When we were little, it was always Bobby John who told me stories about the Devil. Anything to do with the Devil got to Bobby John. His very favorite Bible story was about the pigs who committed suicide: At the Sea of Galilee, Jesus met two men whose bodies were filled by devils. The devils were afraid Jesus would get them out, so they asked Jesus to let them go into the bodies of pigs in a nearby herd. Jesus let them do it, but it drove the pigs crazy and they drowned themselves in a lake.
Anytime Bobby John got himself into trouble, he said he knew he was going to, because right before he did he felt something heavy inside him. Said it had to be Satan himself.
Daddy’d tell Bobby John Satan had bigger things up his sleeve than all the dumb little things Bobby John did, but Bobby John stuck to his story.
One thing Bobby John was, was stubborn, and I gave him credit that morning for fighting Daddy. There was no way he was going to get that bumper sticker he wanted, if Daddy didn’t want him to have it, but he sat there insisting, while Daddy’d say half the time Bobby John couldn’t even get his car to run. Work on getting that car to run, Daddy’d say, never mind what you want the back end to say. If that bumper sticker was on your car, Daddy’d say, half the time no one’d see the thing but the cat out in the backyard.
I loved Bobby John for trying, cringed every time Daddy shamed him by bad-mouthing him and calling him “boy.”
Then Mum.
Arnelle Watson Ringer, born and raised in the Tennessee mountains, pretty as a picture in her day, but fat and back to not liking to wear shoes if she didn’t have to.
She was a secret listener to records of Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, and Crystal Gale, and would any day rather hear Loretta sing “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” than a whole heavenly choir sing “Abide with Me.”
She could sing a mean song herself, but since she got so fat wouldn’t solo no more, stayed up with the choir. Anyway, I’d have rather caught her voice coming from the bathroom, when she was soaking in the tub, crying out “I Knew You When” like she still weighed 116 pounds and had love problems.
My own voice was real good, too, but the shaking in my knees wouldn’t quit and I’d like to faint before I got up in front of anybody.
Mum was the one I told some of my troubles to, when and if I told them at all. She’d put her arms around me after a while and say, “Well now shush. Hush, honey,” as though hearing me pained her as much as what I was telling her hurt me. Her green eyes teared and she laughed as though her eyes weren’t ever supposed to leak unless she was seeing hungry mouths or twisted bodies. Patted me. Said, “Hush. Shush,” waited for me to be finished.
One time when I was real little Mum and I had a talk about bumper stickers and the van. On the sides of the van JESUS IS COMING was written in letters so big you’d thought they were advertising the message to giants. Plus the van was rusting and painted pink, and had a speaker to play recorded hymns over.
Mum said, “What’re you, ashamed to go in it?”
“Well, I just feel like everybody’s looking.”
“We want them to look, honey.”
“I know you do. You blast that music so’s no one’d have a choice anyhow.”
“Do you get teased about it at school? Is that it?”
“I know they talk behind my back.”
“What do you think they say? They say we love Jesus.”
“That ain’t what they say.”
“Don’t say ‘ain’t,’ honey. I know you get that from me and I apologize. What do you think they say, Opal?”
“Say we’re Holy Rollers.”
“They don’t say we’re robbers. They don’t say we’re adulterers. They don’t say we’re liars. Now, if they was saying we was robbers, and adulterers and liars, then I’d like to hide my face along with you, but Opal Ringer, what they’re saying is we’re slain in the spirit!”
“They don’t even know what slain in the spirit means!”
“Well, they know we love Jesus.”
“They know we got Jesus’ name all over our van is what they know, and that’s not painted all over their cars.”
“You’re a preacher’s child, Opal Ringer. It has its pain but it has its joy, too. Tell you you’ll never find your daddy coming up the front walk with a load on, and right there you’re ahead of the crowd.”
“Okay,” I said. “Forget it.”
“Oh hush. Shush. I know. I know.” Hugging me hard. “We ain’t living our lives for what a bunch of snotty school kids think of us, honey.”
“You’re telling me we’re not,” I said.
But right before I met Jesse, I’d about made my peace with being a preacher’s child. I’d almost come to not care.
That Sunday morning while I drank my milk on the kitchen stool, and watched my father win the argument over who got the bumper sticker, I was planning what I’d wear to The Hand.
I was accepting that it’d be just another Sunday.
I wasn’t looking for anything special out of that May day.
That’s when things happen, you know. Things happen when you’re not expecting them.
And something else I’m bound to say: While these certain things are just beginning to happen, your dumb mind doesn’t even know it right away.
Your dumb mind doesn’t even give
