Chapter One
A
narrow four-door sedan puttered into the vast parking lot of the Global Radio
Gospel Ministries; the engine dieseled for two seconds, as if refusing to die. The floodlight beside it was dark, and
with the new moon, the car was dunked in shadow. After five minutes, the sedan rocked as if by lovers, but
then a dark figure stepped out of the back door, shut it silently, and turned
from the car without looking back, toward the wall of trees at the end of the
parking lot. The car beeped once
and the rear lights flashed as it locked itself. By that time, the figure had disappeared into the shadows,
and then nothing moved.
The
next morning, three ladies from the Freewill Baptist Church of Alexandria,
Arkansas arrived for an early morning Bible Study. Emma Jean Johnson had joined Marcie and Maggie, the Sisters.
They were part of a stream of ladies who had come expecting to praise the Lord,
mainly, but also to lose themselves inside the musky, man-smelling voice of
Reverend Henry, to listen to his sweet words, and to sigh over those blue blue
eyes under the shock of white hair, just like Charlton Heston’s after he had
seen the face of God. Besides, the
Bible Study allowed them the opportunity to exchange sweetmeats of gossip, and
to confer about the recent disappearance of a five-year-old boy, which was on
top in everybody’s mind.
“That
poor little boy,” said Emma Jean.
“His mama must be in a terrible state.”
“It’s
the judgment of the Lord, mark my words,” said Maggie.
“That
poor boy is gone for good, because I don’t think our new Sheriff is up to the
job,” said Marcie. “I knew last
year when he was elected that we were in for trouble.”
“What’s
wrong with Sheriff Rosebush?” said Emma Jean.
“You
should ask that? Having a colored
President is one thing,” said Marcie, “but a colored Sheriff of Alexandria
County is another thing entirely.”
“We don’t say ‘colored’ anymore,
Marcie,” said Maggie. “We say
‘African American’.”
“It
will come to no good, I tell you,” said Marcie, ignoring her sister entirely.
“I heard our new sheriff wants to fire everyone and make the whole sheriff’s
department colored.”
“I
can’t believe that! That just wouldn’t be right,” said Emma Jean, whose cousin
RJ Lewis was the chief deputy.
“Of
course it wouldn’t,” said Marcie, “but you know how those people are.”
“Lord
save us,” said Maggie. “And what
would his granddaddy, old Harlan, think of that?”
“I
can’t imagine,” said Emma Jean.
“Can
you imagine Harlan Rosebush having such a grandson? I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. It will come to no good, electing an
“African American” to such a high office within the County,” said Marcie. “My Bob said it would be the end of
Christian civilization as we know it.”
“But
Sheriff Rosebush is a good Christian,” said Emma Jean. “And his wife is a good Christian,
too.”
“Well,
I don’t know about that,” said Marcie.
“She’s always celebrating that Kwanzaa. Not like Christmas or Halloween.”
“But
she has a picture of Jesus in her home,” said Emma Jean. “I’ve seen it.”
“When
were you in her home?” said Maggie.
“I
paid her a visit as part of the mission society.”
“I
bet it was a colored Jesus,” said Marcie.
“Now
that I think on it, it was.”
“Hmph,”
said Marcie, as if she needed to say no more.
In
her quiet moments, Emma Jean did not approve of such conversations, for she
knew them to be mean spirited gossip and downright unchristian, but something
pagan in her stirred whenever she was out with the ladies, so that within the
microsecond it takes for sin to etch itself upon the soul, she was gnawing on
every little tidbit along with the rest of them. Even so, she suspected that Jesus was listening in, and
shaking his head with unutterable sadness.
The
Global Radio Gospel Ministries lay before them in the distance, a looming
imitation gothic church made of glass and steel, with lights and more lights
inside like a window onto heaven, and with a small forest of radio towers and
mushroom satellite dishes in the field behind it. It was the biggest building
in Alexandria, and it was a sight to behold. Surrounding the church for what seemed like miles and miles
was a parking lot that was so big the Reverend had hung loudspeakers on all the
light poles to allow the worshippers to listen to the choir as they trudged
onward toward salvation. The early
morning Bible Study was nearly always full, but even so, the parking lot went
on and on, like life itself, even beyond the light poles, leaving pockets of
shadow in the corners. The ladies
had parked as far out as they could because Maggie wanted to protect the paint
job on her husband’s new Lincoln, and to add a thousand steps to their
pedometers.
When
they had finished gnawing on the Sheriff and were moving on to the new youth
minister at the First Baptist Church, who seemed to lisp just a bit more than
they thought appropriate, they happened upon a blue Ford Focus with all the
windows rolled up. The car was
sitting under a light pole where the bulb had burned out. The silhouette of a man sitting in the
driver seat, unmoving, grabbed their attention.
“Someone
should go over there and invite that man into the Bible Study,” said Emma Jean.
The
Sisters looked at her.
“Oh,
no, not me,” said Emma Jean. “I’d be too embarrassed,” she said to
Maggie. “You do it.”
“I’ll
do it,” said Marcie, before her sister could take a step, and trotted over to
the car, one hand pressed to her hat so it wouldn’t fall off. “Sir,” she said tapping on the window,
“sir! Why don’t you come in to the bible study? It’s too hot to stay out here in the parking lot all by
yourself. Sir?” For a moment, there was silence as
Marcie peered through the closed window, and then she began to scream, high
pitched and rhythmic, like a train whistle.
Maggie
ran to her sister to calm her.
“Why, what’s the matter?” she said, but then she too peered into the
car, and then she too backed away and turned, fanning herself with a Ministries
flyer, her face suddenly pale.
Other groups of ladies joined them piecemeal, and soon they too were
screaming, fanning themselves, and bursting into epic tears, while Emma Jean,
who had started it all, remained at a discrete distance watching in horror at
the growing pool of ladies standing around the blue Ford Focus, alternately
weeping and screaming, weeping and screaming. Emma Jean wasn’t going over there for all the money in the
bank. She didn’t want to know.