Days of Little Texas

by R. A. Nelson

  Somebody has stretched a banner across the old second-story railing with letters at least two foot tall, done up in paint so red it reminds me of blood.

  WELCOME

  CHURCH OF THE HAND

  REVIVAL MEETING

  FEATURING THE

  RENOWNED HEALER

  and WARRIOR FOR

  CHRIST

  ∼ Little Texas ∼

  “Perfect,” Miss Wanda Joy says to Tee Barlow.

  “We aim to please,” he says, swelling fit to bust. “Praise His name.” He says something to the workers, then heads down the hill to start ferrying the congregation folks over.

  I follow Miss Wanda Joy up on the stage. A little room has been fixed up there with raw pine lumber hung with green curtains so we can sit in private before the service. The stage is built of pressure-treated two-by-sixes, green and splintery, giving off a funny smell. I can see the sawdust in the grass.

  I open the prayer box up, take out the King James, and spread it open to First Corinthians. With no Sugar Tom here, it’ll be left to Miss Wanda Joy to get the crowd roused up, and she can’t do it the way he can—so I know she’ll lean extra heavy on the scriptures.

  We sit down together in the dark of the little curtained room, looking at each other, and Miss Wanda Joy’s foot goes to tapping.

  “You know how special it would be if Daddy King could only be here to see you tonight?” she says, smiling. “This kind of service was his meat. I remember one time—it was during the riots in Birmingham—we set up the tent in Hoover, near the worst of where it was going on. I was just a girl then. A year removed from mother’s heart attack. Lost, alone, still grieving, though I didn’t even know what that was then. I clung to that man—he was so strong. You should have seen him standing there, jaw like a stone, turned to face that crowd. We didn’t know what to expect—there was talk among some that they would come and set fire to the tent, burn us out.”

  She lifts her head and looks at me. “Those churches that were bombed—you simply don’t know what it was like, Little Texas. The atmosphere. I heard a man beg Daddy King to cancel the service. He just stared at the man until he slunk away. And I knew—I knew, looking at that face—everything would be all right. He was that kind of man. Nobody would dare try anything with him around. And they didn’t. And I have never worried about it since.”

  I wonder if this is her way of saying I’m not turning out to be the kind of man Daddy King was. Always testing, always pushing. Or maybe: Here’s your chance to show me.

  Through the curtain flap I spy the first load of worshippers pulling up at the dock. It looks like a good-sized party, most dressed in white or light colors, at least a dozen or more. It is officially too late. Fear or no fear, I can feel the hum starting up behind my eyes, can feel the white inside of my head start to build.

  It takes a good while to get the tabernacle full. Tee Barlow makes the runs as fast as he can, but there are still more and more of them coming. From the hill I can see the Barlow pasture dotted all over with cars and folks streaming down to the dock. I like seeing them come. Maybe if we fill this place to brimming, that will be enough. What can it do to five hundred people?

  The light is sinking now. I reach into my pocket to feel for Lucy’s brick.

  I stand up, horrified. These pants have long, bunchy pockets where things can fall out if you don’t pay attention or cross your legs too much. I kneel down, looking all over this end of the stage. There is nowhere I can see that it might have fallen through.

  “What’s wrong?” Miss Wanda Joy says.

  “Nothing. It’s nothing,” I say, going through my pockets again.

  “Did you lose something? Your notes?”

  “No!”

  Where could I have dropped it? I swear I’ll go over every inch of this ground if I have to….

  Every seat is already filled, and still they are coming. The congregation has bulged out around the edges of the old plantation house. At least 150 people are standing.

  I see Tee Barlow tie off the pontoon boat and start up the hill. The only thing left of the daylight is a purple-orange glow on the horizon as the night settles on us. I look straight up, but I can’t see the stars much, on account of the blazing lights.

  Miss Wanda Joy quits tapping and gets to her feet. “It’s time.”

  The crowd almost instantly settles down the minute she swoops around the curtain, eyeballs firing. She marches up to the pulpit, looks down at the words in the book. Scans the congregation.

  “Welcome, welcome to all of you here today. I thank you so much for coming to our first revival meeting here at Vanderloo Plantation. I want to recognize Mr. Tee Barlow for everything he has done to make this happen.”

  She starts clapping, and the crowd does, too, kicking their feet on the back legs of the chairs in front of them. Tee stands and waves his arm, looking pretend shy.

  “Little Texas!” someone hollers in the back.

  “Bring on Little Texas!” A woman this time.

  Miss Wanda Joy holds her arms up for quiet.

  “Reading,” she says, touching the tip of her finger to her tongue and flipping pages, “from First Corinthians. ‘For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.’”

  She reads for a while longer, with the people getting more and more restless. “We come three hours!” I hear somebody say. Miss Wanda Joy finally snaps the book shut and looks up.

  “And now, the person you’ve all been waiting for, the miracle of the healing age, the wonder born of the blood of the Lamb, Little Texas!”

  A great rolling roar sweeps over the stage, exploding from more throats than I’ve ever spoke in front of before. Foot stomping, hand clapping, whistling, chair banging, shouting; I can feel it not just in my ears, but in my whole body. Like being dipped into a vat of pure liquid love.

  It’s time. My time.

  My eyes sweep the crowd, looking for any flash of blue. All I see are the people standing and clapping, cheering, banging the chairs in front of them.

  I roll my head a couple of times, arms raising, just like they don’t weigh a thing anymore, till I’m holding them up to heaven. Listening to the screams, I feel it starting in my chest, and it runs out to the tips of my arms like righteous electricity. My eyes close, and the Spirit begins to pour in.

  Gradual as anything, they start to settle back down in their chairs, looking at me. Here and there an “Amen!” breaks out. I swing my head, watching them, catching an eye, seeing their faces change. They don’t understand that I’m not in control of it. They don’t understand there is no switch I can turn on or off.

  “We love you, Little Texas!” somebody hollers.

  I hear coughs, murmurs, people whispering questions to each other. I stand there, waiting for a word, waiting for some kind of sign. I close my eyes.

  Please, dear Lord, help me.

  “Tonight,” I say, on account of I know I have to say something, but the word barely comes out of my mouth.

  I cough to clear my throat and start again, eyes still closed, but voice a little bit louder.

  “Tonight.”

  I watch the dark behind my eyelids. At first it’s nothing but black, not a spot of white, but then—then I see it; I see a name floating against the black. A name glowing so white-hot a rip starts to open up in the blackness behind it, and the white begins to pour through.

  “Tonight.” A third time, feeling a little bit stronger, holding on to the sound of my voice. I focus on the name, bearing down, and the tear in the black gets wider and wider, till the white starts to flood out all over, filling my head with light.

  “Tonight.” Feeling the white burn its way through my chest, my arms, lifting them up. And the words begin to spill out of me to overflowing, loud and certain, building into that familiar, unstoppable rhythm. I open my eyes and—

  “Tonight. I wonder how many of you can remember, ah!
How many can remember a man from the book of Daniel, ah! His name was Shadrach, ah! and he had two friends, ah! Meshach and Abed-nego, ah! and they refused, ah! I say they refused, ah! to fall down and worship the idols, ah! of old King Nebuchadnezzar, ah! And Nebuchadnezzar, ah! he had them bound, ah! by his strongest warriors, ah! and cast into the fiery furnace, ah! But when Nebuchadnezzar went to open the furnace, ah! Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, ah! they all came tumbling out from the fires, ah! Not one hair of their heads was singed, ah! And old King Nebuchadnezzar, ah! he fell to his knees, ah! and said, ‘Blessed be the God of Shadrach’!”

  The people are on their feet, clapping, raising their hands, cheering, praying, saying “Praise Jesus!” and “Amen, amen” over and over, screaming my name.

  My hands are floating. My feet are moving. I’m scooting back and forth ’cross the stage with a bubbling, churning energy that nearly lifts me off the earth. I don’t know what I’m saying now on this dark night in the middle of this old, burnt-out plantation on Devil Hill, but it’s gushing out of me like a waterfall: cities on fire, plagues of flies and toadfrogs, rivers of blood.

  I can feel my head tilting back as I speak, everything quiet in me even though I know they are making a racket, everything slowing down till I can ’most see every thought in the air around me, see my words streaming into their bodies, changing them, making them to love me. Me. This is what keeps me doing this, I realize, letting go like this, taking my most secret insides and turning them inside out for the entire world to see.

  “Little Texas, Little Texas, Little Texas!”

  And I know whatever is on this island, it can’t do a thing, I know it doesn’t dare to do a thing—I’ve swollen up a hundred times my usual size. I could step right out in the water and wade to the other side without hardly getting my knees wet. It wouldn’t dare—it’s too afraid of me. Too afraid of the gift I’ve been given by Him.

  “Come on,” I want to say, beating my boulder-sized fists on my chest. “You want to mess with me, come on.”

  And then—right at the biggest part of it, right when I think I could grow myself all the way to glory—that’s when I see her.

  She is standing right up front wearing yellow shorts and a checkered top and waving her arms over her curly head—a big woman, big-boned as Miss Wanda Joy—she screams out and falls to her knees, then comes down hard on all fours and begins to crawl around, thrashing her head side to side. Twisting her neck so hard you’d think she would twist her head right off. And she’s saying something, her mouth chewing the air, fighting to get the words out.

  “Abbeennddi! Jut! Abbeennddi! Jut!”

  The congregation is in a fever, but some of the folks nearby the woman can see what is happening. They go down, pulling at her arms, holding her to keep her from hurting herself.

  “Abbeennddi! Jut! Abbeennddi! Jut!”

  Everybody is shouting now, with the woman’s voice on top of all of the others. She is frothing at the mouth, bubbles of pinkish foam spilling over her lips.

  “Abbeennddi! Jut! Abbeennddi! Jut!”

  “Help her!” I say, coming forward on the stage, kneeling down. “Bring her up here! Help her to lay down.”

  They are grabbing at her, but she is flinging them back, slapping at their hands.

  “Abbeennddi! Jut! Abbeennddi! Jut!”

  “Hold her!” one of the men hollers.

  People are crowding in so close, the ones at the front are starting to scream.

  “Move back! Move back!”

  “You’re crushing us!”

  Miss Wanda Joy is up now, shoving her way through to see how she can get things under control again.

  “Please! Let me through, please! Let me through!”

  But before she ever reaches the woman—

  A sound hits my ears.

  Monstrous, loud, off in the woods. A sound with so much belly in it, it makes my legs go weak—angry.

  I can tell the congregation feels the sound, too. I see them all sag at the knees at the same time when the sound hits— the whole mass of people sinking just like a weight is pressing them down, driving their heads toward the ground.

  “Abbeennddi! Jut! Abbeennddi! Jut!”

  The men drop the woman and turn to face the sound. She lays there, wallowing and scratching. Then even she becomes still when the sound comes again, a big, long, honking blast. So hard-edged and powerful all the people flinch like they’ve been hit. And then just as sudden, it’s quiet—that in-between kind of quiet that is so much harder than regular quiet, on account of what you know is coming….

  A tall hackberry—one of those kinds with long worms of raggedy bark on its trunk—it cracks. Splits and tears, just like it’s being struck by a giant invisible axe. A fifty-foot tree shivered down the middle and starting to fall.

  The hackberry tree leans, then comes crashing down with a tremendous whump that goes all through your bones.

  The hooting sound comes again, shaking right through my guts, smashing us with noise, and another tree sets up to shivering and thrashing not far from the hackberry. Then another. And another—pieces of limbs and branches thick around as pythons begin to jump and dance. Something … something is pushing its way through.

  The sound rolls on and on, like it’s coming from the center of the island—a pin oak comes down next, then a white oak, then a black gum. More people are screaming now.

  “Help me up!”

  It’s Miss Wanda Joy; I realize she’s been screaming at me to help her up onto the stage, fighting her way through the squirming people. I get her big arm and haul back hard, but she’s too heavy; I can only get her partway up, and she flops across the treated wood. I get her to her feet, and the hooting stops in that in-between place; but with people screaming, trees crashing down into the clearing, I can barely hear what she’s saying. She waves her arms at the crowd.

  “Please! Please! We need to stay calm! We have to be orderly about this!”

  She might as well be whispering in a sawmill.

  It’s here.

  A pillar starts swaying.

  “Run!”

  The whole congregation begins to move in a big pile-stumbling, cursing, kicking to get out, stepping on the hands and feet of other people, tumbling down the hill toward the pontoon boat.

  The sound of their fear is so awful, it makes my heart ache. Another tree comes down, landing so close by it bumps me off my legs. I pick myself up and see Miss Wanda Joy on the grass below the stage, fighting two men who are pushing her toward the slope of the hill. I jump down from the stage and start toward her.

  The first wave of people fleeing the clearing reach the pontoon boat, and I can see it shudder in the water, overloaded, as they pile aboard. Others in the water are clinging to the pontoons, dragging them under.

  I don’t see Tee Barlow anywhere, just a gang of men on the boat trying to get it cranked. In between the blasts of the sound, you can hear them cussing and fighting over the steering wheel.

  I am running toward the water just like everybody else when a new sound behind me makes me turn around and stare. I see a folding chair jump twenty feet in the air all by itself. I stop dead-still on the slope. Another empty chair shoots up, higher than the first. Then another, and another and another—for just a second the big gang of people pushing and hollering stop to gawk and tremble.

  “Come, Lord Jesus! Come, Lord Jesus!” a woman is saying over and over, her arms upraised.

  Some of the last words in the Bible.

  Icy prickles run up my back. Whatever it is, it’s slowly coming closer and closer.

  The sound starts up again, rolling across the water, filling up all that empty distance. I flash on the old town of Vanderloo, streets and buildings and light poles, two hundred feet down. Like it’s calling to something down there.

  Now folks are shoving each other out of the pontoon boat even as new ones try to climb in. Some start punching, people grabbing at each other when there’s not enough room to swin
g.

  People are tumbling into the water. Some are jumping in on purpose, swimming heavy as horses out toward the dark, deeper water. I clap my hands over my ears, trying to shut out the sound.

  Miss Wanda Joy comes dodging out of a pile of folks, arms scratched, her hair bun snatched loose, locks all wild and witchy. She pulls me to her and crushes my face into her shoulder.

  “Please,” she’s saying. “Please.” Just that, over and over.

  There’s a little trickle of blood just under her left eye.

  “Look at me!” I shout. “Look at me.”

  “Please—what—what can we do, Little Texas? What can we do?”

  “We’ve got to get the people off this island! We’ve got to do it now. They can’t all go in the boat!”

  I have never seen her cry before. Not once. “Why would He allow this? Please tell me why. Why?”

  “No time for that!” I say.

  I take her arm and run, half dragging her down toward the water, but away from the swarming dock. We hurry deeper into the shadows, beyond the reach of the lights. I take off my suit coat and wrap her in it, then touch at her cut with my shirttail. Tee Barlow is standing not ten feet away beside a log. His clothes are muddy, and grass is clinging to his white beard.

  “Tee!” Miss Wanda Joy says. “What are we going to do?”

  “It’s the Judgment,” Tee Barlow says. “That’s what it is. ‘Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous—’”

  I grab hold of his shirt and yell into his face.

  “Keep her here! Don’t let her go near that dock!” I shove her into his arms.

  “What are you …?”

  But I’m already gone, running slantways across the hill to where the people are struggling to get in the water. I’m trying to think clearly as my heart thuds. Sooner or later whatever is tearing up the tabernacle is going to come down this hill.

  “Over here!” I holler. “Over here! This way, come this way!”

  They just go on fighting and pulling at each other, struggling with the boat. Then a huge cracking sound comes from up on the hill. The chairs have stopped flinging themselves all over. The stage, the place where I was standing just moments ago, rears up in the middle, timbers rising up and up, wood splintering, screeching.