The Arms of God: A Novel Read online

  He felt the seams pull apart, but he only observed the colors and the textures of the narrow strings as they loosened and fell. He did not try to stitch them back together. He did not pray. He was not anxious or afraid. He only watched and counted as they slowly and painlessly untied and dangled near the edges of his heart. Losing his faith was the easiest thing he had ever done in his life.

  Just before the November storm rolled through and silenced the world around Smoketown, Reverend Ely had gone to the shed behind the church to do a little cleaning. He walked through the back door, smiling to himself as he thought about the last time he had come to the old lean-to.

  He remembered his own embarrassment and the looks of shock that he found when he had walked up on Becky Lee Meadows and Billy Disher. It didn’t surprise him that the couple was there; he knew that this little building was where young Christians discovered sanctification in the forms of hand-rolled cigarettes, bottles of Randolph County moonshine, and underneath neatly ironed church dresses.

  Once he realized whom and what he had come upon, he cleared his throat and turned his head while Becky Lee and Billy hurried to zip up his pants and button her sweater and then without a word rush through the door.

  He spoke without sharpness or disappointment to their backs as they ran by, “See you both in church Wednesday night.” With that, the incident was handled. And because of the kind of man he was, he never told a soul.

  He was sweeping up bits of trash and cigarette butts on that cold, gray day when he saw an oval-shaped piece of glass and picked it up to look through. He held it up first to the ceiling and then to a knothole on the far wall and tilted it side to side, watching the folds and bends of reflected light. It was just as he was about to toss it out the door when he noticed the arm of the big oak tree.

  His first thought was that a limb had cracked and was simply hanging low; and he held the piece of glass tighter, trying to see more clearly. He outlined the shape that dropped to only a few feet above the ground and paid no attention to the sharp edges cutting into his skin. He wanted to believe it was a limb. He tightened his grip, harder and deeper, trying to make the focus more or less clear. He spoke to himself out loud as if someone else might be listening, “It has to be a limb.”

  Streaks of red painted his oval window until he could no longer ignore the pain in his right hand nor the truth of what he saw. Still clutching the glass like it held the vision in itself, he walked toward the tree and faced the broken and battered body of Elton Williams. Tiny drops of blood marked the path from shed to tree and from life to death; and Reverend Ely stood without a prayer to the Christ he now believed was dancing in the palm of his hand.

  For almost an hour alone and in the cold, the preacher sawed at the rope with his little piece of glass, trying to cut the young boy down. It did not occur to him to go and get a sharp blade or to yell for help. He did not think to run and call the police. There had been no plea to heaven. Already the threads were breaking and he cut them one by one with a dull, bloody shard of glass.

  When the body fell, a thud on the frozen ground, Reverend Ely turned to the tree as if it were the murderer. In his mind he saw the tree lean its branches over to Mrs. Masie Williams’s house and grab up Elton until he dangled from the arm of the killer like a charm. In an unexpected moment of passion, the pastor strove at the tree, kicking and hitting until he could no longer feel the tips of his fingers and toes. Then, exhausted from his attempt to kill a tree and bring justice to the murdered boy, he gathered the dead body in his arms and went inside the church to the altar.

  He stayed there until the kerosene lamp burned out, without praying, even without weeping, just rocking the dead boy at the foot of the gold cross that stood in the center of the altar table.

  He was trying to think of reason or cause that a boy had been hanged in the back of his sanctuary, trying to concentrate on the suffering Jesus and how the Messiah would have breathed life back into the child; he was trying to call on some means of comfort; but he had nothing, felt nothing, knew nothing, other than the unraveled place that exposed his shredded and disappearing faith.

  After more than a couple of hours waiting on a silent God and trying to remember his sermon from the past week, the one for the following Sabbath, and thinking only of how small the gold cross had become, he emerged in the darkness, walked through Smoketown with Elton cradled in his arms until he found Mrs. Masie.

  The mother of the dead boy fell hard across the path of sorrow. She did not pass easily through the valley of the shadow of her son’s death. She grieved as only a murdered child’s parent knows to grieve. But when folks looked back and remembered Mrs. Masie’s bereavement, they would say Elton’s mama did not take it as hard as the white preacher who, after finding and cutting down a black child who hung from a white boy’s rope, landed deep into a pit of hopelessness and tried desperately to peel away his skin.

  He walked to Mattie’s early Sunday morning before church started when the ice was beginning to melt. With the boxes of milk and nipples beneath his arms, he strode without a sound to the small white shack and knocked on the door. His face was gray and marked with deep lines, his eyes dark with shadows; and although a bone was crushed in his right foot and three fingers were broken, he did not wince or favor them.

  Roy opened the door and together they stood on opposite sides, the silence surprising or disturbing neither one. Ruth finally came from behind the little boy and welcomed the preacher into her neighbor’s home. She felt the cord in her back tighten as an icy breath blew past her as he went into the front room on his left.

  Tree and Olivia, both of them wide-eyed and curious, lay wrapped in blankets on the floor. Roy went around the preacher to join E. Saul over near the hearth of the wood stove where they had been playing. Ruth shut the door and turned to see the white gauze as it wrapped around the preacher’s right hand and saw him shift his weight from right to left. His feet were wet from the walk. His eyes glassy and red from lack of sleep.

  “You out awfully early this morning, Reverend.” Ruth took a box from under his arm, trying not to stare. “Why not take off your shoes and set them by the fire? Your feet must be froze.”

  “I heard about Miss Jacobs and thought the milk might be helpful.” He set the other box on the floor near the door and glanced over at the babies.

  “Looks like she’s already made a friend.” He tried to put a lift in what he said, but there was a cavernous ring to his voice. He sat down and began pulling off his shoes and socks.

  Ruth saw the bruised foot, swollen and blue-black. She tried not to gawk but the size and depth of the wound disconcerted her. The preacher followed her eyes and he too became captivated by the part of his leg that hung from his ankle bone like a distended cloudy balloon.

  The toes were folded, the tops skinned and patched in black. It was a neat and simple design that laced along the edges and dripped down into the cracks. It was purple where blood had gathered and dark blue like the night sky in winter just over the top where fragments of a bone lay shattered.

  He traced the bruise, feeling no sensation or pain or tingling, just a deep numbness as he looked up, his face stern, and said to Ruth, “This is really nothing.” And he stood up, placing his weight on the injured foot to prove himself, then set his shoes and socks near the stove.

  There was another pause between them.

  “I believe the storm has passed, Ms. Ruth. I hope you all did not suffer too much discomfort.”

  He sat down on the far right side of the sofa nearest to the hearth.

  The hole in his voice and the bandaged hand and disfigured foot made Ruth wonder about which storm he spoke since they both knew two had raged across the region.

  “No, sir, we all managed just fine. Course Mattie ain’t come around since she labored. I worry a bit about her.”

  Ruth began telling the story of the birth, trying to find for herself at which point the woman faded into her dream. She walked out of the room a
nd into the kitchen still talking while the children studied the face, the feet, and the hands of their guest.

  Reverend Ely was no longer listening. He was no longer trying to be an entertaining visitor or even paying attention to what Ruth was saying. He was watching the breath of the wood heater. The climb and collapse of the red fingers that crawled up and down the inside of the belly. The patterned movement hypnotized the man; and the soothing warmth and perfect quiet made the preacher aware of his heaviness. In his eyelids and at the extensions of his wrists and legs. At the base of his brain and way beneath the softness of his heart muscle. Reverend Ely had been dogged by evil; and the rupture in his chest had finally stolen away his capacity to run.

  Sleep came fast and easy; and by the time Ruth had finished her story and was bringing a cup of coffee into the room where he sat, the parson’s face was to his chest, his arms hanging at his side.

  All of his features relaxed. The angles rounded and the knots loosened. The needled expression he bore along his brow and down along his cheeks dulled; and his too-squared shoulders dropped and bowed. It was peaceful and he was tired. So he gave into himself and took rest. Rising and falling with the perfect timing of a flame.

  Deeply and fully he slept, diving straight through the dream state and entering into an unplumbed coma. He was motionless, his heartbeat slowed, his lungs delayed. He had fallen completely into sleep. No tossing or turning, no struggle to stay awake. And as if he had been given a secret gift from angels, when he awoke, just fifteen minutes later, the nap was all he needed to see clearly.

  He turned and looked about him. Everything was vivid. The curious awareness of wide blue eyes. A stream of dust along the top of a picture frame. The crimson belly that swelled and emptied. The tightness of a corner and the small yellow spots just above his head. The uneven strokes of a paintbrush along the walls and the tiny flowers on Ruth’s apron. Violets, he said to himself. The pale stench of a baby’s urine. The feel of smooth cotton. The bitter taste of coffee. The tractable clucking of a mother’s tongue behind her teeth. Everything about his senses was sharp and fine-tuned.

  He directed his clarity on things that were going on outside the house. He could hear the slush of ice against rubber. Blink at the too-bright sun that glistened on tin. Chill at the whip of a breeze as it struck the back of his neck. Everything was distinct and easily defined including even the precise absence of feeling in his foot and in his hands.

  Ruth saw the change. She had not been bothered by his nap; she was glad the pastor could rest so easily in her presence. She was not troubled that he had fallen asleep for a brief time, but there was something unhinged about him since he woke up. A glint in the way he kept looking at things. A ferocity about his vision. A flash that happened too quickly as he went around the room focusing on colors or sounds or something she could not name. She was unsure of what he thought he was seeing and she was unsettled by his farsightedness.

  “That Mattie’s boy?”

  It had been an awkward silence; yet he made no apology for sleeping and no attempt at light conversation to recover the lapsed time.

  His question stunned Ruth and after a moment of hesitation she answered, “Yes, sir,” deciding that a redirection of focus might take away from the sternness of her thoughts. “Roy, come and meet the preacher.”

  Roy moved slowly over to Ruth from behind the stove, pressing his back into her knees. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and smiled down at the child.

  “Good-looking boy, ain’t he?”

  E. Saul followed behind his friend, stopping just at his mother’s side.

  The Reverend had retrieved his socks and shoes and was putting them on. When he was finished he dropped to his knees right in front, eye level to the white boy. The clear-eyed man saw the crooked part in the little boy’s hair and the smeared syrup dried and sticking to the corners of his mouth. He saw the blue space in the child’s eyes and the look of misunderstanding so often confused for sadness. He saw the dirty lines just under his chin and the purple-red scar that wrapped around his neck. All of this he saw.

  Then without touching the little boy, the man spoke, “Your name Roy?” Their faces so close that they breathed each other’s air.

  Roy didn’t answer, but he also didn’t break the stare.

  “Roy,” Reverend Ely said in a rolling voice as he shook his head, “trees are the arms of God.” His eyes were firm and unyielding. This was the sermon he was meant to preach.

  “They can be strong and hearty, giving themselves so children can climb to housetop heights and swing from the lapis-lazuli sky to the emerald-green earth. They can be tall and solid like the mighty oak or delicate and wispy like the weeping willow and the silk tree. They can glory God with rainbow-colored leaves and little bitty pink and white flowers. They can bear fruit as sweet as full red cherries and as handsome as the crisp apple and the ripe yellow pear. Nuts that crack open spilling a fresh and tasty meat.”

  His singsong voice floated and fell, twirling like a seed in spring air.

  “They will shade you in the summer, a cool resting place to lean your tired back, give you music as the wind whispers through the spiny fingers that dance above your head. All these things and more,” the preacher said without moving his eyes from the face of the child, “can these creatures give to us.” It was perfect, every word, every inclination, every rise and fall of his voice. He was in love with his own gift.

  “They were made to enjoy and be enjoyed and that, my little friend, they will do. But, Roy”—he reached up and dropped his hands on the boy’s shoulders, the sermon now heading in a new direction, a way of admonition and warning—“don’t ever, no matter how twisted and torn your life may get, don’t ever use a tree to do your evil.” The pause was severe.

  “Trees are the arms of God.” And he touched Roy’s neck, causing the boy to step back and snap up his head.

  Ruth handed the preacher his hat and coat and he smiled and walked through the door, shielding his eyes from the brightness of the morning and the clarity of what he knew was going to happen next. He went to church relieved.

  When the time for the sermon came the Reverend Ely got up and faced the congregation. They had softened in their seats and now awaited the Word, interpreted and spoon-fed in such a way that it could sit easily in their mouths, slide painlessly down into their cold rock bellies, and fill them up with comfort.

  They had sung the gentle hymns, heard the announcements, read together one of the stories of Jesus, an easy one of bearable and uncostly love; and they were pleased with how the hour was going. It was the service of worship they had created and sacrificed to keep in place.

  There were four other preachers who came and went before Reverend Ely took the job, each of them fired because of unsolicited expectations for the rural church. They hired Reverend Ely, a retired schoolteacher, after three years of an empty pulpit only because he said that he would charge them for just the preaching and not for the visiting or Bible study and because he did not have a long-term mission plan for the membership growth.

  He was held in only modest regard by most of the members of Pinetops Baptist Church. They all thought he was a little too book smart and a bit too involved with the people of Smoketown; but at least he had not arrived with grandiose ideas of worshiping with the Methodist Church or getting caught up in community outreach. And he had never, not in the ten years he had been their preacher, ever made an attempt to change the order of service.

  As he stood to preach on that bright November Sunday morning, the ice melting and the sun high and strong, he looked around at who was in attendance at church. He paid attention to which members had braved the cold and come to worship in such a short time after the falling of the first winter storm.

  The Walkers were there, on the third row just as faithful as rain. Mr. and Mrs. Harvey sat near the back with John Gaston, Sr., who was already dozing, and the Bentley twins, whom no one could tell apart. Edith and Becky Lee sat stru
ggling with itchy wool and too many clothes while Effie and Lacy Finch adjusted themselves so that Miss Agnes Withers would not block their view. He studied them all as they fidgeted in the silence, moving quietly from face to face.

  He stopped, however, when he got to the center of the sanctuary. Reverend Ely locked his vision, found his mark; and it was on the fifth row evenly spaced from left to right where his sermon began.

  Leroy Johnson did not hit his children. He never laid a hand upon his wife. He had always been silent as stone. His heart just as hard, but he did not define his violence in physical terms. For him, it was in the way he cut his eyes and left a room, the way he finished a sentence, brutal and abrupt. He worked his boys like they were mules with the only show of affection being the nod he gave their way when one outlasted the other in the fields, working with the livestock, or in fair fights.

  The three boys learned that their father would share with them only what he must, shelter, food, and an intolerance for anyone different from themselves. He bred the quality of bigotry in his family like it was royal blood; and he wished nothing more than for his children to nurture that quality and give it life in ways he never could. With only the common desire to please their father, the three boys looked for means by which to claim his blessing.

  It was no surprise then to any of the three when the black boy stopped breathing. They knew with only a glimpse that the defiant black youth who would not run away with his friends must bear the consequences of their family’s stock. And when he would not scream out or beg them to stop, reminding them of their father’s silent desires, it only made the blows come harder, the kicks more frequently.

  He was dead when they hanged him, but to the three white brothers it was not over until they ritualized their feelings and brought fear to an entire community. The black boy hanging from a tree in the back of their church was the shrine to their father who taught them how to hate.