Raptured by Dixon Hearne
“There’s no other word for it, friends—BLASPHEMY!” The tent preacher snatches up the Bible in his right hand and draws his left into an angry fist, shaking it at the gap-toothed, bug-eyed crowd. “Ain’t no use trying. You can’t run away from your sins—Holy Jesus!” A round chorus of Amens washes over the sweaty congregation—hand fans are totally useless on such muggy Delta nights. Weaker stock wouldn’t last till convocation in the Avon-spiked haze.
Two pretty young girls, restless and bent on mischief, make their way from the tent to the Porta-Toilet parked out back, where they crouch behind and light up a Marlboro—hiding its glow with cupped hands. They snigger at the tent preacher who’d just issued his condemnation of such vices. “The Big Three,” he’d called them. “One begets the other!” he’d hollered. “It’s a slippery slope to Hell’s front door!”
“If that man ever draws breath,” Kaylee whispers, “he’ll find his flock raptured right out of that tent and treading up dust behind them.”
“Old fool knows he’s got to grab hold and scare hell out of them if he wants any love offerings in his plate,” Twyla giggles. “I bet he’s pulling in more bucks tonight than my old man does in a month. Kind of makes me wonder why he needs so damn much. Jesus didn’t.”
“Shh! Somebody’s coming,” Kaylee whispers, “Who is that?”
“The preacher man’s wife,” Twyla replies. “She’s headed right toward us. Oh, Lord, she’s gonna tell my daddy.”
“Smoking ain’t in the Commandments,” Kaylee chides. “It’s just another church-invented guilt to lay on us. Funny he didn’t mention sex as one of the Big Three. That tells me something right there.”
“Listen,” Twyla whispers, snubbing the cigarette under her foot. She’s humming. The preacher lady’s humming … ‘Standing in the Need of Prayer.’ Don’t them people ever take a break? She must be a good woman—singing the preacher’s praises 24-7.”
“That woman can cry on cue, Twyla. Got the right face for every turn in that man’s sermon—sad, joyous, angry, you name it, she’s got the right expression.”
“I hope I find a good man someday to love me like she loves him.” Twyla sighs.
Revival voices rise up again under the tent. The two girls squat and listen to the preacher’s Word and his wife’s humming. Drawing in dreamy wafts of nightshade.
“Dammit, Twyla, now I’m really feeling guilty. The preacher lady sitting in there on the toilet singing a church hymn and I know damn well they’ll all smell the smoke on us when we go back in.”
“Try some mint leaf,” comes a sing-songy voice in the dark. “You can find some growing under the live oaks over there.” The girls bolt upright, staring pop-eyed at the Porta-Toilet. “It covers up a myriad of indiscretions…” The voice breaks with a muffled hiccough. “I’ve sworn by it for years now.”
***
About the Author
Dixon Hearne
Born: Monroe, Louisiana
Now Resides: Huntington Beach, California
Online: www.dixonhearne.com
Bio: Dixon Hearne grew up along green levees and bayous that meander southward in the Louisiana delta —the setting for much of his writing. He is the author of a recent book, Plantatia: High-toned and Lowdown Stories of the South, a PEN/Hemingway nominee and winner of the 2010 Creative Spirit award. He has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize for fiction. With the aid of his two fine Bichons, he is at work on a novel and another collection of short stories. After years of writing non-fiction for professional journals, fiction presents a wonderful opportunity to write in a different voice.
***
image by Dolore.
