WIDE EYES

We moved to St. Paul, Virginia when I was just three. Seems they needed a new preacher for a little Pentecostal church and my dad knew how to roll holy with the best of them. St. Paul was small.

The church and parsonage were on one slope of Broad Street and most of the businesses were a block away, across the road at the bottom and up on the other side. Two blocks that made up my whole universe. There were a rather large number of teenage girls at the Assembly of God who took out their burgeoning maternal instincts out on the preacher’s kid. I wasn’t complaining, either. They taught me how to talk in that deep corner of Appalachia. I had words, and I liked using them, there was all this stuff I figured I needed to know, and words were the tools to find out. I learned new stuff all the time, and with so much new language, built exquisitely vivid memories about dead chickens, snot, and the devil too.

In my universe, the old lady next door decapitated chickens for Sunday dinner and let me watch. She had a little stocks specially made near the edge of my yard, a short board with three holes, a split down the middle, hinged on one end, and latched on the other. I had no idea what it was. Then one Sunday after church, she came around the corner of her house with a fat rooster under one arm, unlatched the end, put the chicken’s neck in the place made for it and snicked the hasp. A hatchet appeared in her hand, then, Whack! The axe fell, the head rolled, and the chicken, freed from its bonds, scattered thoughtless feathers all over the lawn in a last mad rush to find something it couldn’t quite remember. Its disembodied brain never got to answer the eternal “Why me?” served up later as a southern fried dinner. The whole thing was like my own private trip into a momentary Twilight Zone. We stood staring at the lifeless lump of feathers for a minute before she turned to give me a wink and wry (evil) little smile. I have no recollection of whether my parents knew about my fascinating friend next door, but I never got into any trouble about that.

I got some pretty good memories from our daily walks to the post office, too. It was in the back of the drug store up the hill on the other block. Like the time I saw one of the local men cross the street ahead of us. He stopped right there in the middle of the lane, covered one nostril with his thumb and blew a foot-long wad of coalminer snot with enough force that it could have probably killed a kid my size. He stood back up, touched his hat at us, then walked off like nothing had happened. After that, I hid whenever I saw him coming, couldn’t be too careful, you know.

I liked it when mom would take me to get the mail, because right next to the window where we picked it up, was a rack of Little Golden Books, and she liked buying them for me. Chicken Little and The Little Engine that Could. Real literary classics. Other times, my dad, the one with Michelangelo hands to give me life and the law, lead the way. On the corner was a hotel, and it had saloon doors. This was before TV, and I had never seen the like. Didn’t seem very efficient, wouldn’t keep people out, much less mosquitoes, coal soot, or the cold. So I asked. My father bent his stern blue eyes at me, pointed into my soul and said, “Don’t you ever go in there.” That’s all. No explanations, no hints of what might happen. Did I mention that I was curious?

Those were different times, so people have a hard time with the idea that occasionally, after I turned 4.I was allowed to go by myself. You probably know the rest. Next time I went to get the mail alone, I walked right past those doors without even a glance their way. But there they were, you know? And I had to pass them again on the way home; plenty of time to think about it… time to wonder. I walked on the inside of the sidewalk, mail clutched in my right hand next to my breast until I got to the mysterious entrance. I can see myself stand there for a second or two, before turning to peer into the darkness. I remember it was smoky, and something round and brazen glowed golden on the floor, either a spittoon, or maybe the end of a foot rail. Just as my eyes gained focus, and this is the really good part, a red face leaned down from the depths and settled inches from my eyes, a bony finger came up, shook itself at my nose, and a raspy voice said, “ if you ever come in here again, I’ll cut your head off.”

I don’t remember the rest of the trip home. But I do remember when I was back in my room with my secret. HA! The Devil himself had spoken to me, and there I was, a Holy Roller preacher’s kid curiously, deliciously, still alive.

Reviews

[Lorry]

The bit about the headless roosters freedom, looking for something it couldn't remember explains my entire life in that nutshell! 😀
I reckon you're right about those first books being true literature. They caused the spark that fanned the flame into a new understanding, before then undiscovered and we had the key to all of it, just by opening a book and letting our imagination off the leash.
And where do those snot remover guys learn how to do that? I only ask so I can stay the hell away from it and them. There's always one of them though in every group, acting like he is a wizard when the rest of us learned a magical trick years before called a handkerchief! I wonder if they ever tried impressing the ladies with it!
So how did staying out of saloons go for you Vol? I never frequent them myself, but more to do with the fact that since lockdown they have tripled their prices and moaned more at you about never having any customers. Just don't point out the reason being their prices!
Say, didn't you used to work in a bar? 😀

[Vol]

Lorry,
The thing I wonder about most is the question I first encountered on the wall a dark alley back in about 1968. Judging by the way the letters dribbled down the wall somebody brought a bucket and a brush. Anyway, there it was in my headlights...two-foot-high letters asking "WHY?"
Lorry,
Whether we know it or not... everybody already knows the answer. We are born knowing... well most of us are, and it seems more folks are confused today than ever before. The First commandment (I wrote about God's first commandment in today's post.) We need to get busy and get out there and do our bit to insure the continuation of the species! I've always endeavored to do my part, and if anyone is willing,.. I ain't dead yet!
Vol

We all know the answer whether we

[Curly Grace]

well done. I pictured a wide-eyed little Voy.
your use of language produces exquisite imagery, my friend.

[Vol]

Sarah,
Thank you! I have played with words from the first time I used one... the very best toys!
Vol

[RomaJ]

Vol, your story hit me in that strange place between memory and myth.. the way childhood moments blur the sacred and the grotesque until everything feels half-real, half-legend. It reminded me of helping an elderly friend prepare for a dinner once.. she harvested her own chickens, broke one’s neck before I even had time to react, then left it headless in a bucket. I remember being speechless. But there was a kind of blunt truth to it, much like your neighbor’s Sunday ritual.. that strange intimacy between life, death, and what we choose to look away from.

The moment in your story when the devil leans down to warn the preacher’s kid is perfect.. that mix of terror and curiosity children know so well. You write memory the way memory actually feels: half horror, half wonder, and all truth.

Roma

[Vol]

Oh, Roma, such High praise! Thank you... I often think of how words have always been my favorite toys...
Vol