This Rock (15 page)

“Could be,” I said.

I
WAS PLANNING
to drive Mama and Fay to church in the Model T, but while I was waiting for Fay to finish primping in front of the mirror in the kitchen, and while Mama was reading her Bible by the fireplace, I heard the car start. It sputtered and barked and then went
tut-tut-tut-tut
. I run out the door, but by the time I got to the shed Moody was already driving through the gate and up the hill toward the spring. I knowed he was going after the cans I'd left by the creek. I was sorry I'd told him where they was.

I slammed the door as I come back inside.

“Won't hurt us to walk,” Mama said and closed her Bible.

“Now I'll get my shoes dirty,” Fay said.

“Hope he has a wreck,” I said.

“That's no spirit to take to church,” Mama said. “Preaching won't do you no good if you feel like that.”

I'd wanted Annie to see me driving the car. Thought I might ask if she wanted to go for a drive that afternoon. I didn't know what I'd planned to do, but I wanted the car just in case.

“Let's go,” Mama said.

“At least we used to have a buggy,” Fay said.

“We have always walked to church,” Mama said.

P
REACHER
L
INER WAS
a loud preacher. He had a harsh voice with a rattle and slap at the top of it. When his voice rose to a high
pitch you felt like you had been smacked. He preached long sermons that had a lot of pressure in them. He preached like he was pushing the air tight and close around your head. I was already ashamed of myself. I figured his sermon would make me more ashamed.

I hoped Annie Richards would look around. I wanted to see the pure perfect skin of her cheek. I wanted to see if she had an earring on her delicate little ear. Even though she was only fourteen, she sometimes wore earrings. Her hair had a sparkle to it even in the dim light.

“You may think you can hide your ugly sin in a new car or a fine buggy,” Preacher Liner shouted. “You may think you can outrun your sin on a fast horse, or by climbing to a mountaintop in rain or snow. You may think you can hide your sin behind good deeds and charity and helping others. You may think you can hide your sin behind a smile, behind hard work or money, behind a fine house and a new barn. You may even think you can hide your sin in church, setting up front and listening to a sermon. Well, I'm here to tell you the Lord has found you out. Your sin is black and foul. Your sin is stinking in the nostrils of heaven. You couldn't hide such sin in the deepest well; you couldn't hide your sin at the bottom of a coal mine or under the ocean. The Lord sees your heart and sees your sin like it was laid out on a table in front of a courtroom.”

I looked at Annie and she turned her head to the right. She didn't turn far enough to see me watching her. But I seen the gray of her eye and the faint redness of her cheek. Her features was sharp and delicate at the same time. She knowed I was looking at her. She knowed I always looked at her when I went to church.

“You may think you can hide your sin at the back of your mind under a new hat,” Preacher Liner said. “You think you can hide your filthy heart under new clothes and fine jewelry. You think you can hide your sin behind a fine singing voice or a musical talent. You may think you can run to the end of the world and get away from the Lord's work.”

The preacher paused and glared at us.

“Well, I'm here to tell you the Lord has found you out. The Lord has looked into your polluted heart and found you out. The Lord knows your vice and your corruption. The Lord knows your every
move and weaselly evasion. The Lord will cut you off like the diseased branch of a tree. The Lord will smite you like the wicked of Sodom and Gomorrah. The Lord will whip you out of the temple as he drove the money changers out of the synagogue. The Lord will cast you into the outer darkness with his fallen angels and wipe your name from the book of life.”

Annie was too young to be courting, but sometimes her papa, Hank, would let her walk home from church with a boy. She was already the most popular girl in the community, even though she was just fourteen and beginning to show her womanly shape. Sometimes she would flirt, and sometimes she would just ignore you. She was the only girl I knowed that would act like she didn't even see you or hear you if she didn't feel like talking. Just the fact that Annie was in the church, and that I could see her, give the church a sparkle and a glow.

“When you come to the end of the way,” Preacher Liner said, “when you come down to the threshold of death, what will you have to say for yourself? Will the Lord look into your heart and see the cancer of sin growing there? Will your sin be wrote across your forehead when you stand before the Judgment? Will the Lord say, Cast him into outer darkness, I never knew him? Will your sin weigh you down as you try to rise at the Second Coming?

“My friends, many of you setting here in church will never see death. For the end of time is near, and the Second Coming is near. And the day will come not too far off when the Lord will bust through the eastern sky with all his host of angels and call for his own. And the saved will be lifted up, and them washed in the blood will be lifted up, and them that has repented will be took up to heaven. And the rest will be left on this cold earth.”

Preacher Liner paused and wiped his brow. He'd been preaching so loud the church still rung with the sound of his voice. The air was stirred up by the awful words. The air had shadows and needles in it. I looked at Annie but she didn't turn around. The sight of her was the only sweet thing in the church. The color of her hair was the only soothing thing in sight. I didn't want to think about what the preacher was saying. I felt little as a cockroach. I didn't want to think about
what I'd done the night before. All I wanted to think about was Annie.

One time when I was about fifteen I was passing through the orchard behind the Richards house on my way up the mountain to pick blackberries. Mama wanted blackberries for a cobbler for Sunday dinner, and the berries was gone in the pasture down by the branch. As I skirted between the apple trees and plum and pear trees I heard somebody singing. It was Annie's voice. Even then she had the prettiest voice in church. I stepped closer to hear better.

When I come to the Golden Delicious tree at the edge of the orchard, I seen Annie standing by the table beside the washpot. She was washing her hair in a pan, and she had only a slip over her bare shoulders. I stepped back behind a tree and then got behind a rose of Sharon bush before she seen me.

I hadn't meant to spy on Annie, but I knowed she'd be embarrassed if I walked up on her wearing nothing but a petticoat. I couldn't help myself. I stood behind the rose of Sharon bush and watched her pour dippers of water over her hair to rinse it, and then start to comb it. In the sun her hair looked bright even though it was wet. Her shoulders was slender and perfect, and her arms was white as cream. Her new breasts was showing under the petticoat.

I can still remember how Annie sung to herself an old song called “Gentle Annie.” It was a sweet tune and she sung it in a low voice. As she sung she rubbed the drops from her neck and shoulders and wiped the wetness from her arms down to the wrists. Then she spread her hair on her shoulders so it would dry fast in the sun. And she combed out each strand slow so it dried even quicker in the Saturday sun. The hair got brighter and brighter as she combed it out.

Annie set down on a tub and shook her hair so it spread out again around her neck and shoulders. Her voice was pure as the ring of one glass on another. It was pure as the sound of springwater pouring into a pool.

Annie was so beautiful it was hard for me to look at her. But I couldn't look away. It seemed impossible she could ever love anybody like me. I knowed I would always love her, whether she loved me or not. I promised myself I would always love her.

When her hair was dry she stood up and lifted a basket to gather clothes in. She walked to the clothesline and with her slim white arms unpinned sheets and pillowcases, shirts and underwear, from the line. She folded the clothes into the basket and started singing again. I breathed out and realized I'd held my breath for a long time.

“F
OR WE KNOW
where the wicked shall go,” Preacher Liner said. “They are bound for the fiery pit. They're doomed to the lake of fire. They are throwed into the everlasting darkness. If you think a match will burn you, if you think a hot stove will burn you, imagine a lake of fire hotter ten thousand times than burning gasoline. Imagine a lake of fire hotter than a furnace, hotter than a forge that melts steel.”

Preacher Liner stopped and leaned over the pulpit. We waited for him to go on, but he didn't. He just looked at us, and everybody was froze, like their joints had turned to chalk, like they was bracing theirselves for a blow in the face. But Preacher Liner didn't say nothing for a long time. He looked over the congregation like we was filth and he didn't have no hope for us. Finally he motioned to the song leader to start the invitational hymn.

As the choir sung “Just As I Am” I sung along too, but I looked down at my hands on the bench in front of me. And I tried to think about sunlight on the pine trees and the north side of the pasture hill where the frost stayed on the grass all day. I looked up but couldn't see Annie because of big fat Ruthie Tillman in front of me. I wanted to see the sweet color of Annie's hair.

“Is there anybody here troubled in their heart?” Preacher Liner hollered above the singing. “Is there anybody here that feels the need to get right?”

I was glad church would be over in a few minutes and I'd be out in the cool breeze and sunshine. I tried to think what I'd say to Annie when she come out of the church. I would stand at the steps and when she come out the door I'd take off my hat and speak to her.

“Don't listen to the devil whispering in your ear to hold back,” the preacher shouted. “Hell is full of procrastinators. Hell is packed with them that couldn't make up their minds.”

I'd have to get out of the church and stand close to the door, or one of the other boys would ask Annie first. Only walking with Annie would help me redeem myself. And if there was two asking at the same time, Annie would just ignore them both. I'd seen her do it. She'd walk right on by and not let nobody walk her home.

“The Lord might bust through the eastern sky any minute,” the preacher yelled. “With his host of angels he'll split the blue sky in two and call up his saints to heaven. Will you be left standing on this sorry earth? Will you gnash your teeth and cry out for the rocks and mountains to fall on you?”

As Ruthie Tillman swayed with the song I caught a glimpse of Annie's hair. It was the color an angel's hair would be, so fine and glistening in the dusky church air. Her hair had sunlight in it.

“If you end up in hell, don't blame this church,” Preacher Liner hollered. “Don't blame the members of this church and the deacons of this church. If you end up in hell you have sent yourself there, same as if you struck a match and set the fire yourself.”

I could tell Preacher Liner was winding down. The service was about over. The song was in its last chorus and I joined in, singing louder than before. I was almost free of the dread and sadness of the church, but not of the dread and sadness inside me. In another minute or two I'd be outside. And I would speak to Annie.

Soon as the hymn was over, Preacher Liner started praying. “May the Lord go with us as we return to our daily lives. May the Lord guide us as we go about our work to earn our daily bread. May the Lord look into our hearts and help us to avoid the sin of pride and the sin of lust. May the Lord forgive us our secret faults and our public hypocrisies. And may the Lord give us peace. Amen.”

“Amen,” said a number of people around the congregation.

When I stepped out into the open it was like the world exploded in my eyes. Light swelled so bright it made my eyeballs hurt, but the fresh air on my face was soothing. I blinked and shaded my eyes. And then I seen Moody standing right beside the steps. He was standing right where I had planned to plant myself. And he stood there like he'd just come out of church with everybody else. He was smiling at me when I seen him.

“Howdy, Brother Muir,” Moody said and tipped his hat.

“You ain't got no business here,” I said.

It was like Moody to think of what would rile me the most. He had drove off to get the liquor and take it to Wheeler. And then he'd come to church and waited till the service was over. I seen the Model T in the parking lot.

“You get away from here,” I said.

Moody tipped his hat and smiled at everybody coming out of the church. He smiled like he'd been at the service and heard the sermon. I looked around to see if there was any other boys waiting near the door. I saw Sam Willard standing back by the arborvitae, and Calvin Simpson on the other side of Moody. They was standing way back because Moody was there. Moody had too much of a reputation as a knife fighter for the other boys to want to argue with him.

More people come out the door, and I figured it was time for Annie to come out. Mama and Fay stepped out into the sunlight. Mama seen both Moody and me standing on the steps. “Let's go home,” Mama said to both of us.

“Be home later,” Moody said.

“Time to go now,” Mama said and smiled. Everybody in front of the church was listening. They was waiting to see what would happen between Moody and me. I thought I seen Annie in the doorway, and then she disappeared. Her mama come out, and I said, “Howdy, Mrs. Richards.” And Moody tipped his hat and said, “How do, Mrs. Richards.”

But Annie was not behind her as I expected.

Then I knowed where Annie had gone. I don't know how I knowed it, but it come to me in a flicker. I stepped back and walked past Sam Willard. And when I got around the arborvitae and around the corner of the church, I run to the back. Annie had seen both Moody and me standing by the church door, and Mama talking to us, and she'd turned around and gone to the back of the church. There wasn't a door in the rear of the building, but there was a low window that as a boy I used to climb in and out of when Grandpa was mowing the churchyard. The back of the church lot joined the Richardses' cornfield on the mountainside, and I knowed Annie was going to
climb out the window and walk home across the field so she wouldn't have to be bothered by Moody and me and the other boys either.