Reverend America: A Journey of Redemption (24 page)

The knock at the door startled him up out of the depths of the past. It was Emily Dickinson. Three hours had gone by.

“How is she?” he asked.

“Truth?” Emily Dickinson answered, and he realized that despite her weariness she was a very attractive woman. She smelled good too—like a mix of pralines and cantaloupe. “Gurl’s got problems on top of problems. Should’ve done a Cesar. Gonorrhea in the past, scarring, she done it hard—and been busted up by someone—but I think you knew that.”

“I did. The man who did that learned his lesson. Is—is there any good news?”

“She fightin’.”

“I—I want to thank you for all your help,” Casper said.

“Doan think I did much. Not enough anyway.”

“Yes you did. Don’t high hat yourself, you can’t save everybody.”

“High hat myself?” Emily Dickinson frowned, and then gave a wan smile.

“I didn’t mean any disrespect,” Casper said.

“I know you didn’t. You all right?”

“I—I’m OK, thanks. I appreciate you letting me stay here.”

“Doan worry ‘bout that. You can help out—if it comes to that—for a while.”

“She’ll make it?” Casper asked, although it occurred to him that Angelike might already be gone. Just as Emily Dickinson wouldn’t let him tell her the truth about the baby, maybe the truth was being held back from him now.

“You keep yo head up.”

“Can I see her?”

“Not jes yet. Let the chile rest.”

“She 
is
 still alive?”

“You keep yo head up like I sed. It’ll be all right. You can stay here long as you like. We doan have much—but Myron could use a hand.”

“He’s a fine boy—young man. I heard your husband died. I’m—I’m sorry.”

“Police officer in Nawrleans,” she said, lowering her head. Casper noticed how smooth her skin was. “Whole city like St. Louis Cemetery. And that was before Katrina.”

“You’re from here, aren’t you?”

“Ought nevva to’ve left. Nevva will now. Where you from?”

“West Virginia, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, the Greyhound Bus.”

“Whattya do?”

“I was raised to a be preacher . . . but then . . . long story.”

“Well, Myron’s got some red beans on. You come over an’ join us for supper. I got some homemade ice melon. Come by when you’re ready.”

He did, and enjoyed the simple meal. He especially appreciated not being questioned further about his past. These people seemed to get a read on you and take you as they found you, like all the good people he’d ever met.

The quarters that Emily and Myron had taken for themselves consisted of a small but clean cottage adjacent to the motel. After they ate, Casper helped Myron wash up while Emily went to soak her feet. Myron wanted to try out for the wrestling team. His eyesight didn’t keep him from hunting—but it made him self-conscious. He had great strength and quickness for his size—probably wrestling was a good idea, Casper thought. The mother and son seemed to get on well, although underneath their fondness he sensed the ever-present vacuum left by the lost father / husband. He admired their courage.

Then he headed back to his room, the storm smell seeming nearer now, jags of heat lightning in the distance.

Inside his room there was news of a hurricane potential storm ravaging the remains of the Gulf shrimp fleet. What didn’t these people face down with bravery? Oil spills, storms, floods. The old television screen fluttered. He kept thinking of Angelike, wondering if she was going to be all right—wondering if she was awake—wondering if she was alive. He consulted his Medicine strips.

MAN DROPS DENTURES OVERBOARD THEN FINDS THEM IN A FISH SIX MONTHS LATER

He took that as a hopeful message. He moved to turn off the TV and stopped dead when he saw the commercial that had come on. It was an elephant being massaged with Spanish Extra Virgin olive oil! His mind flashed back to Hogerty and the mysterious Wink Group. My God, he thought . . .

That now seemed like a happy memory and set him mulling over what Hoptree had told him. What business did he have thinking about preaching in a black gospel church—or to anyone for that matter? He’d killed a black boy not much older than Myron. He’d killed two other men and should be in leg-irons at Angola.

The answer came back to him out of the past. Survival. Hoptree had walked in the path of the whirlwind and had been saved. So had he. Many times over. He’d gone on because a Rinder had come. 
Be not too quick to judge the tasks set before thee, for in the appointed hour, despite your burdens, you shall be called upon to stand up in your heart.
 He’d written those words himself.

He realized that Hoptree was right, he could find a home here. A home at last. That’s what Angelike had given him. He pulled the Only Men songbook from out of his pack. Beyond the last of the Reverend America Bibles, it was the only thing he’d salvaged from his days with Poppy and Rose. Like her organ, Rose had left it behind without a thought. Poppy never mentioned it once during his trial or the last time Casper had spoken to him, even though they’d spent hours with it—years—and had made a lot of their money because of it. He hadn’t looked at the cover in a long time. He seemed to see it now for the first time.

Glory’s Bitter Road

The Lost Songs of America’s Negro Troubadour Preachers 1845-1898
Collected and Arranged by Warwick and Mercia Field – NewYork, 1927

He laid it on the bed—this he would keep, because it wasn’t his to let go. Then he took his precious Medicine Bag and went outside. The wind had died down and the moon came out from the clouds. He laid his Medicine Bag in the water, watching the strips melt away. Time to find or make some new Medicine. The last words he saw were GOLDEN ANTEATER. Then he waded in himself, fully clothed as he had in his religious days. Another baptism. “Create in me a clean will if not soul,” he said, as he let his old Reverend America Bible sink out of sight. “For the rebellious dwell in a dry land.”

There was a sound in the water nearby. Perhaps the Murker, feeding on the old headlines. The wind picked up and plucked at loose metal. He went back inside, brushed his Red Wings and said a prayer for Little Red . . . and for the others. The dead, the damned, the doomed . . . the undaunted. He stripped and slept better than he had in a long time.

The next morning the storm had passed. He helped Myron set a trap line and he caught his first lunker bass. Emily Dickinson went off to see how the patient was doing, or so she said—after lancing Altana’s boil and testing Hooker Barr for diabetes (he didn’t have it—yet). The day after, Emily Dickinson once again insisted that Casper let the girl rest. So he caught a catfish and cleaned out her boats. He learned how to make a fricassee. The following day he motored back up to Roy’s and with Merrit’s help disassembled the LeSabre, chopping and spray painting panels, grinding off serial numbers, harvesting what components could be sold, ditching the rest. Despite his infirmity, the boy worked well, and he sang softly while he worked—some Cajun French song Casper didn’t know. He had a peculiar but good, true voice. No questions were asked, and Casper got so he could sort of understand him. He learned some things at least. A bullfrog was a wowmaron, a dragonfly—a zirondelle. And a schneille seemed to be a kind of fuzzy caterpillar that bites and causes fever.

When they were finished with the car, Merrit made a momentary departure and returned carrying something in a secretive, important fashion. It was just an ordinary drawing pad—but on it was a series of rather fine sketches—mechanically lush line drawings in superb detail, but done with a freehand freshness and organic energy. They presented a half man-half frog creature—with both a kind of defiant aristocratic bearing and the embattled look of the hunted fugitive.

“M-muuurker,” the boy said behind his hand. “No tell.”

How appropriate, Casper thought, that the boy would envision the legendary 
World Weekly News
 creature as part man, part frog. Then again, if the Murker had showed itself to anyone on the bayou, Merrit seemed the perfect choice. He felt privileged the boy had shared this private vision with him. Who are your friends if you can’t share your visions with them?

Come Saturday, Luther Box was feeling poorly and Aura Ryder, on behalf of the congregation, came and asked Casper if he had a mind to fill in. He was eating pain perdu. He said he couldn’t presume to take the place of Reverend Box. Well then, wondered Aura, would he care to give a message as a layman—to make a guest appearance? And after much thought, he said yes he would. He was bound and determined to visit Angelike that afternoon, to see how she was doing, because he still wanted to believe—needed to believe. But that night . . . Emily Dickinson told him the truth. There’d been a massive hemorrhage and a critical drop in blood pressure. In trying to elevate it, the girl had gone into cardiac arrest. The doctors had done what they could and brought her back twice with the paddles. But there was internal bleeding from an injury. She slipped away under anesthesia when they were prepping her for surgery. The body was being returned from Lafayette the next day. It was finished.

Angelike had died on her sixteenth birthday. She’d made the sunrise.

The knowledge released some long held reservoir of pain. But she was free. Emily said she’d wanted to be buried on Woodpecker Island. She’d died believing her baby was alive and might’ve found a father or some protective spirit who would look after him. Casper’s tears hardened into the same resolve he’d found in the past.

The next morning he showed up outside the old Astrocruiser—thinking back on his long exile. How ironic that he should be welcomed by Cajuns and the ancestors of slaves—outside of the Jews, two of the most displaced peoples of the world. He felt their welcome calling him out of the wilderness. He felt called.

That word had often been on his tongue in days before. He’d used it every night in fact. And now it had come back to him on the Rinder’s Highway of his life. It hadn’t been just Poppy and Rose who’d made him Reverend America. He’d wanted to be a healer. Not just a tent show spellbinder—but a genuine figure of inspiration and teaching. If he’d used the language of Christ and the Bible, that was just like the bean can radio stations they often played. A medium. The message—the underlying message then, and the crystal sharp message now was—we survive through love—and love is hope. As long as you have hope, you have love to give—which will come back to you on the wind in its own storm time. “Fool folks good enough, you are who you claim to be.”

The southerly had risen again and more hurricane warnings were sounding along the Gulf coast. He could see the weather driving the birds—great flocks of pelicans and egrets against a sky the color of milk spilled on stainless steel. But he wasn’t thinking about the weather, he was thinking about Angelike—and Hoptree—Odessa—Emily and Myron—Ananda and Merrit—even gnarly old Mrs. Nedd. And he was thinking what he was going to say to the congregation of the Prophecy Creek Gospel Temple. It was the first time he’d faced anything like a congregation since the dark days. Yet it seemed time. He’d never had a chance to be a Radar Boy or a Young Wrangler—but he 
had
 been Reverend America.

Everyone filed onto the bus with its torn out seats and spider webbed windows. Odessa Pepper sat next to Hoptree and nodded at Casper who stood where the driver’s seat had once been. They’d all heard about Angelike.

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills
. But there were no hills here, there were only people, the darkest and brightest miracle of all. 
Blessed are they
. The true hoodoo.

“I want to thank you all for having me,” he began. “As you know, many of the teachings of the Bible are pretty confusing. James says that faith without works is dead—yet Paul writes in Ephesians, ‘For by 
grace
 are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves—it is the gift of God—not of works lest any man should boast.’ Can’t get more contrary than that. Can we save ourselves through the sweat of our care? Or must we, in blindness, depend on mercy for our redemption?

“I’ll tell you what I say—what the Bible of the Road has taught me—what my Sermon at the Wheel is to you today.

“In the Empire of the Greedy, there’s the perpetual celebration of the self-assured. In the Republic of the Generous, there’s always the smell of food cooking . . . in anticipation of the strangers soon to appear. If they ask for an egg, would you give them a scorpion? We’re all vagabonds in the earth. So, we must choose our fellow travelers well—by always seeing to the needs of strangers. Upon their safe arrival hinges our own. Home isn’t something you find—it’s what happens when others reach their destination in you.

“You’ve recently welcomed three strangers into your lives. Three white strangers. Three of the most utterly lost white people you could ever find.”

He glanced at Hoptree. The Rock Candy Mountain balladeer smiled back.

“After this service, we have another funeral to attend to—one of those strangers that we need to lay to rest. But I know none of you see her as a stranger—and that’s what sets you apart—and it’s why I can tell you the truth about myself.

“I used to be a preacher. I can still quote Scripture till the cows come home. I did it for money. Some would say I’d lost my way from the beginning . . . but I certainly lost my faith along the way. I’ve done bad things in my life. I’m a sinner and a criminal, and I’ve been locked up on more than one occasion. If you wanted to turn me over to the authorities right now, they’d find a way to lock me up for good. I deliver myself into your hands that way.

“So, I’m not going to talk to you about the Pearly Gates in any kingdom to come. Kingdoms don’t strike me as anywhere I ever really wanted to be. I’d always be wondering who was doing the dishes.

“Instead, I want to talk to you about something you all know too much about. That’s what good preachers do—they tell people what they already know—they just give it new meaning. I learned that many thousands of miles and moments ago.

“I want to talk about survival in this life—about helping others here and now to find the courage to carry on. I want to talk about the cruelty we’re all guilty of. Of being brave enough to get down in the mud and wrestle with our demons as only we can.”

“Ayymen!” Valentine Tate shouted, swallowing a slug of brandy.

“And through the courage of that combat, to make peace with our Murkers—to redeem ourselves by taking responsibility for our own complexity—the puzzle of sorrow and anger that often seems so far beyond our understanding that we tire and take our hands off the wheel of our own destiny—then try to wash them of any blood we leave behind in the wreckage. I say, let’s put our hands back on the wheel, right here today, and steer. Because we’ve all got a long way to go. Can I get a witness? Can even I—even now—get a witness?”

“Amen!” people shouted, as they had in days gone by. “Yass, brotha. Amen! Amen!”

“After the service, we’re going to have the funeral—but tonight we’re going to have what I think you call around here a fais do do. Laissez les bon temps rouler. Because the soul we’re sending forward loved to sing and dance—and now we’re going to sing too—in honor of her—and in needful hope for ourselves.”

Then, without pausing he began to lead them. It wasn’t a tune about shining angels. He knew in his heart that Angelike had said her goodbye, leaving him entrusted with her faith in life—not knowing the truth—but still believing. Faith is indeed a con. But without it, where do we find the fight and the grace to carry on?

He’d never see her alive again—and yet, she was alive in him. He was the real child she’d given birth to. A stranger met in the Lonesome Valley.

He launched into the simplest of the Only Men hymns, called “We Will Cross the Bridge”—written by the first known freed slave to become an independent Methodist preacher—John William Oxcart . . . “Dedicated to the memory of the American Composer Known as Tall Jim.” Cameron Blanchard would’ve approved.

When darkness is upon you

Just close your eyes and see

When darkness is upon you

You will find the light in me

In all lives there is a river

All travelers must go cross

And though your heart may quiver

The gain is greater than the loss

Souls that keep the road

Can never be denied

Helping others with their load

To strangers we are tied

There is a bridge that leads to glory

We build it with our hope

Only we can tell God’s story

So the bridge will never slope

We will cross the bridge together

No one walks that way alone

We will cross the bridge together