“Till is still alive. Now, what kind of nonsense is that?” Reverend Jenkins asked. “Sheriff Strider is a big fat liar. And I do mean FAT!” He threw the paper toward a fan in the pulpit. Pages flew in all directions.
He pushed back his suit coat and stuffed his hands into his pants pockets. He paced back and forth in front of the pulpit.
After a moment he stopped pacing. As his right hand came out of his pocket, he held it palm up and stared at it. “On the one hand,” he said, “we have a man everybody knows to be dead, and the powers that be concoct a story to say that his disciples stole him.”
Then the left hand. “And on the other hand, we have a body that’s been packed in a pine box, placed on a train, and shipped back to Chicago, and the powers that be say it’s the wrong body. If it was the wrong body, then why did they try to make Preacher Wright bury it the same day they found it floating in the river?”
As his hands swiftly went back into his pockets, Reverend Jenkins paced the floor. “You know what identified him?”
After no response from the congregation, Reverend Jenkins held up his hand. “His ring. His father’s ring. A signet ring. They stripped him of his clothes,” he said, pacing and waving his hands. “They took off his shoes.” He pointed at his feet. “But they didn’t think to take the ring off his finger. Had it not been for the ring,” he said, smiling, holding up his hand again, “Sheriff Strider might’ve been able to convince the people of a lie.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 4
MA PEARL WAVED A DRUMSTICK AT ME. “You know revival next week, don’cha?”
I broke off a piece of cornbread, pinched up a few fingers of collard greens, and mashed them together. I stuffed them into my mouth. “Didn’t we have revival already? In June?” I muttered, my mouth full.
“Having it again. A special one. Too many y’all young folks ain’t saved.”
Plenty of grown folks ain’t saved either. “Oh,” I answered, lowering my eyes, diverting my attention to a crack in the floor. I was trapped. Nobody was in the house except the two of us. And I had no excuse to get away from sitting in the kitchen eating Sunday dinner with Ma Pearl.
Uncle Ollie had come by the house shortly after church was out. His voice was panicked as he told Papa that his boar had somehow escaped the hog pen and was on the loose. That hog was as huge as a whale, meaner than Ma Pearl, and considered dangerous outside the pen. So Uncle Ollie, Papa, and Fred Lee had gone out to search for it, leaving the dinner company to consist of Ma Pearl and me. And the last thing I wanted to talk about was revival and the mourners’ bench.
“It’s time,” Ma Pearl said. “Past time. You thirteen. Should’ve been down in the water befo’ you was twelve. Ain’t nothing certain. You see that boy dead at fo’teen. That could be you.”
My skin prickled. Every summer, including this one, I’d ignored Ma Pearl when she spoke of revival and going to the mourners’ bench. She had begun hounding me to “get religion” shortly after Mama left us and married Mr. Pete. I was only seven at the time, but Hallelujah, who was only eight, had gotten religion two years prior, when he was six. So on the day I turned twelve, even Reverend Jenkins had begun warning me about my “soul’s salvation” as he handed me that glossy black Bible with the words “King James” engraved in gold.
Revival was a weeklong ordeal, where “sinners” were assigned a special pew up front. Monday night through Friday night, they sat on that bench, gloom covering their faces as they waited for “a sign from de Lawd.” Saved church members took turns praying for them at the altar. And during each prayer, the “mourners” (biblically known as sinners) were required to kneel before the mourners’ bench and pray along. Once a mourner received a sign from the Lord, he or she “crossed over” and became a candidate for baptism.
I didn’t want to go through all that trouble, sitting on a special pew at the front of the church while folks prayed over me like maniacs, spraying their spit all over the place. Nor did I want to spend the whole week, while home, praying “without ceasing,” stopping only to eat. The “mourners” even had to keep a pious face while working in the field (which wasn’t hard to do, considering the circumstances). They weren’t even allowed to talk to anyone until after they received their sign and crossed over. All their time was spent “mourning” for their sins.
But Ma Pearl was right about one thing. I had felt as if I had all the time in the world—?until the Chicago boy was killed. With the way colored folks were being murdered in Mississippi, I knew I needed to give a little thought to my soul.