With my visual art, painting and photo shop, I am continuing the series, "Mary is my Muse". Both the writing and the painting are a personal exploration of spirituality in the twenty first century. The verbal and the visual explorations are different, but related. The minor themes are different but the overarching major theme, personal spiritual exploration, is the same. This is not something that I planned, it has evolved as I follow my creative path.
I am still working on the story. It is autobiographically based, padded out with imagination and wishful thinking. Tune in later for more episodes.
I started writing the story in April. If you want to start reading from the beginning, click on April, then click "The Old Hotel". After that, to read the next part click "The Old Hotel, Dog Days of August". After that all the parts are numbered, so you can work your way through the calender. Click May, then click "The Old Hotel part three", and so forth.
Leave a comment or e-mail me. I love hearing from you.
OOOPPPS, I hit the wrong button. OK, got that glitch fixed.
The Old Hotel, FALL FROM GRACE
Light followed dark. Day followed night. Earthworld circumnavigated Sunstar. Earthworld tipped on its axis and seasons proceeded in an organized progression. The weather changed, then changed again. The only thing that did not change, was change its self.
Preacher Gordon now had more change in his pockets. Praise the Lord, and pass the collection basket. Guilt and fear are effective motivators. As a last resort people may try to buy their way into heaven. Nickles and dimes went a long way, way back in the day.
Joe Gordon was a father and a busy, hard working, righteous man of the almighty Lord. He blasted THE WORD OF GOD from the pulpit of the little brown Church in the Wildwood Dale. The hell fire and brimstone rant fulfilled a complicated need in the psyche of the congregation. Also, Joe ministered to the lambs in their homes when they had a sickness or death crisis. The people appreciated the Preacher kneeling and praying for them to have the strength to persevere.
Also, Joe scratched the skin of Mother Earth under the Mississippi sun and coaxed forth food for his squirming family.
In the elderly, virgin forest he hunted meat to feed the growthlings and make them strong. He always bagged a bounty of game. In the green gold glow, under the spreading boughs of ancient oaks he became his best self. He resonated with the harmonic hum of nature evolved to perfection. When he was in the zone, a deer would magically appear and offer itself for his family's nourishment. He brought home the venison.
He was busy from the hint of dawn until nightfall. Always working, always a bit behind.
Kat sauntered sweetly through her eldest daughters chores. She was a dewy fresh bloom of beauty given to dreamy spells. She might be drying dishes when her mind just floated away, floated away and away. She would be standing there, with the family bouncing around her, holding the rag and a dish. Her eyes glazed, she would sway gently with a smile wisp on her lips. Then, after few minutes, she would put the dish away. And stir the pot of venison and corn soup simmering on the stove.
The second daughter, Vicky, pre-adolescent, and as ethereal as a luna moth, was also subject to absent minded spells. Her biggest chore was doing laundry, in a big black iron tub over a pine wood fire outback. She added homemade lye soap. She secreted cascades of salty sweat, tugging the heavy, hot, wet clothes from the boiling tub. When that most struggling chore was done, when the clean clothes were on the drying line, she went for a dip in the spring fed creek and she was refreshed. After the sauna like chore and the shock of cold water she would be as sharp as a clear quartz crystal and her spells turned ultramarine blue.
Mother, Belle pampered the growthlings and nursed the smallest while rocking in the nursing chair. She read to them from the treasured Mother Goose nursery rhyme book. That book and the Bible were the only two books in the modest cabin. Belle sang hymns of praise to the Lord as she worked. Kat and Vicky harmonized with their mother's heart string alto voice.
All but the youngest ones of the family worked in the vegetable garden. This work was done in the early morning before the sun got too hot. The fertile earth gave forth succulent bounty. Juicy sweet, tart tomatoes. Greens and beans. Several varieties of squash. Corn, which was picked right before cooking so the sweetness was at its peak. Potatoes. Yams. Okra. Peppers. A cornucopia to compliment the venison, rabbit and freshly caught fish. The family gathered for dinner and laughed at silly jokes. They sat a rough plank table. The parents had store bought wooden chairs, the growthlings sat on planks supported by field stones.
Joe spent the collection tithes for a new horse, Daisy Jane. He mounted the bay and visited his flock. The sick, grieving and traumatized lambs felt gratitude for the prayers that preacher uttered, as they knelt in their simple homes.
In the dog days of late summer, a newborn died of whooping cough and was laid to rest in the earth. Belle crouched in bed for weeks with the covers over head. Belle and Joe slept with the still colicky toddler. Belle, for the first time, pushed Joe away when he wanted to love her. She said "No" to incubator belly. She loved each and everyone, but she already had too many children.
As a young man, Joe had been strong with the vitality of a robust animal. He had been born into this world with abundant Irish natal energy. Now, he had the responsibilities of a large family, and took on the woes of his church flock. In his youth his reserves were like a metal coil, but now he was becoming unsprung.
One mid September day, when there was a freshette of Indian summer in the air, Daisy Jane troddled Choctaw Road with Joe astride her back. Preacher Gordon was out making his dutiful rounds to kneel in prayer with the down and out. His first stop that day would be to Winifred Whitehead, newly widowed and grieving.
The red clay Choctaw Road meandered through a stand of majestic virgin oaks. The trunks of the mighty trees were twenty feet or more in circumference. Ferns and mushrooms grew in the cool dappled shade. Branches from the trees arched from both sides over the primitive red road. Long beards of Spanish moss undulated gracefully in a slight breeze.
Riding along, Joe caught up with the little whizzle whopper, young Bug Brumfield, ambulating Choctaw Road with a broody chicken tucked under his arm. Joe tipped his grey felt hat and they said "How de do?", they squawked about the weather and whut folks were up to. The hottest news on the grapevine concerned a new man, Mr. Stu Stewart, who had driven into town in his very own automobile. "The finest machine you ever seen!" Mr. Stewart was a timber merchant. "He's agonna pay Helen and Bub Tisdale a small fortune, $550, for the timber on their land. He's agonna start cuttin in October." Then Joe and Bug wished each other well and they went on their way.
Farmer McPhee rattled down the road from the other direction, driving an old mule, pulling a wagon loaded with hay. Joe and McPhee jawed about the weather and whut folks were up to. "That fine gentleman, Mr. Stewart promised Albert Sidney Johnston $700! just for the trees offin that useless piece of bottom land he owns." Joe and McPhee wished each other well and then they went on their way.
Joe heard the racket before he saw the automobile. Saw it coming and steered Daisy Jane to the side of the road. The contraption whizzed by at an ungodly rate of speed. It kicked up a storm of red dust, Joe had to rub it out of his eyes. The driver was wearing goggles and a funny squushed down hat. Joe wondered if it was the fabulous Mr. Stewart who was making people rich.
At the edge of the dilapidated little town of Weir, Mississippi, Joe came to the white painted clapboard house of Widow Whitehead. He dismounted Daisy Jane and walked to the door, noticing the red rose bush in full bloom by the porch. Winnie was wearing a fancy black dress when she opened the door. At the neck of her dress a triangle of black lace, accented her creamy bosums.
Joe had been born blessed with abundant natal energy. But, he had been feeling broke down lately. His natal energy was whittled away and he craved renewal. He wanted to feel like the giant animal spirit that he had been in his so quickly fleeting youth.
Dear readers, you know what happened. She cried on his shoulder, her heaving breast, pressed against his chest, her fragrant hair stroking his cheek. Before they had time to think about it they were committing sin.
There was talk, of course. It was the most entertaining news to hit the boondocks in a coon's age. The men said to each other, "Wal, you cant blame preacher, she's built lak a brick shithouse." It was the number one story hissing on the grapevine, surpassing even Mr. Stewart in popularity.
The women pitied Joe's wife, Belle, and treated her with delicacy. Belle knew, she could literally smell it. Belle knew how men were.
There was a double standard. Men and women were different. Men couldnt help themselves. Adultery proved their virility. The fair sex was expected to be modest (so as not to incite the male, who had a feather weight trigger) and virtuous. The man plants a seed and he may go on his way. For him, it may be no more than a few minutes of pleasure. A woman receives that seed, and it may be with her for as long as gravity sucks her to the surface of Mother Earth. The woman will go through pregnancy, labor, and for the rest of her life, a woman will be concerned with the child.
There was always and forever some scandalous talk buzzing the vine. The woman was always ostracized. She felt the freeze of the cold shoulder. The general consensus was that the man's needs were overwhelming strong, he couldnt be blamed. The little man ruled the big man. It was natural for a man to want to spread his seed all around fertile ground. It was behooven for the woman to protect her incubator belly from bad seed.
Belle had heard, that even her father was rumored to have committed scandal. She tried to reason the treachery away, but she was crushed, shattered and broken. How could he do that? Take the golden beauty that they had created under the Goddess tree and profane it so?
Then Belle deflated, like a discarded rag doll. She went back under the covers. Her ever flowing breast dried up. So, the toddler was weaned to cow's milk.
Kat and Vicky knew, of course. Their age and gender cohorts could not wait to tell them. The snickering was humiliating. Vicky's body was changing into a woman's body. She got her the curse and had to wear rags and wash the blood out of them every moon cycle. She was confused and her moods were erratic.
Joe had morphed into a man that looked like Joe, but did not think or act like Joe. He was not himself. The secret (which was not a secret) gnawed at his gut. He had a guilt of biblical proportions. Unbidden visions of Winnie flashed through his mind as he tromped nervously through the woods.
He would not let it happen again. He would not think about the woman. He would think about rotating the crops. Next spring he would plant beans in the ground where the corn had grown the previous year. A flash of Winnie sin invaded his mind. Tomorrow he would go hunting down by Mill Creek, he knew that there were deer there. He would get one tomorrow, he knew that he would. They were out of smoked venison sausage. The young-uns were cryin for meat. Belle was lookin broke down, she needed meat to put a bloom in her cheeks.
The next day, down by Mill Creek, Joe sighted a fleeting deer. He aimed. Fired. Missed. He had lost his hunting mojo.
Then one day after the last harvest was in, and after the first frost, a visitor came to the Gordon family's little dog trot cabin. The young-uns heard the infernal racket first. A few automobiles had traveled down the red clay road before, so they were getting familiar with the noise. The family rushed to the front porch to see the new fangled contraption as it sped by.
Lo and behold! The automobile screech stopped at their home. The fine driving man was wearing a squushed down hat and goggles that made him look like a deformed owl. They knew that this was the famous Mr. Stewart, the man who was making everybody rich. His belly was straining at the best suit that Sears and Roebuck catalog offered, and dangling at his neck was their best red string tie.
Belle fluttered into the cabin to steep some sassafras tea. Vicky and Kat herded the growthlings to the dog trot, an open hallway which ran down the middle of the cabin. It funneled a breeze through the house and kept it cool. In the dog trot the children were out of the way but they could watch through the open door of the front room. Kat warned the children to be on their best behavior. Children were to be seen, but not heard. They were taught respect for their elders.
Joe invited the gentleman into his "humble abode". Mr. Stu Stewart was affable, Preacher Joe was respectful. Belle served tea in the "company" tea cups, and retired to the dogtrot. Because this was a manly event, little women need not apply. The children were jostling to get a good view of the exciting meeting through the open door.
With the money Mr. Stewart offered, Joe figgered he could buy electric lights, and one of these shiny white gas burning stoves, and, Praise the Lord, a wringer washer for Belle. Surely these magnanimous gifts would redeem Joe in his wife's eyes. Surely, she would be joyful again. He was sure that this would work and there would be a return of the golden harmony. A new sunrise tinted the horizon, he dared to hope. Laboriously, he printed his name on the line that Mr. Stewart pointed out.
After the automobile left, the children ran to the spot, bent down, and smelled the ground where the contraption had been parked. They exclaimed over the novelty of this new acrid odor.
Joe breathed some relief over the guilt that had submerged him. The promise of money lifted him. He knelt, with Belle, beside the bed and prayed to God. On his knees, leaning his arms on the straw mattress, where the colicky toddler lay, quiet for a change, he promised the Lord that he would not sin again. He pleaded for mercy and forgiveness. Belle listened, and she to dared to hope.
Earthworld circumnavigated Sunstar and the people lived by natural circadian rhythms. Earthworld tilted on its axis and they lived by natural reoccurring annual rhythms.
The family awoke just before sunrise. All but the youngest had chores. The fire was stoked. Biscuits were kneaded in a well of flour in the Hoover, then cooked in the stove. Cool, perfect, water was drawn from the well in a tin bucket. Cow and horse were tended, let to pasture. The dog fed. Sweeping, scrubbing. Plump babies cleaned and cuddled. The garden was tended in the cool of early morning.
Attendance at the Wildwood Dale Church had fallen off since the scandal. Joe hoped that his flock would sense his repentance and have confidence in him again. Joe still visited the sick shut-ins and others in need. He rode Daisy Jane to make rounds and often made his last stop in Weir to pick up supplies and tune into the grapevine.
The sawing had started in the forest. When he passed the raped gaps in the forest, he would not allow himself to feel grief, he would not allow himself to feel anything at all.
Joe avoided the Widow Whitehead. Daisy Jane trotted by her house while Joe mumbled prayers, "Dear Father, please remove this temptation." But after a few weeks---
She was weeding the flower bed in front of the porch. He could not just ride by without speaking to her. He needed to talk to her, explain things. As her minister he needed to tell her how he had repented, and that she should repent. Her immortal soul was in danger of everlasting fire. He dismounted Daisy Jane. Winnie stood up and looked at him with those dark exotic eyes---
Dear Reader, you know what happened, they sinned again.
Leaving the widow's house Joe headed toward Weir. Drained, morose, self flagellating. A tempest in his head. He was not self aware, did not observe, examine his inner radio. He would not do it again. She had been crying, here she was a grieving widow, it was his duty to console her. He would visit Mrs. Sherman now. She couldnt even get out of bed. Pitiful. Her poor selfless daughter, Pearl, cared for her. Couldnt even have her own life. He would pray for Pearl.
Next thing he knew, Joe was in Weir, sitting on his horse. Busted brained, broken hearted and soul sensitive. He was by the railroad tracks, in front of the new hotel. "Hey, Preacher, Preach, how ya doin? Can you har me?"
It was that old codger Badger Broomstead speaking. Joe knew him as the man who lurched into church only twice a year, for Easter and Christmas services. Joe needed to talk to him. Badger was a notorious sinner, the worst of the worst, a moon shiner. Joe had to try to help him see the error of his devil ways. It was Joe's Christian duty to show Badger the way of salvation. The poor man's immortal soul was in danger of burning forever in hell. Joe was a man of God, a vessel for the spirit of the Holy Father. He dismounted Daisy, there was no need to tie up the patient horse.
"How ya doin today?" Old codger Badger leaned all lanky against his old ragged out wagon. His broke down mule chomped at a bit of scraggly grass growing in the shade of the oak canopy. "Hey Preach, come shoot the bull with me?"
Brother Badger, I need to talk to you. Joe leaned against the wagon and crossed his arms over his chest. "Jesus is knockin at yur door. He is tenderly waiting fer you to receive the blessed light of redemption."
"Sho nuff, Brother Joe. You lookin lak you could use a drink. Here, try my latest brew. Just a little nip will sure cure whut ails ya." Badger said, and poured a generous portion into a dented dirty tin cup.
"Brother Badger, alcohol in an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. It's a signpost on the road to perdition", Joe stammered weakly, and turned that tin cup up and drained it. Preacher coughed and sputtered. Now he knew why they called it firewater, it burned all the way down.
"How ya likin that, Brother Preacher? Here let me pour ya anotha one. It'll help that cough of yourn."
The next thing Joe knew was relief. The guilt of biblical proportions faded and he thought, "Maybe things aint so bad."
A train chugged in like a fire spitting dragon. Three city people in fancy clothes, disembarked and walked past the drunkards to the new hotel. "Look at them city folks, goin in that fine hotel. Ya know its got 32 rooms, an each one has its own e-lectric light. Its got a fancy kitchen and four bathrooms wit runnin water and flush toilets. Whatcha think about that? Yur shit just disappears down the drain?" The sign hanging from the balcony said, "The Deluxe Hotel".
They watched the people walk across the porch past the freshly white painted rocking chairs. Then Badger said, "So you been bangin the Widder Whithead. You old son of a gun. Wish I could get me some of that. Aint no way even a preacher could resist that temptation."
Something Twisted in Joe's mind, "It aint my fault, that wicked Eve, she seduced me."
"Hell no, It aint yur fault. Aint no man on earth could resist that. Not iffin he has real American red blood pounding in him", the old codger spat a gooey wad of tobacco on the bare dirt ground.
"I am a man of God, she turned me from the ways of righteousness."
From their vantage under the shading oak, the men could watch, on the other side of the tracks, the one block strip of shops, lined up along the elevated board walk, that comprised the town of Weir. In the other direction they could see the city folk rockin on the porch of the new hotel.
Soon they were joined by the dilapidated farmer, Johnny Johnson, who bought a jug of white lightenin from Badger and then passed it around.
Johnny socked Joe's arm and said, "You been pokin Widder Winnie, you ole devil you. I thought you wuz just a sissy preacher but, by God, you are a real man."
They were joined by a few other men as the afternoon progressed toward twilight.
Joe's head was foggy, but not so foggy as to prevent his surprise that they all knew about his adultery. He was flabbergasted that his secret was no secret and even more amazed that the men admired his sexual prowess. Previously, Joe had seen the gathering of sinners under the oak. He would tip his hat as he rode Daisy Jane to the general store. Previously, he had whispered many prayers for their doomed immortal souls.
Now, he felt different. Masculine camaraderie, other than the churchy kind was new to him. The invisible barrier between preacher and flock was knocked down by the booze. He was one of the guys now, something that he had not known that he had missed.
The sky was reddened by the setting sun. Codger Badger said, "Preacher, you better git goin while the gitten is good". Badger didnt want the preacher to pass out right there on the bare ground in town. He sold Joe a jug and helped him mount his horse.
When he got home, Belle thought, "Land o sakes. Hope Joe aint sick, he stumbled in here and fell on the bed fast asleep. Surely he dont smell lak likker."
Preacher Gordon now had more change in his pockets. Praise the Lord, and pass the collection basket. Guilt and fear are effective motivators. As a last resort people may try to buy their way into heaven. Nickles and dimes went a long way, way back in the day.
Joe Gordon was a father and a busy, hard working, righteous man of the almighty Lord. He blasted THE WORD OF GOD from the pulpit of the little brown Church in the Wildwood Dale. The hell fire and brimstone rant fulfilled a complicated need in the psyche of the congregation. Also, Joe ministered to the lambs in their homes when they had a sickness or death crisis. The people appreciated the Preacher kneeling and praying for them to have the strength to persevere.
Also, Joe scratched the skin of Mother Earth under the Mississippi sun and coaxed forth food for his squirming family.
In the elderly, virgin forest he hunted meat to feed the growthlings and make them strong. He always bagged a bounty of game. In the green gold glow, under the spreading boughs of ancient oaks he became his best self. He resonated with the harmonic hum of nature evolved to perfection. When he was in the zone, a deer would magically appear and offer itself for his family's nourishment. He brought home the venison.
He was busy from the hint of dawn until nightfall. Always working, always a bit behind.
Kat sauntered sweetly through her eldest daughters chores. She was a dewy fresh bloom of beauty given to dreamy spells. She might be drying dishes when her mind just floated away, floated away and away. She would be standing there, with the family bouncing around her, holding the rag and a dish. Her eyes glazed, she would sway gently with a smile wisp on her lips. Then, after few minutes, she would put the dish away. And stir the pot of venison and corn soup simmering on the stove.
The second daughter, Vicky, pre-adolescent, and as ethereal as a luna moth, was also subject to absent minded spells. Her biggest chore was doing laundry, in a big black iron tub over a pine wood fire outback. She added homemade lye soap. She secreted cascades of salty sweat, tugging the heavy, hot, wet clothes from the boiling tub. When that most struggling chore was done, when the clean clothes were on the drying line, she went for a dip in the spring fed creek and she was refreshed. After the sauna like chore and the shock of cold water she would be as sharp as a clear quartz crystal and her spells turned ultramarine blue.
Mother, Belle pampered the growthlings and nursed the smallest while rocking in the nursing chair. She read to them from the treasured Mother Goose nursery rhyme book. That book and the Bible were the only two books in the modest cabin. Belle sang hymns of praise to the Lord as she worked. Kat and Vicky harmonized with their mother's heart string alto voice.
All but the youngest ones of the family worked in the vegetable garden. This work was done in the early morning before the sun got too hot. The fertile earth gave forth succulent bounty. Juicy sweet, tart tomatoes. Greens and beans. Several varieties of squash. Corn, which was picked right before cooking so the sweetness was at its peak. Potatoes. Yams. Okra. Peppers. A cornucopia to compliment the venison, rabbit and freshly caught fish. The family gathered for dinner and laughed at silly jokes. They sat a rough plank table. The parents had store bought wooden chairs, the growthlings sat on planks supported by field stones.
Joe spent the collection tithes for a new horse, Daisy Jane. He mounted the bay and visited his flock. The sick, grieving and traumatized lambs felt gratitude for the prayers that preacher uttered, as they knelt in their simple homes.
In the dog days of late summer, a newborn died of whooping cough and was laid to rest in the earth. Belle crouched in bed for weeks with the covers over head. Belle and Joe slept with the still colicky toddler. Belle, for the first time, pushed Joe away when he wanted to love her. She said "No" to incubator belly. She loved each and everyone, but she already had too many children.
As a young man, Joe had been strong with the vitality of a robust animal. He had been born into this world with abundant Irish natal energy. Now, he had the responsibilities of a large family, and took on the woes of his church flock. In his youth his reserves were like a metal coil, but now he was becoming unsprung.
One mid September day, when there was a freshette of Indian summer in the air, Daisy Jane troddled Choctaw Road with Joe astride her back. Preacher Gordon was out making his dutiful rounds to kneel in prayer with the down and out. His first stop that day would be to Winifred Whitehead, newly widowed and grieving.
The red clay Choctaw Road meandered through a stand of majestic virgin oaks. The trunks of the mighty trees were twenty feet or more in circumference. Ferns and mushrooms grew in the cool dappled shade. Branches from the trees arched from both sides over the primitive red road. Long beards of Spanish moss undulated gracefully in a slight breeze.
Riding along, Joe caught up with the little whizzle whopper, young Bug Brumfield, ambulating Choctaw Road with a broody chicken tucked under his arm. Joe tipped his grey felt hat and they said "How de do?", they squawked about the weather and whut folks were up to. The hottest news on the grapevine concerned a new man, Mr. Stu Stewart, who had driven into town in his very own automobile. "The finest machine you ever seen!" Mr. Stewart was a timber merchant. "He's agonna pay Helen and Bub Tisdale a small fortune, $550, for the timber on their land. He's agonna start cuttin in October." Then Joe and Bug wished each other well and they went on their way.
Farmer McPhee rattled down the road from the other direction, driving an old mule, pulling a wagon loaded with hay. Joe and McPhee jawed about the weather and whut folks were up to. "That fine gentleman, Mr. Stewart promised Albert Sidney Johnston $700! just for the trees offin that useless piece of bottom land he owns." Joe and McPhee wished each other well and then they went on their way.
Joe heard the racket before he saw the automobile. Saw it coming and steered Daisy Jane to the side of the road. The contraption whizzed by at an ungodly rate of speed. It kicked up a storm of red dust, Joe had to rub it out of his eyes. The driver was wearing goggles and a funny squushed down hat. Joe wondered if it was the fabulous Mr. Stewart who was making people rich.
At the edge of the dilapidated little town of Weir, Mississippi, Joe came to the white painted clapboard house of Widow Whitehead. He dismounted Daisy Jane and walked to the door, noticing the red rose bush in full bloom by the porch. Winnie was wearing a fancy black dress when she opened the door. At the neck of her dress a triangle of black lace, accented her creamy bosums.
Joe had been born blessed with abundant natal energy. But, he had been feeling broke down lately. His natal energy was whittled away and he craved renewal. He wanted to feel like the giant animal spirit that he had been in his so quickly fleeting youth.
Dear readers, you know what happened. She cried on his shoulder, her heaving breast, pressed against his chest, her fragrant hair stroking his cheek. Before they had time to think about it they were committing sin.
There was talk, of course. It was the most entertaining news to hit the boondocks in a coon's age. The men said to each other, "Wal, you cant blame preacher, she's built lak a brick shithouse." It was the number one story hissing on the grapevine, surpassing even Mr. Stewart in popularity.
The women pitied Joe's wife, Belle, and treated her with delicacy. Belle knew, she could literally smell it. Belle knew how men were.
There was a double standard. Men and women were different. Men couldnt help themselves. Adultery proved their virility. The fair sex was expected to be modest (so as not to incite the male, who had a feather weight trigger) and virtuous. The man plants a seed and he may go on his way. For him, it may be no more than a few minutes of pleasure. A woman receives that seed, and it may be with her for as long as gravity sucks her to the surface of Mother Earth. The woman will go through pregnancy, labor, and for the rest of her life, a woman will be concerned with the child.
There was always and forever some scandalous talk buzzing the vine. The woman was always ostracized. She felt the freeze of the cold shoulder. The general consensus was that the man's needs were overwhelming strong, he couldnt be blamed. The little man ruled the big man. It was natural for a man to want to spread his seed all around fertile ground. It was behooven for the woman to protect her incubator belly from bad seed.
Belle had heard, that even her father was rumored to have committed scandal. She tried to reason the treachery away, but she was crushed, shattered and broken. How could he do that? Take the golden beauty that they had created under the Goddess tree and profane it so?
Then Belle deflated, like a discarded rag doll. She went back under the covers. Her ever flowing breast dried up. So, the toddler was weaned to cow's milk.
Kat and Vicky knew, of course. Their age and gender cohorts could not wait to tell them. The snickering was humiliating. Vicky's body was changing into a woman's body. She got her the curse and had to wear rags and wash the blood out of them every moon cycle. She was confused and her moods were erratic.
Joe had morphed into a man that looked like Joe, but did not think or act like Joe. He was not himself. The secret (which was not a secret) gnawed at his gut. He had a guilt of biblical proportions. Unbidden visions of Winnie flashed through his mind as he tromped nervously through the woods.
He would not let it happen again. He would not think about the woman. He would think about rotating the crops. Next spring he would plant beans in the ground where the corn had grown the previous year. A flash of Winnie sin invaded his mind. Tomorrow he would go hunting down by Mill Creek, he knew that there were deer there. He would get one tomorrow, he knew that he would. They were out of smoked venison sausage. The young-uns were cryin for meat. Belle was lookin broke down, she needed meat to put a bloom in her cheeks.
The next day, down by Mill Creek, Joe sighted a fleeting deer. He aimed. Fired. Missed. He had lost his hunting mojo.
Then one day after the last harvest was in, and after the first frost, a visitor came to the Gordon family's little dog trot cabin. The young-uns heard the infernal racket first. A few automobiles had traveled down the red clay road before, so they were getting familiar with the noise. The family rushed to the front porch to see the new fangled contraption as it sped by.
Lo and behold! The automobile screech stopped at their home. The fine driving man was wearing a squushed down hat and goggles that made him look like a deformed owl. They knew that this was the famous Mr. Stewart, the man who was making everybody rich. His belly was straining at the best suit that Sears and Roebuck catalog offered, and dangling at his neck was their best red string tie.
Belle fluttered into the cabin to steep some sassafras tea. Vicky and Kat herded the growthlings to the dog trot, an open hallway which ran down the middle of the cabin. It funneled a breeze through the house and kept it cool. In the dog trot the children were out of the way but they could watch through the open door of the front room. Kat warned the children to be on their best behavior. Children were to be seen, but not heard. They were taught respect for their elders.
Joe invited the gentleman into his "humble abode". Mr. Stu Stewart was affable, Preacher Joe was respectful. Belle served tea in the "company" tea cups, and retired to the dogtrot. Because this was a manly event, little women need not apply. The children were jostling to get a good view of the exciting meeting through the open door.
With the money Mr. Stewart offered, Joe figgered he could buy electric lights, and one of these shiny white gas burning stoves, and, Praise the Lord, a wringer washer for Belle. Surely these magnanimous gifts would redeem Joe in his wife's eyes. Surely, she would be joyful again. He was sure that this would work and there would be a return of the golden harmony. A new sunrise tinted the horizon, he dared to hope. Laboriously, he printed his name on the line that Mr. Stewart pointed out.
After the automobile left, the children ran to the spot, bent down, and smelled the ground where the contraption had been parked. They exclaimed over the novelty of this new acrid odor.
Joe breathed some relief over the guilt that had submerged him. The promise of money lifted him. He knelt, with Belle, beside the bed and prayed to God. On his knees, leaning his arms on the straw mattress, where the colicky toddler lay, quiet for a change, he promised the Lord that he would not sin again. He pleaded for mercy and forgiveness. Belle listened, and she to dared to hope.
Earthworld circumnavigated Sunstar and the people lived by natural circadian rhythms. Earthworld tilted on its axis and they lived by natural reoccurring annual rhythms.
The family awoke just before sunrise. All but the youngest had chores. The fire was stoked. Biscuits were kneaded in a well of flour in the Hoover, then cooked in the stove. Cool, perfect, water was drawn from the well in a tin bucket. Cow and horse were tended, let to pasture. The dog fed. Sweeping, scrubbing. Plump babies cleaned and cuddled. The garden was tended in the cool of early morning.
Attendance at the Wildwood Dale Church had fallen off since the scandal. Joe hoped that his flock would sense his repentance and have confidence in him again. Joe still visited the sick shut-ins and others in need. He rode Daisy Jane to make rounds and often made his last stop in Weir to pick up supplies and tune into the grapevine.
The sawing had started in the forest. When he passed the raped gaps in the forest, he would not allow himself to feel grief, he would not allow himself to feel anything at all.
Joe avoided the Widow Whitehead. Daisy Jane trotted by her house while Joe mumbled prayers, "Dear Father, please remove this temptation." But after a few weeks---
She was weeding the flower bed in front of the porch. He could not just ride by without speaking to her. He needed to talk to her, explain things. As her minister he needed to tell her how he had repented, and that she should repent. Her immortal soul was in danger of everlasting fire. He dismounted Daisy Jane. Winnie stood up and looked at him with those dark exotic eyes---
Dear Reader, you know what happened, they sinned again.
Leaving the widow's house Joe headed toward Weir. Drained, morose, self flagellating. A tempest in his head. He was not self aware, did not observe, examine his inner radio. He would not do it again. She had been crying, here she was a grieving widow, it was his duty to console her. He would visit Mrs. Sherman now. She couldnt even get out of bed. Pitiful. Her poor selfless daughter, Pearl, cared for her. Couldnt even have her own life. He would pray for Pearl.
Next thing he knew, Joe was in Weir, sitting on his horse. Busted brained, broken hearted and soul sensitive. He was by the railroad tracks, in front of the new hotel. "Hey, Preacher, Preach, how ya doin? Can you har me?"
It was that old codger Badger Broomstead speaking. Joe knew him as the man who lurched into church only twice a year, for Easter and Christmas services. Joe needed to talk to him. Badger was a notorious sinner, the worst of the worst, a moon shiner. Joe had to try to help him see the error of his devil ways. It was Joe's Christian duty to show Badger the way of salvation. The poor man's immortal soul was in danger of burning forever in hell. Joe was a man of God, a vessel for the spirit of the Holy Father. He dismounted Daisy, there was no need to tie up the patient horse.
"How ya doin today?" Old codger Badger leaned all lanky against his old ragged out wagon. His broke down mule chomped at a bit of scraggly grass growing in the shade of the oak canopy. "Hey Preach, come shoot the bull with me?"
Brother Badger, I need to talk to you. Joe leaned against the wagon and crossed his arms over his chest. "Jesus is knockin at yur door. He is tenderly waiting fer you to receive the blessed light of redemption."
"Sho nuff, Brother Joe. You lookin lak you could use a drink. Here, try my latest brew. Just a little nip will sure cure whut ails ya." Badger said, and poured a generous portion into a dented dirty tin cup.
"Brother Badger, alcohol in an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. It's a signpost on the road to perdition", Joe stammered weakly, and turned that tin cup up and drained it. Preacher coughed and sputtered. Now he knew why they called it firewater, it burned all the way down.
"How ya likin that, Brother Preacher? Here let me pour ya anotha one. It'll help that cough of yourn."
The next thing Joe knew was relief. The guilt of biblical proportions faded and he thought, "Maybe things aint so bad."
A train chugged in like a fire spitting dragon. Three city people in fancy clothes, disembarked and walked past the drunkards to the new hotel. "Look at them city folks, goin in that fine hotel. Ya know its got 32 rooms, an each one has its own e-lectric light. Its got a fancy kitchen and four bathrooms wit runnin water and flush toilets. Whatcha think about that? Yur shit just disappears down the drain?" The sign hanging from the balcony said, "The Deluxe Hotel".
They watched the people walk across the porch past the freshly white painted rocking chairs. Then Badger said, "So you been bangin the Widder Whithead. You old son of a gun. Wish I could get me some of that. Aint no way even a preacher could resist that temptation."
Something Twisted in Joe's mind, "It aint my fault, that wicked Eve, she seduced me."
"Hell no, It aint yur fault. Aint no man on earth could resist that. Not iffin he has real American red blood pounding in him", the old codger spat a gooey wad of tobacco on the bare dirt ground.
"I am a man of God, she turned me from the ways of righteousness."
From their vantage under the shading oak, the men could watch, on the other side of the tracks, the one block strip of shops, lined up along the elevated board walk, that comprised the town of Weir. In the other direction they could see the city folk rockin on the porch of the new hotel.
Soon they were joined by the dilapidated farmer, Johnny Johnson, who bought a jug of white lightenin from Badger and then passed it around.
Johnny socked Joe's arm and said, "You been pokin Widder Winnie, you ole devil you. I thought you wuz just a sissy preacher but, by God, you are a real man."
They were joined by a few other men as the afternoon progressed toward twilight.
Joe's head was foggy, but not so foggy as to prevent his surprise that they all knew about his adultery. He was flabbergasted that his secret was no secret and even more amazed that the men admired his sexual prowess. Previously, Joe had seen the gathering of sinners under the oak. He would tip his hat as he rode Daisy Jane to the general store. Previously, he had whispered many prayers for their doomed immortal souls.
Now, he felt different. Masculine camaraderie, other than the churchy kind was new to him. The invisible barrier between preacher and flock was knocked down by the booze. He was one of the guys now, something that he had not known that he had missed.
The sky was reddened by the setting sun. Codger Badger said, "Preacher, you better git goin while the gitten is good". Badger didnt want the preacher to pass out right there on the bare ground in town. He sold Joe a jug and helped him mount his horse.
When he got home, Belle thought, "Land o sakes. Hope Joe aint sick, he stumbled in here and fell on the bed fast asleep. Surely he dont smell lak likker."
