With a Hammer for My Heart: A Novel

MAMAW

MAMAW: It was at Little Splinter Creek Church that I saw what I saw. It's been thirty-five years and I remember that night like the nights my younguns was born. Perry Roby had took the Spirit and was shouting "Damnation " up one side of his breath and "Praise Jesus" down the other. August, dusky dark, and the hot church keeping you mindful of the Pit. All of a sudden, a light whipped out like you'd unrolled a bolt of cloth. I couldn't see the church nor nothing in it. I couldn't hear the creek out the window. There was only this lap of light. I didn't know but to climb up into it. That light held me in its arms, it laid my head on its bosom. And the light had a voice. "Mother Jesus didn't do your dying," it said. "You'll still have to cross that river, like a child has to learn to sleep in the bed by itself. But of a morning, you'll wake up and I'll be waiting. I'm telling this to your hands. Don't let nobody go to bed before their time." The light hummed something sweet as rain and it set me down in Little Splinter. My hands was so hot, my sister Gola jumped when I touched her. "She's with us now!" I shouted, and keeled toward Carla Dixon. 16 MAMAW "Praise His name!" I heard, going down, and knew they had it all wrong. • • • First thing I did was make a sign that said, LITTLE SPLINTER CREEK CHURCH OF THE MOTHER JESUS. Made it from boards left over from strengthening the chicken coop. I got me a poker and burnt the words in. Took me two weeks, had to wait till the kids was in bed. John said I was touched. "More'n touched. I was knocked down," I told him. "Your insides can knock you down," he said. "I know that. But my insides never took me nowhere, never told me nothing." "Yeah?" he said. "Well, your insides ain't never been this old before. You got lights going on where my ma used to have heat waves. She'd call one of us to pump water while she stuck her head under the spout. Maybe you could use a baptizing." I didn't listen past that. No knot in the end of his string anyhow. Next church day I went early, learned Sam Wilder was conducting the service, and told him I was aiming to testify. I had my sign under my arm, wrapped up in a quilt. "You going to beat the Spirit into us?" he asked. "No. I got something to show." "More'n I've got," he said, running his hand over what was left of his hair. It was flat and yellow. So I was called first, after "Precious Memories" and Eugene Coldiron's prayer. As soon as heads went up, Sam looked at me, thinking I would speak right where I was, but I headed up front, struggling past bellies and elbows with my sign. "Sisters and Brothers of this church," I said, "watered by Little Splinter Creek, baptized in Redfox River, members of this Association, every one of you sons and daughters, 17 WITH A HAMMER FOR MY HEART some fathers and mothers to boot, I tell you: we have been led, but we have mistook the leading. We've seen a sign and read it clear wrong. Those words you carved on your heart about the Father, those words are lies. 'Jesus is our Brother,' you've been taught, been singing since you was a sprout. Tather and Son and Their Breath, that good Holy Ghost.' "Well, I been breathed on, let me tell you. I been lifted up to look Them in the eye. The heart's eye, friends, the One that sees it all. And this is what I'm here to tell you: there ain't no whiskers on Their faces. She ain't our Father. She ain't our Brother. She's our Mother Jesus and she longs to take us in Her arms." I took the quilt off my sign and held it up. "Mother Jesus!" I shouted as they drug me out. 18 ...