...friend of Jack...

Every time the dam broke we would laugh like it was the last day of school and summer had just begun. The water would rush down and carry away the sandy flats just below the dam, taking everything with it: the soldiers and their barracks, and the houses, too. It was complete destruction, just as we had planned and envisioned the whole scene. Jimmy would stand on the creek bank with his little red rider, plinking off the survivors who had the good fortune of high ground under their plastic feet. Occasionally, those times we managed to steal off with a bit of gasoline or turpentine, the village we had built down stream would catch fire just ahead of the flood and we would watch breathlessly as the last embers of what had been little twig and pine straw huts were quenched by the wrath of rising water. It was always a joyous moment. Hours and hours of building the little earthen dam, complete with diversion streams and sometimes, when we had planned it thoroughly, little roads and piers and boats, would come to their apocolyptic end with us, simultaneously gods and bystanders, looking on.
The lake, some two and sometimes three feet deep and longer than both of our stretched out bodies, wanted it to happen, it seemed. During construction I remember feeling the water push steadily against the rocks, sometimes forcing them over the edge. These were big rocks. Rocks the size of a person's head sometimes. And the chinking of clay and straw we squished between and over the mass of rock and fallen limb that made the the meat of the dam was forever it seemed disappearing from the structure and re-emerging as a muddy gush that had to be contained quickly, before the whole thing fell apart. We took great pains. We worked at it while good friends played baseball or went to the rec center day camp. We never had the cool little crafts or trophies adorn our rooms. No team pictures. Hell, we couldn't even sing the words to Bill Grogan's Goat. We didn't care. Neither of us noticed until the next fall when school started again and all the stories and questions of summer activities began. Teachers frowned without comment when it was time for our “what I did this summer” stories while stumbling over themselves to commend and have us applaud the extravagant conquests and adventures of our classmates, and it always gave a sweet aftertaste to the summer. Sure, it made us irritated toward the teachers, but we were irritated anyway and really, nothing was going to change that for better or worse. They had interrupted our reign of freedom and power with their jobs, dammit.
That was another thing, dammit and words like that. We got to practice the art of those words out there in the woods building dams in the creek. There is a time and place for a good four letter word, and it has nothing to do with where you are, but with where the word falls in the sentence and where that sentence is placed in the conversation. It takes practice and we learned to speak well. We read in the loft of Jimmie's garage when the weather was oppressive even to us. We built dams. We destroyed civilizations with fire and flood and war. We honed the craft of cussing. We learned religion.
My parents thought it might be good for me to experience other denominations of church, “other means of observance and prayer,” I remember hearing it that way. I had always gone on Sundays to the Lutheran church with my family. It was fine. I liked it, alright. I remember being suspicious of the singing. Long drawn out words and phrases with lots of hissing “s” sounds. Sounded like a roomful of snakes. But there was always a bowl of cold punch and baskets of cookies in the summer. That and Melissa Thorpe's summer Sunday skirt. Melissa was just sprouting and I remember straining to see the outline of her much rumored training bra.. Sundays weren't all bad, really, but Jimmie and his mom went to a different church I'd never heard of. It was on the other side of town. Had to go in the car to get there. I never understood why they would do that when there were half a dozen churches within a five minute walk of the house. It may have been my comment to that effect one Sunday when Jimmy and his mom were over eating Sunday dinner with us that sparked my mother to invite me along to their service the next Sunday. I remember Jimmie's mom smiled real big and said, “why yes, that would be wonderful.” My dad smiled kind of sideways like and said, “ yes, I think that's a great idea.” You could always tell my parents were on to something when they smiled at each other that way, just a split second smile, with gazes that went deep you could tell but seemed to just glance off each other's faces before resting on one of us kids, or maybe the platter of pork chops.
So that next Sunday I went with Jimmy and his mom to Church. I can't remember now what church it was, Church of God, Pentecostal, something like that. It didn't seem that different, at first. I remember people were very interested in me. There was a small crowd gathered on the church lawn, waiting for the preacher to come and open the doors.
“What's your name, there son?” one man asked me.
“Cale Crawford, sir,” I replied, trying to get away.
“Crawford, huh?” the man looked off for a moment. “Any kin to Jefferson Crawford?”
“No sir, I don't think so.”
“Don't think so?” he acted surprised. “Don't you know?”
“Well, no sir,” I said. “I mean, there's so many people in my family I can't count on you not being one of 'em.”
At this, the man laughed hard and loud. “Hey Melba!” he turned to an elderly lady that may have been his mother or may have been his wife, it didn't really matter to either of us it seemed. “you know this little squirt? Kin to you?” He was trying to restrain his laughter and I was looking to crawl under something. “Says he's got so many kin he thinks I might be one of 'em.”
“John, you know that boy's got more sense and I think a heap more religion than you do.” the woman, whom I suppose was Melba, like the toast, scolded. “You know we're all in the family of God. Adam and Eve begat us all, each every one of us. We're nothing but clay, John, without the Lord's blessing and rule. It's the same rule, too. Same for all 'cause we're all of the same. Leave that boy alone, carrying on like a fool when a child speaks from his faith and learning in the word.”
At this, John stuttered a bit before becoming fascinated with the fine job of mowing and weeding that had been done on the church grounds since the last Sunday and went off into conversation about it with another fellow standing nearby.
This was going to be different. More like a family re-union than a church service, I thought. And at our church, no one, ever, speaks of a person's “learning in the word.” What the hell did she mean by that?
The church service itself was familiar, only a little livelier than I what I was used to. People sang, and I mean sang like they didn't mind being heard or talked about afterward. Jimmie's mom had a sweet voice. I was surprised. She was always so quiet when I was there. She'd talk to us, sure, but not conversationally, not with emotion or even real interest. When we talked with her, I always had the feeling that she was looking at us like the cover of some book she intended read intently when the work was done, and the work for her was never done. She wasn't married and I never heard nor asked about Jimmie's dad. It was understood that this was his family, the two of them and that's it. No siblings, no father, but no less complete and whole than my own family. To ask about his father would be suggesting that something wasn't right with his family, and there was no less right with his than my own. It was all either of us had or knew.
After the opening hymns, the preacher, that's what Jimmie called him (we called him the “minister” in our church and I always wondered why that sounded so much like sinister), started in with the sermon. I was used to sermon time being a practice in silent diversion. Anything to stay awake without calling undue attention to myself. It was a time to study the crown mouldings and stained glass and the habits of other people. Grown men in our church would fall asleep in perfect posture and many of the women used the sermon to study the hats that adorned the heads of their counterparts while pretending to or perhaps simultaneously studying along in their bible or hymn book.
Jimmie's church, though, was different. People were calling back, not so much to the preacher or each other, but just into the air with “praise be,” and “oh Lord!” I noticed some rocking back and forth on their seat, eyes closed and heads bobbing. Such behavior was frowned upon in my experience. Such behavior would draw scowls of disapproval at our church. It wasn't polite or respectful. But such was not the case here. I was, to understate the issue, fascinated even as I was disturbed by the scene. Then things got weird. The preacher started calling out names. Calling out the names of people in the congregation. And asking some pointed questions.
“Stephen Barker,” he called from the pulpit, “We've been praying for you. You told us last Sunday of your troubles with the gout. Have you heard the Lord, Stephen? Has the Lord eased your pains? Has the Lord given purpose to your pain? Have you listened with all your might for His word?”
“Amen, I have.” I guess it was Stephen himself speaking from somewhere behind us. “My pains have eased, thank you Lord, and I'm here today without crutch or cane.” His voice was matter of fact, but you could detect the passion.
“Praise the Lord!” boomed up from a small chorus of praised be's, amens, and hallelujahs. But it wasn't the preacher's voice.. “Lord almighty, we don't deserve your Love! We don't deserve your kindness and you heal us anyway. Thank you Lord!”
More people were rocking and swaying in their seats. Many had their eyes closed, others were turned to face the one who had begun to testify. The service went on like this for maybe a half hour. By the end of it there were people, including Jimmie's mom, wailing and falling to the floor. Some around them, with joy on their faces, were holding on to them, patting the stricken and praising the Lord. It was completely terrifying. I sat there with my mouth agape, looking on. Jimmie looked at me and asked, “testify if you want. Tell the Lord, tell the preacher, let it out.”
I had no idea. I had known Jimmie for four years, which at that time was a sizable fraction of my life. And all this time I had no idea he had this kind of religion. His face at that point could have been that of the wolfman, suddenly strange but familiar, as terrifying and compelling as a rattlesnake.
“I don't have anything to say,” was all I could manage.
“It's OK. No secrets from the Lord, so no one has to, only if they want, only if they're moved to do it,” He said this like a person could admit to acts as heinous as murder or masturbation in here with no consequences, no jail time, no whispers behind their back. Later, after the service, he told me of a time when his mother had cried out about “wantin' relations with a married man.” He said she had been very upset about it, but he didn't really know what she was talking about. That next fall, in English class, he turned red and faced me when the teacher defined “wanton” in our spelling book.