21 January 2013
I. Janie
"Whew! lawd it shoal is hot, thank ya jeezus" Janie had been out "Settin' up" -visiting with the sick, shut ins, or anyone else who wanted to hear the word, but Janie never kept the company of gossips-"Loose lips sink ships, Thank ya jeezus!"
She had her regulars- Gert and Edgar with the little girl who was "Special", John Peirre (He was French on his Mamas side way back) his wife had died 10yrs ago and he cussed the Lord everyday since, and then there was Betty and Thomas Fletcher- we'll get to them later.
"The Lawd walked all over Isreal barefooted why can't I use my feets to do His bidden' thank ya jeezus!" is what she'd say to anyone who offered to give her a lift back up the dusty hill to her house.
She trekked all over town just as she had done since her calling at 15, on foot, dressed always to meet Gawd himself should he send for her, and with her Chinaman fan in her left hand fanning herself like she was trying to cool the air itself.
Janie had gotten the call late, or so she thought, and felt as if she had been catching up for the last 50yrs now. She was a woman about her Fathers business Thursday-Saturday...and on the sabbath she rested...in her front pew at St. John church of God.
Pastor Deacon (Deacon is his God given last name, everybody knows you can't be a deacon and a pastor too.) would say "Lawd Sista Janie, you's a steeple in this here town! You done beat you a path on these here dusty roads and made the Devil switch his route!" He was right, Janie was a steeple. She had survived the unmentionable, and even worse the millennium! She had entered into the year 2000 Egypt walking " just like the good Lawd intended it."
So today was no different from any other Saturday, except for it was alittle hotter outside, 102 to be exact, the hottest Russelldale NC had ever seen. "Father, Gawd the devil is sho nuff busy today! Thank ya jeezus!"
Janie had made it a good ways up the hill to her house, from where her feet had decided to stop her, she could see her little Tarheel windsock struggling to dance in the arid heat.
"Lawd you's good" she said as she shuffled her tired feet over to a bus stop bench by the side of the dusty road. "He's a trying to put a whipping' on me with that Sun but Lawd I'm steady, I just need to set for a spell."
The worn wooden bench was no shelter from the Sun, it lashed down on her stiff felt hat all the same; Like a branding iron on a cow's taut hide.
"Ma'am you alright?" entered an oily voice that seemed to appear out of the staunch air.
Janie lifted her head and smiled which was her custom, as if she expected to see a familiar face. What she laid eyes on was a boy, not yet a man, but with the hard crease of years on his brow. "I say is you alright ma'am?"
Janie held her smile and said "Well Gawd bless you, you must be new 'round here" To this the young man replied "I'm just catching the bus into town, this heat about to get you ain't it ma'am?" He snatched a dingy rag from the back of his bleached stained Levi's and swiped his sweat.
As if she was hard if hearing, which Janie was proud to be most certainly not she said "You sure is tall, you some kin to Lonnie Holden them?"
The young man chuckled to himself, "I ain't no kin to no one in this here town, just on my way."
"Everybody is kin to somebody, specially Gawd, on your way where abouts?" Janie had perfected hiding her "Passing judgement" look a decade ago. Still squinting up at the stranger she said "Well what do your kin call you?"
"Jacob, they call me Jacob."
"I'll be! You sho is far from home son of Isaac!....Well I'm Janie! Janie Truelove! And I work for Gawd!"
II. The calling
"Mama! Mama! The themomator exploded on the porch!"
Mama's voice echoed from the bathroom, "What did you say gal?!!!"
"I SAID IT'S HOT NUFF TO BOIL MOLASSES OUT HERE!"
Janie sat barefooted and sticky with sweat on the dry rotted front porch of their ramshackle little house.
Her GrandDaddy had built this house for her Granny with his bare hands, sometime around the Depression, and her Daddy had built the very porch she was roasting on with his, or so Mama had said. But Mama wasn't known around Mill town for being a truth telling woman. Janie didn't remember the day her Daddy left, she was only a baby back then. All she was privy to hear through ease dropping was that he was "A lazy no good son of a..."
Sabbath. • Opuss № I