The Red Fox Bible
Page 1
The Red Fox Bible
Jody Zimmerman
Published by JEZ LLC
Copyright 2013 Jody Zimmerman
The burgundy velvet curtains parted and billows of steam rolled out from the baptismal pool down onto the forty-three choir members of the newly air conditioned Willow Springs Baptist Church. I peered in amazement down the tile stairs leading into the pool. I had always thought it would be ice cold when Preacher Herndon put that white cloth over your nose and mouth and plunged you into the waters of salvation.
A man who had married one of the Thompson girls last year stood behind me. I couldn’t remember his name, but I remember that he had walked up to the front of the church a few Sundays ago to rededicate his life to Christ and asked that he be baptized again. I heard Mamma say to Aunt Nell after church that Sunday that it was a crying shame that Shirley Thompson had fallen for a good looking drunk from Atlanta.
The man put his hands on my shoulders and whispered down to me in a slow, deep voice that sent chills down my spine. “Go get ‘em killer, you’re next to get dunked.” I turned around and smiled at him.
Just about everyone in our congregation got the calling by the time they turned twelve. If you hadn’t received Christ by then, most folks reckoned you were on the road to no good. My best friend Rusty got the calling when he was nine. I never did believe him because when I asked him how he knew all he said was that he just knew. He then added that his Mamma had said it was about time.
I never did believe any of the kids who bragged that they got the true calling. I remember gum-chewing eight-year-old girls in their shiny patent leather shoes and lace-trimmed Sunday dresses marching up to the front of the church to profess their devotion to Jesus and ask that they be baptized at the next baptism service. How could someone in the third grade really know?
I was almost twelve years old, and one Sunday three weeks ago during the Benediction, just as the final hymn was being sung and nobody came forward to accept the Lord that day, Mamma reached over and pushed me hard in the direction of Preacher Herndon.
Before I knew anything was happening, Preacher Herndon was hugging on me and welcoming me to the Lord Jesus Christ. I was so shocked and confused that for a minute I just stood there with my mouth wide open trying to breathe.
I would have bet you a five-dollar bill Mamma and Preacher Herndon planned it all out. I thought it was highly unusual that Mamma had insisted we sit up so close to the front that morning. When I questioned her, she just said she wanted to get a good look at the new choir robes, so I let it pass. She always put us in the back half of pews. We had been sitting there for as long as I could remember. I remember laying my head in Mamma's lap and sleeping when I first started attending “Big Church” when I was six. If I was in a wiggling mood, she'd pull off her white gloves and turn her diamond ring in the light so the sparkle would catch my eye, and I would look at all the fiery colors and sit still. Sometimes she'd even take it off and let me hold it. I also remember getting switched real good by Mamma after church if I cried or threw a fit while Preacher Herndon raved on. Mamma would go out in the back yard after church, cut off a skinny branch from the hickory bush and switch my legs until they had little red stripes crisscrossed all over them.
Preacher Herndon was praying out loud with his eyes closed and squeezing my right arm hard. "Dear Lord, we thank thee for thy bountiful praises. Have mercy on our weak and sinful souls on this beautiful Sabbath. Your young disciple Bobby has chosen the path away from the devil. In this glorious moment he has gained the courage of David and the wisdom of Solomon to stand forth in front of you and the world, relinquishing his sinful ways, so he can follow a life of righteousness you so mercifully allow us to lead. He will resist Satan’s temptations so many of our youth succumb to these days: drugs, fornication, disrespect for elders….” Every few seconds the Preacher’s musty breath hit my face and the hairs on the back of my neck bristled. Chills ran up my head all the way through my crew cut and down my spine to my tailbone.
I knew this prayer would go on a bit so I peeked to get a good view of the congregation. I always peeked whenever Preacher Herndon was praying. Mamma said you weren't supposed to peek, that you weren't really praying unless your eyes were fully shut. You wouldn't believe the number of other people who peeked too, sometimes even Mamma. Today, she wasn't just peeking, but her eyes were wide open and she was whispering something to Aunt Nell beside her. They both looked real satisfied. And I always thought that I was Aunt Nell's favorite and that she was always on my side. Traitor Nell was in on this plot too.
Preacher Herndon was winding up really loud, almost shouting, voice sometimes even quivering, and then, just like clockwork, he faded it down towards the final Amen into a smooth, melodic, almost whisper with all his s's coming out in a faint but shrill whistle. Ever since the Preacher had a microphone installed in the sanctuary a few years back, you could hear his s's whistle as clear as a bell. He always prayed in that manner, no matter what the subject and no matter what the occasion. Topics that really got him wound up included hippies, draft dodgers, fornicators, adulterers, greed, and especially marijuana and LSD users. He would wave his hands wildly about often holding a Bible in one hand and a white handkerchief in the other which he constantly wiped over his sweating forehead. He would bang his fists on the podium and scream so loud about the devil and sinning and our vengeful God that I reckoned I was doomed to burn in hell for eternity no matter how good I tried to be.
The worst part of my twelve years on earth commenced when every single person in that church, including the forty-three members of the choir, lined up to shake my hand, kiss me, and congratulate me on my newly found faith. I thought I would die on the spot from all those hands and faces and questions and red lipstick all over my cheeks.
Back home at Sunday lunch I wouldn't say a word to Mamma or Aunt Nell, no matter how many juicy drumsticks they waved at me. I ate my fried chicken, fried okra, mashed potatoes with white gravy, green beans, cantaloupe, sliced tomatoes and Mamma’s good biscuits made from scratch like I always did. I even drank three full glasses of sweet iced tea with lemon. But when Mamma pushed a big bowl of homemade peach cobbler and vanilla ice cream at me with a victorious smile on her face, I took myself right out of the dining room without so much as a thank you or excuse me and let the screen door slam hard on the way out back. I kept on walking straight to my secret place deep in the woods.
There was a small stream there that ran clear all year long, even in the dry part of summer and the frozen part of winter. In the early spring I would stick my hands in the cold water and catch little, slimy black salamanders covered with white dots. I always let them go after examining them. The stream flowed through a small ravine that was lined with big hardwood trees. On the top of the west side of the ravine, there was the thickest carpet of green moss I'd ever seen. I loved stretching out on the moss and listening to the sounds of the woods with my eyes closed--the stream, the wind, and the birds. Sometimes I fell asleep for more than a solid hour on that moss. Somehow daffodils got out there in the middle of nowhere. Every spring about a million of them bloomed right in that ravine and around my carpet of moss. I loved to pick the bright yellow daffodils for Mamma. She always gave me a suspicious look and asked if I had picked them from Miss Whitmore’s yard. She never believed me when I told her I found them in the woods.
I would turn twelve in August. I loved science, and I loved learning new things. By the time I was ten, I had read the entire set of the World Book Encyclopedia from A to XYZ. I also read a lot of science books, especially books about animals and astronomy. I knew what evolution was, and I managed to find Mr. Charles Dar
win's book Origin of Species in the public library. I wouldn't dare check it out and risk Mamma finding it, so I spent many hours hiding in the library reading it. Because of Sunday School and Prayer Meetings I had read just about all of the King James Version of the Bible too.
Over the past few months I had been having a terrible recurrent nightmare— as Jesus, clad in white flowing robes with brown eyes and a long auburn beard and hair with his gold halo shining brightly, approached me with his hands out and a warm smile on his face, I pulled out a black revolver and shot him in the heart. I would wake up in a terrible cold sweat, panting, and afraid. At first I was sure I was doomed to hell. Why was I dreaming such blasphemous dreams? I had no one to turn to; I couldn’t reveal this to anyone. So I retreated to my secret place every chance I could get to think things through.
In early March, on an unusually warm Saturday afternoon when the daffodils were at their peak, I had gone to my moss bed to think. I fell asleep for a while and woke up on my stomach. As I opened my eyes and looked up toward the top of the ravine at an old oak tree