A Death On The Wolf (13 page)

My catatonia subsided and I got up and went straight to Mary Alice’s bedroom door. I knocked softly and called her name. There was no response, so I turned the knob and opened the door. Mary Alice was sitting on the bed. She had on her Sunday dress, which was white, not pink. I went over and knelt down in front of her. Tears were running down her cheeks. “Mary Alice?” I said again.

“
Please leave,” she said.

“
I didn’t mean that…what I said in there to Aunt Charity. I was just trying to tell—”

“
Please leave,” she repeated, cutting me off. I didn’t know what to do. What could I say to make her understand that I was dying inside? How could I tell her those words I’d said were nothing more than my frustration because she had taken up residence in my heart and I couldn’t bear the thought of her leaving me in four short weeks? “Please leave,” she said again, and this time her voice cracked as she choked back a sob.

I stood up and an overwhelming feeling of nausea seized me. I turned and ran from the room. I sprinted down to the bathroom where I vomited up my breakfast into the toilet.

Afterwards, I found Aunt Charity waiting for me in the den. She was standing at the sliding glass door looking out at her huge back yard. I walked over to her with my head down in total dejection. I felt so weak I could hardly move. She put her arms around me and I buried my face in her shoulder and began to cry.

“
Oh, my baby boy,” she said. “It’s not easy, is it?”

Her words made me cry harder. Mama had always called me her “baby boy,” and I couldn’t remember the last time Aunt Charity had called me that. Maybe she never had. “What’s not easy?” I asked as I released her and wiped my eyes.

She smiled and put her hand to my cheek. “Growing up,” she said.

If what I’d been through so far this summer was growing up, I didn’t want any part of it. Not easy? It was impossible. “She won’t talk to me, Aunt Charity,” I said. “I wanted to tell her I was sorry and didn’t mean it, but she just asked me to leave.”

“
Her feelings are hurt, Nelson.”

“
I know,” I said, and fresh tears welled up in my eyes.

“
Go in the kitchen and get you some Coke to settle your stomach,” she said. “I’ll go talk to Mary Alice.”

“
What are you going to say to her?”

“
You let me worry about that. Run on, now. Get you some Coke.” She pointed toward the kitchen and left for Mary Alice’s room.

After I finished a small glass of Coca-Cola, I went back in the den and sat down on the couch. There was a huge knot in my stomach. I leaned back and closed my eyes. I was trying unsuccessfully not to think about the possibility that my relationship with Mary Alice was over almost as quickly as it had begun. I don’t know how long I’d sat there with my eyes closed when I felt someone sit down beside me. I opened my eyes and turned to see Mary Alice. Her eyes were red from crying, but otherwise she looked like nothing had happened.

“
Hey, pretty girl,” I said. I was surprised at my words, and at the serene way I spoke them. I’d never called Mary Alice “pretty girl” before, but the appellation surely fit. She looked like a picture in her white Sunday dress, and now I noticed the pink lace accents. “Will you let me explain, now?” I asked.

Mary Alice smiled. “You don’t have to. Your aunt told me what you and she were talking about. I understand what you meant. But as much as it’s going to hurt when I have to leave, I wouldn’t trade this summer for anything. Don’t you feel that way, too?”

“
Yes,” I said.

“
Then will you promise me you will quit fretting over next month so much?”

“
I’ll try. It’s hard, because I want to spend every minute with you. Knowing you won’t be here…it hurts, Mary Alice. I can’t help it.”

She reached out until she found me, then put her arms around me and hugged me tightly. “Aren’t you getting your license on your birthday next month?” she said over my shoulder.

“
Yes.”

“
And aren’t you getting a car?”

“
Yes…how’d you know that?”

“
If I promise to come here to your aunt’s every weekend, will you promise to drive to Poplarville and pick me up and take me back?”

We released each other and I looked her in the face. “They’ll let you do that?” I asked. “I mean, you can leave there on the weekends when you’re in school?”

Mary Alice laughed. “I’m not in school. I have a tutor who comes four days a week. And it’s not a prison, Nelson. Miss Charity said she would talk with them at the home. She thinks me coming here on the weekends will be fine. Will you promise to drive to Poplarville to get me?”

“
Are you kidding? Of course I will.” I was beaming and I had Aunt Charity to thank. She knew what the solution was to my depressed mood, and she’d set the wheels in motion to accomplish it. Come the end of August, Mary Alice might not be here day in and day out the way she was now, but with the promise of seeing her every weekend, I could survive. I hoped.

— — —

I was proud as a peacock to walk down the aisle at Bells Ferry Presbyterian Church with Mary Alice on my arm. We were a little late getting there, and the organist had already started playing when we entered the sanctuary. Whether or not everyone turned and stared at us because we were late, or because I was escorting an angel, I don’t know. I’d like to think it was the latter. We took our places in our usual pew. Daddy was already here, and sitting down front. As the chairman of the Pulpit Committee, he would be introducing the minister who would be preaching and who was seeking to be our new pastor.

After Mr. Jake Harland, Chairman of the Board of Deacons, gave the announcements, then conducted us through the Apostles Creed and the opening hymn, Daddy ascended the pulpit to give the prayer in preparation for the morning offering. His supplication was heartfelt, simple and elegant. He asked for God’s blessings on the service and the missionaries our church supported, he prayed for healing for the sick, and he gave thanks for the many blessings we all enjoyed and were usually too busy to acknowledge. When he gave the Amen, four of the deacons went up to the Lord’s Table to retrieve the collection plates. The organ started to play as the deacons fanned out and started passing the plates. Daddy resumed his seat in one of the two chairs behind the pulpit on the rostrum.

After we sang the Doxology and the deacons returned the collection plates to the table, Daddy took the pulpit again to dismiss the smaller kids to children’s church, and then he began his introduction of our guest preacher. As I watched my father up in the pulpit dressed in his dark blue suit, seemingly so at ease speaking before the hundred or so people who filled our small sanctuary, I thought what a fine minister he would make. Daddy had been an elder in the church since before I was born and he’d taught the men’s Sunday School class for as long as I could remember. The few times when I’d grown bored in the boys’ class and sat in on Daddy’s teaching, I thought his expositions of scripture to be every bit as good as Rev. Doug’s. Now, however, he was merely giving us a brief resume of the man who was about to deliver God’s Word to us. His name was Rev. Kyle Petigru. He was a young, mousey looking man, with short hair slicked back with tonic. Daddy told us he was a 1968 graduate of Columbia Seminary, and an assistant pastor at a large church in Mobile. As my father talked, Rev. Petigru was sitting in the other chair behind the pulpit with an affected grin on his face. He was wearing a black Geneva gown, which we were used to because Rev. Doug would wear one on Communion Sundays and for baptisms and other special services. But Rev. Petigru was also sporting a collar and bands, something I’d only seen in photographs of eighteenth century ministers. It was a pretentious accoutrement that made me uneasy and made him look out of place. I didn’t like this man, who hardly looked older than me, before he even spoke a word. When he did, my disdain became palpable.

The text Rev. Petigru chose for his sermon was John 9:1-41, the story of Jesus healing the man who was born blind. I’d heard Rev. Doug preach this story at least twice that I could remember, so when this guy started his exposition, it was all I could do to keep quiet. Rather than focusing on the true point of the passage, Rev. Petigru turned the story on its head and made it about how the spiritual aspects of one’s life (namely, sin) can have physical consequences (for example, blindness). Jesus said the blind man’s malady was not the result of sin, either his or his parents, because he was born that way. Such was not the case, according to Rev. Petigru, for those who were afflicted after having the gift of sight. The body was both spiritual and physical, and our sins could result in not just spiritual blindness, but actual blindness. Rev. Petigru told us that every physical ailment, every disease, every handicap, could be traced to some spiritual defect and this passage in John’s Gospel proved it. I thought he was full of shit.

As this false prophet spewed his malarkey, I kept looking at Mary Alice beside me. I was hoping she wasn’t paying attention, but she was, and clearly bewildered. A minister of God was telling the most innocent girl I’d ever known that she was blind because of her sins. I wanted to run up the aisle and strangle him with my bare hands. Instead, when I’d had all I could stand, I leaned over and whispered in Mary Alice’s ear, “Come with me.” I took her hand and we stood up. Aunt Charity looked at us. There was a big question mark on her face, but when I glanced up to the rostrum I could see Daddy understood. It was almost imperceptible, but there was a slight smile on his face. With everyone staring at us again, I led Mary Alice out of the sanctuary.

Two huge live oak trees graced the front yard of our church. The one to the right as you exited the front door had a concrete bench under it and Mary Alice and I went over and sat down. Before I could speak, Mary Alice told me she didn’t think she liked my church.

“
That guy is an idiot, Mary Alice. He’s not our regular pastor. I wish you could hear Rev. Doug preach, but he retired and we’re trying to find a new pastor.”

“
Do you believe what he said?” she asked.

“
No.”

“
I’ve always tried to be a good person,” Mary Alice said meekly.

For the second time in less than a week, I was losing my temper, and this time it was because of a sermon preached in my own church. “Mary Alice, please don’t pay any attention to what he said. You are a good person. You’re the kindest, sweetest girl I’ve ever met.” I could hear the organ start up inside and the congregation began singing the final hymn, so I knew the front yard was about to be flooded with people. Daddy would be escorting Rev. Petigru to the front door after the benediction and then everyone would file past and shake their hands. There would be smiles and more than a few who had slept through the sermon would say how fine it was. “They’ll be coming out in a minute,” I said to Mary Alice.

She reached over to me and I took her hand. As the congregants exited the church, a few of them started making their way over to us. I introduced Mary Alice and several of the older ladies commented on how pretty she was and how they hoped to see her back next Sunday. The crowd thinned and I saw Daddy walking towards us with Rev. Petigru at his side. The noonday breeze blew the folds and pleats of the Geneva gown in a great swath of black around him. I said a silent prayer asking God to help me control my temper and not say something that would embarrass my father.

I stood up as they approached. Daddy looked at me and said, “Rev. Petigru, this is my son, Nelson.”

Rev. Petigru still had that ridiculous grin on his face as he stuck his hand out to me. “Kyle Petigru,” he said.

“
It’s nice to meet you, Rev. Petigru,” I lied and shook his hand. I was a good five or six inches taller than him.

“
And who’s this pretty lady here?” he said. He let go of my hand and stuck his down to Mary Alice.

I waited and let him just stand there looking like a fool with his hand in front of Mary Alice while she stared off to his side. Normally, Daddy would have taken extra pains to quickly smooth over this awkward moment, but he was silent and I was relishing it. It briefly crossed my mind that if Rev. Petigru were correct, God would be striking me blind any minute for what I was thinking. I looked at Daddy and he gave me a little nod, as if to say, “Go ahead and reel him in.”

“
This is Mary Alice Hadley,” I said. “She’s blind.”

Rev. Petigru’s grin evaporated. There was a look of embarrassment on his face now as he glanced first at me, then Daddy, then slowly withdrew his hand from in front of Mary Alice. Whether his regret was grounded in the certainty that he had blown any chance of becoming our new pastor, or because he was actually sorry for preaching such a moronic sermon to a blind girl, I could not tell. Mary Alice remained stoic the whole time and never said a word, which I know had to be difficult since she had been raised just as I had been and you always spoke when spoken to by an adult.

Finally, my father broke the tension by announcing that Mr. and Mrs. Foxe were waiting to take Rev. Petigru to Sunday dinner at their home. As they turned and started walking toward the parking lot beside the church, I heard my father say, “That was an interesting sermon. You may want to preach on Isaiah 5:20 next time. Are you familiar with that passage, Reverend?”