The Unfortunate Misconceptions of My Ill-Conceived Silence

            As I’ve handed you a small dose of something else that was going on leading up to my county circuit, we can begin to put the two together and slowly, but with great force and glorious precision they will collide.

            I could hear her before I saw her.  She has one of those loud, overwhelming voices that commands you to listen.  Not overwhelming in the negative, but an assertive voice that leaves an impression on you demanding to know that she is in the room, she is in control, and she is full of love. 

            At this point I can no longer be excited about my release.  I’ve had plenty of time to think about anywhere else I might be wanted, and not a single place comes to mind, but then again, I was somehow unaware of the state’s desire for me to be held in the previous counties.  I am numb with the system.   Numb.  Nervous.  Anxious.    As I proceed through the process I’ve come to loathe, but look so forward to, I can’t help but actually feel good about this one.  Something about her being there and doing what she does with people gave me comfort.  I knew that if they cuffed me again, it was over. 

            After an unrecallable amount of torturous waiting, watching and listening; I was free!  The deal had been made and I was able to hug my aunt, smell the air and get in the front seat of a car, minus the uncomfortable jewelry provided by the state for all my rides to and fro.  She allowed me to smoke a cigarette first, but she was sure to fuss about my health, fuss about the smell after I got in the car, and very wisely I must say, explain to me that I had already been that long without one, there’s no need to start again.  I didn’t listen; she should have known.

 

            We had a wonderful ride home.  We talked about everything going on in my life and she shared wisdom and began to speak about Jesus.  I wasn’t in the mood to hear about Jesus.  I had just been in 3 different jails, in 3 different counties.  I honestly wanted to go home, get some vodka and a girl and just hang out and enjoy the sunset.  As beautiful as that thought was to me, I knew it wasn’t the sunset that would ultimately dominate post release.        

            My aunt is a devout believer.  She plays piano in the church and if the church is having service she’s there.  Everything involved God.  That’s the way she is.  I get that now, but I sure didn’t then.  She took being a Christian to a level I was nowhere near ready for.  In any event, on the ride home she invited me to a church in town that was having a prophet speak that night. 

“A prophet?” I thought to myself.   

I grew up Southern Baptist and I didn’t believe in modern day prophets.  In fact, I didn’t recall of ever hearing of such a thing.  A man coming to a small church in a small town, to make money off those people with small minds. That’s what that was all about.  I will never forget the conversation that was taking place in my head as she was enthusiastically doing her best to convince me this was a good thing, and something we needed to do. Her words were coming in through my left ear, and getting lost amid the much more confusing dialogue taking place in the confines of my sordid little mind; there was no way I was attending this scam, but there was no way I couldn’t considering everything she had just done for me. Ultimately I caved.

            Later on that evening she picked me up, we got back into her car and headed to church.  This was a small church on a very popular street in my town.  A church I had driven by countless times on a route that offered me nothing more than old houses and an even older cemetery across the way.  I had never paid attention, and I don’t believe to this day, I know a single person that attends that church.  Nevertheless, the important thing here is the fact that somehow, there I was, with my aunt, getting out of the car in that seemingly invisible church parking lot in an attempt at someone trying to convince me of something I was already inflexible against believing.  Wearily I made my way through the camouflaged lot and proceeded to the front doors.

            Upon entering the building my aunt does her best to get us towards the front row, but her success in this matter is faltered because surprisingly enough, the church is packed.  Crowded with steamy grumblings of excitement and wonder from the small minds of my fellow Malvernites, we were forced to take a seat in the back pew.  This of course didn’t bother me and I will admit to the truth of a small victorious cry in my heart and mind that sounded out so as I was the only one able to enjoy it.  We were forced to sit in the back. 

“This won’t be so bad after all,” I thought. 

For the last six days I have been able to do nothing other than sit still, stare at walls, be patient, and think of the worst possible scenario of every situation that came across my mind.  I was getting good at doing exactly what I was being forced to do then in that moment.

 She is so excited, my aunt.  Writing this now and remembering how giddy she was is actually making me laugh a little.  I’m not laughing at her, but honestly laughing at how positive she can remain and how happy she was that we were together in that place, at that time, doing that thing, and that is all that mattered to her.  Her and I, then and there.  Cue the Organ.

            Service starts much like any other as well as I can remember.  Before long the Prophet was introduced and he began to do his thing.  He would begin to preach and give testimony and then he would pick someone out of the congregation and begin to prophesy over them.  Like I’ve made sure to impress upon you, I was not believing a single moment of that show.  The simple fact that I had never seen anyone in that church before didn’t help my disbelief.  I didn’t know Martha Franks.   So when he told Martha that her lost puppy was actually trapped in the basement behind the water heater, and she became exuberantly overjoyed, I was sure with everything sacred to me, this had been discussed over lunch at the Western Sizzlin and she, along with some others, all rode in on the same tour bus.  To be clear, I still don’t know anyone named Martha Franks and I am using the name and situation as an example.  I’m positive the prophecies were much more serious and I don’t mean to make light of what was going on, but that was the amount of respect I was giving to the situation as it unfolded.

            The service was winding down.  The show was over.  The offering plate was being passed around, the Prophet was getting paid.  Then, mid-sentence out of nowhere he looks at me.  I don’t mean that I caught his eye.  I mean that he was in the middle of speaking and while addressing the congregation, it was as if someone had whispered in his ear to find me.  He continued to speak, but with not as much force and in a way that seemed as if his confidence was leaving him up there all alone.  He began to eye me in a peculiar way from the front, as if he were having a conversation about me in his head totally separate from the one he was speaking to us.  Trying to decide if what he was being told was correct?  Trying to decide if I was the one?  Of both of these I am convinced and at once the direction and tone of his closing argument changed.  He continued to speak, but not to the congregation.  He extended his new path of dialect, but not necessarily to me, rather at me as he approached the rear from the safety of the front line he had remained steadily in control of throughout the entire evening.  As he eased down the aisle I can’t explain to you the emotions of shock, disbelief, fear, and total nervousness that crashed over my entire being like a tidal wave of panic all in one monstrous nanosecond. 

            He came at me like a linebacker looking for his first career sack, and as he got closer his confidence and tone grew stronger.  This man was saying things to me, about me, that only I knew of.  Little things that were only in my head.  It was all happening so fast I wasn’t offered the time to be impressed. 

“This is nothing,” I thought to myself.

 But the more he spoke, the more he revealed. 

My mind began racing and my pulse quickened until it climaxed in a disgusting blare of heart beat that was so overpowering I could feel the sweat attacking its way for escape through my pores.

“Oh my goodness, this guy is real!”          

  All of these things were pretty much meaningless compared to the bomb he dropped upon reaching the back pew I had grown comfortable being unnoticed in. 

            He knew everything!  He relayed to me his knowledge of my recent mishaps all over central Arkansas.  This man, whom I have never seen or heard of, rode in on his tour bus of falsifications and deceitful generalizations of the common man’s woes, and knew that I had been in secret talks with friends far away. 

In front of everyone he said, “God just revealed to me that you’ve been contemplating a move!  ‘God told me to tell you not to think about it anymore!  ‘He wants you to pick up your things, pack your bags and go!  ‘This move is going to change your life!’”

 My mind was completely blown!  My aunt was unaware this decision hung in the balance.  My father and friends weren’t in the know.  The Brothers, myself and God were the only ones that knew this idea existed.  I immediately believed in this man.  I didn’t believe in him so much as I believed that God, without a doubt, just used this man to speak to me and give me direction.  It still blows my mind to this day.

             When church was over all the emotions and confusion, the misunderstanding and disbelief, they left just as easily as they came.  The shock and awe of God’s campaign to make me aware of his intentions for me had proven effective.  The next day I would leave.  Without a word to anyone in town, I would leave.

            My aunt and I drove home and we talked, but I don’t remember how much I divulged to her, and I really wish I could remember more of what the Prophet said before blasting me with the one that really hit home, but I can’t.  

            What I do remember is this; I went to bed, I woke up, I packed some clothes and I called my father to borrow some money.  I called the Brothers and told them I was moving right away to be ready for me that night.  I called the Greyhound Station and got info for tickets from Malvern to Memphis.  I went to where my father worked and he loaned me fifty dollars.  It was then that I told him I was leaving, I had inquired about a bus ticket and I was starting my life over.  He agreed it was a good idea.  That is all I told him until much later.  I don’t recall how I got to the bus station, I can only assume it was my aunt who took me, because I know I told no one else about my move, other than my mother, who lived in Memphis and also had no idea I was coming.  She agreed to meet me at the Greyhound Station in Downtown Memphis.  Everything was set.  I got on the bus and headed to Memphis with twenty-four dollars and a couple of duffle bags of clothes.