Velva Jean Learns to Drive (2 page)

“How do you know I ain’t saved?” I asked a lot of questions, something my daddy never had much patience for, especially in the heat.

“Because you’d know it if you was.”

I thought about this, trying to remember a time when I might have been saved without knowing it. I couldn’t think of one and suddenly this worried me. “What happens if I don’t get saved?”

“It means that you’re ‘astray like a lost sheep,’ and that after you die you’re going straight to hell.” Daddy laughed. “That’s why your mama and me prays every night for our children.”

For a moment, I couldn’t speak. What did he mean, I was going to die? What did he mean, I was going to hell? I didn’t want to go to hell. Hell was for the convicts down at the prison in Butcher Gap or the murderer who lived on top of Devil’s Courthouse. Hell wasn’t for decent people. I was sure my mama wasn’t going to be there or Daddy Hoyt or Granny or my sister, Sweet Fern, or Ruby Poole or Aunt Bird or Uncle Turk or Aunt Zona and the twins. Probably my brothers, Linc and Beachard, weren’t going to hell either, but I wondered about my youngest brother, Johnny Clay. And then I began to cry.

Later that night, when me and Johnny Clay were lying in our beds pretending to sleep, I whispered, “If you was to die, would you go to hell?” I had shared a room with Sweet Fern until she got married, and then Johnny Clay moved in with me.

There was silence from his bed and for a moment I thought he might actually be sleeping. Then he said, “I guess.”

I sat straight up and looked at him, trying to catch his face in the darkness to see if he was fooling or not. He rolled over and propped himself up with one arm. “Why you want to know about hell, Velva Jean?”

“Daddy says if we ain’t saved, that’s where we’re going because we’re all sinners till we been born again.”

Johnny Clay seemed to consider this. “I guess,” he said again.

“I’m going to get myself saved,” I said, “if it’s the very last thing I do. I ain’t going to hell.”

“Even if I’m there?”

“It ain’t funny, Johnny Clay. I’m answering the altar call at camp meeting and I’m going to pray and pray for Jesus to save me.”

“You don’t even know how to pray, Velva Jean.” Johnny Clay was smart. He was twelve years old and he knew everything about everything. He’d been an expert gold panner since he was nine, he’d been driving since he was ten, and at school he was the marble champion three years running. He was also the bravest person I knew. I just worshipped him.

“I know, but I’m going to start praying anyway. I’m going to start doing it right now.” And I got out of my bed and kneeled down beside it and closed my eyes tight. I tried to remember how Mama always began. There was a sigh and a rustling from Johnny Clay’s bed, and then he was beside me on the floor, hands clasped.

“Okay, Lord,” he said. “Please be merciful on us sinners. Please don’t let us die anytime soon. And if we do, please don’t send me and Velva Jean to hell. We just can’t stand it if we die and go to hell.”

“Amen,” I whispered.

The first day of camp meeting I could barely sit still. “Stop fidgeting,” Sweet Fern hissed at me across Beachard and Johnny Clay. Sweet Fern couldn’t stand for people to fidget, most particularly me, her own sister. She said it wasn’t something that ladies did, even though she knew I wasn’t one bit interested in being a lady. Still, I decided it wasn’t a good idea to talk back while I was on the path to salvation, so I sat on my hands to keep from picking at my nails and my dress. Johnny Clay kept poking me in the leg, trying to get me to thumb wrestle, but I stared straight ahead and waited for the altar call. Reverend Broomfield, the Baptist preacher, said he wanted only the backsliders—those who had been saved already and then lost their way. One by one, they went up to the altar and rededicated their lives to Jesus, and then everyone sang and Mrs. Broomfield announced the serving of the potluck supper.

On the second day, Reverend Broomfield said he wanted all the feuding neighbors to come forward so that he could talk to them about forgiveness and put them on speaking terms again, and afterward we all sang and Mrs. Broomfield announced the supper.

On the third day, Reverend Broomfield and Reverend Nix, who was the preacher at our church, asked for all the sinners who wanted to be saved. I sat straight up and paid attention. Reverend Broomfield promised salvation to anyone who needed it, and all you had to do was come up to the altar and kneel down and say that you loved and accepted Jesus and would live your life for him now and forever. I wondered what that meant exactly, if I could live my life for Jesus and still be a singer at the Grand Ole Opry, with an outfit made of satin and rhinestones and a pair of high-heeled boots. To sing at the Grand Ole Opry and wear an outfit made of rhinestones was my life’s dream.

One by one, I watched the other sinners take their places at the altar. I did not want to go to hell. But I did not want to give up my dreams either. I sat there, my toes pressed into the sawdust shavings, my legs tensed up, my hands gripping the edge of the bench. Even Jesus must like the Opry, I told myself, and I stood up.

No one in the congregation was supposed to look at you—they were just supposed to sit quietly and close their eyes or stare at the ground—but when I got up to answer the call, Johnny Clay grabbed the back of my dress and tried to pull me back into my seat. I kicked him as hard as I could and marched right up to the altar with all the other sinners and got down on my knees and closed my eyes and thought about how much I loved Jesus.

To my left, Swill Tenor, one of the meanest and crookedest men in the valley, suddenly let out a shout and jumped to his feet and began jerking in the Spirit. His eyes were closed and his body was twitching like he was being pinched and pulled all over. Not to be outdone, Root Caldwell, who was so mean that he fought roosters on the weekends, let out a shout and started dancing all around, up and down the aisles. To my right, Mrs. Garland Welch swayed and quivered and spoke in tongues. I just sat there on my knees, watching like a person struck dumb, like a person without any sense. I didn’t jerk or dance or speak in tongues because the Spirit hadn’t touched me one bit.

The congregation sang “Just as I Am” and “I Surrender All,” but when I lay in bed that night I felt exactly the same as I always did. The next day, I answered the altar call again and watched as all of my fellow sinners were overcome by the Spirit, speaking in tongues or jerking, running or dancing for the Lord. They fell to the ground and wept and shouted his name, while I sat there on my knees, my hands folded in prayer, and wondered what was wrong with me that I couldn’t be saved. I answered the altar call the day after that and the day after that, but nothing happened, which meant, if my daddy was right, I was still doomed to go straight to hell.

On the sixth morning, just one day before camp meeting’s end, I stayed in bed while everyone else got ready to go to services.

“Come on, Velva Jean,” Johnny Clay said from the doorway. “You’re gonna make us late, goddammit.” He had taken up swearing when he was eleven. He grabbed my foot, but I yanked it back under the sheet. I didn’t want to go because I didn’t have anything left in me to pray with or about.
I give up, God
, I thought as I lay there, the sheet up over my head.
I just give up right now. If you want me to go to hell, that’s fine. I’ll go right to hell and I hope you’re happy.

But then Mama came in and told me to get out of bed in that tone that meant she wasn’t fooling.

“I can’t,” I said. I didn’t like to disobey Mama, but I knew I was not getting out from under the sheet.

The bed sank a little as she sat down. “Why not?” Mama was a good listener. She was shy around most people, but she always wanted to hear what they had to say, and she always asked you things instead of just ordering you to listen to her.

“Because I’m a sinner that can’t be saved. I’m astray like a lost sheep. Even Swill Tenor got saved, and everyone knows he keeps a still.”

She didn’t say anything, just sat there quietly. It was hot under the sheet and a little hard to breathe, but I wasn’t about to come out.

“Daddy says I’m going to hell.”

Mama coughed and then tugged the sheet back, just to under my chin so that she could see my face. Her voice was soft but something in her eyes flickered. “Since when have you known your daddy to be wise about religion?”

I thought about this. Daddy never went to church if he could help it, and whenever Mama said the Lord’s Prayer, he just moved his lips and pretended to say the words along with her. I wasn’t even sure if he knew them.

“You, my baby, are not going to hell. You’re a good child, true and pure, and the Lord will call you when it’s time. You can’t bloom the flowers before they’re ready, Velva Jean.” Mama was referring to the time I got into her garden and opened up all the flower buds because I couldn’t wait till spring. “They got to be ready to open on their own.”

“What if they never open?” I said.

Mama sighed a little like she did when she was praying for patience. She didn’t seem upset, though. She seemed sad. Her eyes were clear and blue with gold bands around the irises, like sunflowers against a blue sky. “They’ll open when it’s time,” she said.

“They’ll open when it’s time.” I repeated it to myself later that morning as I sat waiting for Reverend Broomfield to call up the sinners. They’ll open when it’s time.

Once again, he called us, and once again I walked up to the altar, and once again I kneeled, my knees buried deep in the sawdust shavings. I tried to clear my mind and not think so much. I tried to remember Mama’s words, and I pictured her flowers and how they had died after I bloomed them too early.

After the laying on of hands and the singing, the people around me stood up and dusted themselves off and returned to their seats. But I didn’t get up. I stayed right where I was, eyes closed, hands knotted up together in a fist, and told the Lord I was done with him if he didn’t save me right then and there in front of everyone, with everybody I knew watching and me humiliated. I knew I’d never be able to show my face again down at Deal’s General Store or at school if he just left me sitting there like a heathen while sinners like Swill Tenor and Root Caldwell got their souls saved.

My knees started to burn in the sawdust. I knew everybody was staring. “Velva Jean,” I could hear Johnny Clay hissing at me. “Dammit, Velva Jean.”

I didn’t care. I was not going to leave that altar until I was saved. I didn’t care if they all went home and left me. I didn’t care if I had to spend the night there, on my knees, with the woods closing in and the panthers coming down out of the trees to eat me.

The congregation began to sing. If you’ve never heard shape-note singing, you should know that it can sound a lot like thunder when enough people join in together. The music was loud and raw, and it took over the air and the trees and the earth. The power of all those voices was so great that the ground shook below us like a tornado or an earthquake. There was a trembling in the shavings around my knees. My bones rattled. My teeth jittered in my mouth. My fingers and toes began to tingle, and I lost my breath. Something was growing from down deep inside me, starting somewhere in my stomach—a feeling of light. I felt dizzy like I did right before I took sick with something, and I felt shaky like I did when I got too hungry. I wanted to lie down on the ground and hold on for dear life, but I wanted to spring up into the air at the same time.

It was like the sky had opened and the sun was beaming down only on me, warming me from the inside. I opened my eyes. When I stood, my legs were wobbly and I had to hold on to Reverend Nix’s arm. I felt the cool, dead half-moon of a snakebite up near his elbow, a place where long ago he had been bitten and nearly died. I rubbed the scar, even though it gave me chill bumps, and then I brushed the sawdust shavings from my knees.

Everyone was singing and watching me. I looked at my mama and my family and at all the people I loved and even the people I didn’t like very much, and they were all, each and every one of them, beautiful and shiny—even Sweet Fern. Everything around me seemed brighter and prettier and suddenly the only thing I wanted to do was dance. My feet began tapping against the sawdust floor and they carried me all over the tent until I was dancing in the Spirit. I started singing too, and then I started crying because I knew, at last, that God had listened. Even though I was just Velva Jean Hart, ten years old, from Sleepy Gap, North Carolina, high up on Fair Mountain, he had listened to me and granted my prayer—I was born again.