Graceland, The Old Hotel, part eight

The Mississippi Forest was elderly and virgin. A primeval paradise. There was perfect balance in all the elements of ecology.

Back in primordial time, seeds dripped from the bosom of Mother Earth, took root and grew with rapture. Over centuries, each element found its function, in an infinitely intricate pattern of interrelationships.

There were creatures flying in the sky, the bird people. Four leggeds crawled the surface, the deer people, coyote people and rabbit people. Submerged in the water, the fish people swam. Creatures burrowed in the deep rich loam. Two legged critters ran on the green green skin of Mother Earth. Some of the two leggeds could sense that the forest throbbed with Grace.

The Forest was bountiful with food for all the creatures.

Two legged critters harvested berries, herbs, mushrooms, roots and meat. Logs from the forest made strong homes and warmed those homes with fire. The people were blessed with all that they needed.

Mighty, mighty trees pierced the sky and formed a cathedral canopy of dappled shade. Abundant water flowed in stream and river systems. Water evaporated, formed clouds and rain. Rain returned to the streams. The circle was unbroken.

The Earth spun on her axis and circled the sun. There were brilliant days and velvet nights. There were seasons, coming, going, and returning. There were beautiful patterns of time and substance.

In this Forest of Grace, there ran a two legged critter as wild as the day and night. Belle, the beauty with bare feet and tangled hair. She was scantily schooled and her manners were simply basic. She was free from irony. Consumerism and the media tools of consumerism had not yet invaded the land.

Belle's brain was just an embryo of potential. Her rare thoughts, just wisps in the breeze of her emotions. Her occasional ideas, just wispy clouds in the winds of sensation.

Her element was air. Fueled, she was, by blood buzzing joy. Jossled by the music of symEarthony. From her nose to her toes swooshed sun warmed blood. She was free of fashion, free of fastidious grooming. Barefooted, hair tangled, freshtooned. So pretty, she made the aunts cry; so wild, they shed more tears. When her breast buds bloomed, the boys began to cry.

Joe Gordon was gawky and graceful. A human animal respiring wild. Muscled, taunt, strong. Rooted, roaming Eden, the endless elderly forest. His element was metal, as in a spring coiled with energy.

He hunted the forest with an old, perfectly maintained, shotgun. Proudly providing meat for his family table by conspiring with game. He put venison into broth simmering on the wood burning stove. Gusto eating of his catch, souped up with just picked corn. Younger siblings stopped squalling and slurped the broth.

The Forest was the heavenly stage of Belle and Joe's short and shining golden time.

Belle and Joe were biologically magnetized to each other.

Belle in her home, Joe in his, they awoke with the first hint of dawn. Awoke in a bed of siblings squirming like a basket full of puppies. They completed their chores quickly. With the sun still early in its climb from the horizon, they ran for the woods. Joe with his shotgun. Belle with her berry basket.

There was no need to plan a place to meet, hormonal magnetics brought them together. They ran into each other. They would discover each other, on a trail, or at a cross path, or under a stand of almighty pines. Together, they foraged the forest for food. They filled game bag and basket.

When the sun passed its zenith, they drifted to the cool shade of the Goddess tree. Down by the river where breezes danced. There, they playfully explored their changing bodies. Simmering, sizzling, ignition, combustion. They did what comes naturally on a bed of emerald moss.

And thus began Belle's "incubator belly" years.

A literal shotgun wedding. Both bride and groom as ignorant as the day is long. Both required coercion to do the right thing. Manipulated by wiser adult relatives. Kat was there, Katherine Carol Gordon, attended the country wedding, floating in amniotic fluid in her mother's belly.

Mary Victoria Gordon, Vicky, entered the next year. As the earth circles the sun, babies were painfully pushed out with annual regularity.

Life followed an immemorial plan. The couple refreshed the webs of glow that is existence. Lots of babies, fresh from the Goddess. Over populated the log cabin. Squirming, silk skinned, critters to cuddle and warm the heart. Adorable, maddening, constantly needy newborns and toddlers and growthlings.

Joe plowed and planted and sweated soil. He loaded giant watermelons and blackeyed peas and a growthling or two, onto the wooden wagon. Hitched up the hand-me-down horse and drove to town. "Gee, haw."

Money was as rare as blue cows. They used very little cash. Change from selling the garden produce covered their modest needs. Store bought items consisted of flour, sugar, and seeds, with an occasional splurge for calico.

Joe met farmer cronies in town. They gruff talked of weather and seed varieties. Joe spotted the Nursing Chair, a rocker, made of smooth varnished walnut, in the general store. The price was $3.00. He spent his life savings on the elegant chair as a present for Belle.

Rocking soothed Belle and the latest suckling infant. Crawlers, toddlers and growthlings were tended by Kat and Vicky.

Then one day, the sun was shining, Joe was plowing, and the huckleberry bush was burning, without being consumed by fire. That was when God called Joe to be his agent in that neck of the woods.

It started well. Hallelujah, Praise the Lord.

Joe was first a guest preacher, and soon, master of the flock, in the little brown church in the Wildwood. On Sunday mornings, the earth rooted farmer families put on their best clothes, and met for Sunday School. Then the choir sang, and then Joe preached. "Amen, Brother Gordon." The log walls, the air and even the surrounding woods began to listen when the children whispered their sweet Sunday School prayers. When the choir sang, the environment would hum along.

Then Joe would preach. God spoke directly to the small congregation through Joe's mouth. The sky god berated the flock for their sins. In the Bible it is written that god said "Vengeance is mine."

Oh yea! God was pissed off. He created people, but his children had not turned out the way that he planned. Early on, the very first people, ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The serpent made them do it. They developed a mind of their own.

When Joe sermonized, the Almighty, vengeful, God possessed Joe and spewed forth hell fire and damnation. The air vibrated. The logs were a furious drum beat. The forest quivered in fear.

The congregation was a flock of lambs. They masochistically felt purified by the punishful criticism. Yearning heaven and fearing hell, they were grateful to be shown the way. Motivated by guilt, they put their pennies and nickles into the collection basket.

To close the tongue lashings, Joe walked from the pulpit, down the aisle, to the door with his arms raised, while pronouncing the benediction, "GO AND SIN NO MORE." The lambs felt cleansed, confident that they could make it through the week sin free.

Change from the collection basket made money as plentiful as brown cows. Which were not really all that plentiful. Joe saved up to buy the family's first brown milk cow.

The milk, squirted into a tin pail, each morn by a growthling, gave Belle a bit of a break from her own, cow like duties.