The Day of Small Things (28 page)

I look in my Bible for the picture of my boy that I like to keep by me. It was getting near wore out and my neighbor Lizzie Beth took it and made a copy and set it in plastic so’s I can handle it all I want. I study it close and like always the sight of his sweet smile revives my spirits. He
was a light in my life—a joy unlooked for after so many sorrows.

And as I think that, I think of Dorothy and how Calven has been a light for her—and now he’s gone.

It ain’t an easy feeling. At least I know that my boy is with Jesus and that is some consolation. I don’t have to worry what will become of him. But Dorothy though …

The folks on the TV are fussing at one another and it looks like the wedding between Zack and Loring is put off again. I have missed what happened to cause it but I don’t care. Somehow, without meaning to, I have made up my mind to see this through with Dorothy, come what may.

As I am putting Cletus’s picture back in the Bible, some of the clippings I have saved between the pages fall on my lap. I look at them—there is the pieces in the paper about Cletus and there is the one about the little girl who disappeared. And there is some others I have to look at both sides and still I can’t make out why I come to save them.

In amongst all these there is a faded red ticket and it most takes my breath away to see it.
Whatever is that doing in the Bible?
I think, and then I remember what Mr. Aaron said when he give it to me.
“If ever you have need for help—”

The ring of the telephone breaks in on my thoughts and I grab it up, knowing it’s Dorothy. I have a feeling all at once that she’s heard from Calven.

“Birdie, he called!” She is most out of breath but she sets in a-gabbling. “He called and he was talking real fast. He didn’t know where he was, a motel on the edge of some little town. He told me he’d been in the back of that big van and couldn’t see nothing much but he
thought
they’d gone through Asheville and traveled east for about
an hour. He said he was locked in and he’d found a cellphone and that he’d get in trouble if they knew he’d called and we shouldn’t on any account try to call him back. And then he said he was all right but he was afraid for his mama’s sake and then he said …”

At last she stops. I can hear her drawing in a deep breath and letting it out with a little sobbing sound.

“Birdie,” she says. Her voice is all a-tremble. “Calven told me he had to hang up quick because a spook was coming.”

(Dorothy)

D
ear Lord, what have I got myself into? I don’t
like
snakes—never have, never will. What am I doing, going to where people pick them up and wave them around? Nasty, slimy snakes. Nasty, slimy
, poisonous
snakes. In church, of all places. And Birdie setting there just as calm …

Dorothy’s Ford swung through a dizzying series of switchbacks that she negotiated almost unconsciously. Her mind was elsewhere.
Poisonous snakes. Poisonous snakes in
church … 
Whyever I had to go and ask Birdie …

The tires shuddered as they hit loose gravel on the shoulder, and Dorothy, averting her eyes from the steep drop-off, guided the car back onto the pavement.

“Belvy belongs to a Signs-Following Holiness Church,” Miss Birdie had explained as they had set out for the drive through Hot Springs into Cocke County. “They go by a verse in the Bible …” and Birdie had begun to leaf through the well-worn book that rested on her lap. “Hit’s in Mark …” The wrinkled old hands had made their
familiar way through the pages. “… right here at the sixteenth verse. ‘And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them.’ ”

Now Birdie was staring out the window, enjoying the scenery, as calm and relaxed as if she attended snake-handling services every day. Dorothy’s hands gripped the steering wheel, her knuckles showing white. “So Aunt Belvy was neighbor to you at one time.”

“Used to be she was.” Birdie nodded in agreement. “But when their church moved over to Tennessee, Belvy and her folks went too. Hit’s twenty years and more she’s been over there.”

Dorothy slowed to let a pickup that had been following close for miles pull around her. “I never heard of a church moving to another state. Why would they do that?”

“Well, honey,” said Miss Birdie, rolling up her window to escape the cloud of black exhaust and the roar from the faulty muffler of the pickup as it strained to pass, “it was on account of they passed a law that in North Carolina, you can’t handle poisonous snakes in church. So Belvy’s gang packed up their serpents and moved across the line, over to Cocke County, Tennessee, where they don’t have that law.”

“But the snakes … they don’t really bite, do they? Seems like I heard they pull their fangs or get rid of the poison somehow. Or dope them up …”

Dorothy glanced over to see Miss Birdie shaking her head. “Honey, them snakes is dangerous all right. Belvy’s oldest boy died of a bite he got when he was handling in church. He’d been bit before and lived but this time … and Belvy’s been bit several times her own self. She told
me the pain was the worst she’d ever known but that the feeling of handling when she was under anointment of the Spirit was such that she’d not never turn aside when the Spirit called her, even after losing her boy that way.”

The little woman paused, one hand resting on her Bible. “Yeah, buddy, Belvy’s eat up with the Spirit. I just hope she gits a good dose of it tonight.”

As they pulled into the crowded parking area in front of the church, Dorothy could see that the congregation was beginning to file into the modest building.
They look like regular folks
, she thought, then jumped as Birdie laid a soft hand on her arm.

“If you don’t care, honey, it would be best was you to wait here till I’ve had a word with Belvy. These folks are a little shy of strangers at their services—there’s been trouble back of this with people coming just to watch or even worse, to make fun, like their church was some kind of show.”

Without waiting for a reply, Birdie stepped out of the car, almost before it came to a stop. She hurried with surprising nimbleness to intercept a tall white-haired woman being escorted to the church steps by two younger women.

Dorothy let out a long sigh. What was it Birdie had said? “Course,
I
don’t believe that the Bible calls upon us to take up serpents … but I do believe that in a free country like America, it’s only right that folks can worship how they want. And they’re real careful about the children—always send them to the back before anyone so much as takes a snake out of its box.”

Dorothy studied the small building. It was low and
modest, built of white-painted concrete blocks, and above its door a half-circle of plywood bore neat black lettering:
Holiness Church Of JESUS Love Anointed With Signs Following
. All the capital letters were outlined in red and the word
JESUS
was underlined twice.

At the foot of the steps, the tall woman bent down and embraced Birdie, then straightened and stood listening intently. Birdie was speaking rapidly, looking up at the imposing old woman whose impassive face wore a faraway expression.

So that’s Belvy—Aunt Belvy, Birdie said the folks all call her. Will she be able to tell me where Calven is?

Birdie had said, in answer to this very question, “Yes, I believe she can. She’s done it afore and she’ll do it again—if the Spirit’s on her. I may not worship the way these folks do but the Spirit moves on them; I’ve seen it happen. And when the Spirit’s at work—God’s at work and He can do all things.”

Dorothy watched Birdie and her friend embrace again. They separated and, as Birdie came bustling back to the car, Aunt Belvy made her stately way up the concrete steps, with the solicitous aid of a dark-haired man in black trousers and a crisply white dress shirt.

As she climbed out of the car, Dorothy couldn’t help saying to Birdie, who was motioning impatiently to her, “Well, they sure do treat your friend like she’s the Queen of Sheba.”

The minute the words were out, she was ashamed and started to say, “I didn’t mean—”

Birdie lifted one finger. “Dorothy honey, don’t you remember? I owe my life to that woman over yonder.”

That woman over yonder …
Dorothy studied the knot of silver-white hair and the alert set of Aunt Belvy’s head. That was all she could see of the so-called prophetess who was sitting on the front row of the women’s side of the church. Next to Aunt Belvy was the gray-haired woman who had welcomed them at the door and shown them to this pew at the back.

At least we’re near the door, thank the Lord!
Dorothy eyed the four squat plywood boxes ranged in a ragged row along the dais at the front of the room. Two had air holes arranged in the pattern of a cross on their side, a third had narrow slits, and the fourth, larger than the others, had big rectangles of hardware cloth let into the sides. Behind the metal mesh, Dorothy felt sure she could see the movement of heavy sliding shapes and she shuddered and closed her eyes. She bowed her head, praying with heartfelt fervor,
O Lord, don’t let those snakes loose! I don’t believe that I could stand it. Please, Lord, let that old woman tell me where Calven is. And please, Lord, keep those snakes in their boxes!

Dorothy’s prayers were interrupted as an electric guitar’s earsplitting notes slid into the only slightly more annoying shrill of feedback. The musician, a teenage boy, glanced up in apology and adjusted one of the knobs on the red-painted body of his instrument. Hand-lettered in straggling capitals along the lower curve were the words
AIN’T GOD GOOD?

The guitar opened the service with a foot-stomping, hands-clapping rendition of a familiar gospel song, its chorus consisting of a somewhat unsettling and often-repeated phrase suggesting that God was going to set sinners’ fields on fire. Dorothy’s voice was loud and true and she was happy to be singing. It took her mind off Calven
for the moment … and off the snakers. At her side Birdie was singing more softly—evidently unsure of both words and tune. Both women were clapping, their elbows bumping now and again.

Dorothy watched intently as the dark-haired man who had helped Aunt Belvy up the steps took center stage on the dais, clapping and singing while his eyes roamed the pews.

Now, I believe that’s Brother Harice, the one who brought the healing service to Birdie back when she was so sick I thought we was going to lose her. Birdie says he’s a right powerful preacher. But, my, doesn’t he look like he thinks he’s God’s gift to women! I suppose some might think he was good-looking with those sleepy eyes and poochy lips. Kind of what old Elvis might have looked like if he hadn’t run to fat. No sideburns though
.

She watched as Brother Harice unleashed a lazy smile, seemingly directed at a curvy young woman sitting just behind Aunt Belvy. There was the slightest suggestion of a wink as one eyelid quivered briefly, then the preacher raised a hand in the air and threw his head back, moving from side to side in time with the beat as the gospel song drew to its triumphant finish.

The last note still hung in the air when the preacher, hand pointing upward, head thrown back in rapture, called out in a voice that filled the little sanctuary.

“Rejoice and sing, brothers and sisters! It’s His Holy Word moving here tonight. Do you feel it moving?”

The question brought forth a flurry of responses.

“Lift us up, O Lord!”

“Amen! Preach it, Brother!”

“Bring the Word! Hallelujah!”

The voices came from all sides—from the pew directly in front of Dorothy where a plump, grandmotherly-looking
woman sat, a string of towheaded children beside her; from the men’s side and a gaunt-faced man in new dark blue overalls; from one of the three heavily built men sitting on the bench to the side of the dais. Other cries of “Amen!” urged the preacher on and the guitar emitted a rapidly ascending glissando of notes, the sound climbing higher and higher to end in a shattering reverberation.

The church was ready.

“They call us ignorant hillbillies; they persecute and outlaw us believers for following the Signs!”

Now Brother Harice was pacing rapidly, back and forth on the little dais, as he exhorted the congregation. Dorothy was fascinated to see all the heads following him,
like the crowd at one of those tennis games on TV
, she thought, as she realized that her head was swiveling too.

“They say we put our children in danger every time they set foot in our church house …” A subtle undercurrent of no’s swept through the congregation. “But I say those children are safer here … here with the serpents and the fire and the strychnine …”

“Praise Him!”

“Amen, Brother Harice!”

“… safer here in God’s House among God’s people …”

The dark-haired preacher left the platform and strode down the aisle to lay a gentle hand on the head of a toddler, drowsing in her mother’s arms. “Oh, it’s a safety not of this world, brothers and sisters! It’s the safety found in the loving heart of Jesus; it’s the safety in the Signs and the power in the Blood …”