The Truest Pleasure (22 page)

Tom give Florrie a dollar a day to scrub and clean, to wash the clothes and diapers out by the springhouse. I think he hired her just to spite me, and because he liked to listen to her talk. Florrie was always ready for a good laugh. And she was happy to gossip about the revival meetings. I heard her one day at the clothesline talking to Tom. She was hanging out shirts and Tom had stopped on his way to the pasture to catch the horse.

“I'll tell you the truth, Tom,” she said, “I don't confidence these Holiness goings on. I was setting there pretty as you please at meeting and Sister Lily stood up to shout and testify. She was going on to beat the band and accusing everybody else of not being in the Spirit. So I says to myself, I'll just test her spirit. I up and smiled at her this pretty smile when she turned toward me. And she said to everybody, ‘Now Sister Florrie is in the true spirit.' But actually I was setting there thinking what a hypocrite she was and how I didn't confidence her at all.”

Here is my own sister talking to my husband about our meetings behind my back, I thought. How would any woman feel? I figured Tom wanted me to get mad and tell Florrie to leave, and then he would have won by seeming so kind toward Florrie and me so mean. She knowed how to be sweet as pie to Tom, and she stabbed me in the back right there in my own house. But I saw if I throwed it up to her and Tom it would only make me look bad. And she would have another story to tell people.

That fall after Muir Ray was born there was a meeting in a brush arbor up in Mountain Valley. That was a little community near the head of Cabin Creek. About a mile above
where it reached the river the creek plunged through a gorge of rocks and hemlocks and turned the biggest mill in our end of the county. And above the gorge was the prettiest valley you ever saw, setting like a cradle on the ridge tops. Most of the people that lived there was Raeburns, and they had lived there since it was Indian land.

It was a Raeburn converted by a preacher from South Carolina that built the brush arbor. He could have held the service in his house, except his wife was a strict Baptist and threatened to shoot anybody that come near with the “Holiness sickness.” But meetings always went better in the woods anyway, among the trees and elements. It was like houses and too much light killed the Spirit. There was a secret and a mystery to meeting in the woods. In the lanternlight you could feel the Spirit moving. It was good to get away from the greed and spite of everyday life.

I took the baby with me to the first meeting. Pa and me rode in the wagon up the valley with Joe and Lily. It had been almost two years since I had gone to a revival. There was a hunger in me I had noticed more and more. It was a craving for joy, for praise and thanksgiving. The purpose of life was to praise. Whether Tom understood or not, it was a need that was real. As we creaked up the road just before dark I said to myself, Human life is too short for us to put off doing what we was meant to do.

The brush arbor was built at the edge of a pine thicket, across a field from the road. Among those standing outside was the Gibson boys from up on the mountain. Some carried rifles and some had pistols in their belts. I'd never heard of the
Gibsons coming to service before. During Pa's boundary dispute with the Johnsons when I was a girl the Gibsons had sided with the Johnsons. It was said they was blockaders and horse thieves. During the Confederate War the Gibsons had been outliers with the Johnsons, running in bands at night and robbing folks. I wondered if they had been converted.

But many others was regular Pentecostals. There was old Jim Wheeler who was a whirler. When he got full of the Spirit he stood up and swung his arm around like it was a windmill. He would stand there sweating and his arm went round and round in a blur. And there was little Ronnie Cartee that was known as a barker. After the Spirit touched him he run out to a tree and grabbed it with both hands. Looking up the tree he howled like a dog at the moon. Nobody knowed why he did it. It was his way of showing joy. Everybody has their own way of being happy.

At the back of the brush arbor was lanky George Leland. He was knowed among the people as “leaping George” because when he got happy he started jumping over things. He would jump over stumps and chairs. He leapfrogged people praying, and once at Crossroads he jumped all the way over the pulpit. To watch him slouch before a service you wouldn't think he had so much life in him.

I wish I could tell you what the preacher preached that night, but I can't recall. I just know he kept us waiting a long time as we set on the benches, and the air was tight. The boys outside kept muttering and laughing, and that sounded wrong. It was like they had come to a fair or circus show. I was scared a little.

Finally Allen Raeburn and Ben MacBane come out of the woods carrying a lantern. The preacher was behind them. He
was a little red-faced man in a gray suit. Ben hung the lantern on a pole and stood in front of us. I looked to see what had happened to the preacher. He had dropped to his knees just at the entrance to the arbor, and he stayed there with his eyes closed.

“We will raise a hymn,” Ben said. Now it was always a joy to hear Ben sing. He had a voice so pure it seemed to come from clear back in time. When you heard him you thought, That's what music was meant to be. Other voices was just echoes of his.

“‘Revive Us Again,'” Ben called out. And we sung that old revival number, as Ben lined out each verse beforehand. I felt this sweetness raising in me. It was a taste from deep down. I believe people have a taste for food, and for loving, but those are just echoes of the taste for divine love. Humans was put here to experience that love, and to praise. Now that I was beginning to find joy, I saw how hungry I had been for the last two years.

After “Revive Us Again” we sung “Work for the Night Is Coming.” The Reece woman from the village and Tildy Tankersley was already shouting. But when the song was over they stopped. Everybody looked at the preacher. He stayed on his knees with his eyes closed. It appeared he was in some kind of spell.

“Wake him up,” one of the boys out in the dark muttered, and there was giggles among the trees.

Slowly the preacher got to his feet. He walked to the front and stood by the lantern. He stretched out his arms and looked side to side. “I don't believe we have to settle for less than joy,” he said. “We was put on earth to praise and feel joy.”

“Amen,” Joe said.

“I believe we can know the Savior and feel joy,” the preacher said. “I don't think we was put here to mourn. I don't think we was put here to whine and complain, to backbite and prevaricate. I believe we was put here to see the light and to be the light.”

“Amen,” Joe said. Other men joined in.

I felt a burning in me. It was as if a flame of sweetness went through my bones, up and down my spine. It was a wine flame flushing through me in many colors a message I needed to hear.

“Only thing keeping you from the joy of the Spirit is selfishness and timidity. Only thing stopping you is yourself. The Devil wants you to fall back into fear and self-pity. The Devil wants you to feel miserable and alone.”

“Amen,” Joe and other men said. Women never said amen to the preacher.

“All you have to do is accept the baptism in your heart,” the preacher said. “It is a gift, and all you need to do is take it.”

Somebody belched loud in the dark. There was snickers out in the trees. The preacher stopped and looked around. He looked out in the dark, and he looked from side to side of the brush arbor. He waited a long time to speak again. “Woe unto them that try to mock the Spirit,” he said. “God will not be mocked.”

“Amen,” Joe said.

“He that mocks the Spirit is in danger of hellfire.”

“Hellfire!” somebody said out in the dark.

“Woe unto the doubters and mockers, and them that would test the Spirit,” the preacher said.

“Amen, b-b-brother,” Joe said.

“Someone is here tonight who may have lost her way,” the preacher said. “Someone is here tonight that has lost her joy and assurance.” The preacher paused and looked at me. It was like he saw right into my head. I felt a shudder go through my bones.

“I'm here to tell you it's not too late,” he said. “The baptism is here for whoever will accept it.”

I felt myself lifted up. It was like a wave went through me to bear me away. I looked right into the preacher's eyes and a wind roared through my head. I didn't know what I was doing, and at the same time I did know, because it had happened before. I was watching myself soar in a high black wind. I knowed I was tasting a drop of the glory that was meant for everybody. I was riding in the flood of words white as mountains of dogwood blossoms. It was white-hot at the center of everything.

“Bless you, sister, bless you,” the preacher said. He was standing in front of me and I could feel my feet again. “Bless you,” he said. “You have received a message meant for us all.”

I was holding the baby to my chest and once again the front of my dress was wet with milk. I felt I had woke from a long fever unsteady on my feet. It was like I had been give a new life and was weak as a newborn. Pa held me at the elbow and shoulder.

Just then there was a noise, like the sky had cracked open. My first thought was the Rapture had come and Jesus was breaking through the top of the sky. “Lord help us,” somebody hollered.

Then there was another crack, and I knowed it was a rifle shot. Somebody on the ridge or in the thicket was shooting over the brush arbor. The bullets hummed like guitar strings.

“Don't be afraid,” the preacher said.

There was another shot, and this time the bullet hit the brush above our heads. Pine needles and bits of bark and trash sifted down on us. I held Muir tight to my chest and bent over to protect him. People had dropped to the sawdust and others crawled to the door. “Keep low,” Pa said.

A lot of the men inside had pistols in their pockets. They must have knowed there was going to be trouble. They waved the guns around like they didn't know where to point them.

“Who is out there?” the preacher hollered.

“Stop shooting,” Ben MacBane called.

There was shots from all directions. Bullets buzzed like hornets in the brush. The lantern was shot out, but guns went right on banging. The night was exploding in booms and squirts of fire. You could smell burnt powder. Muir started bellowing.

“Let's go,” Pa said. We stooped over low as we could walk and worked our way to the door. There didn't seem to be anybody blocking the door, but everywhere there was flashes and bangs in the woods. We bent low as we could and kept going toward the wagon in the field. Joe and Lily stayed right behind us.

When Tom heard about the shoot-out at Mountain Valley he was madder than ever. “You're not taking the baby again,” he said.

“A baby belongs with its mother,” I said.

“A mother belongs at home with her husband,” Tom said.

The second night, as we prepared to leave, Tom come in from the field and picked up Muir. I run over and held out my hands
to take him back. I stood there a few seconds looking Tom hard in the eyes, and then I turned around and left with Pa.

“You'll come back when your breasts get full,” Tom said.

After that second night Tom had a new attitude. Maybe it was the fact that he was getting older, or was long familiar with the bitterness between us. It was like he turned away and shut me out that summer. I know he hated me for shouting in front of other people, dancing in front of other men. I know he felt betrayed in some intimate way. Through the long days of summer and fall he worked hard as ever pulling fodder and cutting tops, selling corn and tomatoes in the village, making molasses. It was the money that he used to spite me. He made more than he ever had. He paid Florrie to come over and clean, and he paid Joe and David and the oldest Waters boy to help in the cane patch. I had never seen him work so hard or ignore me so completely.

Tom come from the field dirty and tired just as Pa and me was leaving for Mountain Valley. He kept Jewel and Moody on the porch with him, and he held the baby. Sometimes he made a cutting remark, but mostly he just watched. His silence was sharper than words. I believe Tom had come to some rage beyond rage that looked like patience and cunning. But it might also have been indifference. It was a virtue he had, for hard work and waiting, but tempered with hate. He was showing the world how patient and frugal he could be, while his wife was shaming herself at meetings and giving his money away to preachers.

I know Florrie must have told him that's the way she saw it too, and that's the way the rest of the community saw him.
That was his new satisfaction, that he had an ally in Florrie, and that he could endure. His hard work was itself a revenge.

All that summer and fall Florrie worked at the house. She come almost every day. Since she never did any work in her own house, and didn't have children of her own, there was nothing to keep her from coming to mine. I know she enjoyed taking Tom's side against me. Since we had been little girls she was always teasing me about my reading, and about religious things. She said the revival meetings caused more trouble than any good they did. Our mama had taught her that when we was little girls.

I tried not to show my resentment of Florrie. I would be playing right into her trap if I did. And after all, she was my sister, coming over every day to help out. It would look bad if I quarreled. David's cough kept getting worse, and she needed the money Tom paid. David had bad lungs, and had to be careful not to strain hisself. People said he had TB, but him and Florrie would not admit he was suffering from anything but a cold.

I said to myself it didn't mean a thing that Florrie talked and laughed with Tom whenever she got the chance. They was brother and sister by marriage. They was close in age, and in the same family. And Florrie was a lively person. She had the same spirit I had in me, except she didn't spend it reading and going to meetings. There was certain things her and me didn't talk about and that was how we managed to get along. She never did tell me many jokes and we almost never talked about religion. That's what I had to do to keep the peace.