The Wettest County in the World (14 page)

When Jack awoke he was soaked through, lying in a wet grassy puddle a few steps from the outhouse. Someone was shouting from the back door of the schoolhouse, a square of light, the silhouette of a boy, one hand stretched out to catch the rain, the other holding on to the door frame.

Jackie!

Even though his eyes were open his mind was still plunged in the dark rock and gears and the sound of his name seemed to come through the echoing chambers of the earth machine. Jack looked at the steps of the outhouse, trying to determine what they were. He rolled over and sat up, the rain pouring off his face and looked at the schoolhouse dark on the hill. It was his older brother Forrest calling for him. Mrs. Rufty had sent him to find his brother—
What was he doin’ out there in the rain?

Jack’s shoes were thrown off and his feet were mottled red and burned like they were on fire. As the rain hit him he felt like someone was pulling something through the back of his neck, as if strands of his innards were streaming upward into the rain. He rubbed the back of his neck, then scratched his inflamed feet. His shoes lay in the grass a few yards away, blackened, the leather smoking in the rain. Again Forrest called to him.

Jack gathered his shoes and ran up the hill. Because the rain had soaked him through he didn’t notice that his bladder was no longer full, and that the cuffs of his pants were burned black.

A
FEW EVENINGS LATER
Jack left the sawmill camp, borrowed Cricket’s Pierce-Arrow, and drove out to the Dunkard church in Burnt Chimney. Jack sat with a jar between his jigging knees and his hat pulled low, eyeing the stream of Dunkards drawing up their teams and tying up, tattered Model T’s with somber children stuffed in the open backseats. At the front door a man in a long black coat and full beard clasped the hands of the men and women warmly and, taking the arms of the men, kissed them on the lips. The old church was built deep in the previous century, its unpainted boards warped slightly, the beams of the front bent with gravity, giving the building a sagging look. The sky over Smith Mountain to the east hung heavy with purple light.

In the dim light Jack was unable to pick out individuals; he knew several Dunkards from his school days. Most families in Franklin County were related to Dunkards in some way and everyone knew that on the last full moon of summer Dunkards gathered in the evening for their annual Feast of Love, where congregation members shared their expressions of affection and hope for the coming year. Jack drank deeply from the jar and wiped his mouth and sweating face on the sleeve of his jacket, his scabbed lip stinging, night flies spinning recklessly out of the stubbled fields coming across the windshield. Jack thought of his father and the way he held the face of the cow as she went down. A row of legs like kindling sticks. The rest of the week had been lost. Jack wandered about the lumber camp, distracted, almost losing a hand beneath a load of boards, tripping over stump-wood, oblivious. That afternoon he got a jar from Howard and without a word left his oldest brother poking the fire, making hoecakes with sliced tomatoes for supper.

The stream of Dunkards dwindled and the field grew quiet. The bearded man by the front door swung his gaze across the parking lot, resting on Jack, who slouched lower in the seat and waited. The man clapped his hands together once, the report echoing across the dark yard, and then stepped inside, an angle of light spilling out for a moment then shutting again, the darkness nearly complete. In a few moments the dull hum of singing drifted from the church. Jack stretched to check if anyone was coming down the road, then stepped out of the car.

Inside there was a narrow foyer, the walls unfinished pine boards lined with coats hanging on pegs, an oil lamp on a small table by two doors that led into the main room. The bearded man in the long coat stood between the doors, watching Jack as he came in, a wry smile on his lips. Like most Dunkards his upper lip was shaved clean. He strode over to Jack and held out both his hands.

Welcome, brother.

Jack stood frozen as the bearded man took his hands and leaned his face in close. Jack drew his head back quickly, putting the back of his hand up to his mouth.

Greet ye one another, the bearded man said, with a kiss of charity.

Sorry, Jack said.

Peace be with you, the bearded man said, all that are in Christ Jesus.

The bearded man gestured to the coat pegs but Jack shook his head. The man put his hand on Jack’s back and steered him through the left door.

In the main hall nearly a hundred parishioners stood in long rows, men on one side, women on the other, the pews facing each other, everyone singing. A lattice of wire racks along the walls held wide-brimmed hats and women’s bonnets. In the center of the room seven men stood by chairs, buckets and blankets stacked beside them. A short lectern with an open Bible stood before them. A cross made of railroad ties hung from the ceiling. The heat was incredible, and Jack immediately regretted keeping his coat on. There was a pause and one of the men in the middle of the room, an elderly man with a long, unruly white beard, slowly intoned a series of lyrics. After another pause, the man next to him repeated the line with a tune attached, delivered in a flat tone. When he finished, the entire congregation repeated the line in full with the melody. They sang slowly, working over each word with patience until the lyrics were rendered almost unintelligible, full-throated notes, each languidly etched out in the air. Oil lamps along the wall cast flickering circles of light, the air thick with oil smoke, pine, and sweat.

A few heads turned as Jack entered, then directed their gaze back to the center of the room. The men, in cleanly pressed and collared white shirts, stood ramrod straight. Across the way the women wore long print dresses of homespun and long black capes, heads covered with small lace caps, pinned fabric, high collars, and long sleeves. Jack would rather have slipped into a back row but there was no choice; the only open spot he could see was in the end of the front-row pew, just inside the door. Nobody held a hymnal, and he didn’t see any kind of songbook around, so he just faced the center with everyone else, the seven standing men, the chairs and buckets, the simple hanging cross, blinking through the sweat that ran down his face. He winced when he caught a whiff of rotten corn; he reeked of liquor.

What seemed at first like a muddle of sound began to separate, compartmentalize, and slowly Jack felt as if he could discern individual voices: the men next to him, the women across the way, the throaty intonations of the preachers. He could pick out one voice to listen to, follow the moving notes, then drop back into the thick stream of the multitude, then choose another. He quickly locked onto a certain wavering, thin tone.

The singing stopped and one of the men in the center of the room stepped up to the lectern and began to pray. Everyone bowed their heads. Jack looked at the rows of women and girls before him. Most had broad Germanic features, solidly built, widely spaced eyes, their necks rolled with an extra ripple of white flesh as they bent over their clasped hands. The church grew silent save for the gravelly drone of the preacher, and Jack, the only one with his head up and eyes open, scanned the rows of women intently until his gaze fell upon the small dark head of the mandolin player. The preacher raised his book:

When the prayer ended Jack tried to catch the eye of Bertha Minnix. She was watching the seven preachers at the table as they conferred, one of whom was her grandfather, R. L. Minnix. In low tones they seemed to be offering and refusing the right to preach, holding out their Bibles to one another.

Be free, brother.

No, not I…you, brother, will you take the text?

No, brother, please, you take the liberty.

Not I, brother. I will wait for the call.

Be free, brother, I extend the liberty to you. Will you take the text?

Jack had never seen a batch of preachers so unwilling to preach. In the Snow Creek Baptist Church growing up they couldn’t get them to stop sometimes, and if they had been so willing to pass off the obligation a dozen or so old sod farmers would have leaped at the opportunity. Finally the eldest preacher accepted the call, Bertha’s grandfather, and the congregation settled down for the sermon. Jack was grateful to sit; when standing he was helplessly rocking in place. There was a faint hum of something in the background, like a large bonfire crackling outside. He shifted closer to the man next to him to try and get a better angle on Bertha as she was currently hidden by a slab-cheeked woman in the front row. Jack could just catch a bit of her chin and the tip of her nose as she angled her face to the preacher who stood in front of the table, swaying slightly, the Bible held in one outstretched hand. Jack didn’t hear a bit of the sermon that droned on, the church motionless, sweat trickling down his back and down the inside of his legs, his feet in his boots a rash of fire. The liquor he gulped in the car boiled in his stomach.

After the sermon the preachers lined up seven chairs in the center of the room. Several men and women came forward, including Bertha Minnix, and sat in the chairs and began unlacing their boots. The preachers moved the metal buckets in front of each chair, rolled up their sleeves, and tied long cotton aprons around their waists. When the seated parishioners had their shoes and stockings fully removed the preachers took one knee and dipping a rag into the water began to wash their feet. The women kept their long skirts arranged straight, reaching nearly to their ankles, looking mildly over the heads of the bent ministers that pawed at their feet with a rag. There was a low mutter in the room and another slow, deliberate hymn began as if by some secret cue. The music seemed to float over him, and Jack could hear only the low insistent hum, building into a grinding sound coming from above.

Bertha wore lace-up boots like all the women there, a dozen small eyelets, black strings, short black socks. She held up one small, pale, pointed foot for the preacher to dab with the cloth. As the kneeling men shifted Jack caught slotted glimpses of her feet, the flash of an ivory heel. He focused on that bare piece of pure skin, the whiteness of it shocking and a shiver traveled up his spine. The grinding noise grew louder and Jack, glancing around, was amazed that no one else seemed to notice.

After the seven women had their feet washed, they exchanged places and took up the buckets and aprons and washed the men’s feet. Bertha delicately took a gnarled foot and dipped it into the bucket of water. Then the men in the front row with Jack began unlacing their boots and rolling down socks. The first pair of women, their heads bowed low, kneeled at the other end of the row to Jack’s left and began to wash feet. The women remaining in the pews took up another slow hymn. R. L. Minnix, his pointed beard wagging, began to intone a verse over the low singing.

Jack wiped his nose and fumbled awkwardly with his boots. The harsh sound of ripping metal shot through the room, hammering like a blacksmith’s forge, and he felt the floor begin to vibrate. The thick, yeasty smell of feet filled the room. Jack’s boots were spattered with mud and he wrestled with the laces stiff with clay. He wore no socks. He removed his boots and stared at his mud-and leather-stained feet, his yellow toenails, the scabbed sores and raw patches. The hymn rose, the sound swelling like the cicadas at dusk in the trees, fighting to overcome the building metallic clamor. There was a strange jerking quality to Jack’s vision and he coughed dryly. Something’s wrong here, he thought. He became aware only of the outlines of things, the rising and falling shapes that occurred at the periphery of his vision as he stared at his feet, the singing buzzing in his ears.

Then Bertha was kneeling at his feet, the bucket set to the side, the cool water reflecting his face, the horrified look, the staring eyes, and Jack passed a hand in front of it to make sure it was real before looking at her face. Bertha looked up, her delicate chin tilted, her mouth in a firm line. Wisps of black hair across her forehead, tucked behind the fine curl of her ear. Her eyes were gray, soft and unlined. Jack clutched at the pew and arched himself like a squirming cat. The spinning saws opened up in the attic, the thunderous whirr of razors, the blades churning away in the sky.