SECOND BLESSING

Novel excerpt

“We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.” Jonathan Swift

She waited for revival to begin. A widow in her sixties, on the right-hand side of the Damascus Southern Baptist Church, alone near the middle of the fourth pew with a gold plaque stuck on each end sanctified TO THE LOVING MEMORY OF ARTHUR FRANCIS HAYES MAY 10, 1919--MARCH 5, 1986. Chin up. Shoulders square. Back straight. Knees together. Feet crossed at ankles. Hands cupped in lap. Momma always said a lady never reveals her true age and carries good posture to the grave.

Staring forward past the linen covered Lord’s Table, the store-bought yellow chrysanthemums wrapped in green foil, the new white flickering candles, the polished gold cross, into the blood curtain, Mildred decided the fabric looked soiled. Dagnabbit! Humph! Pish and pshaw! It needs professional cleaning. Another detail I would’ve done. She looked away. Shrugged. Silently snorted.

A linen handkerchief edged with frail yellowed lace, knotted by her great-great Granny Fannie in Ireland over a century ago, lay folded between Mildred’s hands. Hands smoothed over a dozen times each day with Jergens Lotion. Three bottles never below half-empty, one on my dressing table, another in my bathroom medicine cabinet, and the third on the kitchen sink windowsill. Sometimes in winter before retiring to bed, Mildred rubbed in the lotion then slipped on white cotton gloves. Another one of Momma’s beauty secrets like coating your teeth with Vaseline. Of course, I only did that before marrying. Looks silly on a woman my age. Wish somebody would tell Clara dentures ain’t supposed to shine. She screwed her wedding band back and forth like wringing out clothes. The gold circle washer had been on her third left finger since Arthur slipped it there. And will go with me to the grave.

Mildred stood five-foot-four in her stocking feet and weighed ninety-five pounds in her birthday suit, her crown of glory a tarnished halo circling her head. All the Good Lord has to do is plop on the gold one and give me wings.

Every Friday afternoon at four, she sat in Shirley’s beauty chair with pink butterflies covering her for a silver rinse. After Arthur died, her gray, which started as strays at nineteen, outgrew Clairol’s Golden Brown Number Fifty-three. Humph! Pish and pshaw! Thank God, I hated that smell, like mixing ammonia with rotten eggs. The things a wife endures for her husband’s vanity like wearing enough powder and paint for a Jezebel. She snorted. Shook her head back and forth.

Her tresses were confirmed into a sensible coiffure after “I do.” The first time Arthur saw my transformation he just nodded then went back to reading his newspaper. Like most things throughout our married life he knew this was meant to be. Every six weeks less than one-fourth an inch of curl was snipped from her ends and a person could count on five fingers the number of beauty parlor appointments missed before her fall. I was even there the day after Frankie was buried though it nearly killed me to leave the house. Momma always said, “No matter the heartache, life goes on. Just put on a smile and go forth. Stanford women are made that way.”

God know Momma carried her crosses, bless her soul, like I lug mine. Life ain’t nothing but a see-what-happens-next struggle. Because of Eve, life for us women is cursed. At least I’ve outgrown the monthly flow. Ain’t nothing more disgusting or humiliating than having your innards drop.

Round gold-rimmed spectacles with rising half moons looped around Mildred’s ears. Large like Daddy’s with hanging lobes. Sat upon her nose. Small and pinched like Momma’s, slightly curved up. Blue veins shone under her skin, pale and tissue paper thin. I jokingly warn, “On the outside, not in.” Of course some see the truth as a threat.

Through the years brown spots more vulgar than freckles, from pinhead to penny size, had marred every inch of her body. Dagnabbit! Humph! Pish and pshaw!

“Time’s beauty marks,” I laugh about in public, but curse in private while rubbing on fading cream. Another grow old gracefully joke that is no more funnier than the alternative. She always wore long sleeves in public because she hated the flab like a roster’s wattle under each arm. At least it ain’t under my neck, again like some people I know.

Her old rose suit, sewed on her momma’s pedal Singer, took about three months to complete. Thanks to frailty and cataracts in each eye. Young Doc Hamilton warned against strenuous strain after my fall, but I just couldn’t do nothing. Lying in bed all that time idle would drive anybody crazy. She snorted to herself. All of my life has been strenuous strain anyway. My heart is like that Timex commercial on T.V., “Takes a licking and keeps on ticking.”

Blindness would just be another tribulation to struggle through. Might even make life easier, not seeing when your house is a mess or whom you’re talking to. Of course, I’ll know Clara’s shrill shriek even if I was tone-deaf.

Mildred tapped her right forefinger against the corner of her jaw. Her nails, just a shiver like a new moon, were always filed and clear coated, never enameled with a color. Makes a woman look cheap and whorish.

Learned how to sew the summer I was eight. Momma was sick, pneumonia I think, she always suffered a frail disposition, and her legs were too weary to pump the pedal. I sat beside her while she guided the needle. After awhile I got so good at stopping and starting just by seeing I begged her to let me try. Started out on flour bag scraps. Pretty soon, I was ripping out seams and hemming them up faster than Momma. That was the summer Daddy said I grew faster than a cultivated weed. Momma even said my stitches were straighter than Aunt Bessie Bea’s who after Uncle Jessie left did professional sewing down at the pants factory. Everybody whispered it was for another woman, but I heard Aunt Flossie tell Aunt Myrtle it was for a man. “Didn’t I tell you he walked funny?”

I pieced together my first quilt before turning ten, girls that age now days don’t know how to thread a needle. Still have it folded up in Arthur’s war trunk in the attic along with a real pretty wedding ring one I was planning on giving to Frankie and Linda Sue to put on their bed in their new home, but…

Mildred sighed. Shook her head back and forth. Dropped her hand into her lap. Drummed her right fingers against her left arm. Again she was staring into the curtain behind the altar, but seeing something else. The fingers stopped. Clinched around wrist. Gripped and let go.

Momma always said, ‘There’s no need reliving yesterday’s sorrow, misery will probably visit again today.’ Poor Momma, before losing her mind, she spouted optimistic clichés like breathing. I catch myself doing the same.

“Make the best of a bad situation.”


“Look on the sunny side.”


“Make lemonade out of lemons.”


“Put on a happy face.”

Each of those sayings probably pushed Momma further over the edge. No, I can’t think that. We, especially us women, either pretend or drown. It’s been in our blood since Eve. Maybe that’s the only way to survive? Pretend or sit down and die. Too bad you can only do that once. But that’s all right.


That quilt will just be another treasure Catherine gets after I’m gone. Maybe I’ll go ahead and put it on her bed now, that spare room could stand some brightening up. They just don’t make colors like those anymore. If it’s pretty in the morning, I’ll have Catherine air the quilt on the clothesline to get the mothball smell out. Ain’t nothing like the fresh scent of outdoors inside. I hated putting her on the other side of the house, but couldn’t bear her staying in her daddy’s old room. Nobody except me has been in there since…

She blinked. Bit her bottom lip. Stared into the floor. Her son’s room looked the same as the day he left to marry Linda Sue. That was another shocker, my baby running off and marrying, but I guess everything worked out for the best. At least Frankie left something behind beside photographs and memories. Too bad Catherine ain’t a boy to carry on her daddy’s name.

Mildred kept her body, like her mind, scrubbed clean. She bathed every night before bed and important social functions like U.D.C. or D.A.R. with Ivory soap then sprinkled on talcum powder, always lilac scented. Earlier for Revival, she dabbed a few drops of the accompanying cologne behind her ears and on her pulse. Catherine gave me that set for Christmas last year in a lovely gift box with scented stationery. A touch of rouge spotted here and there then rubbed into her sharp cheekbones.

Momma always said those movie starlet cheekbones came from her mother. Many a night she cried herself to sleep for not having any. “But that,” she firmly stressed shaking her finger up and down, “was before realizing my Second Blessing from Our Savior and seeing the unfading glory of true beauty.”


I know in my heart that is true, but I’m still thankful for both and think Momma went to her grave a wee bit jealous though she never admitted it even to herself. Of course, by that time, Momma was so out of her mind crazy she didn’t know she had a body, soul, and sunken cheekbones.

Mildred never smeared makeup on her cheeks or washed in fragrance, a common mistake of so many older women. Makes them look like clowns and smell like trollops. I still douse with vinegar to rid myself of womanly musk. Even though I’m past my prime, a woman can’t be too careful. She knew one woman who attended her church who looked utterly silly and reeked of honeysuckle, but again wasn’t calling any names.

Even has a skinny dead fox biting its tail clinging around her neck like Momma and women of her generation wore. And wears white after Labor Day! I bet she’s two hundred pounds if an ounce and her dresses are skintight. Humph! Pish and pshaw! Shameless at her or anybody else’s age. I wouldn’t let Catherine leave the house looking like that. This woman’s elbows sag to her knees while her breasts nearly touch her belly. Plus she has the gall to make Shirley dye her hair jet-black like a hick country singer. That’s enough to cause Shirley to lose her beautician’s license. Not counting that time, when Frankie was a senior in high school, Shirley whacked my hair a good two inches with me all the while hollering no. I swear folks sometimes go crazy.

She closed her eyes. Sighed. Each organ note thumped inside her head. Adding to the piercing throbbing I’m positive has been continuous for nearly a month. Before leaving, also at noon and this morning after waking up, she took two extra-strength aspirin tablets drowned by water. I forget the brand. I’ve tried them all and one gives just about as much relief as the other, which is none. She opened her eyes. Snorted.

I’ve seen Daddy plenty of times during the middle of doing something, unfold one of those BC Powders, put the paper against his lips, jerk back his head like swigging, and continue what he was doing without missing a beat. Not talking a swallow of water or Coke or anything. I tried it once and nearly choked. Hope I don’t have a brain tumor.

Just last week Clara was telling me about one of her sister’s Gloria’s friend’s husband in Wilson City who kept complaining about a headache for a week and one day while strolling down the sidewalk keeled over dead. A shock clear out of the blue. Clara said Leland was only forty-three years old, left his wife Lucy with four kids, seven car payments, a twenty-year mortgage, and hardly any insurance. I guess we’ve all got to die of something someday; I just don’t want to leave a financial burden when I do. Want folks to remember me for something else besides a stack of bills.

Mildred placed her forefinger against her chin. Blinked. Shuddered. Humph! Pish and pshaw! Can’t dwell on horrible stories like that, God knows they’re everywhere. Can’t pick up the newspaper without reading over a hundred. The T.V. is worst. Every time you click it on you see blood, destruction, and children starving somewhere else. That’s why I seldom turn it on, except of course to watch my stories and some of the game shows. What happens does. The Good Lord will call me when He’s ready, which I hope is a good long while. At least I hope He lets me see Catherine married with children. I’ve always dreamed of seeing her walking down the aisle all dressed in white wearing Grandmamma Taylor’s cameo. The cameo, carefully wrapped in tissue paper, waited in Mildred’s safe deposit vault at the First National Bank of Wilson City alongside her will.

She smiled. Surrounded by music. Amazing Grace was her favorite hymn, each word a blessing, the melody like floating on water. Someday I’ll experience the joy of sitting on a cloud, bouncing up and down. It’ll be a thousand times softer than sinking into one of those old feather mattresses we use to have at home.

Harriet only plays the old favorites, which she does for free. That’s how things ought to be, folks giving their talents to the Lord. That organist in that big Presbyterian Church in Wilson City, I forget her name, probably something hyphened, another current snobbish trend, which I’m sure is paid as much or more than our preacher, only plays classical stuff by century dead composers. Clara told me she had the nerve to call what we play in our church, “Hippity hoppity music for holy rollers who handle snakes and speak in tongues.”

Humph! Pish and pshaw! I told Clara that was a typical response. Those Presbyterians are nothing but a bunch of snobs with money who pardon my French, think their excrement doesn’t smell. Of course, there’s a vulgar version of that expression, but I’m too much of lady to think it. They think Heaven is a saints’ county club with nineteen holes and us regular folks who know how to bend our backs won’t get in even through the back door. But that’s all right. I know the Lord doesn’t see things that way.


The time I went to that Presbyterian Church because Virginia Mason’s grandson Chris by her second daughter Julie was getting christened, it looks more like a big city high school auditorium than a sanctuary, there are even microphones, I was utterly ignored. Felt like I should be sitting in the kitchen with Beulah. They ain’t at all friendly like us Baptists. Even those Methodists are a bit uppity because they’re so self-righteous. But what do you expect from folks who serve Communion to just anyone?

Mildred shook her head back and forth. Dropped her hand. Shrugged her shoulders. Silently snorted. Humph! Pish and pshaw! But that’s also all right. ‘The first shall be last and the last shall be first,’ the Good Book says so.

She frowned when the tune stumbled. Harriet might not hit all the right notes, but she plays from Christian duty. Will go to anybody’s wedding or funeral. Why, she even played at Old Man Hodges’s service, and he claimed to be an atheist. Bet he didn’t tell Saint Peter that at the Pearly Gates.

Audrey, Sam’s widow, wanted him eulogized in a church, but none of the preachers around here would do that. Even religion plays by the rules. At least they didn’t bury Sam outside the cemetery fence like long ago. There’s a blank grave in Canaan on up the road folks ain’t sure who is buried under. Some say a boy and some say nothing, but that’s another story.

Audrey settled on the funeral parlor chapel with Old Man Stewart doing the preaching. Vernon claims to be a minister, but he cusses, drinks, smokes, chews, and has over a dozen illegitimate kids, pure and mixed. A tomcat with three balls has more morals. Smells better too. That diploma from that institution in Chicago proclaiming Vernon a preacher means nothing. I heard that University only exists in the back of comic books.

Of course, the funeral home chapel was packed for Sam’s service. Folks wanted to see how Vernon did, which wasn’t either good or bad. Just another fill-in-the-blanks eulogy, any third grader could do the same. At least Vernon wasn’t drunk during the sermon, but by the time he got to the cemetery he was. Nearly fell into the hole.


The very next day, Audrey went down and joined the Assembly of God because she said she couldn’t live one more minute with the thought of that happening to her. She figured those folks were as strict as you could get around here without joining an order, all the Jehovah’s Witness live in the other end of the county, and she had to catch up for all that time being a heathen. Now, if she ain’t on her knees at the altar, she’s in the kitchen baking for a sale. Guess it takes lightning for some folks to see the light. No wonder Paul was a martyr. He didn’t have a choice.

At least I won’t have that worry when I die. They’ll wheel me down in front of the church altar just like Arthur, Momma, Daddy, Frankie, Sister, and my little dead baby son. Mildred hung her head. Dabbed at her eyes with the corner of great-great Granny Fannie’s handkerchief. Swallowed. The coffins like railroad cars followed each other in her mind. Again she was hurling down a black hole. All of my life has been about letting go. All of my pearls have been shadowed by sorrow.

For four nights in March or April, depending when Easter fell, Damascus Southern Baptist held Revival, beginning with Communion and ending with the laying on of hands. Mildred sighed inside. An enormous undertaking for the Church stretched out more than Easter and Christmas combined. Momma told the story until her dying day of how, when Revival began, she told the Church Elders it wasn’t fair to those preparing, mainly her, to crowd another event into that month. Each year I understand more and more the wisdom of her words. Humph! Pish and pshaw! I swear, after the children’s Easter egg hunt on Saturday afternoon, I nearly have to be risen for sunrise service the next day. If Jesus had been running around all week like me, three days wasn’t much of a rest.

Always before, even after Arthur died, two years and fifteen days on the fifth, she stopped counting the hours and the minutes after six months, Mildred sat on the Revival Committee, along with every other event thought of. She snorted inside. Actually presided, but Baptist still bicker about giving my gender leadership roles. Counted on her fingers what needed done. The list was in her notepad in her purse.

Making sure the Church is in order. There’s always something major to do, last year buying a commode for the women’s bathroom in the Fellowship Hall and the year before repainting the Sunday school rooms.

She tapped the inside tip of her index finger. Arranging accommodations. Having the preacher and the guest speaker at my house for supper the last night of Revival is tradition. Last year I served a lovely pork roast and veal the year before. I’m sure by then they’re probably sick of chicken.

Her middle finger went down. Selecting a speaker. Humph! Pish and pshaw! Everybody and his brother thinks he is Billy Sunday. Cut out all the "Praise the Lords,"  "Hallelujahs," and "Amen’s," and there ain’t twenty words of sermon.

Finger four followed. Listening and selecting music. Last year one group even sent a cassette with orchestrated music, which after hearing the first notes I shouted no. As I told Clara, "Start allowing taped music in church and before you know it folks will be dancing down the aisle to drums."

She tapped her thumb repeatedly, but couldn’t think of anything else. Thought about looking at the list in her purse then decided not to. She shrugged. Snorted. Stared forward. Dagnabbit! Humph! Pish and pshaw! It’s too late now anyway. Heaven preserve us!

On December 31st while taking down the Christmas tree, Mildred fell off a kitchen chair and cracked her right hip. Smashing the porcelain angel that has been in our family for ages to bits. Never did believe that silly superstition of having everything cleared out by the first of the year bringing good luck. Momma always said my fragile disposition was a result of high breeding.

Her fingers almost touched the spot, but quickly jerked away. Even though the bruises have faded any pressure is unbearable. It’s pure agony just getting dressed. She snorted. Sighed. Shook her head back and forth. Stared at her cane hooked over the pew in front.

Humph! Pish and pshaw! Guess I’m doomed to spending the rest of my days leaning against that like Daddy did after his stroke. But that’s all right. It’s sturdy just like me, probably from a live oak that survived many a storm.

Then, making my misery worst, while recovering in the hospital, where I didn’t want to go in the first place, pneumonia set in that lingered through February. Dagnabbit! Humph! Pish and pshaw! Thank goodness, Catherine came back to see me through my illness. That has been my only blessing in this fiasco.

Catherine helped Mildred hobble into the church then went back outside to park the car. Nothing really, but a red tuna fish can. One of those cheap foreign jobs made in country where you can’t drink the water. Every time I get in, I start praying and don’t stop till we’re there. If I were able, I’ll kneel down and kiss the ground. I swear my bottom is just inches above the blacktop. A wreck in that and even a teaspoon will be too big to pick up the pieces. Too bad, I sold Arthur’s Ford last year after I stopped driving. Now, that was a car. Big, black, shiny, could hit a tank without a scratch. My feet barely touched the pedals, had to sit on two pillows to be high enough to see out to steer. They don’t make cars like they use to, or anything else for that matter. The old things and ways are lost forever. The world is spinning to hell, getting there without the hand basket.

Mildred smiled, like a fox sneaking into a chicken house if it could, her hand before her mouth so nobody would see. Even before Catherine arrived in Damascus to help poor granny get better, she schemed and prayed for her to stay. Even though I’m more than capable of making it on my own to the grave, I’ve been denied too many years seeing that sweet face.

Finally, last week after securing Catherine a nursing position at the Wilson County Hospital in Wilson City, the county seat about ten miles south of Damascus, after all Mildred had been on the hospital board since it opened several years ago, Catherine agreed to stay. Thank God, I knew my fall had a purpose! Catherine recently finished nursing school in Louisiana, a RN Mildred believed. Another Florence Nightingale if there ever was. If I believed in reincarnation, which I don’t, once here is enough, I would swear they were the same. Finally, something went my way.

Mildred blinked. Snorted. Shook her head back and forth. Crisscrossed her arms. Drummed her right fingers against her left elbow. Again felt her blood pressure soaring.

Humph! Pish and pshaw! The Revival Committee didn’t consult me about anything! Claimed it unnecessary worry, said I only needed to concentrate on getting better! Even planned a potluck supper in the Fellowship Hall for Wednesday night! Will probably have folks eating off paper plates like Clara did at Earl’s wake and using plastic forks they wash and use over again! Don’t they realize I need this to help me forget for a while? After Arthur’s funeral, it was a blessing to plan something that wasn’t connected to death. Who do they think is the major contributor of this Church? The light bill couldn’t have been paid plenty of times without me and Damascus Baptists would’ve been praying in the dark. No wonder we ended up with this, this… She racked her brain for the appropriate word, her right forefinger pressing her chin.

Heathen, she finally decided and snorted. Bit her bottom lip and nodded. Fingers spread flat against her lap. Momma always said, "Call an ace an ace and a spade a spade." I swear, sometimes you wonder what happened to folks’ brains. Doesn’t anybody remember how to get in out of the rain anymore?

Mildred crossed her arms the other way, left fingers now drumming her right elbow. Bit her bottom lip a number of times without even twitching, the pain like scraping a finger against a needle. Dagnabbit! Humph! Pish and pshaw! This is an outrage, a blasphemy, and a disgrace! I tell you somebody is going to pay!

She nearly had one of her spells when Clara telephoned with the news. Catherine even had to get my smelling salts. Good thing I was already in bed. It would be one thing if we just had to suffer thorough his speaking one Sunday or Wednesday night when hardly anybody is here, but this is Revival! Everybody attends, even those just here on Christmas and Easter! She shuddered inside remembering that awful day.

“Mildred, this is Clara. You won’t believe what I just heard!” Her best friend’s voice, unnaturally paced and pitched for a Southerner, blurred.

Mildred sighed. Stuffed another pillow behind her back. The telephone call, not expected for another twenty-five minutes, interrupted her favorite game show on TV. “Clara, slow down. It can’t be all that bad. I’m not dead yet.” I almost told her to call back after my show, but thought better of it. Thank God I did. There’s always a first time for everybody. She was her best friend’s voice of reason, à la Jiminy Cricket to Pinocchio, though seldom heard. God knows none of the Harpers have any sense and it’s a wonder the Blakes ain’t idiots and free bleeders. I hope to God Catherine wasn’t affected.

Clara took a deep breath. Exhaled slowly. “The Committee has just done the most horrible thing. They’ve invited this ex-, ex-, horrible person from Elsewood to speak during Revival!”

Mildred snorted. Ignored her game show where a fat black woman in an ugly hat and dress was hoping to win a refrigerator by spinning a wheel. “Horrible person? What did he do, not tithe ten percent? And even though I wouldn’t be caught dead in Elsewood, I’m sure there are a few good people there. Once folks said nothing good would ever come out of Nazareth, but see what happened?” She prided herself on being fair. She wanted the black woman to win the refrigerator.

“But this is different.” Clara’s voice climbed steeper. “He, he was a drunk! He took drugs! He’s been in prison!”

Immediately the telephone receiver weighed a ton. “Humph! Pish and pshaw! Oh help me, God,” Mildred mumbled reaching for her purse as Clara related every horrifying detail. For some, the worst the circumstances, the more pleasure in telling the story.

Mildred stared at the cross. Took a deep breath and exhaled. Shrugged her shoulders. Crossed her hands in her lap. Nobody will ever know. Momma always said a lady shows her true worth during a crisis. I’ll just sit here every night during Revival with my head held high smiling. There’s nothing else to do. In the end, when it’s too late, the Committee will see their mistake and cry out wondering how they could’ve been such fools. Of course, it will be vulgar of me to say, “I told you so,” even though I’m justified. Her thin lips smiled. Frowned.

Humph! Pish and pshaw! If only I’d been well enough, they would’ve seen temper! Jesus chasing the moneychangers out of the temple would’ve seemed like child’s play. They would see what I’m made of. Both great-granddaddies, Joshua Henry Stanford and Samuel Milton Taylor, didn’t almost rise to be first lieutenant in the Confederate Army because they were afraid. No siree, bud! They had guts! Were willing to die for what is right!

A couple of years ago, Mildred gave a talk to the United Daughters of the Confederacy about both of her great-grandfather’s bravery, fully documented in the family Bible. Every little old lady there was impressed. Clara even wanted me to send a copy of my speech to the national newsletter, which I agreed to, but not done. Before falling there was always something going on. I knew after Arthur died I had to keep busy. Staying in bed all this time thinking nearly killed me.

She touched above her heart. Again banging like a shutter in a hurricane. She sighed. Exhausted. I can’t get excited! Young Doc Hamilton told me to stay calm. Maybe I should take another pill?

Francis Paul Day! Humph! Pish and pshaw! The words sizzled on her lips hotter than a coal from hell. If matters aren’t horrible enough, that heathen has the same christened name as my beloved son! A heathen not worthy to spit polish my boy’s boots!

“Frankie,” as they called him, was an early casualty of the Vietnam War. Such a good boy, shot down in the prime of life in a forsaken rice field far from home. Mildred closed her eyes. Saw her son alive. The warmth of love flooded her body.

She often pondered his portrait in the parlor over the mantel in a huge oval frame. His dress blues, the American flag in the background always made her heart flutter. She sighed. Shuddered. Now, he’s frozen like that forever.

All the girls swooned over his curly coal hair, velvet green eyes, strong broad shoulders, and shy sweet smile. A perpetual straight A student, captain of the high school basketball team, president of the Church’s youth. He helped old folks, animals, and children. No telling how many trees he climbed to rescue a kitty. Warmth rushed to her cheeks like followed by wine, though she never sipped except on special occasions like Christmas or her birthday.

Mildred smiled. She often imagined, while sleeping or daydreaming, life with her son growing older, not staying forever twenty-one. She wiped tears from her eyes. Never wanting to, but always waking up.

Frankie and Linda Sue will live close by in a house that could be on the cover of ‘Southern Living’ or ‘Better Homes and Gardens.’ They’ll be more children, at least one of each, and maybe as many as five. The boys replicate of their daddy and the girls as sweet as their momma. Perhaps a Millie named after me. They’ll eat dinner with me after Church on Sunday, even the youngest showing perfect manners putting Milton’s lot to shame. Frankie will have an important job like his daddy did in the courthouse or maybe hold a public office. He’ll be an important community leader, respected by young and old. He’ll know how to organize a decent uplifting revival.

Mildred shuddered like somebody was waltzing over her grave. Humph! Pish and pshaw! Of course, Frankie would have the good sense not to invite this heathen to speak. Even his youngest baby would! She squinted. Silently snorted. Frowned.

Francis Paul Day! Humph! Pish and pshaw! Any fool can tell he’s one of those troublemakers you read about in the newspaper every day whose life is the supreme example of decay! He is everything evil with the world today! Drugs, alcohol, loose sex, God knows what else. Probably broken every Commandment at least a hundred times. Doesn’t the Committee realize what sort of degradation they’re exposing the young people of Damascus to, our leaders of tomorrow? What do they expect of somebody from Elsewood? Elsewood was what Mildred’s momma called a "white trash community."

“Now, I’m not saying there’re no decent folks there because there are. Remember Abraham argued with the Lord about saving Sodom for the sake of one. And I feel comfortable associating with those folks though they’re not in our class. But I’m certainly not bringing any of them home.”


Yes, Momma.

Mildred saw Francis Paul Day in her mind before they met. Tall, gaunt, slumped, pale with greasy shaggy hair, droopy mustache, shifty eyes, an air of sleaze about him, and, sure enough, that’s how he is in the flesh. Humph! Pish and pshaw! They’re all alike, burnt-out hippies who have supposedly seen the light and gone straight. Will pump drugs in their bodies, but won’t eat red meat.

Virginia told me they had one to speak in her church a couple of months ago and how disgusting it was, but I guess the Committee felt they had to keep up. God forbid, but folks follow trends in religion just like in everyday life. Mildred snorted. Shook her head back and forth. Closed her eyes. Wrapped her arms around her tighter. Humph! Pish and pshaw!

When she hobbled in, the cane in her right hand leading her way, Catherine’s arm through her left arm for support, Francis Paul Day stood in the vestibule alongside the Reverend Cobb. Looking like Mutt and Jeff, white trash next to holy. What else could I do except switch the stick and shake hands?

Immediately the blue ink tattoo, about the size of a quarter, crooked between his right thumb and forefinger, lashed out at her like a rattlesnake coiled in the grass. A Star of David circled with the numbers 666 under, the sign of the beast. She caught her breath. He pressed her hand like wringing out a washcloth. Oh God, please don’t let me faint! I don’t have any salts!

The bottle kept inside her purse alongside the notepad, pen, peppermints, antacids, tissues had expired and she forgot to send Catherine to the drugstore for another. Dagnabbit! Humph! Pish and pshaw! Who ever dreamed I would need it in the House of Our Lord? Thank goodness, I had on gloves! The gloves now folded in her purse would be put back on before leaving and then rinsed out in Clorox at home.

Of course, that heathen will be at the door with his tongue hanging out anxious to hear how good his sermon was and I’ll have to tell a white lie in Church. Well, it won’t be the first time. Every Sunday morning I have to tell Clara how pretty she looks. Thank goodness, those aren’t my good gloves. Fine lace can’t stand harsh bleaching.

Now, after a few more stumbles, Harriet was into the chorus of Blest Be the Tie. Mildred smiled. Opened her eyes. Touched above her heart that was now beating slower. Thank you, Lord.

Mildred led an honest, clean, hardworking life. One day I will proudly hand God my résumé of achievements. Including, but not limited to, taking care of my family, volunteering in the community, slaving at home, clerking in the store, sacrificing in the church, being everything for everybody.

She was a rock. Drudgery and fatigue will never prevent me from marching forth. Her parents, William Titus and Emily Jean Taylor Stanford, opened Damascus’s first dry goods/hardware store after the Depression. Which some folks called ‘The Panic,’ and others just ‘Hard Times.’ Of course, I was too young then to really understand the true horror. You must read books to remember how things were. She stared forward seeing something else.

‘Stanford’s Whatever You Want’ sold everything from hats to shoes, dolls to marbles, combs to shampoo, coffee to tobacco, nails to shingles, sausage to cheese, needles to thread, apples to potatoes, overalls to underwear, chewing gum to jawbreakers. Daddy even had a place outback where he butchered his own cows and hogs.

I will always remember walking into the store that first morning, September sixteenth, 1938, before it opened at six. “Six to six, six days a week.” The air warm, but cool. The windows and door mirroring the dawn. The wood floor clean. Drowning in the smell of new. Giant glass jars of rainbow suckers, saucer cookies, hard rock candy, and bubble gum lined the sparkling glass counter behind the giant cash register. Every item waited to be bought and carried home. I thought that store must be like Heaven. I had never seen so much in one place before.

Milton, Mildred’s older brother who served with Arthur during the Second World War, took over ‘Stanford’s Whatever You Want’ after their father suffered a stroke paralyzing his right side. I’ll never forget that day, Wednesday, November fifth, 1958, a little after ten in the morning.

Daddy was reaching for a paint can on the top shelf for old Mrs. Porter. I warned him a million times about that wobbly stepladder, said I would do any climbing, but Daddy was feisty like me, an inheritance that’s sometimes a curse. I was standing behind the meat counter wrapping sausage thinking about Frankie going out on his first real date that Friday night to the school dance with Alicia Cooper, Eva and Franklin’s daughter. Of course, it would be properly chaperoned going, there, and coming home. I remember wondering whether Frankie said he was wearing his white or his blue shirt when Daddy shrieked, grabbed his chest, collapsed and hit the floor following a gallon of sunshine yellow. You can still make out the stain, no matter how often scrubbed.

Of course, I took over. These matters just fall our way. Even if Sister were alive I would’ve still had the burden; the oldest female is always the one in training to take up after her mother. Also I didn’t have any outside demands. Back then it wasn’t proper for a lady to operate a business on her own. Now days, thank God, a woman can do anything, probably the only stride of the current generation. Also my home life was somewhat settled then. Frankie was fourteen, busy with school and sports. Arthur never came home from the tax collector’s office in the courthouse during the middle of the day. That was right after Julian who had just gotten his driver’s license ran Wilodean’s car into the creek, so they just had Milton’s truck. Swore he wasn’t drunk, but I knew better. It’s difficult, warning your son against associating with his cousins.

Anyway, I took over the family home, which, thank God, is only two miles from ours for over sixteen months until Daddy died on March fourth. Julian and his live there now, following another epic squabble succeeding in further smearing of the family name. Humph! Pish and pshaw! A pity and a shame, the place is more dilapidated than any white trash or colored folks shack. Don’t know how anybody in that cemetery gets any rest with all the spinning Momma and Daddy are doing in their graves.

The wind was blowing so hard the day of Daddy’s funeral that the tops of the trees nearly touched the ground. Then Momma, who suffered every other disease in a medical dictionary, moved in with Arthur and me until she joined Daddy in the cemetery two years, two weeks, and six days later.

May the Good Lord forgive me for thinking this, but it was a blessing. They were both harshly demanding. Nothing I did or could do was right, Momma worst than Daddy. Toward the end he curled up in bed like a shriveled shrimp, gasping like a fish on dry land, constantly moaning "Sweet Jesus this" and "Sweet Jesus that," babbling foolishness about things in the past or in the future, but never at the moment. Momma, always so prim and proper, she never lifted her hand at the store, wasn’t any help with Daddy. When she was able, all she would do was sit, wring her hands, and look pitiful. Thank God, Beulah was there helping. She did all the cooking, washing, and cleaning while I wiped Daddy’s bottom and spooned soup between his lips. It was like tending to a grown baby.

After Daddy died and Momma moved in with us, she turned violent and downright vulgar. She would take off her nightgown, which I put on her at least a hundred times a day, throw food, and holler. She would spread her legs before company and, may God rest her soul, talk vulgar. Make a sailor blush. I didn’t know she knew those words. She even corrupted the expression females in our family have been using for years, which I personalized by putting humph before, sometimes dagnabbit it the ocassion calls for such, and hope Catherine will soon pick up, into depicting bodily functions. Old Doc Hamilton said that was her mind rebelling against her, saying things she wouldn’t, and in my heart I knew that was the truth, but it was still embarrassing. Dagnabbit! Humph! Pish and pshaw!

Finally folks were good enough to quit stopping by the house because I never knew what Momma would do. I had to stop attending all my clubs and church activities. My only real free time was Friday afternoon at Shirley’s at four when Wilodean came to sit with Momma. Beulah was afraid to stay with Momma by herself, you know how easy her people get scared, and I can’t blame her. Sometimes Momma even frightened me. No telling the affect on Frankie. I think that’s about the time Arthur started seeing…

She sighed. Shook her head back and forth. No, I can’t think ill of the dead. It might not have happened. Even if it did, you can’t blame him. At that time, I wasn’t much of a wife. Men do have animalistic needs.

After Momma died, the thank-you notes mailed, the will probated, life almost got bearable. Of course, Milton got everything of value, Daddy was of the old school that girls didn’t matter, but that’s all right since Arthur took care of my needs, and, God forgive me for thinking this, but my parents’ death finally gave me freedom. Then, Frankie jumped up and joined the Army. He married Linda Sue a week before leaving, which I don’t understand, and then, the telegram.

I will never forget his funeral. It rained cats and dogs the night before, and though the sun shone bright, the ground stayed soggy. Birds hidden in the trees and bushes sang. Brother Wright, who baptized Frankie and was then retired living in Mobile, I believe he passed on last year, gave the eulogy. Uplifting and touching, he gave me a copy I read now and then, always finding something new. Folks, some I didn’t know, filled the church and stood outside.

A marker outside the post office bears Frankie’s name. The Army wanted to bury my son in Arlington, but I had to have him close by. Linda Sue even gave me the flag over his coffin. Now that Arthur’s gone I keep the flag draped over Frankie’s bed. Humph! Pish and pshaw! Clara actually had the gall to tell me she thought that was morbid, but she doesn’t understand how it is losing a child.

I learned about the baby the day of my son’s funeral. Lord knows that’s the only reason I was somewhat able to stumble on. I must have quilted dozens of blankets, knitted a hundred booties, used up all the yarn in Milton’s store.


When Catherine was a year old, Linda Sue married Harriet’s son, Billy, who drove her and Frankie to Mobile when they eloped, and then moved to Slidell, Louisiana, where Billy now owns three or four car dealerships. Harriet constantly brags to Clara and me about her son’s success trying to make up for how things were. God knows Billy and Linda Sue would’ve never gotten married if Hoyt and Earl were still alive.

I can’t blame Linda Sue for getting married again since she was still in her prime, but they didn’t have to move away. My heart was ripped apart again. For years, I just saw Catherine at Christmas, sometimes at Easter. It’s a crying shame watching your only flesh-and-blood grow up in snapshots. I sure Clara feels the same. Many nights I sat in that rocker in the parlor in the dark with Frankie’s flag across my lap rubbing the stars, crying and praying for my Catherine to come back to me.

Mildred sighed like somebody beyond weary. Once I looked forward to March, the start of spring, the dogwoods and azaleas bursting out new, my birthday on the thirteenth. But now, I feel I’m drowning in sorrow. Wish I could stay in bed the whole month, but that’s silly. Dagnabbit! Humph! Pish and pshaw! Life goes on no matter what. Living is nothing but a see-what-happens-next-struggle. Maybe Revival can rejuvenate me this year?

Then she remembered. Shook her head back and forth. Glanced up. Silently snorted. Humph! Pish and pshaw! Don’t see how in Heaven how. That’ll take a grander miracle than the parting of the Red Sea, turning water into wine, or both.

Before Catherine came to stay, and every day since March the fifth around ten o’clock in the morning when Jonathan Williams the funeral home director wheeled Arthur out of the house on a stretcher into a hearse, Mildred lived alone. Humph! Pish and pshaw! The dirt hadn’t even settled over Arthur good before Clara was telling me to sell my home and move to Wilson City. She could hear her best friend now, and sometimes still did. Only the arguments weren’t always like at first.

“You don’t need this big house to keep up.”


“It’s twenty minutes to a decent grocery store, and almost thirty to a hospital.”


“You’re down here off the main road by yourself with the closest neighbor across the hollow, and if a convict came through and hit you over the head nobody could hear your cries for help.”

But Mildred couldn’t sell her home. It’s closer than my breathing. For once, Clara is uncharacteristic practical. The house is enormous, inconvenient, and isolated. I would tell any other widow to do the same. But Arthur built it especially for me. We moved in after our honeymoon, named it "Hayes’s Haven." It’s the house I want to die in.

Every first time visitor was guided through the maze inside and the gardens out. In pleasant weather, beginning and ending in the swing on the L-shaped front porch lined with Boston ferns, and in foul, the parlor. The porch ceiling, of course, was painted the traditional blue.

As Momma explained, “To fool gnats, wasps, spiders, bees and other creepy-crawlies into thinking it’s the sky where they are vulnerable to prey. The superstitious also believe the color wards off evil spirits. But those of us with a Second Blessing don’t hold onto such nonsense.” Mildred always worked that bit of information into her tours.

“Of course, the house wasn’t as big in the beginning as it is now. For three years, the old part, which is now the parlor, is all there was. It took over thirty years to piece this giant puzzle together.”

“My gardenia bush started out as just a twig from my Grandmamma Bernice Jean. Arthur said the day I planted it I wouldn’t live to see it hide the pump house, but in three years it did. The soil here is as fertile as Eden’s.”


“Why, this kitchen is so big both me and Beulah can be in it all morning fixing a meal without seeing each other.”

Sometimes the house did seem too large and too still, but Mildred had adjusted to being alone. She was all she had left. “It’s really not that bad,” she would say in case anybody asked. “You do what you must.” She’d spent many nights rocking on the front porch, listening to the creatures, waiting. Before Catherine, I was alone. Everybody else is gone. She sighed. Dabbed great-great Granny Fannie’s handkerchief under each eye.

Of course, Milton lives in Damascus, and runs the store, but there’s hardly anything on the shelves. Just keeps it opened so his cronies will have someplace to go, more drinking going on inside than any smoky old juke joint.

Brother and I were never close from Day One. He tolerated Sister, but not me. I was just part of the house like a piece of furniture, used when needed, but otherwise ignored. Maybe, it’s because I spent more time with Momma and Daddy, but so did Sister, and Milton was always too busy, mostly with girls. Think he tried to set a record for deflowering them, black and white. Folks talked about him, but it was like boasting. Milton was doing something they were afraid to, reckless and careless with our strict values. I once even heard Daddy say, "Well, after all, boys will be boys." Humph! Pish and pshaw! Men just can’t think with their big heads.

Milton has his own family and I’m shut out, again without doing anything wrong. Maybe someday things will be different between us, but I doubt if that fence will ever mend. We get along by ignoring each other. We pretend at not feeling. There is no hate or love, just a void. But that’s all right, I can’t be bitter. Life’s too short. God proves that every second of every day.

There are no tender feelings between any of my nieces or nephews and me. Nearly all of them many times married or divorced, some numerous times. Some of their children now married or divorced with hectic lives of their own. None of them have time for an old widowed aunt. None of them ever call or stop by. None of them ever remember my birthday. I remember all of their birthdays, always send a card, and never get a simple thank-you. Of course, there’s never money inside the cards, Social Security and a pension don’t go far these days, but it’s the thought that counts, though rooted in obligation. Mildred put her forefinger to her chin. Sighed. Shrugged her shoulders. Dagnabbit! Humph! Pish and pshaw! We were once a proud family, a giant sprawling tree. Now our family tree has root rot.

Sister and Clifton had a girl, Virginia Jean, Sister’s and Momma’s middle names put together. Most everybody calls her "Vergie" except me. It’s a shame to ruin a good traditional name. Virginia Jean was born a year after Frankie in August, on the fifteenth, so that makes her forty-two. She teaches elementary school, the third grade I believe, in addition to running a household. Women now have so many choices, not like in my day. We either got married or became old maids. Thank God Catherine is free to reach her full potential as both a person and a woman.

Virginia Jean married George Turner, who’s a shoes salesman like his daddy Howard was, the Saturday before Frankie left overseas, and they live in Mobile. Virginia Jean and Frankie were more like sister and brother than cousins, her wedding was the last time Frankie was in this church alive.

Virginia Jean named her first son Frank in memory of him. Even now when I see that boy I can’t help crying, which, of course, is in private. Frank is at the University of Alabama now on a football scholarship, he loves sports just like his namesake. Virginia Jean says all the girls are crazy about him, which is another namesake characteristic. Frankie is a fine young man. He’ll make a woman a good husband someday. The two little girls, Amy and Alice, parents should be whipped for burdening their kids with similar sounding names that will forever be mixed-up, are now young women. Amy is learning to be a secretary and Alice is finishing high school.

Mildred sighed. Sister was only twenty-three when she died on January ninth, 1942, in childbirth along with her son. After a proper mourning period, Clifton married a woman from Florida, I can’t remember if her name is Rita or Norma though we exchange card each Christmas, and moved to Niceville, Rita’s or Norma’s hometown.

Folks still whisper how horrible and bloody Sister’s death was. Old Doc Hamilton swore there were more than eight quarts of blood in Sister’s body. He stopped drinking for three months. Beulah says that on every anniversary, you can hear Sister’s screams echoing throughout the hollow.

Sister and her baby, he wasn’t named either, are buried in the church cemetery, a row down from Momma and Daddy. My baby, Arthur, and Frankie are on the far side, with a space in-between for me. Like my baby, who was just a couple of hours old, his headstone, shaped like a thumb topped with a lamb, reads ‘Infant of...’ followed by the parents’ names. Wonder if my boy and Sister’s boy are playing together in Heaven? It must be wonderful to be eternally young. She imagined a couple of angelic Cupids circling the Throne. Paused then snorted. Shook her head back and forth.

Humph! Pshaw and pshaw! Too bad Milton’s kids didn’t turn out that way, but nobody expected better. Brother is just another incarnate of the bad seed, an offshoot of Cain. The Bible says, ‘You reap what you sow,’ another one of God’s truths that should be etched in stone. Each generation from those loins grow meaner. As Momma always said, “You can’t beat the breed out of a dog.” She would never see the flaws in her son.

Mildred knew in her heart that someday Milton’s bunch would be prancing around underground waving pitchforks, roughing up the Devil. They could even make him change his ways. Momma always said, “Whatever goes over the Devil’s back must come under his belly.” Amen to that.

She put her forefinger against her chin. Tapped gently. I suspect Milton resents not being a junior, even though he carries Daddy’s first name. Still, Brother’s name could be Jesus Christ, and he’ll still be a disgusting man. Besides, that’s a terrible shadow to place on any son. That’s why Arthur and I didn’t make Frankie a junior. Nobody should grow up in the shadow of another. Her hand fell into her lap.

Milton married Wilodean Thompson, Harriet’s youngest sister, who everybody calls "Wilma" except me. Whenever I hear that name I think of the cartoon character and giggle to myself imagining Wilodean hitting Milton over the head with a club, which she needs to do often. Both up and dropped out of high school, Milton a month shy of turning legal and Wilodean just a couple of days into, so Daddy had to go to the courthouse and sign. With Milton telling Daddy every step of the way, “The only reason Wilma and me want to hurry is because we’re in love and can’t wait.”

Humph! Pish and pshaw! Yeah, I thought when Momma told me snorting to myself, of course without her seeing, and pigs fly. A couple of seconds more and Wilodean would have been showing.

After six months, which they all pretended to be nine, Julian came. Mildred crossed her arms before her breast. Put her forefinger to her lips. That makes him what, one-third legal bastard? Yet because of Brother’s influence, he’s a whole.

She shook awake. Shocked at such thoughts, especially in the House of the Lord. Must be that medicine, thank God nobody can read my thoughts. She paused. Waited for her mind to drift back to where it was before. Oh yeah, now I remember.

Milton and Wilodean begat more---Pierce, Amos, Thelma, Charlotte, and Tommy. She hardly had time to put the baby clothes up before it was time to drag them out again. Humph! Pish and pshaw! Bet she welcomed that first hot flash like a cool breeze.

Those kids are trouble with a capital T. Just a matter of time before each has a police file thicker than the Bible or either dead from an illicit substance overdose.  Simply scandalous!

The boys are downright vicious, and those girls vile and sneaky. Each went from sucking on a pacifier one day to a cigarette the next. The same with the tit to beer or whiskey bottle. And their first word, obscene. From knickers on up, those boys don’t own a pair of pants without a ring imprint through the right back pocket. Well, except for Pierce, he’s a southpaw. The girls keep their snuff cans in their purse, guess they consider that a ladylike quality. No manners whatsoever, wilder than animals.

Those kids have always called Milton and Wilodean by their first names and now their kids are doing the same. If I had ever once called my parents by their christened names, I would be down on the floor where I very well should be.

Momma was always fretting over those grandbabies, calling them her “dear poor lost angels.” Humph! Pish and pshaw! I would snort to myself thinking they only need the belt, which she and Daddy should have used on Milton more often if they did ever. I’m no stranger to a belt or a switch and am a better person for those beatings. ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’ is as true today as it ever was. God only knows how those kids got grown, except for Amos killed in a car wreck at seventeen. It was whispered he was intoxicated by alcohol or dope, I bet both, but in death you cover things up. Make the deceased a martyr. Turn sinners into saints.

Mildred glanced around. Wonder if the walls have been wiped down and the tops of the windowsills dusted? She squinted, but couldn’t see. Shook her head back and forth. Snorted. Probably not, since I wasn’t here. I swear, no matter how often you clean in here there’s enough dust for God to populate every pew. Of course, Beulah and Clara did the physical labor, but she supervised. Her mind drifted back to before.

Julian is married to Lois Marie Willis, Eli’s granddaughter, and they have four kids with another one on the way. His was also a had-to marriage, but what do you expect? Pierce married Rita Joanne Cumbie and they have five. Their youngest two are twins, common in Cumbie women. Thelma married Jim Roberts, his folks aren’t from around here, Birmingham I believe, and they have three. Charlotte married Orison Baker, Virginia Mason’s grandson by Julie’s first husband. Their third one is due in May. Hopefully the marriage will last that long, there have been rumors of trouble since they said, “I do.” Little Tommy, who’s taking over the store, he didn’t want to farm like his brothers, married Nancy Hunter, her folks aren’t from around here either. I forget where up north. So far they don’t have any. Surprised she wasn’t pregnant the day they said, “I do” like the others. Probably been on the Pill since the day she started flowing. May have even had an abortion. There was a doctor in Canaan just up the road that supposedly did them long ago.

The whole clan lives within hollering distance of each other. After every family gathering, which thank God isn’t often, I have to take to my bed for two days. Those kids and their parents, too, seem to enjoy playing havoc with my nerves. During the last Fourth of July picnic, I must’ve been crazy to go, Leroy, Thelma and Jim’s youngest, caught a baby black snake in the woods he tried putting down all of his girl cousins’ backs. Humph! Pish and pshaw! Pigs don’t squeal that much. Thank goodness, Momma and Daddy aren’t alive to see what this family has deteriorated into. She snorted. Shook her head back and forth. But if they were it wouldn’t matter. Milton caused blindness.

Maybe, before Catherine came back, I was too alone, but life has had its bright moments, and I’m content with my memories. After all, those are the only things that can’t be taken away. Mildred smiled thinking of her wedding day, May 15, 1942. Clasped her hands to her breast. Arthur looked so dashing; all the girls agreed he was Rudy Vallee handsome. He’s four years older than me, but always seemed younger. At times I swore I raised him as much as Frankie.

I wore Clifton’s sister’s Rachel’s wedding dress and veil, white satin with a princess waist, and long tight leg-of-mutton sleeves. That morning, Momma gave me Grandmamma’s cameo to wear on a white ribbon around my neck, which will go to Catherine after I’m gone. Matilda, my maid of honor, gave me a new slip to wear, and Eloise Hadley, who kept all us girls giggling, sewed a blue ribbon on my underwear. She moved away soon after, first to Atlanta, but we’ve lost contact through the years. She has, or had, probably retired now, a career selling insurance or real estate, I forget which one. Don’t think she ever married. Mr. Hayes was Arthur’s best man and Milton escorted Eloise. I didn’t want Wilodean in my wedding at all, she was pregnant again, but Momma insisted, so I let her serve cake.

The Church looked like a garden. Gardenias, we must’ve stripped every bush in Damascus, peeked out among evergreen sprigs, smilax vines, and magnolia leaves. Matilda and Eloise wore floor-length pink dresses with full skirts and puffed sleeves, carried white carnations. Laurie Beth, Aunt Dolly and Uncle Vince’s daughter, was the cutest little flower girl scattering petals everywhere, and Joseph, Aunt Freda and Uncle Hardy’s son, was a precious ring bearer. Mrs. Hopkins sang, "Ah Sweet Mystery of Life." I carried half a dozen white sweetheart roses. Still have the remains, pressed in my wedding book.

After the reception at Momma and Daddy’s, Arthur and I drove down to the beach in Mr. Hayes’s Ford. I didn’t know what to expect, Momma never gave me the ‘birds and bees’ talk, and all the whispering us girls did late at night was scary and confusing, but I knew Arthur was a gentleman, and we were in love. It wasn’t until the third night when we consummated the marriage. I was surprised how quick it took, wasn’t really disappointed or overjoyed because I didn’t know how it was supposed to be, but Arthur seemed satisfied, which was the important thing. Over the years, it became just another chore like waxing the floor. Would recite the Twenty-third Psalm to myself until things were over, seldom got past ‘my head anointed with oil.’ Mildred blushed, hoped nobody noticed, and then smiled. Surprised I can think such thoughts to myself especially in Church. Well, that part of my life is over. That’s just something else we women have to do.

Once, during our third or fourth year of marriage, Arthur suggested that we try something different instead of him just grunting on top of me. I wanted to agree since the Bible says a wife should obey her husband, but after he explained what, putting his thing into my mouth, I just couldn’t. The very thought is disgusting even though I’m aware some couples do. Long ago Clara, again in another one of her off-the-wall, out-of-the-blue moments told me she sometimes did that with Earl and my mouth immediately felt dirty. Imagine the germs! Although Arthur never mentioned the incident again and pretended he wasn’t disappointed, looking back I wonder if my refusal helped cause what happened on down the road.

She sighed. Crossed her arms before her. Humph! Pish and pshaw! No, I can’t think like that. We don’t know how life will be. It’s a see-what-happens-next struggle. There ain’t no choices. You like to think you’re in control, but you ain’t. It’s like you’re thrown into a big box after birth to bounce around until you’re all bruised up and worn-out, and death is the only escape. You hope it’s to something better, but you ain’t what. Sometimes I even wonder and me with my Second Blessing. I don’t care if the streets of Heaven are gold or not as long as they’re clean and I don’t have to sweep them. One of the few joys of Mildred’s life was walking barefooted across a dirt-free floor.

She snorted. Shook her head back and forth. Surprised at her thoughts, but not really shocked. Ever since January, life has seems so…worthless. She knew this feeling grew from being sick, spending all that time in bed, having too much time to think, mulling over her days. The devil works in an idle mind, too. Her eyes grew weary reading or watching T.V. Sappy romances that in real life never happen, nobody lives happy ever after. Game show host are today’s snake oil peddlers. Soap operas are stupid because everybody is beautiful and never pay bills.

Mornings and afternoons were wasted on trivial matters from the past like “Why did this happen?” or “I should’ve done this.” Once Mildred spent two whole days pondering, “Why did Linda Sue and Frankie choose to live those weeks before his leaving at Clara’s house instead of mine?” Of course Frankie was in and out several times each day and they ate every meal with us out of necessity due to Clara’s culinary skills, but it wasn’t the same.

She snorted to herself. Humph! Pish and pshaw! An utterly silly waste of time! Well, that’s water under the bridge now. Maybe we’re better off going through life without a thought. Work yourself exhausted from dawn to dark, then go to sleep to get up and do it again. She sighed and wrung her hands, soul weary. For a moment she just wanted to forget.

Life is like that old seasick joke. First, you pray cause you’re afraid you’re going to die. Then, you pray cause you’re afraid you’re not.

Trudging up the aisle to her pew, Mildred nodded at familiar faces. Even during Revival, there weren’t many she didn’t know or had heard about. The pews, on ordinary Sundays mostly empty, and Wednesday nights less than that, were overflowing like for weddings or funerals. Bill King, who ran Damascus’s only gas station, sat in the pew behind hers next to his wife, Doris, twin daughters, Sue and Sally, either six or seven, and Billy, Bill Junior, somewhere in his early teens. Bill always looks so nice cleaned up. Usually his coveralls are so coated in grease you can’t read the name on front. Between him and those kids, bet Doris spends all her time doing laundry. Bet their clothesline is permanently sagging.

Tolbert Marshall, who owned Wilson City Hardware, sat in the pew before hers next to his wife, Elise, and their son, Eddie. Mildred smiled. Eddie’s such a fine young man. Hope Catherine finds somebody like that someday.

She glanced around. Snorted. Milton’s crew were scattered about. Appearances won’t get you into Heaven.

Clara Harper, wearing sunflower yellow, sat in her left fourth row pew, dedicated to her husband, Earl, who died before Arthur, beside her youngest daughter, Lucy, son-in-law, Hank, and one of their boys, Mildred wasn’t sure which. She snorted to herself, blinded by her best friend’s dress. Well, you can’t beat the breed out of a dog. She carries the gene to be flamboyant. Miss Thelma screamed gaudy. I’m surprised Linda Sue knows how to dress herself properly.

Catherine walked up and tapped Mildred on the shoulder. She had her daddy’s green eyes, her momma’s sweet smile, and, fortunately, Mildred’s high cheekbones. Catherine wore the soft pink dress with the lace collar Mildred sewed for her granddaughter last Easter. The moment she saw the material, she knew it would be perfect for her granddaughter’s skin tone. Mildred held out her hand and pulled her granddaughter into the pew beside her. Such a dear, sweet girl, a little bit overweight, but with such a beautiful face. Hopefully, her life will turn out better than mine. God forbid if she knew the thoughts of her ancient granny!

“Are you all right?” Catherine whispered brushing back her shoulder-length hair behind an ear.

Mildred gave her granddaughter’s hand a squeeze as she sat down. “Yes, dear.”

Harriet finished playing Blest Be the Tie. The Reverend Cobb, Mildred thought as proud as any rooster, strutted up to the pulpit. Francis Paul Day sat down in the left front pew.

Mildred frowned. Snorted. Dagnabbit! Humph! Pish and pshaw!

Revival at the Damascus Southern Baptist Church had begun.

A FINE YOUNG MAN

Novel excerpt

Very early Saturday morning before the sun is up, the outside pole light off, Big Red crows, Roy Brown, barefooted, ten-years-old, sits in his chair at the kitchen table alone, wrapped in a quilt over long johns, striped flannel pajamas, his brother’s old bathrobe, but still cold. He rubs his feet together, wiggles his toes, tries crossing the one that went to market over the one that stayed home but they immediately snap apart. He shakes his head back and forth. I should’ve worn socks. Usually his dad lights the gas heater before leaving for the barn making the kitchen as cozy as the inside of his bed, striking matches is another too young thing to do, but he isn’t sure if his dad is up. They were still talking around the table when I fell asleep last night. Maybe he doesn’t have to milk this morning?

Roy yawns, rubs his eyes, and listens to his stomach growl and rumble. This morning pea soup would seem like water. He puts his knees up, feet in the seat of his chair, pulls the quilt closer. Grandma Laura and her sisters pieced the different colored stripes, prints, and solids together when his mama was a little girl. “No pattern, just patchwork. Nothing but leftover scraps. A stained glass rainbow.”

He sighs, deep and drawn out, sounding as empty and as hollow as he feels inside, wishing the day is over or didn’t even begin. Yesterday his brother was killed in a wreck on Pine Landing Road, and tomorrow is the funeral in the Methodist Church then burial in the cemetery opposite the ‘Welcome to Hartsville’ sign. It will be the first grave of somebody I really used to know.

Billy was sixteen, the swellest brother ever, in the ninth grade, tall slender strong with black hair and dark eyes, always tan, what Roy wanted to look like instead of freckles, big ears, rabbit’s teeth, yellowish eyes, reddish brown curls, pale. Boo, hiss, rats! Billy was number thirty-three, the best basketball player in Hartsville, Wilson County, Alabama, could had been better than Bill Russell, Oscar Robertson, Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West rolled into one. Billy was the son every mama wanted, any dad would be proud, all the girls loved, all the guys envied but couldn’t hate because he was so nice. It wasn’t phony either like those guys pretending to be big shots! Roy was going to grow up to be like him, all the fourth grade boys were, but guessed he couldn’t now because heroes like big brothers weren’t suppose to be dead. Yesterday, on his way home, Billy in the yellow Dodge pickup truck missed the curve on the north side of Big Bend Bridge, smashed into a pine tree, crashed through the windshield. Ralph’s dad, who pulled the body out before the gas tank exploded, told them, “Billy was killed instantly.”

Before everybody got to their house offering food, flowers, “I’m sorry,” and Roy still hoped it wasn’t true (Maybe Billy was just knocked unconscious and will wake up? Mr. Clemmons ain’t a doctor, he don’t know when somebody’s dead), a car chugging louder than a train raced up their lane and screech stopped. The doors slammed. Mr. Peavey and Fred, a short fat bald insurance salesman and his lanky redheaded son, rushed up the front steps, stopped panting in the hallway before his mama and dad. Roy watched from the living room window, and then from the shadows of the dining room when his mama ordered him to wait in the kitchen. Holding his breath, clenching his chest, twisting his legs together, knowing something was wrong like doing something dreamt before because of his trembling, sweating, freezing worst than standing butt naked on the North Pole with a double dose of double pneumonia. His parents, Mr. Peavey and Dodo Bird walked over to the living room sofa. It seemed like hours before either Peavey said anything, not even hello, both with red faces and redder ears, staring around like they were somewhere never seen before. Mr. Peavey held his hat before his belly (inching his chubby fingers around the brim like Mr. Clemmons’s skinny ones earlier), bowed his head, and sat down like a kid on display for company. Fred kept wiggling and squirming, rubbing his neck, scratching a knee, twisting and untwisting his arms, running his fingers through his wire kinks. His mama and dad stood by together waiting. Then like lightning Fred’s face fell, his tears poured, he flung his hands over his eyes sobbing, his shoulders shaking violently back and forth. Roy was embarrassed and sad like seeing a friend act a fool in public because Fred was Billy’s age, they were best pals, he sometimes called Fred names and said mean things about his basketball playing because sometimes he was crazy jealous thinking Billy liked Fred better. He knew that was stupid and silly. His mama always said, “Blood is thicker than water.”

Finally in a weak voice like choking, between sniffles and swallows, Fred staring at the floor, shuffling his feet together and apart, muttered, “Billy and me left practice, drove over to Elsewood because I got kicked off the team and…” Here his voice stopped like Billy slamming on brakes in the middle of the road that morning, and then his words burst out all at once in a squeaky cartoon voice, “got somebody to buy us beer.” Fred lifted his head, his face swollen larger, his eyes bloodshot more, his fingers spread like branches before him. “I’m sorry!” The last words full of shame suffering sorrow were hollered as if they were the only ones that mattered, but the grown-ups didn’t seem to hear them or Roy falling against the swinging door. Again he felt like Wilbur Moore, the biggest bully in school, punched him in the stomach, busted his lip, blackened his eye, tore his clothes, and the pain was worst than falling on the pitchfork points up, eating candy with every tooth rotten.

His mama screamed, jerked away from his dad, and leaped forward like the Indians on TV. “You killed Billy!” she hollered, pounding Fred’s chest, her words blazing with hate-anger-horror. “You killed my boy!” His dad grabbed her around the waist, like him holding Sam, swung her around, her feet off the floor, and they were face-to-face, his mama’s sobs buried into his dad’s chest. He grabbed the doorsill pulling up wondering if he was dizzy enough yet to faint away and forget everything.

His dad turned, hugging and squeezing his mama. Pointed his forefinger at Fred, jerking like his voice, more horrible than ever heard, worst than ten thousand monsters growling and snarling under the bed, “You should’ve been in that pickup, too!”

Fred ran out into the night screaming and hollering for God to strike him dead. He slipped into the kitchen grabbing his chest trying to breathe wanting to hate Fred more than the Devil no matter what Martha or the Bible said. He killed my brother! Billy is dead! Again, his world was nothing. Everything felt scrambled up inside.

Roy pulls the quilt around him closer, puts his feet in Martha’s chair. His dad always sits facing the back door, his mama on his left, then in order of birth, Shirley, Billy, Martha, him. It is an unspoken rule, as established as the sun rising and falling, as set as the stockings hung on the mantel Christmas Eve. Even when one of them is sick or eating somewhere else, the others stay in their place. The chair at the table is as personal as the clothes they wear. Aunt Gladys still sets Uncle George’s plate and he’s been dead ten years. The end chair will always be empty. He smiles, feeling a little better, a little more steady, glad some things like home never change. It’ll always be safe and warm.

The kitchen is dark except for the fluorescent light across the room above the sink over the middle window his mama always leaves on. It gives the refrigerator against the east wall, the range under the light switch on the opposite side, the round water heater in the corner, half of the blocks mixed with red squares on the plastic tablecloth a bluish glow. On the counter his dad built three summers ago, doors below for pots and pans, drawers under the linoleum for silverware, dishcloths, odds and ends, is a wire rack for holding wet dishes, which Martha moves to the left when she washes. On one side are stair stepped containers for flour, sugar, coffee, grease, tea bags, and opposite, further down from the sink, a rolling pin, hand mixer, chopping block, the cookie jar full of chocolate chips his mama made yesterday before leaving for town. Then the toaster he and Billy bought from Mr. Thompson’s store last Christmas, his share being two dollars, earned from picking up pecans, under a cover Shirley made. Left of the back door, Blue Willow cups hang above the plates and saucers in the floor-to-ceiling cupboard where cans and dry goods are stacked in the bottom. Opposite that, in the center of the room, is the table, oval like the striped rug under, with a bowl of red, pink, and white camellias Martha picked yesterday in the middle of a spider web doily by the sugar bowl, salt and pepper shakers. The ruffled border connecting the tiebacks above the sink matches the curtains on the back door and the cushions on the chairs. The black telephone hangs behind his dad’s chair. Scattered around the room on the pale walls are baskets, hot pads, and Shirley’s loop potholders. An iron frying pan, a spoon-fork-ladle-strainer, the spice rack Billy built in 4-H. A calendar showing snow never seen on the ground before, Martha’s cross-stitched sampler asking God to bless this home. A board with dangling keys, some to unknown locks, an extra set for the pickup, his mama’s blue flowered apron hanging from the last hook. There are three doors going out of and into the kitchen: Swinging to the dining room, half glass outside, solid to the hall opposite his parents’ bedroom and going up to the bath, Shirley and Martha’s, his and Billy’s bedrooms.

Last night their house was full of lights and sounds, the telephone ringing as soon as somebody hung up, the yard full of cars and pickup trucks. Folks from the community, friends with parents from school, both sets of grandparents, aunts and uncles, his dad had three sisters and a brother, his mama two sisters and three brothers, most of his thirty-one first cousins, crowded their home. (Roy was the youngest grandchild on both sides. Eddie the oldest Smith and Walt the oldest Brown were both eighteen but a month apart.) He wandered around in his best shoes, which still pinched and squeaked, good pants, white shirt, both stiff from starch, wearing his dad’s old blue tie Shirley chopped off, like lost. All the while nodding, smiling, afraid he would cry, wanting to be alone. The women who flocked around his mama, swallowed up in the living room sofa, their eyes wet and puffy, their faces long and sad, smelling like the drugstore’s fragrances aisle, grabbed him blubbering and hugging. He nearly drowned and smothered. (Mrs. Moore was hog fat and basted in jonquil cologne). The men, huddled on the front porch talking in hushed tones smoking musky cigarettes and sweet cigars, shook his hand like a grownup, slapped his shoulder, and said he must be strong for his father and his mother. Of course Fred didn’t come back. (He’s probably in the next state by now.) Chester greeted everybody at the front steps with “Howdy-do,” his stare blank and somewhere else like always. Mrs. Wilson whispered that Brenda Sue was “Shaken,” the cheerleaders boohooed real tears, the guys on the team stood like shadows in the background. He wanted to run but didn’t know where to hide. He knew Saturday night would be more horrible and frightening when Billy’s body was there, his coffin opposite the piano, stretched out between the sofa and the TV.

“The good always die young.”

“An awful terrible shock.”

“Such a fine young man.”

“I heard he’d been out drinking with that Peavey boy.”

Mr. Bryant cancelled tomorrow night’s basketball game. “To have it now wouldn’t be right.” Albert, the first time ever without a smile, said Billy never came back for the tire.

Even when he was eating fried chicken, his favorite, in the kitchen with Ralph Clemmons, his best pal, he felt like he was somewhere else, seeing what was happening through somebody else’s eyes, pretending to be the younger brother mourning for the older. It was like having a nightmare. He was seeing, doing, feeling something scary, but in the back of his mind knew he was asleep so everything was all right.

“Want to come to my house and spend the night?” Ralph asked finishing his second drumstick then reaching for his third. As usual, he was eating more in order to grow. All of the kids in the fourth grade except him called Ralph “Squirt.”

“No.” He had his elbow on the table, his chin in his left hand, twirling his fork in his mashed potatoes and gravy until they were muddy gray. Manners, which could send him to his room forever, but his mama passed by and said nothing. She probably didn’t even notice since we didn’t finish supper and I won’t eat venison anyway.

“We could stay up late and look through Sallie’s new American Girl.” Ralph wiped a crumb from his mouth with the back of his hand.

He dropped his fork, a clicking clang, frowned. “No, looking at bra ads is dumb.” He swallowed milk, looked both ways, leaned over, whispered in his secret agent’s voice, “Billy’s got some pictures of almost naked women in the bottom of his closet in a cigar box of love letters from Brenda Sue. One sort of shows tittie.” He found them last week when the house was empty after trying on Billy’s athletic supporter that hung droopy in front and kept sliding off.

Ralph’s green eyes stretched coin wide. “Wow, can I see them?”

“Yeah.” He picked up his fork, began twirling, feeling the rush of adventure then remembered what was happening, frowned. “No.”

“Please?” Ralph dropped his drumstick, drug out the word like a plea. “I’ll give you a nickel.”

“Well...” He winced like getting a splinter. He was saving for a three-blade pocketknife and felt sorry because Ralph was short, only had an older sister bossier than Shirley. He shut his eyes and bit his bottom lip. “A quarter.”

“Okay.”

The coin quickly exchanged hands under the table and disappeared inside his pocket. “But not now, later.”

Ralph hung his head, picked up the drumstick. “Oh yeah, I understand.” It was that pitiful voice used when a best pal’s brother was dead.

He smiled not knowing what else to do, the tears bubbling up in his eyes, the quarter heavier than a stone, burning like a hot coal in his pocket. Maybe I shouldn’t see them again? Billy did say I was too young. Maybe I ought to give them back to Dodo Bird?

After Ralph and most everybody left around ten, his mama sent him to bed. He undressed, crawled in without even brushing his teeth, and waited. Twisting one way then the other, sitting up, listening to the alarm clock by Billy’s bed tick away seconds, minutes, hours. Afraid to close his eyes thinking that maybe they wouldn’t open. He knew that was silly, like wondering while kneeling against his bed saying his prayers if he should ask God to bless Billy, but couldn’t shake the feeling. It’s stupid being afraid.

The moon, nearly full outside the double windows between the single beds, threw thick shadows and thin light around the room, smaller than the kitchen but with the same high ceiling. He slept closest to the door, making trips to the bathroom quicker, and Billy’s bed, neatly made like left that morning, was empty on the other side. He wanted to crawl under its covers, his bare feet rubbing together between the cold sheets, his head sinking into the soft pillow and finally sleeping safe in Billy’s touch, but didn’t know how to explain the messed-up bed to his mama the next morning. He sighed, staring at everything but nothing.

Bookshelves, built into the wall opposite the door above the desk where Billy struggled with English, history, math, and helped Roy with his homework, held encyclopedias, rocks, arrowheads found at Fort Sims. His bank shaped like a globe and Billy’s jar of pennies. Hardback and paperback books, Billy was halfway through The Hardy Boys. Plastic trophies and ribbons, the red ones were from Future Farmers or 4-H. Models Billy built (a World War II Flying Tiger, the Merrimack, a Model A Ford).

Opposite the windows was a floor-to-ceiling wardrobe with a closet on each side, drawers in the middle under a cubbyhole. Billy had the top four and he the bottom. The three large doors across the top were where his mama switched the family’s winter and summer clothes.

He helped Billy paint the bedroom last summer. Sky blue trimmed in white. Of course, his brother did most of the work. Slapping the brush back and forth got boring after awhile, and Billy kept fussing at him for dribbled paint on the floor.

A picture of four curly puppies sitting in a basket hung above his bed, a black and a white horse running side-by-side over Billy’s. A paint-by-numbers mountain scene Martha did for Billy’s birthday, he forgot which one, hung by the door. Showing a ten-point buck drinking water Roy often imagined that spike they found would have looked like someday.

He waited in bed for what seemed like hours. Maybe fell asleep twice, full of terrible nightmares he couldn’t remember. Finally he got up, went to the bathroom, which seemed strange empty. He couldn’t say why, he hated the smell, but slapped some of his dad’s Old Spice on his cheeks, and wandered into the kitchen. Wishing there was somebody to talk with about this, but didn’t know what to say.

Martha seemed more distant than Chester, Shirley’s flitting would make a bumblebee ashamed, his parents moved like zombies in a scary movie, the folks who came just wanted to say how they felt, where they were, what they were doing when it happened. (“Wreck” he learned became a dirty word like “dead.” Billy had a horrible accident and passed away.) The aching in his gut, worst than a throbbing bleeding sore, spread to his fingertips, hair, toes, and nobody cared. The truth “Billy’s dead!” roared through his mind and wouldn’t stop like a whisper becoming a yell. Mrs. Stewart his Sunday school teacher touched his dad’s hand and said, “What happened is God’s will. There are things we don’t understand.” Mrs. Parker whose husband was killed coming off Little Bend Bridge years ago, he sometimes kidded Ralph about seeing Mr. Parker’s ghost, and his mama just wept and hugged.

Roy pokes out his lips, glares up, shakes his fist into the air. It’s not fair! he hollers inside, his blood rushing, every nerve raw tight, his nails sharper than knives in the palm of his hand. Billy never hurt no one, why did You let him die? It was just a stupid mistake, he didn’t mean nothing, and Lloyd Moore gets drunk every day! Why don’t You punish him, strike him dead? He ain’t good like Billy. It ain’t fair. You cheated! I hate You forever!

Immediately he is sorry, ashamed, afraid he will be struck blind or dead. The Reverend Cooke said whales swallow those who curse God, but maybe I’m safe since there ain’t none in the river. He quickly shuts his eyes, clasps his hands, and squeezes his lids, lips, and fingers tight. God, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it! It was just a slip! I didn’t even mean to think that! Just in case, he begs some more. Maybe I ought to fall on my knees? No, the floor’s too cold. Mama won’t want me to get sick. Finally, he opens an eye, then the other, pats his chest, sighs. Still alive!

Sometimes folks from the low end of the county, glassy eyed and smiling, dressed like going to church during the middle of the week, knocked on their front door carrying little magazines and talking about God, but his mama wouldn’t let them in. She’s a “Washed in the Blood” believer and says, “There’s a fine line between hypocrites and saints.” She said those folks were crazy, and if ever stepped through the door wouldn’t leave until you were that way too, and one surefire way to get rid of them was fall on your knees and say the Lord’s Prayer. She could tell stories heard from Aunt Dorothy about men going mad and women losing their babies. The source always overheard in a crowd after passing through several others, who got it straight from a distant cousin somewhere else that would leave Jesus speechless. Again, Roy was too young, and sent to his room before learning every disgusting detail to tell Ralph.

Once last fall he heard them at Mr. Thompson’s store preaching to Lloyd Moore. Lloyd, like always, was sprawled out on the bench in front, too drunk too care. Roy thought their words sounded like Reverend Cooke’s every Sunday (hell-fire and boring). But Mr. Thompson ran out and ordered them never to set foot on his property again or he would call the law. Roy was sucking a peppermint stick watching but not really wondering why since grown-ups were always suppose to be right, when he found one of their magazines like a new penny facedown in the dirt. After making sure nobody was watching, he snatched it up, brushed it off, slipped it under his jacket, pedaled as fast as possible home, and ran into the barn. There nestled in the hay up in the loft, excited and scared like swinging from a rope into the creek, not sure if an alligator, shark, or sea monster was waiting, he discovered Jehovah’s Witness thinking.

The magazine looked like a comic book inside, but wasn’t in color and the words were scary and sad. The first rows of pictures showed a teenage boy named Johnny with his pals doing what Roy thought older guys did alone having fun---smoking, cussing, drinking beer, telling dirty jokes. One boy was even looking at a magazine with naked women inside. Then, on the next page, a lightning bolt struck Johnny and he was in a coffin with his mama clinging to it crying. Then he was wearing a white robe, shine marks all around, standing on a cloud before the Pearly Gates, more glitter shining, and Saint Peter was searching through this thick book with the names of everybody inside who was, is, or would not be going to Heaven. Johnny’s name wasn’t there. So Saint Peter, pointing to a stairway going down, said, all capital letters underlined twice, “NOW YOU MUST PAY FOR YOUR SINS!” The last block showed Johnny covered with sores, the robe rags, the shine gone, shoveling ashes, the Devil laughing and snapping a whip across his back. The magazine ended showing Jesus hanging from a cross and saying everybody should get down on his or her knees today and beg Him to come into their hearts so their name would be in the Book of Life. That night, alone in bed, Roy cried trying not to be heard. He didn’t want to die.

“What’s wrong?” Billy whispered from his bed sitting up facing him through the dim dark.

“Nothing.” He sniffled, wiped his eyes, then his nose with the back of his hand, wiggled deeper under the covers. “Leave me alone.”

“Are you sick? Want me to get Mom?” His brother’s voice sounded extra gentle, caring, and warm.

“No.” He twisted his fingers together, made the word as firm as possible without shouting, wishing Billy would go back to sleep. But he didn’t want to be alone.
“Just checking.”

“I’m okay,” he mumbled the words like dirt in his mouth.

Billy’s bed squeaked and moaned as he fell back down. “Must’ve been something outside, Sam maybe.”

“Yeah.” He curled up tighter, his heart pounding, his knees nearly touching his chest. Billy knows Sam always sleeps under the back steps.

Billy’s bed squeaked again as he rolled over. “Good-night.”

“Yeah.” He bit his lip, shut his eyes, and again saw Johnny covered with welts and sores burning in Hell for eternity and shivers shot through his spine. He’d done wrong and was paying with his life. If you want to go to Heaven you have to get on your knees and beg Jesus to come into your life, everybody knows that. He opened his eyes. The lump in his throat felt like a thousand rocks one-by-one going down. “Billy,” he whispered after awhile. “Are you asleep?”

The breathing across the room echoed steady.

Darn! I sure wouldn’t be sawing logs if my brother couldn’t sleep! He waited a few minutes more. Hoping, praying, tugged the covers closer, closed his eyes, took several deep breaths. It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be fine. The thought of Johnny and the magazine under his bed flooded his mind like the night sounds creeping in growing louder and louder until he nearly hollered. It’s only a story that didn’t really happen. Mama says those folks are crazy and want you that way too and she’s as Christian as Jesus is. Maybe Sam did decide to sleep under the front steps tonight? Everything’s okay like every night. He smiled, stared counting sheep, got to ten, but jerked alive like stepping on a rattlesnake when something touched his shoulder. Oh God, I’m dead!

“Are you okay?”

He jumped up grabbing his chest, his head thumping, his heart running away. “You nearly scared me to death!” he cried in a squeaky strain.

“Sh! You’ll wake everybody!”

“I nearly wet my pants!”

Billy crossed his arms before his chest, shrugged his shoulders. “Sorry, I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

He fell back against the bed, his head sinking into the pillow, his blood dropping. “Yeah.” He sounded angry, but was glad.

“Okay then, good-night.” Billy patted the pillow and left.

“Good-night,” he said, blinked and saw Johnny. Oh God, no!

He waited until his brother was halfway between the beds before stretching out a hand and calling in a weak voice, “Billy?”

“Yeah, Kid.”

“Can you stay a minute?”

His brother stood before the windows scratching his head, his tee shirt and briefs shining in the dark. “I got to get some sleep, Kid. We’re having a history test tomorrow and then practice and Dad wants me to…” His brother sounded cross, but he knew he wasn’t.

“Please?” He dragged the word out like a kid.

“Okay, but just for a minute.” His brother walked back over, lifted the covers, put a leg up. “Slip over, the floor’s cold.”

He edged over to the far side of the bed so after settling in they wouldn’t touch. As a little kid, he often crawled into Billy’s bed after a nightmare or when the bogeyman threatened. He remembered one Christmas Eve being too excited to sleep for something that might soon be lost or broken. But, over the years, Roy discovered there were things you shouldn’t do anymore. Maybe that’s part of growing up?

After the bed settled, he swallowed and said, “Billy?” slowly.

“Yeah.”

He turned toward the wall, closed his eyes, and smiled. “Nothing.” Beside his brother, who smelt soap clean, the night sounds softened, Johnny disappeared, his fear seemed like nothing. He felt safe and warm like before, wrapped in the thickest quilt ever. Maybe you don’t have to lose something just because you’re growing up? Suddenly like a cloud drifting before the sun or the lightning bolt in the story he realized, If I don’t say nothing Billy will go, and fingers colder than freezing grabbed his soul. He swallowed, turned toward his brother, his whisper like somebody else’s weak voice. “Do you think your name is in that book in Heaven?”
Billy rolled toward him. “What book?”

He bowed his head, ashamed and afraid. “You know,” he whispered in that same strange voice, fidgeting with the quilt Grandma Laura and her sisters made, the chilling fingers squeezing harder, “that book that names all the folks going to Heaven after they die.” He cut his eyes over, his fingers still, his breath a giant lump in his throat.

“Oh.” Billy rolled over on his back. After the bed settled again he said, his words softer than a whisper, “What makes you ask that?”

Roy stared at the ceiling not seeing, after sundown the colors went blank, wishing for the hundredth time he said nothing. They could pretend Sam was under the steps. Billy could be snoring in his own bed. Finally his voice strained into gasps. “I was reading one of those magazines the Jehovah’s Witnesses dropped at Mr. Thompson’s store after preaching to Lloyd Moore and…”

“Is that why you were crying?”

He swallowed, his eyes burning, the lump swelling, looked away and mumbled, “Yes.” The train rumbling around in his mind, got faster like Sam chasing his tail, crashed into the concrete-brick-steel wall. After the explosion, the smoke cleared leaving nothing. He stared into his brother’s boy-man face. “I know Mama says we’re not suppose to…” he stared out in a squeaky voice, but the words became a blur. He rubbed his fists over his eyes. Why did I say nothing?

The chirping faded. The night got darker than ever. He held his breath waiting, afraid his brother would leave. He’ll think I’m silly! Call me a sissy and a baby! His eyes stung. His bottom lip quivered. He felt his insides shrinking and crumbling. His heart pounded like a drum stretched tight. Please let me go ahead and die so this will be over!
Then Billy lifted his arm up, placed it around Roy’s shoulder. “Pretty scary huh?”
“Yeah.” Those were the most wonderful words ever heard. He snuggled closer, feeling his brother’s breath, watching his chest go up and down. Now it was okay to touch. Again, he felt safe and warm. This time the feeling would last forever. “This boy about your age got struck by lightning, and when Saint Peter couldn’t find his name in the Book of Life, he went to…”

“That’s okay,” said Billy rubbing his brother’s shoulder in a circular motion, “I’ve read those books before.”

“Really?” Roy sat up. Stared at his brother more surprised than after hitting that blue jay in the head with a rock. Of course, he cried and buried the bird promising God never to aim his slingshot at another living thing again.

“Yes.”

“Then you won’t tell Mama?”

“No.”

He settled back down, again able to breathe, glanced over and smiled. Even in the dark, he knew his brother’s high forehead, narrow nose, sunken cheeks, pointed chin, mole below the left eye, darkening above the upper lip. Billy had their dad’s oak eyes, their mama’s wide smile. They shared the Brown no-lobed stuck-out ear trademark only Roy’s poked out more. “Then it’s okay to drink and smoke and cuss?”

Billy chuckled. A bubbling that could make anybody giggle. “The Reverend Cooke doesn’t think so.”

He bit his bottom lip, rolled his eyes, and waved his hands. “But Dad sometimes drinks a beer on Saturday nights, Mama pours whiskey over her fruit cakes at Christmas, I’ve heard you say damn and hell and …”

His brother’s chuckle sparkled like blinding sun on water. “You don’t miss much huh?” The fingers grabbed a curl, twisted and tossed it away.

He shook his head, grinned. “Nope.” It was okay if his brother touched his hair.
“I didn’t think so.”

He squinted his eyes, wrinkled his nose. “But ain’t those things wrong?”

Billy lifted his arm, rubbed his chin, cupped his hands together on his chest, his thumbs twiddling one way then the other, staring at the ceiling. “It depends.”

“On what?”

“When you do them and how often.” His thumbs stopped and Billy rolled toward him. He knew his brother was beginning a message lesson, the kind older brothers and fathers were especially fond of, the serious ‘Let me think a minute’ voice was a dead giveaway, but since he was happy and safe, that was okay. “Dad doesn’t drink like Lloyd Moore does he?”

He shook his head back and forth, the correct answer. “No, Albert says even a fish doesn’t.”

“And Mom just pours whiskey over her cakes at Christmas?”

He nodded. “Yes.” Enough already, make the point!
“And I just cuss around Fred and the guys?”

He grinned, wagged a finger at his brother. “Yeah, because if Mama ever heard she’ll wash out your mouth with soap!”

“I know.” Billy ruffled Roy’s curls then fell back against the bed. “So there’s a time and place for everything.”

I know that! It’s the same with every lesson. Something I know but sort of forgot. He rolled over, sat up on his elbow, stared at his brother. “So I can start drinking and smoking and cussing?”

Billy glared a moment, used the roughest voice ever heard. “Do and I’ll kick your butt!”

Roy poked out his lips, waved his hand. “But you just said…”
“I know, but sometimes you got to wait until you’re older. I ain’t tasted beer yet and I’m fifteen.”

He pounded his fist against the bed. “I’m too young for everything!” He flipped over, crossed his arms before him, mumbled, “How do you know when you’re old enough?”

His brother shrugged his shoulders, used a strange voice. “I don’t know, you just do.”

He frowned, wrapped his arms tighter, not really interested in smoking, it stunk, or drinking, beer looked like pee and his mama said made you crazy, but would like to increase his vocabulary. “Sometimes I say darn.”

Billy instantly had his brother’s head against his chest in an elbow hug. “Bad boy!” he scolded scrubbing a fist over Roy’s skull like Sam digging for a bone. “Bad, naughty, sinful!”

He tried keeping the laughter soft but it kept growing. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry!” he cried his hands flying over his head and between his legs. “Stop before I wet my pants!”

“Promise you won’t say that again?”

“Yes!”

“Okay. I don’t want to swim back over.” Billy let go and they fell back against the bed giggling and gasping for air. He felt a hundred feet high, floating on a cloud. His brother slapped his hands together, mumbled, “Most terrible thing I’ve ever heard!” Then, “Just don’t let Mom hear you, we men got to stick together.” His brother looked both ways, leaned over, and whispered into his ear, “I once heard Dad call Uncle Russell a bastard.”

He again started giggling out of control. “Well, he acts like…”

“I know.” Billy stretched his eyes, pinched his nose. “An old fart.”

Roy buried his face in the pillow trying to drown the noise, kicking and pounding the bed, while Billy kept tickling under his arms. They stopped after he broke wind. Billy jerked back wildly waving his arms to clean the air. “Dammit Kid, what did you eat rotten?”

He smiled, stuck out his tongue. Billy’s the greatest, most wonderful brother ever!
Finally, they settled back side-by-side like before. Again, Billy’s voice was soft and low. “Well, Kid, you okay?”

“Yeah.” He smiled, wiped his eyes, the lump warmth inside.

“No more crying?”

He shook his head fast back and forth. Never as long as you’re around.
“Good, don’t let those magazines scare you.” The bed squeaked as Billy crawled out, sat on the edge, and tucked the covers around him. “Think you can sleep now?” His brother used his mama’s ‘Sweet dreams’ voice.

“Yes,” he grinned gathering the covers closer.

“Okay. Good-night, Roy.” Billy leaned closer like he was going to kiss his cheek, stopped, straightened, grabbed his shoulder but didn’t shake, the touch strong and firm and warm. “Don’t let the bed bugs bite,” his brother whispered, got up, and was gone.

Roy shakes his head back and forth, the good feeling a memory. Drinking is wrong driving on Pine Landing Road when you miss the curve past Big Bend Bridge and smash into a pine tree. I ain’t ever going to taste beer! I ain’t even going to learn to drive!
He gets up, pulls the quilt closer, his soul a hundred tons, and shuffles to the back door. He pushes the curtains back, wipes the glass with his hand, smooth and cold, stares through the lopsided circle but it’s still dark. He can’t even see stars, just the on-at-dusk off-at-dawn pole light above the family car, beyond the basketball goal, which used to shine on the pickup truck. He heave-sighs, glances back at the clock. Soon Dad will be up, if not already, milking. Then Mama making breakfast, Shirley setting the table, Martha staying too long in the bathroom, and the kitchen will be warm. The black will become gray, then dawn, starting the day. Everything will look like yesterday, last week, or a year before. Each hour will tick sixty minutes. But nothing will ever be the same. He closes his eyes, sees the new tombstone in the cemetery with Billy’s name.

“Dammit, no!” Roy hollers out loud, pounding his fist against the door, every nerve twisting and exploding. “It ain’t fair! It ain’t right! Why did Billy die? I promise if it was yesterday again I’d do everything different, even the smallest detail, and my brother will be alive. I don’t care if Brenda Sue is his girl and Dodo Bird his best pal. I don’t care if I can’t go to Ralph’s and have to sit with Mama and Dad during the game. Please give me another try! I promise never to ask for another thing in my life!”

And standing before the door, Roy waits for the sunrise.