THE SECOND COMING

III

               "Dammit, I thought you was shot," said Clifton.

                "No, I think he just got scared and pulled the trigger."

                "I don't blame him," said Clifton as he watched the light in the sky. "I don't like the looks of this at all."

                "Neither do I," I said. "Do you really think it's the end of the world?"

                "Could be," he said. "Got to happen sometime. Let's head down to the Church."

                "That ‘age of accountability thing,’" I asked, "Are you sure about that?"

                "Oh yeah," he said. "Besides, we never done nothin'. Don't reckon they can get you for just plannin' to do something can they?"

                "Heck, I don't know," I said. “They can tell what you’re thinking can’t...”

                "Dang, look at the people!"  Clifton interrupted. Sure enough, with a full moon out now you could see pretty clearly. There was a file of people ahead, and every time we passed a house, another family would emerge from the front door and join the throng. They seemed to be in a trance of some kind. They walked stiff legged, like they were walking in their sleep maybe. Nobody said much and everyone just looked straight ahead except for the kids, who were taking everything in.

I began to recognize so many shapes on the road up in front of us that I guessed the whole county was turning out, white and black alike. They were all in the same group. Nobody said anything. They still just looked straight ahead.

 We stayed behind the line so we could see. We eventually got to the Centerville crossroads. At this point, the black families peeled off to the right towards their church. As they reformed, I could hear them beginning to sing. Then I could hear a shout or two. It seemed to me at the time that they almost sounded happy. Clifton and I stopped to allow the stragglers to get ahead of us. I glanced around, sort of hoping it had gone.

It was still there – if anything it was even closer.

                "Maybe it is the end of the world," I said.

                "Look at Grandma and Grandaddy!" said Clifton, pointing at Uncle T. J. and Aunt Hallie who were in a crowd about twenty feet in front of us and visible now in the.  "They still got their nightclothes on!"

                Sure enough, both were dressed like they were ready to step right into bed. We surmised that they, like everyone else had been surprised by the spectacle in the sky and, assuming the worst, had rushed out without bothering to change. As we began to recognize more of our friends and relatives, we marked a variety of dress as if the end of the world had truly caught everyone unprepared.

                "Let's hang back, I got to figure this out," said Clifton. We sat down under a tree. Then he looked at me like there was some the answer to some long-hidden problem surfacing in his mind. "By the way, who was that man come to meet Gehaw?"

                "You wouldn't believe it if I told you," I said.

                "God almighty, look a yonder!"  Clifton said, pointing to the shy where the light had appeared again, this time making a beeline for the crowd of travelers who filled the road. There was a mixed chorus of screams, halleluiah’s, prayers and singing as some dove for the ditches on either side, some grabbed one another, and some just fell to their knees to wait for the worst.

                Clifton and I just stood back behind the rest, taking in the scene.  I guess we felt a little secure because of our age. Or maybe we relaxed in the knowledge that the most important sin of our lives to this point had been curtailed before it really got under way. But I also think maybe there was a slight flash of understanding, some hint of familiarity in the movement of the light that the others, occupied as they were with the prospect of such an imminent and lasting judgment, missed. We each guessed it at the same time.

Clifton grinned. Nobody else seemed to have noticed.

"This is going to be good," he said.  "Let's get to the Church and get a good seat for it."

                "All right," I said, and we set out across the open cotton fields.

                When we got there, we didn't go inside. Instead, we went to the dark side of the building and found a good strong limb in an oak tree. From there we could see almost the whole inside. The windows were open, so we wouldn't miss a word. This was going to be some show all right.

By the time we got settled, the Church was half full and people were still streaming in. Preacher Hargraves was already in the pulpit, his face flushed red like it did when he got filled with the Spirit. His wife, Preacher's Gracie, was pounding the piano like it was the devil itself. She was one of the fattest women in the county and watching her bouncing around on that piano seat sent Clifton into a spell of laughing that I just knew was going to get us caught.

“Shut up,” I said. He just laughed harder.

                "Fall down and repent!" Preacher was saying, and several people took him right at his word. They fell right down in front of the pulpit. A couple of them began to shake and jerk uncontrollably.

This seemed to satisfy the preacher, so he continued.

"I have seen the light of salvation in the eastern sky." 

                "Gloree!" someone shouted from the pews.

                "Praise his name brother!" Preacher said.

                "Oh Lord, have mercy," said another, "I been a bad sinner and I ain't ready."

                "He hears you Brother.” Preacher was getting warmed up now.

“Who's next?"

                "Been a liar," said another.

                "Oh Lord I've stole from my neighbor."

                "Pray to Him brother"

                "Lord I'm a drunkard."

                I recognized that voice. Before I could get a good look, I heard another just as familiar.

                "Lord I just got done lyin' to you that my husband was sick when he was dead drunk instead,"

I could see the two of them, Mamma and Papa kneeling near the back with Uncle T.J. and Aunt Hallie who had just come in. I couldn't hear the rest of what they said on account of Clifton was laughing so hard.

                "Stop it," I said.  "They're going to come out here and get us."

                "I can't help it," said Clifton who had tears streaming down both cheeks and snot starting out of his nose he was laughing so hard. I wouldn't look at him now for every time I did he busted out all over again. Then I would get the giggles.  Inside they were heating up so that we could just hear snatches.

                "Stole a hog!"

                "Adultery!"

                "I ain't been to Church....."

                I can’t quite describe it. Clifton was limp by now. He laid back against the limb and just watched, sort of like he was daydreaming. The noises and the music reminded me of a carnival. Maybe like when you stand beside a carousel and watch the people glide by to the music. It all began to flow together.

                Then we heard another voice we recognized, this one clear and strong above the rest to the point where the other voices stopped and even Clifton sat up. 

                "I thank I kilt my daughter tonight."

                It got real quiet. There was no sound but for the insects.

                But Preacher didn’t seem to want things to calm down. He took over again before things got too quiet and addressed old man Ratliff from the pulpit.

"Ain't nobody gonna die ever again, brother." He added quickly, "Help me pray for this man!"

                Then the din started up again and we couldn't hear any single voice, just the crying, singing, praying and shouting of a hundred voices seeking salvation in that delta night. It was if the earth had opened and the sins of the earth were being poured out of that little country church.

Clifton and I just sat back in amazement, knowing that we would never see anything like this again. 

                "Is he in there?" Clifton whispered over to me.

                I didn’t say anything. I guess I didn’t have to. I guess it was just the way I was watching him and laughing.

                "You're lyin," he said, but when he looked and saw I wasn't I could tell that he was as shocked as I had been although being older than I was and all, he didn't shock as easily.

                "I'll be damned," he said.

That seemed to end it for him.  "You reckon we ought to stop them?"

                "Guess somebody ought to so's they can go home,"

We slid off our perch and walked around to the door of the Church. Actually, they had begun to wear down a little themselves, having gone at it for nearly an hour. They heard us open the door and, all at one time, looked around at us. Here stood two young boys instead of the heavenly hosts that they had expected so earnestly. You could see surprise as if it had been painted on their faces.

The noise had died away like a summer storm does when it moves off into the east.  Even Preacher's Gracie quit playing the piano. She just leaned over against it and you could hear her breathing real heavy above everything else.

The preacher was the only one who seemed to want to keep it going after we walked in.

                "You boys better get in here and pray," he said. "Ain't you seen the Lord on his way here?"

                "Where?" said Clifton from the back of the room.

                "In the sky, boy. Ain't you seed it?"

                "I seen a buzzard with a fire tied to its leg," said Clifton.  "That's all I saw."

                "A what?" said a voice in the crowd.

                "A buzzard," said Clifton. He looked toward the pulpit. "If you can't tell the difference between a buzzard and the Lord coming, you ain't much of a preacher."

                "Oh lord.  Hush Clifton," said Aunt Hallie.

                There was this funny sound like everyone in the room drew a quick breath at once.  They stared at us like they expected us to bust into flames. I expected them to start up again with us at the center of things.

                Then I think the truth must have pierced that room for I heard Uncle T.J. "You hush woman. By God I thank the boy's right."

                The room got quiet again.

                "I thought there was something funny about it myself," said a voice I didn't recognize."

                "Are ya'll goin to listen to a couple of sneakin' kids over a man of God?" Preacher was pleading now but he knew it was over, too. Then I heard Papa.

                "I wanna go home and go to bed, Mamma."

                “Sure you do,” she said quietly. “Let’s get on back to the house.

                We moved away from the door as she and Papa walked out. She didn’t say anything to me but gave me a look that said plenty. The main thing it said was to never mention this again. I watched them disappear into the night. She had her arm around Papa and was leading him home like he was her son instead of her husband.

                Then it all began to break up.  It was pretty plain that no one wanted to talk to anyone else, didn't want to see anyone else really - just wanted to get out of there and without once raising their eyes to meet anyone else's. Preacher eased toward the back door with his Gracie behind him. Clifton and I faded back into the darkness and waited in the hope that something else of a lively nature might occur. But it was all over.

                Everyone has realized by now that it wasn't the second coming that they saw in the southern sky that night but just a coal-oil soaked rag set fire and tied to a buzzard's leg by, as it turned out, Fish Johnson who thought it was wondrously funny until they almost sent him to the penitentiary over it.  We all walked home a little thoughtful, though, having been forced by the events to confront our own personal sins, or, in the case of Clifton and me, our intended sins.

                As I said at first, nobody ever mentioned it much. I never talked about it at all as long as Mama and Papa were alive. He, by the way, never touched whiskey again. Preacher disappeared the next day. He left Gracie and she taught piano lessons for a while and then disappeared herself. The harrow handle that Gehaw ran into when the shotgun went off was, we found out later, bent over even with the ground and people used to walk by the house just to look at it.  She wasn't dead at all but was all right after a few days and back with the mules.

Of course we never did see her take a bath, or even want to, really, after that night. We never mentioned it again. I never even told Clifton what her real name was, not that he would have had any interest.

                Clifton and I had more escapades but I never saw him with as much spirit. In fact, I think he sort of lowered his sights after that. It was as if he knew he had been part of something big, maybe even bigger than Hog Eye Bend itself for that matter. We might find it dangerous to try to top it.

                I've thought about Clifton a thousand times, I guess, particularly as he looked that night going home, his hands stuck in the pockets of his overalls and his feet shuffling along and the dust of the delta rising in the full moon's light behind him to form a diamond-like mist that seemed to want to hang there so it, too, could glory in the moment.  It was a grand one for him and I'm glad he had it before the Japs got him.