by V. J. Banis
“It’s sumpthin’ older boys do,” I said. “It’s to attract girls and it makes you look sophisticated.”
“Soph-soph-a-cated—what does that mean?”
“It meeeans you’re ready to kiss,” I answered, puckering my lips.
Kenneth laughed, “Yeah, you couldn’t look sophisticated if you tried, Georgie.”
“Kiss!” he yelled. “I never saw neither one of you kiss girls,” he said disgustedly.
“Well, if you want to try some, I guaran-damn-tee every old woman at church will be squeezin’, kissin’ and slobberin’ all over you,” Kenneth said.
“Girls your age think it looks dumb, but if you want to grease up your head, here,” Kenneth said handing him the bottle.
George didn’t reach for it and stepped back from both of them. “Nah, I almost got smothered by Mrs. Wetzel’s titties the last time she hugged me. I don’t want to encourage her.” He walked away to get his dry clothes on. “Besides, it makes you look stupid.”
“Stupid is okay as long as it keeps Aunt Edith from knowing,” I said under my breath.
Kenneth and I never did feel safe with swimming on the sly. You never knew what George would blurt out in front of their mother, so we kept him with us most of the time even though he was too young for us. You had to feel sorry for him, but I don’t know if he understood yet that his mother cared so little about him and put all her effort into Kenneth. However, I think my family knew it.
Eavesdropping on adult conversations told me a lot, and I got to hear some interesting gossip but usually not all of it. Grandmother Boone would find me close by and I’d hear her say, “Little pitchers have big ears,” and everybody would clam up.
What I heard was Aunt Edith and Uncle Walker, my father’s brother, got married when Edith got pregnant and then the baby was born dead and she got “funny.” From her pictures, she wasn’t very pretty even then and looked nervous, like a scared rabbit, and I remember people saying Walker drank too much and wasn’t the best husband in the world.
Walker led construction crews on big projects, like building bridges all over the country and worked away from home long periods of time. He was away most of every summer, as far as I remember.
In fact, I don’t remember spending much time around him even when he finished a job and was home. He didn’t have much to do with Kenneth and George, so they were like me a lot: fatherless, too.
Kenneth was the first-born son and that came with a special role, which was not different in most families. Edith, however, made him so special he was suffocating under its weight.
Edith spent most of her time at the piano at home or doing church things. She hated drinking, swearing, card playing and jokes. It seemed to me she hated anything that was fun.
Not at all like Lucy, and whenever they were around each other, my mother and Edith didn’t get along. Lucy was a young, more than just a pretty woman, a widow, and like so many whose husbands were killed in the War—a little lost—a lot lost. She and Edith both came from small Alabama farms, with a lot of kids and not much money, but they were so different. Both were thin-lipped women, but Lucy had a great sense of humor and liked to laugh. Edith just didn’t smile much at all. You hardly ever saw her teeth. My mother believed Edith was jealous about most of Lucy, including her face, figure and hair, which she put a henna rinse in that Edith said she “finds shameful.”
And Lucy smoked the Lucky Strikes cigarettes and drank shinney out of glass pint jars, that was illegal in Chester County. Lucy said Chester is one of the driest counties in Alabama and it was hard to get good moonshine there. Aunt Edith found that pretty much disgraceful, but so did Grandmother Boone and the rest of the Boone family.
Lucy’s own family was not too keen on it either.
So me and Kenneth and George stuck together most summer days and went home at suppertime because we had to.
And then we met Cecil Woody.
* * * *
He looked to be older than me and Kenneth, but not by much. He was blond and skinny, so much so, his clothes hung around his body and swallowed him. He was at my grandmother’s house sitting with her on the front porch.
“We’ve been waiting for you, Robert, where’ve you been?” Grandmother Boone said a little too sweetly. I knew she was irritated by the way she rocked the chair she always sat in.
“Playin’ over at Kenneth’s. That’s where I always go, Ma’am.”
“Delia’s been holding supper for us, so don’t be late no more—she wants to finish up and go on home.”
“Yes ma’am,” I answered, but it was not like Delia had to go far; she lived right behind Grandmother’s house.
Grandmother Boone got up from the rocking chair and started toward the door into the house. She was tall and was always dressed up with stockings and black-laced shoes. Her gray hair was worn up on her head and pinned to stay. I never saw her wear lipstick or rouge or even jewelry except for a wedding band, though my grandfather died a long time ago.
“This is Cecil Woody, Robert. He’s new in town,” she said as she stepped into the house.
“Hey,” he said. “I go by Woody.”
“Robert, wash up and come to the table. It’s your turn to thank the Lord for our meal, so hurry up.”
* * * *
Getting to know Woody was easy, even though he came from the north and moved to Arlan to live with his grandparents. We had a lot in common. His mother died a little while ago, and his Dad had been in the Army Air Force most of Woody’s life and died in the War.
When I look back on the summers I spent in Arlan, Alabama with my cousins and Cecil Woody, I know that’s when I learned most about the oddities of people. All my family members have some kind of oddness. I don’t believe I could say any of them are complete kooks, but eccentricity runs abound.
Even our housekeeper, Delia, was part of our Boone family. She didn’t miss much, but before she let my grandmother know what I was doing wrong, she gave me her idea of what I needed to do to correct it. In other words, she gave me a chance to get it right.
“I know you boys were at the creek swimmin’ today,” she said at the dinner table while she was eating lunch with me.
I looked up at her from my plate and nodded like it didn’t make any difference. I ate a bite of fried chicken and followed it with a forkful of butter beans. I could feel her eyes on me waiting for an answer.
“When Miss Edith finds out, you know it’s Kenneth and George she’ll take a switch to. And then she’ll tell your grandmother Boone. What do you think’s gonna happen next?”
I shrugged. “How do you know we were swimmin’, anyway?”
Delia tore off a small section of cornbread and mashed it into her collard greens and took a bite. She did not look at me and continued to chew her food. It felt like forever.
“Who told you? Well, they lied,” I huffed, putting up a good defense, I thought.
She took a bite of chicken and moved the butter beans into the collards. Then she looked up at me. “You’re clean. Hands, face, arms all without dirt, but your clothes are dirty. Edith’s gonna notice it, too.”
* * * *
There was something about Woody that I was drawn to. Maybe it was his calmness, or the soft way he spoke. Not a girly soft; he got your attention easily and you listened.
His grandparent’s house was across the main road and I could see it from my grandmother’s house. The first time I went over to see him, I immediately liked being there. This house was different, I muttered to myself.
“Do you like to read?” I whispered.
“’Course,” Woody answered, standing with both hands in his pockets, the way he stood most all the time, I noticed.
“And why are you whispering,” he whispered, grinning.
“I don’t know. It’s special here, kinda like a sanctuary. It shouldn’t be disturbed.”
“It’s a quiet place. My grandparents are quiet people, I guess. I grew up with lots of books and music,” he said
as he ran his fingers over the piano keys.
And Woody could actually play the piano, and he’s the first boy I knew that admitted that. Grandmother Boone had been after me to learn, but I was not interested.
I began reading all kinds of books from Woody’s house, and soon Kenneth joined us when Aunt Edith allowed him. Even George liked looking at the picture books, and we all liked Life Magazine. So, on the hottest part of the day, we had a refuge.
The room with most of the books had a high ceiling with a rotating fan in it that kept us cool. The curtains were drawn to keep out the sun, and the old Oriental rug was a good place to sprawl. We planned our days at Woody’s.
“The revival tent is already up,” George said gleefully, “and the church meetin’ begins in four days.”
The revival was scheduled to come to town next week, and Grandmother Boone already told me I had to go. Kenneth and George were told the same thing, so there was no excuse we could find to get out of it.
“What are you happy about, George? Grandmother Boone expects us to get saved,” I sighed.
“We were saved last year,” Kenneth said into the carpet, dreading the notion of the screaming preacher’s antics at the revival meetings.
“Not in Grandmother Boone’s eyes. I believe she said we’re gonna be saved or we’ll all burn in hell, including her.”
George grabbed a pillow and put it behind his head. “Not me. I don’t have to have that preacher grabbin’ my head and screamin, ‘Lord, save this boy, save him.’ It’s always fun to watch people cry and twitch and fall down beggin’ for forgiveness. Besides, Mama says I’m too young. I got another year or two.”
“Well, we only said we were saved after the third night. Otherwise we might still be kneeling in front of the preacher,” I said.
“Why?” Woody asked as if he never heard of revivals, which, we learned, he hadn’t.
“You come with us, Woody; there’s no way to explain it, and you’ll never forget it,” Kenneth said wearily looking up at the ceiling as though it wouldn’t be so bad if that fan happened to drop right on him.
“This time we’ll be saved on the first night. Woody, all you have to do is follow what Kenneth and I do. The preacher will explain how hot hell is and when he does, you’ll get saved because nobody wants to spend all of eternity with their fingers on a hot stove.”
“I think I’ll just watch.”
“You and me will watch them, Woody,” George said, happy to have a partner.
* * * *
It was the biggest tent I ever saw, and I imagined it was probably used in a Barnum & Bailey circus. The field where they put it was bushhogged to knock down the weeds and it had a big space for parking. People hitchhiked to get to the revival and flatbed trucks carried them into the parking area. Those unlucky enough not to get rides walked alongside the road. It was a summertime event not to be missed.
The ladies wore Sunday clothes with their best hats. Men were pink faced and freshly shaven and wore clean pressed shirts. All the kids were scrubbed clean and dressed for Sunday school. They were excited by the event and most had never been in a big white tent turned into a church.
On the first night of revival meetings, the preacher, Jimmy Carney, began talking quietly about going to heaven and going to hell.
He was dressed in Sunday church clothes without his suit coat. He rolled up his white shirtsleeves but kept his tie knotted at his neck, which accentuated his large Adam’s apple. He was tall. His face was thin, his eyes were small and his nose was pointed. He reminded me of Ichabod Crane. He was slender and was losing his hair and combed it from one side to the other to keep his bald spot hidden, which made you notice it even more.
I looked over at Woody, but could not get a good read on what he was thinking. George was definitely afraid of the preacher and was scrunching down in his seat. His eyes never left Jimmy Carney. Kenneth looked as though he was looking forward to the evening’s end as much as I was.
The people sang hymns and Preacher Carney talked some more and the louder he got, people began to cry and asked Jesus to save them. Jules Wright, who owned the café in town, came to the front, and Carney asked him to kneel down in front of him. Carney began with a gentle hand on Mr. Wright’s head as he whispered, “Jesus, this man wants to receive the Holy Ghost, Lord, he wants to be saved, please save him, Jesus.”
After a few more minutes, Preacher Carney began rubbing and shaking Mr. Wright’s head pretty hard, and began shouting “Are you saved, are you saved, sir?”
Some people were on their feet, crying and begging to be saved, too. One elderly man who I never saw before fell to the floor speaking in gibberish. George closed his eyes tight and slunk deeper into his seat.
This went on for some time. Carney himself was shaking, and with one hand on Wright’s head, he was outright screaming for God to save him.
Finally, Mr. Wright yelled out that he was saved, and Preacher Carney pulled him to his feet, shouting ‘Thank you, Lord, we all thank you for saving him. Thank you, Jesus,” as he ushered Mr. Wright back into the audience.
I looked at Kenneth and whispered, “I’m glad that’s over.”
Kenneth looked sick. He whispered back, “But it never really is.”
The preacher led the congregation in singing “The Savior Is Waiting.” About that time four men came to the front with baskets on long poles to take up a collection. There were rows of folding chairs of about ten on the left, ten in the center, and ten on the right with aisles on both sides of the center row.
In precise movements, the four men began moving the collection baskets in the first rows, and person after person put a few coins in as it came by them. The pole baskets went onto the next row, and the next.
By the look on George’s face, I knew he was thinking the same thing. “How much money you reckon this preacher gets?” he said loud enough that Grandmother Boone jerked her head our way in disapproval.
The hymn “Stand Up and Bless the Lord.” began and many people were working themselves up into a frenzy to be the next to receive the hands of Jimmy Carney, in order to get to heaven when the time came. I wondered if they were so moved by his preaching or were they genuinely struck by something in the revival tent to make them scream, cry and pull at their hair.
I looked at Woody and he laughed, “I don’t like a lot of noise. If it gets too loud, I can leave.”
I muffled a laugh, but I was nervous, and I knew Kenneth and I would have to go to the front and kneel down in front of Preacher Jimmy Carney and hope the Holy Ghost would receive us.
* * * *
Kenneth and I were scheduled to be baptized in the Oaktepa creek by Preacher Carney, but we heard he fell off his tractor and a replacement was called in to baptize all of us that got saved at the revival meetings.
“I know that guy,” I said to Kenneth while we were waiting our turn and standing on the creek shore with the others. Adults were singing hymns and giving general encouragement to the new members.
“You know the preacher?”
“He’s Clifton Ezell. He’s a preacher from Whynot, and he also sells the best tasting shinney, according to my mother. Sometimes I hang around with him and the other guys when they let me. They taught me to swim a few years ago. Well, they just threw a bunch of us in the creek and walked away. So we learned real quick how to swim.”
Men and women walked out to Clifton, and one by one, he would bend them over, hold their noses and dunk their heads into the water. Once in a while I could hear him preaching over them.
It was time for Kenneth to get baptized and he waded out to Clifton. He had his back to us, and you could see Kenneth floating and Clifton dunking Kenneth’s head, one, two and three times, and he was done and Kenneth started back to shore.
Clifton motioned for me to come, and I began wading out to him. The creek was swift and higher than usual due to the heavy rain last night.
“Hey Clifton,” I said a little nervously since it was hard for me to
stand in the water as I approached him. He held onto me, but I was dependent on him to keep my head out of the water, since he had me floating in front of him.
“Hey, Robert. Are you ready to be baptized,” he said grinning at me.
I nodded yes and before I got a good breath, he dunked my head backwards and lifted me back up. I shook the water out of my eyes and sputtered, “Let me get a good breath before you dunk...,” and back down I went.
The dunk was a lot longer than the first one and I realized this was not what he was doing to everybody else here. I grabbed his pants and twisted, and he finally lifted my head out of the water. I looked up at him like he’d lost his mind, and he was laughing so hard his face was turned inside out, an expression my mother said all the time. His mouth was open wide, but he wasn’t making a sound.
“You low life sonofabitch. You tryin’ to drown me, you cocksucker. This is not funny....”
Down my head went for the third time and it was longer than the second. I kicked him and grabbed his arms and put up a good fight until he finally lifted my head out of the water.
People on the shore were singing and could not hear me and did not notice what Clifton was doing since his back was facing them.
I sputtered and shook the water off my face and saw him laughing so hard he was bent over me and shaking with it.
“You’re a crazy motherfucker, Clifton.” He let me go and I headed back to shore.
“And you’re saved and baptized, Robert Boone. He welcomes you,” he said grinning wildly.
* * * *
Woody and I were alone at the creek, and after a swim we sat on the bank drying off. He was thinking about something far off, I thought, as I watched him stare into space.
A cool breeze ruffled the oaks hanging over the water, and the leaves moved in unison to their own chorus line dance. I finally threw a rock into the creek to break the silence. He turned toward me and I noticed his large blue eyes, I think for the first time. I’ve heard talk before of some people having an old soul. If there is such a thing, Woody was one of them. He continued to stare in my direction and finally broke the silence.
