ma’am,” he said, “but the Reverend was inebriated.”
Mama shot him a glare. “What?”
“Drunk.”
“Not Malachi. Impossible—”
“As a skunk,” Radney said. “Go on in and smell for yourself.”
+ + +
Father was hunched over in the back pew—the same seat where I sat most Sundays, doodling in my notebook and dodging the sermon. Mama tried to rouse him, but Father hid his face in his hands. I didn’t see any blood, but on top of his head was a big purple goose-egg from the frozen chicken.
Radney sauntered up behind Mama and lit a cigarette. “One thing I forgot to tell you,” he said. “There’s something funny with his eyes. When I found him, there was white stuff splattered all over his face. I wiped it off, but he still couldn’t see anything. Had to lead him in here like a blind man.”
Mama fanned away the smoke. “What kind of white stuff?”
“At first I thought was paint—till I smelt it. It’s the damndest thing but, while he was lying there, a bird must’ve flew over and, you know, shit on his face. Pardon the language.” Radney cast a glance around the sanctuary. “Don’t know what kind of bird could’ve dropped a load that size. Must’ve been a big mother.”
I was too shocked to feel anything, but Mama started to cry.
Radney tried to put his hand on her shoulder, but she jerked away. After an awkward silence, he dropped his cigarette on the church floor and ground it out. “Got to get back to the station and file a report.”
+ + +
File a report, my ass. Radney drove straight to Bob’s Barber Shop to gloat. By noon, the whole town was abuzz over Father’s disgrace.
The church elders held an emergency meeting that night and declared Father unfit for ministry. They gave us two months to vacate the parsonage and find a new home. Brother Lester Crouch was appointed interim pastor.
Brother Lester and his wife had thirteen children whose names were all from the Bible and started with “J”—John, Josiah, Jerusha, Jehosephat, and so on. (I always wondered when they’d get stuck with Jezebel.) Lester was the obvious choice for pastor, I guess, since he’d sired half the congregation.
The next day, the Remus Register carried a front-page exposé. A fallen preacher was big news for a paper usually devoted to livestock trades, obituaries, and reports of unusually-shaped vegetables.
According to the Register , Father had driven to the Beaver Lodge, a tavern north of town. “He came in and sat alone in a corner,” the tavern keeper said.
Nobody knew who he was. After about an hour, I told him to order up or get out. We don’t stand for vagrants loitering around. Then he asked for apple juice. Now, nobody asks for apple juice this time of year unless they mean the hard stuff, so I brought him a mug of hard cider. He sure liked it, because he ordered up another mug, and then another. After eight or ten mugs, his spirits lightened considerably. Then he told us he was a preacher, so the boys asked him to lead in a hymn. He obliged with “Brighten the Corner Where You Are,” and everybody joined him on the chorus:
Brighten the corner where you are!
Someone far from harbor
you may lead across the bar,
So brighten the corner where you are!
Reverend Henry really raised the roof on that part about “the bar.” After that, he stood up on the pool table and preached a sermon about how Jesus turned water into liquor. By the end, he was whooping and hollering. It was a regular revival. A little while later, he slipped out the door. Drove off without even paying. I should have known better than to trust a preacher.
Mama and I could scarcely believe it. Father was such a strict teetotaler that he never even touched grapes; “wine in the cluster,” he called them. But, as with Adam and Eve, apples were his undoing.
CHAPTER 4
F OR a full week, Father didn’t say a single word. He stayed in his study, taking only bread and water. Mama tried
Mama shot him a glare. “What?”
“Drunk.”
“Not Malachi. Impossible—”
“As a skunk,” Radney said. “Go on in and smell for yourself.”
+ + +
Father was hunched over in the back pew—the same seat where I sat most Sundays, doodling in my notebook and dodging the sermon. Mama tried to rouse him, but Father hid his face in his hands. I didn’t see any blood, but on top of his head was a big purple goose-egg from the frozen chicken.
Radney sauntered up behind Mama and lit a cigarette. “One thing I forgot to tell you,” he said. “There’s something funny with his eyes. When I found him, there was white stuff splattered all over his face. I wiped it off, but he still couldn’t see anything. Had to lead him in here like a blind man.”
Mama fanned away the smoke. “What kind of white stuff?”
“At first I thought was paint—till I smelt it. It’s the damndest thing but, while he was lying there, a bird must’ve flew over and, you know, shit on his face. Pardon the language.” Radney cast a glance around the sanctuary. “Don’t know what kind of bird could’ve dropped a load that size. Must’ve been a big mother.”
I was too shocked to feel anything, but Mama started to cry.
Radney tried to put his hand on her shoulder, but she jerked away. After an awkward silence, he dropped his cigarette on the church floor and ground it out. “Got to get back to the station and file a report.”
+ + +
File a report, my ass. Radney drove straight to Bob’s Barber Shop to gloat. By noon, the whole town was abuzz over Father’s disgrace.
The church elders held an emergency meeting that night and declared Father unfit for ministry. They gave us two months to vacate the parsonage and find a new home. Brother Lester Crouch was appointed interim pastor.
Brother Lester and his wife had thirteen children whose names were all from the Bible and started with “J”—John, Josiah, Jerusha, Jehosephat, and so on. (I always wondered when they’d get stuck with Jezebel.) Lester was the obvious choice for pastor, I guess, since he’d sired half the congregation.
The next day, the Remus Register carried a front-page exposé. A fallen preacher was big news for a paper usually devoted to livestock trades, obituaries, and reports of unusually-shaped vegetables.
According to the Register , Father had driven to the Beaver Lodge, a tavern north of town. “He came in and sat alone in a corner,” the tavern keeper said.
Nobody knew who he was. After about an hour, I told him to order up or get out. We don’t stand for vagrants loitering around. Then he asked for apple juice. Now, nobody asks for apple juice this time of year unless they mean the hard stuff, so I brought him a mug of hard cider. He sure liked it, because he ordered up another mug, and then another. After eight or ten mugs, his spirits lightened considerably. Then he told us he was a preacher, so the boys asked him to lead in a hymn. He obliged with “Brighten the Corner Where You Are,” and everybody joined him on the chorus:
Brighten the corner where you are!
Someone far from harbor
you may lead across the bar,
So brighten the corner where you are!
Reverend Henry really raised the roof on that part about “the bar.” After that, he stood up on the pool table and preached a sermon about how Jesus turned water into liquor. By the end, he was whooping and hollering. It was a regular revival. A little while later, he slipped out the door. Drove off without even paying. I should have known better than to trust a preacher.
Mama and I could scarcely believe it. Father was such a strict teetotaler that he never even touched grapes; “wine in the cluster,” he called them. But, as with Adam and Eve, apples were his undoing.
CHAPTER 4
F OR a full week, Father didn’t say a single word. He stayed in his study, taking only bread and water. Mama tried
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