Holy Ghost Girl (6 page)

I took matches from the kitchen, Pam stole money from the piles of change her daddy left on the counter every night, and Randall went to the store to buy the cigarettes.

Pam and I traced with our fingers in the air the flight of two flies as they rose through the shafts of light streaming through the holes in the barn roof. We licked each other’s arms to see whose were the saltiest and practiced arm wrestling. Gary fell asleep in the corner, sweat trickling down his face, a fly on his lip. Finally, the barn door creaked open and Randall appeared.

“Anybody want an ice-cold cocola?”

“What took you so long?” Pam ran to take the paper bag he carried under his arm. It was wet with the condensation from the bottles of soda, and ripped as she pulled it from him. Four RC Colas, a bottle opener, four slightly melted candy bars, and a pack of Lucky Strikes spilled out onto the hay. Randall ripped open the cigarettes.

“What comes first, cigarettes or candy bars? I vote cigarettes.”

Pam held the matchbook in the air. “We vote candy, and I got the matches, so we win.”

Randall doled out the chocolate bars and pried off the tops of the sodas with the bottle opener. We took big bites of the chocolate and washed it down with RC. In the rush of sugar I forgot all about the cigarettes, but Randall remembered.

“Time to be sinners. Gimme the matches, Pam.”

He put a cigarette between his teeth and struck the match. He puffed and coughed and puffed some more until the tip glowed steadily. He passed the matches to Pam, who lit one and handed it to me, then lit another for herself. We puffed until we grew dizzy and slipped to the ground. Randall tried to stand and stumbled.

My stomach lurched, but I smoked on. Randall threw down his cigarette butt and fired up another. He walked around the barn puffing hard and waving the cigarette in the air. Pam and I put our dresses into our panties and followed him, bony hips swaying. We threw our halfsmoked stubs on the ground and pulled out three more. Gary roamed around the barn and stared at us, chocolate smeared across his face.

The fire started in a corner of the barn, just a few sparks at first, nothing to worry about, then a little lick of yellow tinged with blue and another and another. Nothing we couldn’t have stamped out, if we had worn shoes, only we saved our shoes to wear to church and went barefoot when we played. Randall grabbed a handful of hay and tried to pat out the flames, but that made the fire hungrier and soon it was dashing here and there like a mad dog with us running behind it, and then in front of it yelling, “Help, help, please help!”

Pam grabbed our jar of drinking water and sloshed it toward the heat. Randall grabbed Gary and headed for the door. Pam and I screamed and pushed behind him. We dashed through the yard screaming, “Fire! Fire! Fire!” Our mothers ran into the yard, long hair flying. One of them grabbed a hose. Neighbors appeared and tossed buckets of water.

The volunteer firemen, mostly farmers, arrived in old pickup trucks, more of an afterthought than a firefighting threat. The barn could not be saved, they declared; too far gone. They stood around in their overalls, talking, spitting, and smoking. So different from pictures of firemen. No boots. No hats. No big red truck that I recall. Just a bunch of old men doing old-men things, there to ensure the fire didn’t spread to their properties. Pam, Randall, and I stood behind and to the side of the firemen, watching the flames rush through the small wooden building. The dry wood crackled and popped like a big campfire, only no one roasted hot dogs or toasted marshmallows. On what had been the right-hand side of the barn, a charred skeleton framed the yellow-orange glow of destruction. Long rectangles of corrugated tin dangled from what was left of the beams that just a few minutes earlier had supported the holeriddled roof. Rivulets of fire lapped the perimeters of the window from the inside, then rushed out in a torrent. Soon the left side, too, would be gone. My mom slumped by the side door of the house with Gary hanging on one hip, a dazed look on her face. Betty Ann stood beside them, arms loose at her sides, her head cocked as if studying the fire for clues. Brother Terrell was still praying in the woods behind the barn. I did not like to think what would happen when he returned. I chewed my fingernails, Pam cracked her knuckles, and Randall hopped from one foot to the other, his neck turning like a periscope as he scanned the distance looking for his daddy. Smoke poured from the barn and formed a tall black column against the Georgia sky. Brother Terrell was bound to see it wherever he was.

Randall spoke for all of us. “Lord, I wished we’d burnt to death in the fire. Or at least been hurt.”

Pam nodded. “That way he’d have to feel sorry for us.”

Brother Terrell had never whipped me, but I had seen him slap after Randall with a belt. I was more terrified by the redness of his neck and the way he pinched his tongue into a hard little point between his teeth than I was of the belt. When my mother wanted my attention fast, she called out, “Don’t make me call Brother Terrell.” While none of us, kids or adults, wanted to get caught on the wrong side of Brother Terrell’s temper, it was equally true that none of us wanted to disappoint him. There was something about him, something powerful and at the same time fragile, that made us strive to please him. We wanted to be judged worthy, to be close to him, to bask in the blessing of those perfect white teeth, to be chosen by the chosen one. Every man, woman, and child worked hard to gain his approval. When we fell out of favor, it was as if we had been banished from all that we loved most. He was, as we say in the South, tenderhearted, with a soft spot for drunks, losers, animals, women, and kids. But that bucolic place often lay on the other side of treacherous terrain, not unlike the territory in which Pam, Randall, and I now found ourselves.

Randall pointed toward the field that lay beyond the house and barn. A sliver, no bigger than a speck really, white on top, black on bottom, emerged from the tree line on the other side of the field and moved toward us.

“Get ready. Here he comes.”

I blinked and the speck moved faster. When Brother Terrell drew even with the barn, he stopped, looked toward the flames, and then at the house. He was close enough now that I could see the Bible he carried under one arm. Randall considered taking off, but Pam grabbed his shirt.

“Randall, you’ll make it worse for all of us.”

He tried to twist away, but by that time his daddy had reached our mothers. As they talked to him, he looked over at us, then back at the barn. Two of the farmer-firemen wandered over to where they stood. The five adults turned to look at us. Randall looked over at Pam.

“What on earth are we gonna say?”

“We’re telling him the truth, Randall.”

“How much?”

Brother Terrell walked toward us slowly, sliding his belt out of his belt loops, his neck growing redder with every step. We scattered across the yard, screaming. Without saying a word, he caught Randall by the arm and began to swing his belt. Pam and I stood by the cottonwood and watched. Randall yelled and danced as the belt hit his jeans. For about the hundredth time, I wished it were not an abomination for girls to wear pants. Brother Terrell let go of Randall’s arm.

“Son, you’ve got to do right. We’re supposed to set an example, and here you are burning down barns. And it ain’t even our barn.”

Randall moved his head up and down, up and down.

Pam and I were next. I looked over at her. Tears rolled down her face and off her chin. She stepped away from the tree.

“I’m over here, Daddy.”

She walked over to him. “I’m sorry, Daddy. We shouldn’t have done it.”

“Pamela, you know I hate to whip you more’n anything. But I got to this time.”

“I know, Daddy. I deserve it.”

Brother Terrell raised the belt. She didn’t move. I noticed the belt always landed on her behind, not on her legs, and determined that I, too, would stand perfectly still. When the belt stopped, Brother Terrell caught Pam up in his arms and held her for long time. By the time he came for me, all the anger had left him. He gave me a few swipes with the belt. It wasn’t even as bad as when Mama whipped me.

After the whippings, Brother Terrell went back to the woods to pray. He said he’d lost all his sanctification. When the fire had reduced the barn to a pile of blackened rubble, the firemen said they’d see us at the tent and waved good-bye. Mama and Betty Ann put us into the bathtub two by two, washed the soot and grime from us, and dressed us in our church clothes. We always bathed and dressed early so that the adults had time to get ready for church. We sat in the living room, quiet and subdued for once. Randall actually looked through one of the books from his homeschool program. Pam showed me how to pop my knuckles. The fire had burned the badness out of us, and Brother Terrell’s whipping had chased away any residual demons. We felt relaxed for the first time in days.

We were sitting there being as good as we could be, when Brother Terrell walked back into the house. He stared at us from the dining room and I saw his face go hard. Before we knew what was happening, he had slipped his belt out of his pants and was on us, tongue pinched between his teeth. We did a St. Vitus dance around the living room as the belt popped over our legs. Mama and Betty Ann ran into the room, yelling for him to stop, pleading that he had already whipped us. Brother Cotton and his wife watched from the doorway, mouths open. Then it was over and the three of us kids were scattered across the room, whimpering.

Brother Terrell looked around in a daze, running his hand over his head. “I don’t know what come over me. I saw those kids and the thought of paying for that barn . . . we barely have enough money to pay the bills . . . I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry.”

He walked out of the room, the belt looped in his hand like a noose.

That night under the tent, he took the microphone from Brother Cotton with his head slightly bowed.

“I know we all like to shout and have a good time in the name of the Lord, but I feel a different spirit here tonight, a grieved spirit. We need to wait and see where it leads us.”

“Yes. Amen.”

“Brother Cotton, would you bring me my guitar?”

He sat on the edge of the platform and strummed his guitar.

“It’s been a hard week. The devil has stirred things up amongst the evangelistic team. Sometimes when you’re fight’en the devil, it’s easy to start fight’en each other.”

“Yes it is.”

“The people of God got to pull together. We got to help each other out, not knock each other out.”

He chuckled and kept strumming.

“I got a little song I want to sing ’bout how it’s s’posed to be.”

Brother Terrell’s mouth went to the side of his face and he sang about how the rough, hard way was eased when we shared one another’s burdens. The audience clapped along but did not join in, even though we knew the words. Brother Terrell with his guitar was a solo performance. He finished the song, unhooked his guitar strap, and stood up to put the instrument back in its case, talking to the audience while he did so.

“The Bible says confession is good for the soul, amen?” He snapped the case shut.

“Amen. Yes it is.”

He turned to face the crowd. “Well, sometimes the old natural man gets away from you and you do thangs you wish’t you hadn’t done. How many done things they was sorry for?”

Hands went up all over the tent.

He tucked the microphone cord through his belt loop and walked down the prayer ramp. “The Bible says don’t let the sun go down on your anger. I got mad today, mad at my kids, mad at Sister Johnson’s kids. They was just being kids. Y’all know how kids are?”

“Yes, Lord. We do. Uh-huh.”

“It’s okay to whip your kids when they need it. But I lost my temper. Kids, y’all come on up to the front. I want to make things right.”

Betty Ann motioned for Pam, Gary, and me to go to the front. Randall appeared from the other side of the platform. Brother Terrell knelt down and gathered us in his arms. His face was wet with tears.

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

Pam and Randall cried. Gary cried. I cried. He patted us all and sent us back to our chairs, still crying.

“Now, I want members of the evangelistic team who have grievances against each other to come down here to the altar and pray through.” He turned and waved the preachers on the platform forward.

“Dockery, Red, Brother Gunn, if y’all can hear me, come on up here.”

The tent men and their wives and kids walked to the front and kneeled. The families who followed the tent joined them. My mother slid off the organ stool and walked to the front of the platform and down the prayer ramp to kneel in front of it. Betty Ann told us to sit right where we were, not to move under any circumstance, and she, too, walked to the front and knelt. Brother Cotton left the platform and joined the others. His wife walked across the tent and stood with him. About twenty adults knelt together. Brother Terrell led the prayer.

“Father, we let the devil turn us against each other. We’re supposed to be the light of the world, but we buried our lights under anger and bitterness and jealousy and evil thoughts.”

“Have mercy, Lord.”

The grown-ups moaned and wailed their repentance, their faces buried in their hands and bowed toward their knees.

“Forgive us, Lord. Have mercy on us. Teach us to love each other. If we can’t love each other, what hope is there for the world?”

All over the tent, people stretched their arms toward the front. “Bless ’em, Lord. Bless every one of ’em. Bless ’em, Jesus. Bless ’em, Lord.”

Brother Terrell moved between the adults, laying hands on one, whispering in another’s ear. Everyone cried and prayed. The crowd of about three thousand slipped to their knees in front of their chairs or gathered around to pray for the evangelistic team. After about thirty minutes, everyone who traveled with the tent began to stand up. Red hugged Dockery. Mama hugged Brother Cotton. Betty Ann hugged Laverne. Dockery hugged Brother Cotton. Everybody hugged Brother Terrell. Everyone said, “Love yew, love yew,” over and over. Mama and Betty Ann patted each other on the shoulder. Neither a hug nor a profession of love passed between them.