Pay the Piper by Joan Williams Page B

little girl was asleep with fingers curled into her mouth. She wore a quaint long dress down to her ankles, too young to speak up and complain, I’m made to look strange. Laurel felt for her. She tried to imagine herself in childhood that way, able to sleep amid so much noise. She tried to remember Rick that young.
    A blond woman sat next to her, who might not be so old. But her face was deeply lined. Her stomach was pouched, though not from pregnancy, Laurel could tell that. Something amiss about the shape bothered her. Maybe just a country woman old before her time, not knowledgeable about keeping in shape, the way Laurel herself jogged and worked out. The woman handed her her own songbook, though Laurel tried to protest. She had another one to use, the woman indicated, leaning to the man beside her, his book on his knees. Her husband. He was a tall blond giant. She could see his curly hair, his handsome profile. “Last week we got rained out,” the woman said. Laurel looked up at the tent top as the woman did; it was full of holes. “One night some niggers come and stood out there.” The woman nodded toward the dark. “Brother Roundtree prayed and they didn’t come no more.” Laurel stared down at the songbook titled Heavenly High Hymns . She opened it and saw old-fashioned shaped notes. The musicians ceased when the people began to sing, a dry cacophonous nasal wailing; soon she realized these were people she had always heard referred to as Holy Rollers.
    Mister Zack seemed different not wearing his usual khaki work clothes. His attempt to be a town man did not fit him. He was all wrong in a loose shirt with red flowers—hibiscus, maybe—and pants of a shiny material. He had come into the tent and looked sharply about for her. She hid her face, looking at her shoes in the grass and the dust. Yet she knew the look of disappointment on his face when he realized there was no place for him beside her. He stood staring slack-mouthed toward her. “What’s with Mister Zack?” Rick said.
    â€œNothing,” she said. She had the sense suddenly of how little Rick knew. He’s only a boy, she thought. What had Mister Zack thought could take place with Rick here?
    Brother Roundtree spoke closely into a microphone, like a carnival barker. “I’m no high-educated man. I’m a little self.”
    â€œSo are we all, Brother, so are we all,” a man shouted.
    Brother Roundtree rattled his tambourine. “Once I was full of denial,” he cried. “But, people, I run aground in sin. I stood there then and said, I’m just a little ole widow’s boy and I’m lost, God. I’m lost.”
    â€œGo, preacher,” “Tell us about it.” “Praise the Lord!” People cried out from here and there. Now they began to shove themselves forward in their seats. Their feet tapped silently the ground. Brother Roundtree when he shouted rang the tambourine above his head. It seemed it would shed its tinny pieces. “A lot of you are trying to satisfy lust of the flesh,” he cried. “You need to be borned again. You need to be submerged in that water. And if one of your hands don’t go under, I’ll push you down. I believe in submersion, folks. But baptism don’t wash away sins. What Amurricuh needs today is more old-fashioned praying Mommas and Daddies. If you don’t feel nothing tonight you ain’t got nothing. The main thing is Jesus.” The tambourine beat the air and the musicians twanged and strummed. In a moment of silence before Roundtree could speak, the cows across the way mooed out loudly. She felt Rick’s elbow, smaller than her own, nudge hers and knew a moment of compatibility and sharing.
    â€œHallelujah!” people cried.
    Brother Roundtree said, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and tomorrow. It’s all based on personal revelation. God knows where you live and who you