Free Southern Cross by Jen Blood Page B

get
going.”
    “Oh,
listen to this boy,” Buddy said, shaking his head. “Hillbilly my eye, you dang
hippie. Where y’all off to, then?”
    “Just
taking a ride,” Diggs said.
    “Not
out to Miller’s Field, I hope,” Buddy said. He was watching Diggs closely now.
“Not with Reverend Barnel’s tent meetin’ set to go up at ten sharp. Seein’ as
how you already had one run-in with him today, you might oughta steer clear
awhile.”
    “I’ll
take that under advisement,” Diggs said.
    Buddy
frowned, but he didn’t say anything more until Diggs was already headed out the
door. Then, he pushed his business card into my hand. He nodded toward our
mutual friend, now burning a path toward the car.
    “You
call me if he steps in anything, you hear? He’s as much family as Wyatt was,
and he can’t see straight where that preacher’s concerned. I don’t care what
time it is. Just pick up the phone and I’ll be there.”
    “Thanks,”
I said sincerely. “I may take you up on that.”
    “You
do that, darlin’. I’ll be right here if you need me.”
     
    <><><> 
     
    The
tent meeting was held in a muddy field on the side of a long dirt road. We were
flanked by cows on one side and a dank, muddy pond on the other, which Diggs
told me Barnel baptized people in when the occasion arose. It didn’t look that
sanitary, but I was guessing that wasn’t a priority.
    I’d
just assumed Barnel was one of those fringe extremists with a dozen misguided
souls who’d follow him to the ends of the earth, but when we got there the
place was packed. Cars lined both sides of the road all the way in, with more
parked in the field. Old folks and young folks and Bible-toting babies all made
their way up the hillside to Barnel’s giant white tent. I was surprised at the
teen contingent: at least two dozen freshly scrubbed college guys in jackets
and ties, standing off to the side with their feet planted shoulder width
apart, hands clasped behind their backs like career military men instead of
frat boys who couldn’t even buy their own beer.
    There
were a few people like Diggs and me, just there to check out the spectacle, but
I got the sense we were in the minority.
    Barnel’s
tent was a deluxe—I didn’t even know you could get a tent that big. It was
powered by a generator situated behind the stage. Speakers bigger than Barnel
himself flanked the makeshift platform, and aisle upon aisle of folding metal
chairs filled the space. It was a cold, damp evening, but the masses in the
tent generated enough heat to more than make up for that. There was a table with
refreshments: breads and cakes and cookies, soda and juice, a couple of
industrial-sized tubs of potato salad. Apparently, Barnel was big on carb
loading. I put a dollar in the jar of a little girl with a dress buttoned from
her throat to her ankles, and helped myself to a cup of chocolate pudding and a
spoon.
    Diggs
gave me the hairy eyeball.
    “What?
It’s chocolate.”
    He
just shook his head at me, like I was a lost cause. Which I may have been, but
I didn’t care. I had chocolate.
    By
the time we found a seat, the reverend’s opening act had already started: a kid
named Toby and his parents, playing guitar and singing hymns. I gathered from
the reaction of the crowd that the family was a headliner around these parts,
but they didn’t do a lot for me. Within two minutes of a countrified version of
“Go Tell It On the Mountain,” I was ready to stab little Toby in the eye with
my plastic spoon. All around us, hands went up in the air, people whispering
prayers or shouting “Hallelujah” over the music.
    Everyone
got to their feet when Toby and his kin started up with a medley of country
hymns I didn’t recognize from my own church-going days. I set my empty cup
under my chair and stood with Diggs. A wall of bodies closed in on all sides,
the smell of sweat and Avon perfume obliterating the last remnants of my
chocolate high.
    I
fought to maintain my good humor.