Hell on Church Street

by Jake Hinkson

  “I say, the Lord’s will be done.”

  Nick swallowed a mouthful of disbelief and forced out a smile. He didn’t say another word the rest of the way.

  A week later, it was done. At a meeting of the deacons, Brother Herschel announced, “Brother Webb, we’ve decided we’d like you to take over as pastor of Higher Living Baptist Church.”

  The deacons beamed at me, smiling and nodding. Nick stared at his hands.

  “Is this the unanimous decision of the deacons?” I asked.

  “No,” Nick said.

  The room stopped and his face turned red from embarrassment. The chairman’s mouth hung open a little.

  Doctor Samuels took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Is that called for, Nick?” he asked. “Shouldn’t we be speaking as one, speaking to this church and to this city with one voice?”

  Nick took a deep breath and said, “Brothers, I apologize for that outburst. It was childish.” Then he stood up and turned to me and said, “I can only tell you, however, what God has laid on my heart. I’ve been on my knees about this every day since Brother Card died, and I’ve been reduced to tears about it.” He looked hard at me now, trying to be as calm as possible, but I could see his revulsion for me in his stupid, handsome face. “I don’t think you are the man for this job. I don’t think the Lord wants you as pastor of this church. And I don’t think I’m alone in this. There are others in this room who feel the same way but don’t want to say anything.” He hung his head. “I don’t have any hate in my heart, brothers. Please believe me. But I can’t go against what I know in my heart is right.”

  With that he turned and walked out of the room.

  For a while we all sat in silence. I waited. Brother Herschel shook his head and closed his eyes. The minister of music, a chubby guy whose sole ambition in life was to do as little work as possible, sat there with his mouth open. Dr. Samuels looked ready to cry. I waited, and when the moment was just right, I said, “Let’s pray.”

  I prayed a good one that day. I prayed for strength and guidance, prayed for all of us and for Nick and for God’s mercy and for a spirit of Christian love. I prayed that the church would rise up as an eagle, that we would all know we were in the hands of the Lord. But I was cussing on the inside. I knew Nick could split the church if he wanted, and I knew that the negative publicity wouldn’t do me any good. I also knew that the news of his walking out the room would be shot around town in seconds after that meeting was adjourned. So I prayed a long time because I knew things weren’t going to work out exactly like I’d planned.

  Chapter Fifteen

  And then it all started to fall apart.

  The first blow came when I reached the house. After the meeting at church, I’d driven around for a while just thinking. Driving around didn’t do much good, though, and I was still feeling tired and stressed when I walked through the front door. I didn’t have both feet inside when the phone started ringing. I sighed. I wanted to turn around and leave, but I had to answer it.

  It was her.

  “I want to see you,” she snapped.

  “Maybe tomorrow we—”

  “Now,” she said. “At the elementary by my aunt’s house.”

  Then she hung up.

  I cradled the receiver and leaned against the wall. I just stood there getting my senses together for a second before I headed back out the door.

  It was a ten minute drive over to the school, and when I pulled up she was there already, standing on the concrete steps leading up to the front door. School was out and the parking lot was empty, and it felt as if we were meeting in a ghost town. As I got out of my car, a bitter gust of wind blew a Wal-Mart bag across the asphalt like suburban sage brush. Angela wore a nondescript yellow sweater and blue jeans, and she stood there in the cold like she was a goddamn cop.

  As soon as I got out of my car, she rushed down the steps.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Are you going to run the church?” she demanded.

  “What?”

  “Are you?”

  “Well, I—I don’t know really,” I stammered. “There’s been some talk.”

  “Just answer me,” she said. She put her hand on the hood of my car as if to steady herself and sort of bent over like she might be sick.

  “Are you all right?” I asked. I looked around at the vacant parking lot and the empty playground.

  Squeezing her eyes shut, she said, “Just answer my question!”

  “I told you I don’t know, Angela,” I said.

  She stood up straight and looked me in the eye. “You’re always talking,” she said, “but you never say anything. You know whether or not you’re going to be the pastor. You’re not stupid. Why won’t you just tell me what you know?”

  “Look,” I snapped. “I don’t know. But I think so, yes. So if you just want a one word answer—if that’s your idea of ‘talking’—then the one word answer is yes. Are you happy now?”

  She shook her head and leaned against the car. When I drifted toward her, she put her hand out to stop me.

  “Just… Don’t touch me. Not right now.”

  “Would you tell me what’s wrong then?”

  She took a deep breath. “It’s my father’s church. You can’t just take it away from him. It’s not right.”

  “Baby,” I said, “you’re talking irrationally.”

  “I don’t want you to take it away from him.”

  “No one is taking it away from him,” I said softly. “He died. I am so, so, so sorry he died, but he did. What do you want to happen? Do you want the church to have no leader? Think about it. I know you’re upset, but the church needs a leader. If they want me to be that leader, don’t you think I should do it?”

  She stared across the parking lot and the wind blew again, stirring the creaky swings on the playground.

  She looked back at me finally and sucked on her bottom lip. She was just a kid, but I could tell there was something turning inside of her.

  “Where were you the night my parents… Where were you?”

  My stomach felt terrible and heavy, like it was full of hot water. “Angela…I was home.”

  She shook her head and started to cry.

  “Baby…”

  “I called there,” she said.

  “I didn’t answer,” I said. “I don’t answer the phone every time it rings, you know.”

  She wiped the tears away with the white knuckles of her fist. “You’re not telling me the truth.”

  “Of course I am. You’re talking crazy. I don’t always answer the phone. I sat out on the porch and read a little. I…ate. I watched some television. I was there all night.

  “Look,” I said, “I don’t want your father’s church. The deacons asked me to fill the pastor position for a while and I said I would. But if you don’t want me to, I won’t. If you have some bizarre notion that I’m after the church, I just won’t take the position of pastor, that’s all. There’s nothing I want in this world but to be with you. You know that.”

  A car turned down the street and I tensed up. Angela was obviously crying. What could I do but stand there and let her cry? The car slowed down as it neared the school, and I kept my back to it. Then it turned into the school’s driveway.

  It pulled up alongside us, and Gabe got out and said, “Hello” to me and looked at his sister. She stared at the ground.

  I extended my hand, and Gabe gave me a weak handshake. He was wearing gloves and a heavy coat, but he looked like he might be shivering. To her he said, “Been looking all over for you, Buttons.”

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “It’s okay,” he told her. “Maybe we should get on back to Aunt Carol’s.”

  Still staring at me, she said, “Okay.”

  I scrambled to think of what to say. I’m always the talker. Saying nothing was like putting on an orange prison jumpsuit. But I couldn’t think of one goddamn word. I waited on her.

  “Let
’s go,” she said to her brother.

  I didn’t think she was going to say anything to me—which would be suspicious—so I blurted out, “I hope you get to feeling better.” It was stupid, but my mind had ground to a halt.

  Walking past me she said, “Thanks for talking to me, Brother Geoffrey. I really appreciate it.”

  Her brother watched her go to the car, and then he looked at me. I’d never noticed before how much Gabe resembled his father.

  “Thanks,” he said, but he didn’t mean it. In the way he said it, he resembled his mother.

  I fumbled out something about wanting to be a help in a difficult time, but he ignored me and went to the car, got in and pulled out of the drive.

  I went home and for the next few hours I just sat on the couch and stared at the walls.

  And I thought. I thought about the Cards, about Doolittle Norris, about Nick and the deacons; and I thought about Angela. I had no idea what was going on inside her head. Why would she think I had something to do with the death of her parents? It may sound odd, but the idea made me mad. What had I ever done to give her any reason to suspect me?

  And then it hit me. Maybe the problem was me. Maybe I wasn’t as hidden and smart as I thought I was. Maybe the problem had been me all along.

  But I pushed that aside. Why think negative thoughts, right?

  But then it occurred to me that if there was a god, then maybe he was punishing me.

  No, I thought. That can’t be. Too many people get away with too many different kinds of things. What I had done was wrong, I could grant that, but I wasn’t the worst man in the world. Why should I be punished for my sins if so many had escaped punishment?

  I fell to sleep with that thought. I would not be punished.

  An hour or so later, the pointed toe of a cowboy boot nudged me awake. It poked my shoulder like the tip of a spear.

  “Hey,” a deep voice said.

  It took me a few seconds to focus, but when I looked up, Doolittle Norris was standing over me.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Get up,” he said.

  He was standing, big and bowlegged, by my head. I eased into a sitting position and rubbed my temples. My head ached a little like I’d been drinking.

  “What are you doing here?” I muttered.

  He wore an open jean jacket with wool lining, and his thumbs were hitched on his belt loops. A big smile shoved his scarlet cheeks back up to his ears as he said, “Get your coat and meet me behind the 7-11 over by the church, buddy boy. We need to talk.”

  “About what?”

  “About your case. There’s been a development.”

  “Why don’t we talk here?”

  He shook his head affably. “Naw, I don’t like it here. Every second I’m in this house I take one step closer to the penitentiary. Get up and meet me there in five minutes. We’ll go somewhere where the whole damn town ain’t watching.”

  He left. I slipped into my shoes, grabbed my coat and went outside. The night was blisteringly cold and my car wouldn’t have time to heat up by the time I got to the 7-11, so I didn’t even turn it on. My mind was a blank as I drove. I felt as though I was being pulled along, pulled into whatever it was that life finally had in store for me. I wasn’t even frightened. If anything, I was impatient.

  The Sheriff sat parked around back by a dumpster. I got out, crossed the little parking lot strewn with candy wrappers and plastic bottles, and climbed into his truck.

  “Fucking cold,” he said.

  I said it was, and he turned up the heater. Another of his books on tape was talking, and he didn’t touch the radio. Neither of us said anything as the book on tape, a biography of Charles Lindbergh, told us about his transatlantic flight.

  Norris pulled out of the parking lot, and I had no idea anymore where we were going. Out beyond the edge of the trees, I saw distant rows of lighted homes, warm and orderly little lights getting farther away as we slipped into the dark. When we pulled off of the dirt road and onto the highway I realized we were leaving Little Rock.

  I wanted to ask where we were going, but before I could say anything, Norris switched off the radio and began talking about Lindbergh. “Guy had to have balls to take out across the fucking ocean in a little lightweight plane back in ’27,” he said. For the next twenty or thirty minutes, all he talked about was Charles Lindbergh.

  He talked about the flight, flying conditions back in the twenties, the kidnapping of the baby, the subsequent trial, the unfortunate flirtation with the Nazis in the thirties. The entire time he was talking we were heading north from Little Rock, towards the mountains.

  “Where are we going?” I asked finally.

  He seemed irritated I’d interrupted his recounting of the life of Lindbergh, and he shrugged, “We’re leaving town. Getting far enough away to clear our heads and have a serious conversation.”

  We passed a diesel. “Let’s have it now,” I said.

  He just shrugged again. “You can wait, Mr. Preacher.”

  “No. I can’t,” I said. “I want to talk now.”

  He didn’t say anything. We passed some cars.

  “Now, goddamn it!” I shouted.

  Norris shifted in his seat, taking the wheel firmly in his left hand and adjusting the rearview mirror with his right hand. Then, after he’d checked to make sure there were no cars directly behind us, he clenched a fist and backhanded me. The truck lurched a little, and Norris realigned it neatly.

  Shock spread over my face like a cracking windshield. Warm blood ran down my lips.

  “Lean back and pinch your nose,” he said, wiping his hand on the sleeve of my coat. “Hurt?”

  I leaned back and pinched my nose and didn’t answer. My face felt like it was growing.

  “You hurt?” he asked again, friendly and folksy.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I bet.”

  My eyes filled with tears, and I could taste the snot and blood in the back of my throat.

  “You still want to talk?” he said.

  I shook my head.

  “Good.”

  We drove in silence for a few miles before he laughed. “Funny thing is, now I want to talk,” he said.

  “Don’t let me stop you,” I said.

  He chuckled. “I’ve nursed a lot of bleeding noses in my day, you know.”

  “I imagine.”

  “My brothers and me fought all the time, beating the shit out of each other. And my old man…my old man handed out bloody noses like they were Easter candy. Miserable son of a bitch, that guy. Mean bastard.”

  “My father was abusive, too,” I said, hoping to make a connection.

  Doolittle Norris just laughed. He laughed as if I’d said something hilarious. “You recovered triumphantly,” he said. “A real credit to the human spirit.”

  He leaned over, grinning at me. “Hey,” he said, “can you keep a secret?”

  I actually almost laughed at that. “All I have is secrets,” I said.

  “Brother, you can say that again. I never met a guy with more fucking secrets than you. And coming from me, that’s saying something.”

  “What’s the secret you want me to keep?” I asked.

  “There’s a little spot on the side of a mountain up here where my grandfather once had a still. He was a shiner. His father had been a shiner, too. Sold shine to the Union troops when they came through.”

  “Quite the family tradition,” I gargled out. “That’s the big secret?”

  “Well,” he said, “there are bodies buried up there.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Sure, my old man stuck some in the ground up there. In fact, he’s buried up there himself. Been out there for thirty-plus years.” Doolittle thought about that for a little bit. Then he said, “The Thanksgiving my mother was pregnant with Lacey, the old man got drunk. Spent the whole day sitting in the living room sipping homemade rotgut whiskey and muttering to himself. We tiptoed around him, but sometimes he’d glare up at you so h
ard it’d make your balls hurt. The old man was just plain scary. He didn’t eat with us when my mother called us to the table. He just sat out there in the living room grumbling into his whiskey while we ate in silence. Well by nine o’clock, he was completely soused, and he gets up and stumbles into the kitchen. My mother was washing up our dishes and the old man suddenly started demanding Thanksgiving dinner. I don’t know what she said, but she was never, ever—not for one day in her life—was my mother ever the docile type. So she smarted off or something—told him to get his own goddamn turkey. And he grabbed her by the hair, yanked her head back like he was tearing the lid off something, and he punched her. Now we’d seen him slap the shit out of her before, and even though she was a little woman, she always gave as good as she got. But that night he fucking punched her, fat and pregnant with his baby, he punched her like you’d punch a man, and she hit the floor like she wasn’t going to get back up. ‘What do you have to say to me now?’ That’s what he said. She was sprawled at his feet, nose broke and bloody, and he says, ‘What do you have to say to me now?’ And my mother—this tiny little woman—she climbs up, hoists herself up by the edge of the sink, reaches her hand into the soapy dishes and before he had a chance to know what the hell was going on, she stuck a fucking carving fork in his heart.

  “I’ll never forget that. The blood on his shirt was soapy. Momma just stood there looking down at him. She’s only about five foot tall, but, Jesus, she seemed like a fucking mountain to me at that moment. Just stood there looking down at him. Then she looks at me and my brothers and sisters. And you know what? She wasn’t scared. Not one damn bit. She looked at us, and her eyes were wild and hard, and for a second, I got to tell you, I thought she was going to kill us all. My older brother Van started crying. He was always a little weak-kneed. She looked at him for a second, and then she pointed at me and said, ‘You go fetch the shovel.’ She was like a general.

  “That night me and Van helped her bury him out there in the freezing cold. Mostly me. I wasn’t no older than my son is now, but Van was still crying, and I was always pretty clear headed. That was that. The old man’s been out there rotting in the dirt for thirty years.”