Take Me to Church

- eight

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It weren't much longer that I began to realize that I might be here a while. The little one beside me had already started dozing off, little lashes fluttering as his eyes drooped. I didn't count myself an expert on church services but I didn't think no sermon was 'posed to be as long as this 'ne. Preacher man Marsellas looked all kinds off worked up. Face red, voice raised; reminded me of Mama. But there was somethin' else to it that I couldn't name. Something deep.

I felt the babe beside me jerk slightly as he caught himself, weight shifting to rest on my side. I hoped his mama wouldn't skin me for pattin' his little back and helpin' him drift off a li'l more.

"The devil knows the bible. Brothers and sisters, I said - thee devil knows the bible. Jus' like every good lawyer knows the law, or like those criminals know - he knows!. He knows the Bible so he can exploit it. He knows it so he can take all that knowledge and twist it around to take our children."

There was a certain kind of calm to preacher man that left me uneasy. For a moment, I thought he might have been looking right at me. But it could ave been a trick of the light. I hoped it was a trick of the light. A real difference though from that hellfire look he'd ad the first time i'd seen him. This was his element; Rivka weren't around to ruin it.

"These chil'ren don't know." A pause. "These chil'ren don't know what's out there. All these kidnappings and shootin's and killin's - they don' know how they get into it." His voice strained with emotion, almost like he was gon' up and cry in front of the congregation. I weren't so sure I could put it past him.

"Tha's why - we protect 'em. You get them to read their Bibles - you know how they say knowledge is power? Tha's what they're talkin' about. Knowledge is power."

Each word of the last sentence was ended with a slap on the pulpit. Now he was red in the face, teary-eyed and like he was gonna keel over and weep. Now he was spittin' that hellfire he had before. But it was gone soon after, his face returning to its regular beige color. He leaned up on that pulpit, one finger poking at the fine wood of it.

"Can I come down there and talk to y'all?"

The answer was immediate. Old ladies and young ladies and their beaus thundering a reply and preacher man smiled as he stepped down from the pulpit. He put on hand in his fine pocket and the other dragged along the pulpit as he came down. The railing that separated the altar from the rest of us was where it went next, fingers tapping as he got his words together.

"The devil don' show you nothin' you don't want." The air was filled with affirmations and musings of understanding. "He's an expert salesman. He puts things in pretty, neat packages. He makes sure you want that thing so bad you ain't gonna think twice about it when he offers. 'What's the cost? At what price?' Oh, no, you not gon' be thinking about that. S'why they say you should trust your mother's judgment when they say that boy or girl you with ain't no good.

And like he knows the Bible, he thinks he knows you. He think there ain't no one that know you better than him. He knows best, he says. Now, when you get to denying him of that, that's when he really whips out that 'well, God said this.'" Here, he snickered. The congregation followed his example.

Now I weren't no expert on how a sermon was supposed to go. I guess he was making a good argument - but I weren't no expert on that either. I prolly squired something terrible during the sermon. Too pointed; too directed. Uncomfortable is what it made me feel. But I reckon that was what hhe was going for. When he put those green on eyes on me, I had a feeling. The old ladies crooned again, giving their firm appraisal. They judged his words and tey saw them fitting what they thought so they agreed.