Читать книгу Country Ham - John Quincy MacPherson - Страница 10

No charges were filed. As far as the MacPhersons were concerned, it was just another family “incident” of which there had been many and no doubt would be many more. Cornelia would arrange to have the front window replaced. Aunt Nora and Wilson spent the night with Dubya and Cornelia and went to church with them the next day. Nora was curious about how the Little Rock Baptist Church—now the Second Little Rock Baptist Church—had changed since she was a girl growing up and attending there. From what she had heard it had become one of a handful of progressive Baptist churches in North Carolina, similar to Pullen Memorial, the one she attended in Chapel Hill. It even had women deacons like Pullen! Because of family, church, and business commitments, she hadn’t been able to attend services there since Brother Bob had become co-pastor, and that had been nearly ten years. Even on holidays, she and Wilson made it a point to be back at Pullen on a Sunday morning where the two of them had taken turns rotating on and off the deacon group. But curiosity had finally gotten the best of her.

She was not disappointed in the service. There was something there for everyone, and she loved that communion was observed every week. The highlight of the service was Scotty Moore’s baptism at the end of the service.

Scotty was a cherished treasure in the community. He had been diagnosed during childhood with a hydrocephalic condition. His skull was enlarged, and shunts failed to reduce the swelling caused by an accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain. Scotty suffered from other physical and cognitive disabilities associated with hydrocephalus, including seizures and tunnel vision that left him virtually blind. Scotty was now twenty-two years old and had lived longer than any of the doctors thought he would. Most everyone concluded Scotty’s longevity correlated exactly with the will and determination of his parents, Cecil and especially Peggy, to keep Scotty alive. Inactivity had caused his weight to balloon, and it was now difficult to move him from bed to wheelchair, but Peggy and Cecil did it every day, bringing him to the garage during the week and making sure he was in church at Second Little Rock Baptist every week.

Scotty sat in his wheelchair at the front of the church, singing to himself under his breath. According to the doctors, Scotty could not see much more than outlines and shadows. Brother Bob spoke:

“Brothers and sisters, a few weeks ago we voted unanimously to accept Scotty Moore as a candidate for baptism.”

“Amen,” someone said.

“As you know, we generally practice believer’s baptism here by immersion, but the church council approved sprinkling as an appropriate mode in this case. I think they didn’t want me to drown Scotty in the baptistery!”

“I don’t wanna drown, Brother Bob,” Scotty said.

“You’re not going to Scotty,” Brother Bob reassured him. “I’m going to sprinkle the water on you. Scotty, do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?”

“Oh yes, Brother Bob!” Scotty began to sing his second favorite song, “Jesus loves me this I know. For the Bible tells me so.” The congregation joined in. “Little ones to him belong. They are weak and he is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. For the Bible tells me so.”

“Scotty, my brother in Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” Brother Bob sprinkled Scotty’s head with water, which proceeded to run down into his eyes. Scotty wiped his eyes and confessed that “the Holy Spirit done got into my eyes, Brother Bob.” Then he began to sing “Jesus Loves Me” again. When he finished, it seemed the Holy Spirit got into everybody’s eyes that day.

Ham cried, too, and marveled at what he witnessed. God has a special place in heaven for Scotty, Ham thought, and it meant a lot not just to Scotty’s family, but also to the church to be able to participate in publicly welcoming this child of God into the family. Second Little Rock Baptist Church had accepted members from other denominations “upon statement of faith” regardless of their mode of baptism ever since Brother Bob had been pastor. But folk who made a “profession of faith” in the church and “accepted Jesus into their hearts for the first time” were immersed. Ham received believer’s baptism by immersion when he was twelve years old. Scotty’s baptism was the first time anyone could remember at Second Little Rock when a new convert’s baptism was done by sprinkling. But nobody objected to the mode of Scotty’s baptism.

Nina had invited Wilson and Aunt Nora to join the MacPherson clan and Brother Bob for Sunday lunch. The family and Brother Bob were about to sit for lunch following the morning services, and Brother Bob excused himself to go to the bathroom. Everyone was horrified when Brother Bob re-entered the room, wet hands raised like a surgeon about to operate—Nina had forgotten to take the sign down!

“I didn’t want to die, so I didn’t know what to do,” Brother Bob said.

Nina looked horrified. “Ham, you didn’t take down the sign in the bathroom?”

“I forgot, Mama,” Ham said, realizing his mother’s warning, “Touch these towels and die!” written on an index card, must still be hanging on the bathroom mirror.

“I’m so sorry Brother Bob. It’s hard to keep the house clean for guests when you have four children,” she said, cutting a glance over at Thom Jeff, who had not attended services but did manage to put on a clean shirt and pair of trousers in place of his usual faded jeans.

“Don’t worry about it, Nina. Everything is fine,” Brother Bob said and smiled.

Aunt Nora was looking forward to finding out more about this unusual pastor and how he ended up back in North Wilkesboro, so while they were eating, Aunt Nora began her inquisition.

“So Brother Bob, Mama and Daddy tell me you are from around here? I wonder why I don’t remember you. Honey Ham, would you pass those green beans, suga’. They are delicious, Mama.” Ham passed the beans, and Aunt Nora dipped a few on her plate, all the while looking intently at Brother Bob.

“Well, I was a few years behind you in school, but I remember you Nora.” Nora was hard to forget. Head cheerleader. Winter Waltz Queen. And, even at fifty-two, still a good-looking woman.

“Oh that’s right, you were big buddies with the Brookshire twins, right?”

“That’s right. Jimmy and J. B., and there was Rick Sutton, too. We all went to UNC together. J. B. is the reason I ended up back here.”

“Well, you’ve all done quite well for yourselves. I believe I remember that you were a Morehead scholar?” Brother Bob nodded. Nora continued. “And now J. B. is a successful lawyer and helps run the Brookshire Furniture company. Jimmy teaches English at the college and is an aspiring author with a growing audience, I hear. Did I hear that Rick Sutton recently became the Sports Commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference?”

“You did indeed.”

“Chapel Hill is a small place,” Aunt Nora smiled. “Did you go to seminary after UNC?”

“Yes, I went to Yale Divinity School.”

“That’s impressive. And Mama said you got a doctorate there too?”

“Yes, in Christian ethics.”

“But the church folk here call you ‘Brother Bob’ instead of ‘Dr. Sechrest’?” Aunt Nora asked.

“Oh I know why that is,” Ham volunteered. “In one of his sermons, Brother Bob told the story of a man who used to travel once a year to hunt coons. From a local hunter, he borrowed a dog called ‘Preacher’ who was the best huntin’ dog in the county. One year he returned and asked for Preacher and the owner said that they didn’t have a dog by that name anymore. ‘Did he die?’ the man asked. ‘No,’ he said, ‘he’s still here, but you don’t want him.’ ‘Why not?’ the man said. ‘Well, a city slicker came through the year before and started callin’ the dog “Doctor” instead of Preacher, and the dog hadn’t been worth a darn ever since.’ So we took it from that story that Brother Bob preferred to be called ‘brother’ rather than ‘doctor.’”

“And you took it the right way, Ham!” Bob said and smiled.

Grandma Cornelia picked up the conversation. “Brother Bob studied with a very famous theologian. What was his name Brother Bob?”

“Richard Niebuhr. Yes, he was very influential, though most folk in the churches haven’t heard of him.”

Cornelia laughed and said. “I remember what Mabel Sturgill asked you when you met with the pulpit committee.”

“Were you on the pulpit committee, Grandma?” Ham asked. He didn’t know that or had forgotten it.

“Well, yes I was. Anyhow, Mabel said to Brother Bob, ‘Who did you study with at Yale?’ As if she would have recognized anybody’s name. When Brother Bob said ‘Richard,’ what was it?”

“Niebuhr,” Bob supplied.

“Oh right. ‘Niebuhr.’ Mabel looked at him straight in the eye and asked, ‘Is Neighbor one of them theologians what loves God, or one of ‘em what don’t?’ Brother Bob assured her that he was one what loved God!” Everybody laughed.

“And then remember when Sally Perkins asked you if you smoked, Brother Bob?”

“I do, indeed. I admitted that I did, and she asked me how much, and I told her I had cut down to three cigarettes a day,” Bob said.

“And then, Sally said, ‘Well, every little bit helps, Preacher!” Cornelia recounted. “You know Sally and her husband Steve raise fifty acres of tobacco, don’t you, Nora?”

Aunt Nora continued her line of questioning. “So how in the world did you get from New Haven to North Wilkesboro?”

“I took a detour in Raleigh at University Baptist. Actually, they fired me. J. B. heard about it and offered his family’s guest house. That was ten years ago. I’m a terrible mooch!”

“So what did you do to get fired?” Aunt Nora asked, rather impetuously.

Cornelia intervened. “Let me tell this story, Brother Bob, from a layman’s perspective.” Brother Bob nodded, amused.

“Well, Nora, you know that Brother Glenn dropped dead in the pulpit in 1965? That was just after Brother Bob moved back here. J. B. convinced Brother Bob to preach for us while we was searchin’ for a preacher. We all loved his preachin’ so much that the pulpit committee decided we had the preacher we wanted. So after a couple of months, that’s when we met with Brother Bob and told him we wanted him to be our pastor.”

“What did he say Grandma?” Ham hadn’t heard this story before.

“Well, he was very reluctant. He had a bad experience in Raleigh. Got involved in the Civil Rights Movement, and the monied folk at the church warn’t altogether happy about it. They liked havin’ a preacher with a fancy degree, but they warn’t so happy when he turned activist.”

“Can’t really blame them, can you?” Thom Jeff interjected.

Cornelia ignored Thom Jeff’s remarks.

“Well, we told Brother Bob we didn’t have a whole lot Civil Rights stuff goin’ on in North Wilkesboro. Then he says, if I agree to be your pastor, I have a couple of conditions. Course that didn’t settle too well with Charlie Snow, chairman of the committee. ‘What kind of conditions, Brother Bob?’ ‘Well,’ he says, ‘first off, I won’t take any salary. I just took a teaching job over at the college and don’t need any more income than that. So my compensation could be living in the parsonage and having my utilities paid.’ Charlie looked around at us and winked and said, ‘I reckon we can live with that. What else?’ Brother Bob continued, ‘I’d like for us to have joint worship services once a month with Second Baptist Church in Wilkesboro.’ ‘Do you mean on a Sunday evening?’ Charlie asked. ‘No, I mean on a Sunday morning,’ Brother Bob said. ‘Where would we meet?’ somebody asked. ‘There one month and here the next.’ ‘What would we do about the offerin’ on those days?’ ‘Split it, I reckon. Remember I’m not taking a salary,’ Bob said. Mabel asked, ‘What if one of those “co—, I mean black folk want to join our church?’ Bob said, ‘What if they do? That wouldn’t be the purpose of the joint services. The purpose would be to get to know each other better. If a black wanted to join the church we’d cross that bridge when we come to it, just like they’d have to do the same if one of our members wanted to join their church.’ Somebody said, ‘Not sure we’re ready to have coloreds join our church, Brother Bob.’ So, the committee looked around at each other, but this time we warn’t smiling. After a little while, Charlie said. ‘We probably ought to take that up at the next business meetin’ if it’s okay with you.’ ‘Sure. I expect that’d be the right thing to do,’ Bob said and stood up. The meeting was over. Well, what do you know, two weeks later, we met in business session, and voted to call Brother Bob as pastor. He began on the first Sunday in January, 1966.” Cornelia paused.

“You have a wonderful memory, Mama,” Aunt Nora said. She turned to Brother Bob and said, “When did the two churches merge?”

“Well,” Brother Bob began, “that sorta evolved over time. The two congregations enjoyed worshipping together from the beginning. After a year we went to two services a month and after a couple of years, the two congregations simply decided to merge. It just seemed to make sense. Brother Willie and I served as co-pastors, and we took turns in the pulpit and alternated locations.”

“Brother Willie was a little too long-winded for my tastes,” Grandpa Dubya remarked.

“And Brother Bob was a little too liberal for mine,” Thom Jeff chimed in.

Nina shot him a dirty look, but Brother Bob said, “I’m sure you weren’t the only one in that category, Thom Jeff!”

“I was a little surprised that the most difficult transitions in the merger came in the area of food, though I guess in hindsight I shouldn’t have been. Blacks and whites weren’t accustomed to eating together, so dinner on the grounds was a challenging event in those first couple of years. Coaxing members to mingle with each other and share food was difficult. It helped, Nora, that both whites and blacks were marvelous cooks, like your Mama and sister-in-law.” Cornelia and Nina simultaneously blushed and looked down. “So that anxiety soon melted away like butter on Cornelia’s hot biscuits.

“We met more resistance when we asked the congregation to share the holy food of communion. From the beginning, Brother Willie and I agreed that the church should observe communion every Sunday. Perhaps it would have been less of a big deal if we had used unleavened chiclets and individual plastic cups for the grape juice, but we used real wine and served communion by intinction.”

“Oh that’s where you dip the bread into the wine?” Aunt Nora asked. “We do that at Pullen, too.”

Bob nodded and continued, “It was a bit messy, and to old timers it was tantamount to drinking after each other, a taboo more than a century in the making and not easy to break.”

“It warn’t just tant’mount, it was exactly like drinkin’ after each other,” Thom Jeff interjected. Nina meant to kick him under the table, but hit Ham instead. Ham grunted. Oblivious, Thom Jeff said, “Ham, could you pass the mashed ‘taters?”

“But after a few months, only a few diehards refused to come forward for communion.”

“Me bein’ one of them,” Thom Jeff said, spooning a second helping of mashed potatoes on his plate.

“Like Thom Jeff, not everyone, was happy with these changes. That was no surprise. What was surprising was who the majority of these folk were. A large contingent of faculty and staff from Stearns and Marshall College started attending Little Rock when I started preaching. They liked the idea of attending an integrated church. Turned out, many of them didn’t care for the practice that an integrated church entailed. They could tolerate worshipping together once a month, but they really didn’t like ‘black church music’ and they didn’t like the fact that when Brother Willie preached, it was often for forty-five minutes and often on themes of racial and social justice that made them more than a little uncomfortable. And if the truth were known, they didn’t like sharing food around a table, whether picnic tables or the Lord’s Table, with members of Second Baptist Church. Despite their head knowledge about racial equality, their hearts—conditioned by generations of prejudice—were not fully open to those who were not like them. So when the two churches merged into one, many of the educated, middle class white members quietly migrated back to First Baptist Church, Wilkesboro. That left the rednecks, the blue collars, and a few professionals, like the Brookshire twins, who had been in Little Rock Church all their lives to ‘do church’ with their black counterparts, and also blue collar and some professionals whose roots likewise went several generations deep into Second Baptist Church. And they were bound and committed to make it work.”

“A few of us rednecks went the way of the educated white collars,” Thom Jeff muttered through a mouth full of mashed potatoes, just loud enough for everyone to hear. Nina kicked again. This time she hit her mark, and Thom Jeff grunted. They exchanged glares.

Bob ignored Thom Jeff’s comment. “The next big change had occurred in 1971, when Brother Willie died. At that time, the congregation called Matthew Zimmerman, one of the first African American graduates of Duke Divinity School as co-pastor, and we decided to hold worship services at the Little Rock Church and to convert the Second Baptist building in downtown Wilkesboro into a day care and community center to serve the children and youth of the community. And we decided to incorporate into the Second Little Rock Baptist Church, even though there was no First Little Rock Baptist Church. As one member put it, ‘We must decrease in order that Christ might increase!’ I liked that sentiment,” Brother Bob admitted.

Aunt Nora finally spoke again, “That’s a fascinating story. And how is it that a handsome fellow like you is still single, Brother Bob?” She smiled sweetly and batted her eyes at him over her glass of iced tea.

“I was married once.”

“Widowed or divorced?” Ham was amazed at Aunt Nora’s forthrightness. It was unusual in North Wilkesboro to be so straightforward.

“Divorced.”

“Oh dear, what happened?” Aunt Nora pressed.

“Pulpit committee went through this with Brother Bob, and we was satisfied that Brother Bob’s divorce was in line with biblical teaching,” Cornelia interjected.

“Oh was your wife a pagan or a cheater? I believe those are the two ‘biblical exceptions’? Not that it matters really. We have divorced ministers and deacons galore over at Pullen, don’t we Wilson?” Wilson grunted.

“Brother Bob warn’t involved in no affair or nothin’, Nora, if that’s what you’re gettin’ at. Like I said, the pulpit committee went over that with him.” Cornelia raised her eyebrows to indicate the interview was over.

“Things just didn’t work out, Nora. I prefer not to talk about that. It was a long time ago, and I think it important to honor what’s left of the relationship by not dragging it through the mud,” Bob said.

“Who’s ready for dessert?” Nina asked, rising from the table and filling the awkward silence.

“Your pecan pie, I hope, Nina,” Aunt Nora said. “Let me help you.” She left the table and joined Nina in the kitchen.

When she was out of the room, Cornelia whispered to Brother Bob. “I’m so sorry about that. Nora has always been headstrong and a little forward.”

“That she has, that she has,” her husband Wilson said. It was the first and only time he spoke during the meal.

Everybody ate their pecan pie, and Wilson and Aunt Nora got in their Cadillac de Ville and headed to Chapel Hill. Brother Bob got on to his Harley Davidson and headed back to the parsonage. Dubya and Cornelia went back to their house. Ham and Diane washed dishes while Michael Allen dried. Nina put them away, Thom Jeff fell asleep in his easy chair and snored. Ham had learned things about Brother Bob he didn’t know even after ten years. And he liked and trusted him more now than ever before.