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PREACHER MAN
JOHNNY
Ma, what was the name of that one eyed preacher that came over to the Ripshin church and held that big revival meeting a few years back? You know, the one that came ridng up on that old mare and got Pa drunk?
BECKY
That lowdown, good-for-nothing hypocrite! I never will forget that lowlife……but if you must know his name was Claude Jones……the Reverend Claude Haines Jones. Now he is one of the poorest excuses for a preacher that I ever laid eyes on; one sorry piece of human flesh!
JOHNNY
Well, they was saying down at the mill that he was coming back over this way next week. Mr. Davis ran into him over in Bristol and the preacher allowed that the good Lord had laid it upon him to come back and hold another revival. He told Mr. Davis that the deacon board at the Ripshin church wouldn’t let him preach there anymore so he was going to hold the revival at the old Dog Ankle church.
JOHN
He didn’t get me drunk! I’ll admit that I was a little woozie but not drunk…….maybe a little sick on that rock and rye………I wouldn’t call it……
BECKY
Call it whatever you want to, but you are the one that came staggering in here from the barn, reeking to high heavens, falling and then puking all over my clean living room floor! It took your son there and I almost forever to drag you into the back bedroom and get you into bed. I was scared to death that someone would come visiting before we could get that mess cleaned up.
BILLY JOE
Ma, what is rock and rye?
BECKY
It is plain old hard liquor, son; old demon rum and your Pa there has a weakness for the vile stuff………….seems to run in his family!
JOHN
Now, I will admit that I’m no teetotalling teetotaler, but a little sip of good bottled in Bond never hurt anyone……not like your Ma seems to think. To answer your question Billy Joe, rock and rye is when they mess up good rye whiskey by mixing in some big hard crystals of flavored sugar.
BECKY
I just hope that bootlegging hypocrite don’t come over this way again, that’s all…..
RUTHIE
Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging and whosoever drinketh is deceived thereof.
JOHN
There goes Aunt Hattie again, quoting scripture…….and speaking of scripture, that Claude Jones knew most of it by heart and could throw an old time pulpit tantrum with the best of them. You know that eye was perfectly good. He wore the patch over it for the effect…..part of his image!
BECKY
John, you know he is too big a sinner to be running around preaching to other people about anything. They say that hard times brings on false prophets and I am beginning to think that it is true. They say there wasn’t one thin dime left over on the Ripshin when he closed that revival. People couldn’t even pay their store debts after he got through passing that flat brimmed hat he wore.
JOHN
There wasn’t too many females over there that weren’t pregnant either. He knocked up half of the young women over there, married or not!
JOHN
You don’t know that for sure, just the deacon’s daughter Bess is the only one I know of.
JOHN
I was over that way last week and I saw a half a dozen little shavers running around hanging onto their mothers leg and every one of them the same age and they all looked exactly like that preacher man. As the old saying goes, he must have had it in for a lot of the men over there on the Ripshin!
BECKY
Lets not get carried away now…
JOHNNY
He’s kinda like old Sam Houston, huh Pa? Remember how your grandpa used to tell the story about visiting the Indian villages a couple years after Old Sam had come through. He said every village had a dozen or more little blue eyed half breeds running around just learning to walk!
JOHN
That’s for sure, son. I’ll bet if you checked back you would find that the Reverend Claude and Old Sam are related.
BILLY JOE
There ain’t no Indians over on the Ripshin is there Pa?
JOHN
No son, Johnny was just making a point comparing the two.
BILLY JOE
I see, Pa!
RUTHIE
I think you all are just awful……talking about a preacher that way. Look at all the lost souls he has helped to find salvation.
BECKY
You’ve got a point there Ruthie, that’s for sure. The good Lord does work in strange and mysterious ways.
RUTHIE
Where did he go after closing the revival over there on the Ripshin?
JOHNNY
As I remember, the first thing he done was to sell that old sway backed mare and got himself the prettiest Tennessee Walker you ever seen. Pa and I were up at the woodshed one day and he rode up on that little feisty mare. She was prancin’ and dancin’ all over the road. He had a red silk scarf ties around his neck and was smokin’ ready rolls.
He claimed to Pa and I that the good Lord had really blessed him over on the Ripshin and had called him to go to the Flatwoods Clearview Church and hold a revival meetin’ over there. He wanted to know if Pa knew of anyone he could stay with over that way. Pa told him to see Uncle Smith and told him it was pretty late in the year to be holding a revival. He just smiled and allowed that when the good Lord called, he was always ready!
JOHN
You’re right son, but he hadn’t cut a deal with the deacons at that time and I believe that he was on a scouting trip. He cut a deal with the deacons later. Anyway, that’s what your Uncle Smith told me; so we figured he went over to the Flatwoods to check out the female population over there. Maybe he was thinking like you son! You always claimed the prettiest girls in the world was over there in the Flatwoods
RUTHIE
Pa, you must be joshing. No preacher would pull something like that.
BECKY
Honey, this preacher would.
RUTHIE
Did he get to hold a revival over in the Flatwoods too?
JOHN
Your Uncle Smith told him it was too late to hold a revival; harvest time was just around the corner and people was already getting some of their crops in. He insisted that his was a divine calling and the board of deacons over there seemed to agree with him. He held his revival!
BECKY
As you know most revivals usually last from Sunday to Sunday……..eight nights in all. On the closing night or what was supposed to be closing service that man preached what he called his ace sermon……..The Midnight Hand of Death. They said there was so many sinners at mourners bench that night they had to clear out the whole amen corner of the church. Before they closed the meeting that night the deacons had asked him to stay another week. He said he would pray on it but after they took a love offering with that flat brimmed hat the reverend decided to stay while counting that cash.
RUTHIE
Did you go, Ma?
BECKY
No I did not and neither did your Pa! Johnny there went about every night. He was sweet on a little girl over there by the name of Bertha……Bertha Phillips……that redheaded fat girl that rides the bean truck with us sometimes. I don’t think he went to listen to the ………..
JOHNNY
Ma, she wasn’t fat, not then anyway. You didn’t like her just because I was dating her. You don’t like any of my girlfriends. You never have.
JOHN
It’s not so much the girls, son. It’s what your Ma visualizes in the prospective offsprings. She even compares people to animals sometimes. She told me that Bertha’s mother looks and acts like a female Russian wolfhound.
BECKY
Now John you’re stretching things a bit too far.
JOHN
It is better than saying bitch!
BECKY
About the third week into the revival your Uncle Smith came over here to talk to John. The crops were rotting in the field over there in the Flatwoods. The people were going to the meeting house every night and were just too tired to work in the fields the next day.
Smith said something had to be done. They went outside to talk awhile and your Pa never did tell me, but I knew that they had plotted something against the Reverend Jones.
Johnny can tell you what really happened.
JOHNNY
The next night after Uncle Smith came by and talked to Pa I was standing outside the church smo……I mean I was going to the outhouse and heard a strange noise. I looked up and Reggie Campbell, you know, Harold Campbell’s oldest boy was laying on a big limb of that oak tree extending out over the church house right over the stove pipe extending through the roof.
RUTHIE
Reggie Campbell….ain’t he the draft dodger they are looking for? He got called and wouldn’t go. They were here last week looking for him.
JOHNNY
That’s the one! It had started to get a little cold at night and they would fire up that old big wood heater to take the chill off. When I started back into the building the people were scrambling to get outside. The smoke was so thick inside you could cut it with a knife. They didn’t even have a closing hymn that night.
The next night they had checked that stove and pipe over real good before they lit the fire. I watched that stove like a hawk watches a chicken. The minute it started to smoke I ran outside and looked up. Sure enough, there was Reggie stretched out on that limb.
Smoke filled the whole church and nobody could figure out why the stove was smoking up this way. They didn’t even have a closing prayer that night.
The next night when that old heater started to smoke the Reverend Claude Haines Jones stood on the front steps of the church house, chalked it all up to divine providence and with a short prayer closed that revival meeting!
Reggie never would admit it but I figured he had taken a big wad of dried leaves and crammed them down in the stove pipe. After the church was filled with smoke and everyone had left he punched them loose and they fell into the stove and burned.
RUTHIE
What did Pa and Uncle Smith have to do with it anyway?
BECKY
Nobody but your Pa would think of something like that. Anyway we were over to the store the day after the meeting closed and I saw your Uncle Smith slip a wad of bills to Reggie. He bought a whole carton of ready roll cigarettes and was smoking up a storm.
JOHN
You sure do have to hand it to the Reverend……he has got a lot of nerve. He has six or seven paternity suits hanging over his head in this county alone. Two suits by the same woman!
RUTHIE
How many women got pregnant over there in the Flatwoods?
JOHN
Not as many as on the Ripshin, but the next time you see Aunt Lou ask her. She delivered every last one of them.
RUTHIE
Ma, did God really call that man to preach?
BECKY
Only the good Lord know for sure child. Only the good Lord knows. As I said He does things in some strange and mysterious ways.
PREACHER – ENTERING
Hello everybody! The door was open so I took the liberty to just walk right in. I was on my way over to the Dog Ankle Church…..the good Lord has called me to hold a revival over there and I wanted to personally invite you all to come worship with us. Why, hello there little girl…….my, my, my you have grown up to be a lovely creature. How old are you now, seventeen?
BECKY
John, sit back down. John, I said to sit back down! The preacher is in a hurry and I am sure he wants to get over to the Dog Ankle before dark. JOHN, I SAID TO SIT DOWN!
THE REVEREND CLAUDE HAINES JONES IS LEAVING……..
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