to move or speak. Just as Miss Thelma hit the long-dreaded high note and opened her eyes to take in the admiration of her audience, the snake dipped over the brim of her hat and looked her in the eyes with his flicking forked tongue.
Miss Thelma’s high note turned into a bloodcurdling scream. She screamed till she ran out of breath, and then she sucked in some air and screamed again—screamed but did not move. A simple tip of her hat would’ve sent the snake to the floor, but apparently Miss Thelma couldn’t gather her wits enough to do it. She just kept screaming, and the snake kept flicking his tongue and swaying from side to side, right in her face.
Daddy Ballard was the first to come to his senses. “Hold still, Thelma!” he called as he ran up the three steps to the podium. With a wave of his hand, he tapped the underside of her hat and it went sailing to the floor, snake and all. But Miss Thelma kept right on screaming.
“Thelma!” Daddy Ballard said. “Thelma!” Finally he grabbed a glass of water that Brother Jip kept inside the podium and threw it in her face. She looked at him as if she had just come out of a trance and then fainted dead away with a loud thud.
Ladies swarmed the pulpit with the cardboard fans First Baptist had held on to just in case the power went out. “Willadean, grab the revival salts by the organ!” one of the women yelled. (You never knew when somebody would get overcome with the high emotion of the spring revival, so the church hostesses thought it best to keep smelling salts conveniently tucked away in a cubbyhole by the organ.)
The little green snake was slithering up the aisle toward the front door, as if he needed to hurry into position to greet the congregation after the benediction. One of the ushers opened the door and shooed him into the sunshine.
In all the ruckus, Pete hadn’t noticed until now that Dovey had her head in her hands, and her whole body was shaking. “Dovey?” he said. “You okay? Are you cryin’?”
When she looked up, he saw that she was not crying but laughing—so hard that tears were rolling down her cheeks, and she was trying desperately to stop before the church got quiet again.
Pete grinned. “I know we just witnessed a circus, but I’ve never seen you laugh so hard. What are you so tickled about?”
“Well, I guess . . .”
“You guess what?”
“I guess now y’all know . . . what snake handlin’ looks like!”
He laughed and handed her the starched white handkerchief his mother had put in his coat pocket. Along with everybody else in the congregation, they did their best to collect themselves while the church ladies helped Miss Thelma to her feet and ushered her toward a side door.
Brother Jip, who probably wasn’t quite sure what else to do, stood up like a football coach saluting an injured player exiting the field and said, “You all, let’s give Miss Thelma a round of applause for a fine effort under very difficult circumstances.”
And they did.
“This has been a glorious day in the house of the Lord,” he went on. “Have you received a blessing?”
“Amen,” the church answered.
“Once again, we want to thank all of our visitors for being with us, and if any of you don’t have a church home, why, we’d love to have you here at First Baptist of Glory. Ladies, that was some fine cooking y’all did for us—amen, husbands?”
“Amen,” all the men in the church said.
“We like to close every singing with that great old song of the faith, ‘Amazing Grace,’ so if you all will join hands across the aisle, I’ll ask Brother Alvin, Miss Beulah, and Miss Geneva to come on up and lead us. This will be our benediction. God bless.”
Pete had forgotten about this part. Had he remembered, he would have made plans with Dovey to slip out before it began. “Amazing Grace” had been his father’s favorite hymn. He and Isaac used to sing it together in the fields, and every time Pete heard it, he felt the loss of them both in a way that was hard to bear.
Everybody was joining hands. Judd Highland’s mother came over to meet Pete in the aisle and took his right hand without looking at him. He held Dovey’s in his left and took a deep breath as the music began.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me;
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind but now I see.
Halfway through the last verse, Mrs. Highland dropped his hand and returned to her pew to gather her belongings, as if she didn’t have any more time for this sort of thing. Dovey stayed with him. Pete didn’t realize it at first, but he had actually begun to squeeze her hand, holding on for dear life. He wasn’t hearing the choir or the congregation, but instead a rich baritone and a crystalline tenor—the voices of two men who, for Pete, always stood for harmony and friendship. But they were both taken—in different ways, maybe, but both taken—before anybody had a chance to do anything about it or even realize it was happening.
Once the song ended and everybody began filing out of the church, Pete and Dovey stood together in the aisle. He had told her how his father and Isaac used to sing together, and how Isaac had made him promise never to forget his father’s favorite hymn.
“Well,” he finally said, “I guess you’ve got quite a story to tell your daddy when you get home.” He kept her hand in his as they made their way to the car.
Outside, Pete caught a glimpse of his mother and Mr. Harris standing at the far edge of the churchyard. Mr. Harris was handing her a handkerchief from his coat pocket, and Pete could tell that she was c
rying. He knew why too. “Amazing Grace” had brought his father back to her for a moment, and now she had to let him go again.
Part 11
Thirteen
MARCH 15, 1966
Ned Ballard drove his Cadillac to the crossroads faster than he should have. He knew the rocks and clods of red clay in the road could do untold damage to the automobile he had petted and pampered ever since his Virginia died.
He had taken such pleasure in buying it for her. Virginia wasn’t like a lot of women. She didn’t want everything in sight, and she didn’t want anything just because it cost a lot of money. She would wear a sale-rack dress for thirty years if she knew it looked good on her, and she would pass up the most expensive frock at Loveman’s if she thought it made her look matronly—or worse, “like one of those silly women trying to dress like a teenager.” Virginia was discerning, but from the minute she saw that Cadillac on the showroom floor, she was smitten.
Since she died, he had done his best to keep it the way she would’ve wanted. He never drove it over fifty miles an hour, kept it away from loose gravel and fresh tar, and wouldn’t dream of parking in the shade for fear of what the birds might do. But Aunt Babe had just called him. She had called him on the very telephone she professed to despise, though he knew good and well she loved talking to her children and her grandchildren on it. Two of them lived long-distance, and he paid the bill. Aunt Babe didn’t have the foggiest notion about long-distance charges, and he meant to keep it that way. Virginia would have wished it so.
The one number Aunt Babe had never dialed was his own—until now. Something was wrong with Hattie. And so he flew down Hollow Road, rocks and clods flying, to the little shotgun house at the crossroads.
Aunt Babe met him at the door. “’Preciate you gettin’ here so quick, Mister Ned,” she said, motioning him to her kitchen.
It was one of the oddities of their relationship that Aunt Babe had always called Ned’s wife “Sweet Ginia” but addressed him as “Mister Ned.” He figured that made sense to Aunt Babe because Virginia had been like a daughter to her, and his wife adored her as much as any member of the Jackson family. It was Aunt Babe, Virginia always said, who listened to her troubles, advised her about the ways of men, and wasn’t afraid to tell her when she was in the wrong. The bond between the two women had been fierce, but Ned knew Aunt Babe felt no such bond with him. To her, he was just a white man and a big landowner, which would always make him a “mister” in her book.
Missing Isaac Page 9