John the Baptist2nd Place in the Fiction Writing Contest
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Issue 17
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On the western edge of Greentree, the county seat though the population fell short of two thousand souls, the hills ended and the land rolled out almost flat. Stretching into Oklahoma, this more fertile land was where corn, soy beans, chickens, and beef cattle were raised and where, on a bright October Thursday, the Reverend John Perry and his musical director, Sue Roubideaux, drove from opposite directions to meet.
They turned from blacktopped state highways onto a utility road, rutted from tractor tires, that followed muddy little Sycamore Creek. The creek bordered a 160-acre parcel that had been planted entirely in corn. Harvest had finished, and crows flew down from tall sycamores and cottonwoods to feast on spilled kernels. At the arrival of the two vehicles, Sue’s six-year-old SUV and John’s motorcycle, the crows took flight, but, one by one, soon returned. Wind, the bite of coming winter in it, rattled the ruined stalks. This would be John and Sue’s last meeting. Their first was in February, when Sue wanted to straighten out what was happening, or not happening, between them. There were too many eyes, too many ears, in their little church. The town’s Subway shop, its square, even the city park were also too public. John was a rarity among pastors, a bachelor. He’d spent twenty years in the army, finally deciding to put himself into the real world again, with his pension, his G.E.D, and fervent love of Jesus to protect him. He’d come to the Lord in his sixteenth year of service, and more and more, as he studied the Bible, he wanted to spread the gospel. Their flirtation crept up on them. A musical director and pastor worked closely together, not merely on Sundays but sometimes two evenings a week, as they agreed upon hymns and Sue practiced at the piano, and as John pushed a dust mop across the chipped tile floor. He found Sue’s voice enchanting, and knew she sang “In the Garden” just for him. The birds hush their singing, he murmured. Over the winter, John and Sue had tried to form a boys’ quartet, two of them her sturdy, rather dull sons. All four boys, forced by their mothers into something they didn’t want to do, were frightened as well as talentless. At their Sunday morning debut, they sang so fast they escaped Sue’s accompaniment. Reverend John and Musical Director Sue discussed the boys the Tuesday evening that followed. Sue looked up at John from the piano, her eyes full of kindness as always. “I suppose we could try again.” John laughed. “Maybe next year, Sue.” Sue shut the key cover and stood abruptly, surprising John, and the two stood facing each other, inches apart. The Devil made him do it, John sometimes thought. He kissed Sue and they held the kiss for a long moment before she staggered away. “We can’t, John,” Sue whispered. “We just can’t.” John agreed, they’d call the kiss an accident and put Pandora back in her box, but then Deacon Andreas’ voice floated up from the front. What was he doing here on a Tuesday night? “Reverend John!” Andreas called out. “Yard needs mowing.” “In February?” John couldn’t see Andreas though he must be standing in the vestibule. “There’s weeds around the propane tank, and you could level off that boxwood.” “Get it tomorrow,” John said, watching Sue trail up the aisle. She had a nice figure, he thought, and realized he’s been lusting after her for some time. How sly the Devil was! Reverend John Perry delivered sometimes fiery, more often thoughtful, sermons at the Oddball Baptist Church just off the Greentree Square. John had visited prisons and veterans homes and grown fascinated with the proportions of good and evil dealt to every man and woman. “A wife-beater may go out of his way to help an injured dog,” he preached. “An accountant, claiming to be a Christian, may steal from the Christmas fund. We cannot understand how evil divides itself up but we know that Jesus loves sinners as well as the virtuous, and that trusting him in your life can overcome the evil in all of us. It’s the promise the suffering Jesus made to the thief on the cross: ‘Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.’" But John, though sincere, and who strove mightily to understand his Bible, wasn’t ordained. The Apostolic—Oddball—Baptists had no national organization behind them. Members of the Southern Baptist megachurch west of town called them the Oddball Baptists because they spoke in tongues and believed in faith healing, and the congregation of misfits and near-homeless kind of liked the nickname. “I know one thing,” Reverend Perry said from his pulpit. “We Oddballs love the Lord.” This always drew a laugh—and some groans. The collection plate had to be devoted to the church’s maintenance, not that offerings amounted to much. Ones and change, sometimes a five-dollar bill. But with his sergeant’s pension, and medical care that was almost free, John got by. He held a part-time job selling grass and garden seeds, and—in lieu of a salary—lived rent-free in a converted garage one hundred feet behind the little church. Good bachelor’s quarters, not much different from army accommodations, though the place needed a new water heater and he didn’t feel he should pay for it. Deacon Andreas, the hardware man, said he could find one wholesale but somehow he kept forgetting. When his pickup truck gave up the ghost, a widow donated an old BMW motorcycle that barely ran. “Well, thank you, Sister,” John said, eying the greasy, dubious gift. The widow’s son had been killed in the Middle East. “Billy would have wanted you to have it.” As winter wore on, John overhauled the BMW, spreading parts across the cement floor of his living room, where grease stains from tractors and mowers remained. Fixing the motorcycle was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle and John enjoyed it immensely, watching Westerns as he worked, drinking beer and eating supermarket pizzas before stumbling off to bed. You never knew how the Maker would bless you, and John came, through prayer, to understand that the BMW was a sign from God. The BMW, rather than an old Chevy or another worn-out truck, meant that John wouldn’t be stuck in Greentree forever. In the army John read Walkin’ Preacher of the Ozarks, by Guy Howard, who walked from town to little town bringing the gospel and teaching school. Instead of walking, John would become a modern-day circuit preacher, riding his BMW. Oh, it was a dream! He’d be a vagabond for Jesus, a godly outlaw. John worked anywhere from eight to fifty hours at the Coyote Seed Company over in Rock Springs, thirteen miles west. He thanked the Lord for the job, if only because it got him away from Deacon Andreas. He could be a regular working stiff for a while, not a bachelor pastor always under scrutiny. Andreas had the nerve to knock on the door on a Saturday evening, when John had popped corn and settled down to a DVD of No Time for Sergeants. He thought of the time as his Lonely Guy Night. Later, he planned to scribble some notes for tomorrow’s sermon. Andreas stuck his nose to the screen but John kept the door shut. He wore a tee shirt and his comfortable old shorts, not exactly holy garb, and an open beer set on the coffee table. Saturday night was his night. Andreas owned the hardware, which had prospered mightily when the chain lumber company shut down its Greentree branch. Plumbers and electricians were forced to pay the deacon’s inflated prices—or drive all the way to Springfield. No doubt about it, Andreas had become important in Greentree. He’d taken to wearing white shirts and ties. Soon, he’d sit on the city council. “We need to talk, John—and pray for the Lord’s direction in this.” John didn’t know what Andreas wanted to say but he wearied of being monitored. “Don’t like the way I do the yard?” Andreas ignored the sarcasm. Or perhaps he was so enamored with his own words that any others didn’t register. He put on a caring expression. “It’s your marital status, John.” “I haven’t done anything, Deacon. I would never—” Luckily, or unluckily, only a few of the congregation’s women were unmarried, though sometimes John caught one, married or single, staring at him with a flicker of lust. An unmarried pastor must have a sad history, which a wise woman would understand. All those unrequited years in the army! “I know that, John. But a single man, a pastor, in this little town—” The deacon suggested John might drive into the big city of Springfield, a den of iniquity so far as Andreas was concerned, and satisfy his desires there. “What desires?” John said, and yet he had to admit that living without a woman in his life was difficult. He’d stopped going to the local grocery, because an attractive clerk had her eyes on him. Maybe he could date a Greentree woman, but he couldn’t bring her to the garage, and her home also seemed risky. He’d had hopes for Cheryl, the office manager over in Rock Springs. A divorcee not much younger than John, Cheryl wore short skirts and tons of makeup. A painted woman, John thought, but the Devil soon replaced such thinking with desire. Why, oh why, was lust so hard to conquer? She knew he was there, all right. Sometimes, she favored him with a smile. And who was there to admire this painted lady other than John, toothless old Merle, a cough or two away from death, and Bob, the baldheaded boss? One rainy evening her car wouldn’t start, and John bravely fought the elements to tighten her battery cables. He asked her to dinner and she said, “Where?” He named a medium-priced restaurant in iniquitous Springfield, and she drove. Late that night, maybe late enough no one would know, they pulled up at his garage, but she wouldn’t go in. Back in Rock Springs, she invited him into her apartment, a walk-up from a downtown antique shop. Over several glasses of Reisling with its tall, blue, wicked-looking bottle, she lamented her boring life. It did seem boring to John, who knew the state well. Cheryl reviewed her many health issues until it seemed she must be near death, and then turned him out at 10:30 sharp. He kissed her on her greasy cheek. Soon after, John spotted Cheryl at the Rock Springs Shop ’N Save with Bob the Bald-headed Boss. She slipped by John with a wistful glance, then ran to join Bob, placing a hand on his elbow, laughing merrily over sacks of over-priced grapes. The first time Sue and John met corn hadn’t even been planted, though dust from disking hung in the air. But they heard no tractors and knew they couldn’t be seen from the state highways. Sycamore Creek rushed from spring rains and the big trees whispered and squeaked in the wind. A perfect place to hide for paranoid lovers. The true subject of the day, sex, was impossible to raise. Sue talked about her husband, Theodore, who worked at Joe’s Tire Shop. He threw tractor tires into pickup beds and welded wheels when they broke. He was a hard-working man who, when he came home, ate his supper and told the children to show proper respect for their mother and eat what was placed before them. He came from a family of six kids and many a time he’d gone to bed hungry. If he complained, his father thrashed him with a hickory stick. (Theodore emphasized hickory. Tough hickory seemed more menacing than pine or willow.) After supper, Theodore retired to the TV room, where he and his buddies watched football on a massive screen. When there was no football, they watched basketball or baseball or even soccer. Even women’s soccer. Theodore wasn’t mean to Sue; he hardly noticed her. And he watched the kids on Sundays, when there was a lot of football, and didn’t object to her endless church-going. “He’s good that way,” Sue said, with an upturned face. “He ignores you,” John said. Sue’s voice grew almost prideful. “He’s never hit me!” This seemed a poor standard. It suggested that most men beat their wives, or that a good man was one who didn’t. “I was in the army so long,” John said, reaching across the shifter to take Sue’s hand. “That I hardly know how to live.” Sue gently withdrew her hand but John grabbed it again and kissed it. “Except that I know the Lord called me.” “Yes! People can see it in your face, John.” “To bring the gospel to all the world. But here I am at Oddball Baptist.” They both laughed, and then John pulled her close, and they kissed desperately. Sometimes, they made love and were giddy with pleasure, like children finally out of school, insanely free for the summer. Sue made a pallet in the SUV’s cargo bed, and John bought Reisling. Love-making was sweet in early summer, under the sycamores, with a breeze through the knee-high corn. John had never felt so happy, though, back in his garage, he walked about in nervous sorrow, praying for deliverance. “I love her,” he implored. “Sweet Jesus, I love her!” Sue and John gave themselves over to the Devil, making vigorous love again and again. They experimented with positions, which seemed even more wicked. But when you gave in to evil, John thought, you at last understood its delights, even its wonders. After a while, evil wasn’t the word for it. The word, Reverend John told himself, was love. They lay curled together in an afghan Sue had knitted, touching each other with the elaborate tenderness of newlyweds, and Sue talked about her daughter. Laura would be doomed to leg braces probably for all her short life. “The boys will be all right,” Sue said. “They’re chips off the old block.” Old blockhead, John thought, but didn’t say so. Except for how he loved Jesus, John knew he was pretty ordinary. And now he’d sullied that divine love! “It’s Laura I worry about,” Sue said. John remembered the girl from several weeks before, when Laura had risen and creaked forward to give her life to Jesus. Half the congregation was in tears. He remembered how the girl held her crutches at an angle, sticking out one braced leg, clomping down the other. She had cerebral palsy. “She’s a good student, you say.” “First in her class.” “That’s the answer. She needs an education, Sue. Lots of things she could do.” “But where’s the money coming from, John?” This was the sort of question married people pondered, and the reverend, with little money himself, had no answer. Still, if they were married, John felt they could have worked things out. Maybe Laura, with her disability and good grades, could win a scholarship. John thought he’d have been happy with Sue. She was the perfect wife for a minister—except that she was already married with three kids. No, marriage was impossible. They’d have to leave Greentree and John might never preach again. Sue might not gain custody of the children. “If only we’d known each other before,” Sue said. Their love-making became less frantic. Sometimes, they were mere friends, soul-mates, woebegone confidantes who talked over their mundane problems. Sometimes, he was bored with her. Sometimes, she shook her head and corrected his goofy assertions. But this only proved they could be a real couple. Perhaps. But in the end, the rashness, the enormity of what they’d done pressed hard upon them. They’d been lucky. They’d be lucky to get out of this alive, and always the Lord’s judgement would hang above them like a guillotine. And then, that fine October afternoon, their very last time to meet, Sue looked up at John in horror. God’s judgment, or the Devil’s, came due even as they swore to a renewed virtue. This was how the Devil worked. You thought you were safe, and then the Devil pulled his evil snare. Sue heard the thunder of Deacon Andreas’ monster truck, coming along the utility road. The deacon sat there a moment, his great engine throbbing. Without looking at John, Sue got out of the SUV and walked her dead woman’s walk to the deacon’s truck. They talked. They kept talking. Andreas shook his finger, as if Sue were a five-year-old, and she nodded. John felt like crying but held back because Sue did. John sat on his BMW. His mind jumped to a motorcycle trailer he’d seen for sale in Rock Springs. No reason he couldn’t keep his job there but he didn’t want to. He wanted to hide. Sue trudged by, offering John one regretful, caring look. He smiled and bowed his head. From behind his windshield, Andreas offered a come-here gesture with his index finger. John always hated that gesture, from lieutenants especially, because of its arrogance, its starting of a conversation with dominance. He walked a little way from the BMW to what seemed halfway to the big truck. The crows, studying the scene, fell silent. With an expression of pious outrage, overlaid with simple irritation, Andreas came to meet him. “Good afternoon, John.” “What about Sue?” John asked. “You have committed a grave sin, John. Almost the worst thing a pastor could do.” “Yes. And it was entirely my fault. What about Sue?” Again, Andreas fought for control of his face. “I warned you, John!” “You did, sir. My sins will hang over me the rest of my life. What about Sue?” “She can stay. I will hold to myself this terrible sin, and deal with it in prayer.” John was relieved the Hardware Man didn’t look toward Heaven, or that a beam of divine light didn’t light up his face. “The Lord counsels us to be merciful, John. So far as I know, I’m the only one who knows. More harm than good would come from exposing Sister Roubideaux.” “The baptismal service on Saturday?” “You should proceed with that. And the Sunday service as well, where you will announce you are moving on to West Plains. Your dear mother is ill, I believe?” His stepmother, and they’d never done anything but quarrel. But yes, she was sick. “And then I’m gone.” “It’s God’s will, John,” Andreas said. “I will pray for you.” The Reverend Perry had always enjoyed baptisms. The kids—sometimes, a penitent old person—were so innocent and joyful. And a little fearful of the water, though the current in Crow Creek was gentle, the water no more than eighteen inches deep, and so clear you could see the brown rocks on the bottom. This year there were four, including Sue’s newly-saved daughter, Laura. Sue was there, and surprisingly so was her husband, Theodore. Sue sat placidly, her hands folded, and didn’t meet John’s eyes. Theodore stared intently. John wondered why the man insisted on Theodore, rather than Ted. He wondered if Theodore suspected. How could you keep such a secret even from an indifferent husband? “In the name of the father, the son, and the holy ghost,” John the Baptist intoned, whispering to the supplicants to hold their noses as he plunged them under the cold water. The first three shot up like rockets, sniffling, laughing as they struggled to shore and a waiting towel. But Laura, with her wounded legs, presented a problem. John felt Sue’s eyes, and Theodore’s, upon him as he sloshed to shore to gather the girl in his arms, but once he dropped her into the current she had no trouble standing. The current seemed to energize her. John, too, felt energized, as if the creek carried electricity. For an instant John felt he saw sparks on the water, but it was only the detritus of sycamore seeds. Laura looked up at him eagerly, not fearful, on the threshold of an electric joy, and when he put her under, and lifted her again, he stepped back in surprise when she struck out on her own. She wobbled to shore, rushed forward to embrace pretty Sue, and mother and daughter wept and cried out to the Lord. Sue bent to help her daughter remove her braces, her hands trembling, her face wrenched in joy. “It’s a miracle!” some woman shouted. And another voice lifted: “Is she healed? Is that little girl healed?” Laura rocked back and forth as her mother worked, then kicked the braces away. She took several unsteady steps, then ran to her father, whose face reddened, whose stocky body shook. The brothers hung back, as if embarrassed, then they, too, reached out to their sister. “It’s a miracle! It’s a miracle!” rose from the little crowd, and several looked toward John the Baptist with awe. John reached shore. Sue threw him a hot look that felt like that force in the river, and he longed for her as had all summer. Theodore cried out, “Preacher, you healed her!” John thought to say, “Only Jesus can heal,” but couldn’t get out the words. ****
Next day, the Sunday morning service, was packed with the faithful. Also: half a dozen strangers, palsied, in wheelchairs, clustering by the altar. They were joined by that energetic young person, Laura, and John’s former lover, Sue. Her puzzled, stolid father, Theodore, stood aside, crying openly. John had no opportunity to deliver his hastily-constructed sermon, and perhaps it wasn’t worth listening to. He forgot to announce his exile to West Plains to be with his ailing stepmother.
He had to descend from the pulpit to pray and weep with the infirm. When he lifted his eyes, always he saw young Laura Roubideaux, smiling, sweet as her mother. Had the Lord truly healed her? Were seconds ticking by until she sprawled and fell, her legs weaker than ever? John remembered from his childhood a Korean War veteran who’d begged for healing ministrations from the preacher, who couldn’t offer them, who didn’t believe in them. The veteran went off to Tulsa and rose triumphant from his wheelchair, returning to the church and walking to his pew, and many in the congregation questioned the preacher’s right to his ministry. Then the veteran fell on his face at the mall and couldn’t rise again, and again he sat in a wheelchair. Young John puzzled over it. Was faith healing just mind over matter, and never could last? A potluck had been scheduled for after the service, and Reverend John couldn’t escape. Deacon Andreas lurked, alarm on his face at the breakdown in his disciplined views. John felt that breakdown, too. Over and over church people called him a healer, and he had to say, over and over, “It’s the Lord’s work. I am only his agent.” He tried mightily to find a private space to talk to Sue. They exchanged glances across the displays of sweet potatoes and fried chicken, and her radiant face stirred him, but always Theodore, the brothers, and starry-eyed Laura stood between them. Finally, Laura came to him with the kind eyes of her mother, threw her arms around his waist, and said, “Thank you, Reverend. Thank you.” The last of the congregation left by three. Deacon Andreas disappeared without further admonitions. John drew his trailer from his living room and attached it to the BMW. It was another fine day, not cold. He tried to summon the old vision of himself, a Christian troubadour on his mechanical horse, preaching where the people would have him. Had he healed, with the Lord’s electricity, scampering young Laura? It seemed so, and yet he was filled with doubt. He’d travel to West Plains on his motorcycle, his few belongings strapped to the trailer. He’d stay in cheap motels. He’d camp on rocky ground. He’d read his Bible, trying to understand what it meant to be a healer, what Jesus intended for him to be as one, a hypocrite, crying in the wilderness. |
John Mort lives in Oklahoma and has published 11 books, the last being OKLAHOMA ODYSSEY with Bison Books in 2023.
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