Salvation on Sand Mountain (25 page)

The choice of text was simple — the chapter the handlers believed so deeply, they were risking their lives to confirm it. “Let’s look at Mark 16,” I said.

“Amen,” Carl replied. He was pulling for me. I looked at the congregation again. They seemed remote and unfamiliar to me now, someone else’s family reunion. I couldn’t pick out Vicki or Melissa among them.

“It was after they had crucified Jesus,” I said, “and some of the women who had stayed with him through it all came down to the tomb to anoint his body with spices. Am I in the Word?” I looked over to Brother Carl.

“You’re in the Word,” Carl said.

Amen
, the congregation answered.

“But the stone had been rolled away from the tomb,” I said, “and a man in white, an angel, was sitting there, and the angel said to the women: ‘He’s not here. He’s risen.’ Am I in the Word?”

“Amen,” Carl said. “You’re in the Word.”

“I’m in the Word,” I repeated, and I moved along the platform like I’d seen Carl do so many times. “And who did Jesus appear to first after his resurrection?”

“The eleven,” Carl said.

I turned back to him. “No. He didn’t appear first to the eleven.” And I walked slowly across the platform again, heading straight for Carl’s son Virgil, who was standing by his drum set, sticks crossed in front of him. “He appeared first to Mary Magdalene!” I said, and I drove each word in the direction of Virgil’s chest with my finger. “A woman out of whom he had cast seven devils!”

There was no amen.

I whirled back around and faced the congregation again. “The angel had told her to tell the disciples that Jesus was risen, but she was afraid, and she didn’t do it. So Jesus himself appeared to her, and when she told the disciples that he had risen, none of the men believed her!”

I was waiting for an amen, which still hadn’t come. “
That’s
when Jesus appeared to the eleven and
upbraided
them for their unbelief!”

“Amen,” Carolyn Porter, Carl’s wife, finally said.

I knew I was in the Word now. It was close to the feeling I’d had when I’d handled. “Mary Magdalene was the first person to spread the news of the risen Christ!” I shouted. “She was the first evangelist, and the men didn’t even believe her! So when we start talking about a woman’s place, we better add that a woman’s place is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ! In Him there is no male or female, no Greek or Jew!” And I spun on Carl. “Am I in the Word?”

“No,” Carl said. “You’re not in the Word.”

“Are you telling me I’m out of the Word?”

“Yes. You’re out of the Word.” He smiled. It was a smile of enormous satisfaction and relief. At last, we had reached the end of our story, his eyes seemed to say.

I looked back at the congregation. No help there. I was confused. I’d never heard the place so quiet. Anna Pelfrey sat with her feet crossed at the ankles, her hands folded in her lap as though she hadn’t heard a word. Some of the men were looking at the floor. Others were stretched out with their arms on the back of the pew. They seemed suddenly curious about the ceiling. Only the teenage girls were animated, heads bent toward one another, whispering furiously, but without a sound.

“Well, if I’m out of the Word,” I said, “I’d better stop preaching.” My heart was beating fast, and I could feel the
blood in my cheeks. I put the microphone back in its stand and walked slowly off the platform and down the aisle. Nobody would look me in the eye except Nancy Frazier, the mother of the groom. She was smiling and pointing to the pew in front of her, the one I was headed for. That’s when I saw that Aunt Daisy had moved from the front of the congregation to our pew in the middle, where she was sitting next to Vicki and laying hands on her.

Aunt Daisy had put her pale forehead up against Vicki’s chin. Her hands were in Vicki’s hair, and then on her forehead, her shoulders, her neck. “You young people are right,” she was crooning. “I don’t have much time left, but in the time I’ve got, I’m going to spread the gospel.” It was what Vicki had wanted, the blessing I knew she would receive. I slid into the pew beside her, and Vicki continued to sit erect, her eyes closed, while Daisy made over her. The church was silent except for Daisy’s warbling voice.

Punkin Brown suddenly leapt to his feet and wrenched the microphone from its stand. “You know, I was supposed to preach tonight, and I had me another sermon in mind.” He said this with disdain, as though he hated to waste valuable time on matters as transparent as the ones I’d raised. “But if we can’t stand on sound doctrine, boys, we might as well not stand at all.”

Punkin bent down, unclasped the lid of a serpent box, and brought out a big yellow-phase timber rattler, which he slung across his shoulder like a rope. “
Haaagh
,” he said. It sounded like steam escaping from an underground vent. With the snake in tow, he started strutting across the front of the sanctuary, bent nearly double, his face contorted and red. “If we can’t stand on sound doctrine, boys, we might as well give this thing up.
Haaagh.

“There are people,” Punkin said, “who preach a false doctrine, that women can hold authority over men in a church.
Haaagh.
It’s the preaching of false prophecy, boys, of the ungodly, the unholy, the profane.
Haaagh.
The whoremonger and them that defiled themselves with mankind.
Haaagh.
God’s not in it, boys, and if we pay it any mind, we’re as lost as them that give it.
Haaagh.
We might as well deny the whole Word!”

I glanced at Vicki, and she smiled back.

“
Oooooh!
” he groaned. And his heels beat out a rhythm on the floor as he danced across the platform. “
Haaagh!
” And he flung the rattlesnake back and forth like a trunk. He wiped his forehead with it. He let it brush his lips.
“Haaagh.
Just let them do this,” he said, “and we’ll see who the Spirit speaks through!
Haaagh.
They’re deceivers, boys, Ahab and Jezebel, with her painted face and gold hoops in her ears!
Haaagh.
They wanted the vineyard of Naboth, boys, they killed him and stole it for themselves! And you know what
the Word says about them.
There was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up
. But the enemy’s defeated, boys.
In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine. ”

Punkin came to a stop at the spot where Brother Carl had harangued Melissa. There, Punkin caressed the rattlesnake as though it were a part of himself before he caught my eye in the congregation. “It’s a lie, Dennis!” he said. “There’s no truth in it! It’s a sin!”

It was odd for me to see Punkin this way, so grotesque and funny looking, with his shirttail out and a big rattlesnake draped over his shoulder. He was just a child, I thought, an overgrown snake boy like myself.

When Punkin had finished, it was Jamie Coots’s turn to prophesy along the same lines. He was still recovering from a severe rattlesnake bite, and so carried a certain weight of moral authority. By the time he finished, it was after nine o‘clock. I caught Melissa’s eye and nodded toward the door. She was ready, for sure. We’d have to get up and walk out in order to be back in Birmingham before midnight, and that’s what we did. But before we left, I stood and explained the reason we were leaving, that we had to get home to be with our children. I thanked Brother Carl and the congregation for letting us visit with them again.

“Please pray for us,” I said.

There were nods of assent from the congregation. Carl smiled and bobbed as he usually did. “We appreciate you and love you, Brother Dennis. You and Sister Vicki and Melissa and Jim.”

It was as though nothing had happened, but of course everything had. I knew it could never be the same with the handlers. I had found my people. But I had also discovered that I couldn’t be one of them, after all. Knowing where you come from is one thing, but it’s suicide to stay there. A writing teacher of mine once told me to live in his house as long as I could. He didn’t mean his actual house, but the house of fiction he’d made. The only thing he asked was that when I left, I’d leave for good, and that I’d burn the house down. That was exceptionally good advice, and I believe Carl Porter had given it, too. I think he knew what he was doing in releasing me back to the wider world. At the height of it all, after Macedonia, I had actually envisioned myself preaching out of my car with a Bible, a trunkload of rattlesnakes, and a megaphone. I had wondered what it would be like to hand rattlesnakes to my wife and daughters. I had imagined getting bit and surviving. I had imagined getting bit and not surviving. I had thought about what my last words would be. It sounds funny now. It wasn’t always funny at the time.

The day after the wedding, I would talk to Carl on the phone. He’d not mention Melissa or Punkin, but rather say
he’d been worried about what had happened at the service the night before. He said he hadn’t slept well, worrying about us.

“The church I repented in,” he explained, “had a woman pastor over it, but I don’t believe that way now. I’m like Paul. I suffer a woman not to teach. And a woman can’t be a deacon.”

There was nothing peculiar or odd about Carl’s views. The majority of ministers in our own Southern Baptist Convention probably felt the same way about women in the church. So I didn’t tell him that Vicki was already a deacon in our home church in Birmingham. I just told him, truthfully, that she had gotten a blessing out of the service.

“I saw that,” he said in the soft voice I’d come to love. “You know, the Lord led Daisy back there to her.”

On that, we were both agreed.

It’s been several months since I’ve talked to Carl. Occasionally I get a call from Charles and Aline McGlocklin, though. The theme of these conversations is that they knew what was going to happen that night after the wedding and couldn’t bear to watch. They knew we’d gotten hurt in Kingston, but that such injuries could strengthen one’s faith.

“I’ve been hurt before, many times, Brother Dennis,” Charles says. “Let me tell you, the bite of the serpent is nothing compared to the bite of your fellow man.”

It’s sad, in a way. I wish I could assure the Porters and the McGlocklins and all the others that we can be friends as long as we like, but that I won’t be taking up serpents anymore. I refuse to be a witness to suicide, particularly my own. I have two daughters to raise, and a vocation in the world.

 

 

When we got into the van that night for the long ride home, Melissa said, “I’ve got all the shots I need.” That was all that was said for a long while, until after we’d stopped in Rome for ice cream. Then it all began to tumble out. Vicki said she’d felt sad and hurt during the service. Melissa ran her fingers through her wild blond hair and said it had all seemed painfully familiar to her, but still, she was baffled by Carl’s words. He had always been so gentle. It had been worse on her than on us, of course. Melissa had taken the brunt of Carl’s wrath, and because her method as a photographer was to merge with her subjects, Carl’s sermon had been a personal blow.

In ways, though, it had to have happened the way it did. Melissa and Jim had often taken turns behind the camera. If Jim, rather than Melissa, had been there to photograph the wedding, Brother Carl might not have had a focal point for his message. We might have been spared the night’s discomfort, but we wouldn’t have known how the story would end. And stories have to end. Endings are the most important
part of stories. They grow inevitably from the stories themselves. The ending of a story only seems inevitable, though, after it’s over and you’re looking back, as I am now. And in retrospect, I can tell you the dispute after the wedding was not about snakes, or about the role of women in the church. It was about the nature of God.

The highway from Rome crossed the mountains twice, once as it entered Alabama and then again fifty miles north of Birmingham. Those last miles into the city were lonely and dark, but gradually the traffic along the interstate picked up. First there were the tractor-trailer rigs, and then the vans with children asleep in the back. And soon we were being led back into the city by a river of light, through suburbs and neighborhoods that became increasingly familiar until I realized the elevated highway was taking us above East Lake, the old neighborhood where I had grown up not knowing who my people were.
It’s late afternoon at the lake. The turtles are moving closer to shore. The surface of the water is undisturbed, an expanse of smooth, gray slate. Most of the children in my neighborhood are called home for supper by their mothers. They open the back doors, wipe their hands on their aprons and yell, “Willie!” or “Joe!” or “Ray!” Either that or they use a bell, bolted to the doorframe and loud enough to start the dogs barking in backyards all along the street. But I was always called home by my father, and he
didn’t do it in the customary way. He walked down the alley all the way to the lake. If I was close, I could hear his shoes on the gravel before he came into sight. If I was far, I would see him across the surface of the water, emerging out of shadows and into the gray light. He would stand with his hands in the pockets of his windbreaker while he looked for me. This is how he got me to come home. He always came to the place where I was before he called my name.