The Year the Lights Came On

  “Glory. Oh, I say it again—glory. Glory. Glory. Glory. The Lord God Almighty and His holy house must be smilin’ with pure pleasure sittin’ out somewhere on a front porch of a cloud, rockin’ and listenin’ to such singing. Oh, I say it—help me, Jesus—say it again. Glory. Glo-o-o-o-ry. Say it with me, good people. Say it so’s the Lord God Almighty and His holy house can know we all feel the same wonderful way. Glo-o-o-o-o-o-o-ry.”

  A half-dozen women answered.

  Preacher Bytheway cupped his hand to his right ear and leaned forward, straining as though he had been struck deaf.

  “What? Now, the Lord God Almighty and His holy house couldn’t hear that. Lordy, Lordy, Lordy. There’s a reunion of angels and saints takin’ place, havin’ supper with the Almighty tonight, and they sure wanta hear that praise. Yessir. A big rush of wind come thunderin’ by just as you let loose, and the Lord God Almighty knows you was drowned out by it, so He wants it again. Glo-o-o-o-o-o-o-ry.”

  The two guitar players lunged forward together and strummed hard and Preacher Bytheway stepped out toward the congregation.

  “Say it, brothers and sisters,” he ordered. “Say it.”

  His voice was begging. He closed his eyes and raised his head.

  The congregation looked up with him, all the way to the top of the tent where a swarm of gnats and moths were circling an electric light that had been strapped to the tent pole by tape. The electric lines running to the tent had been strung and connected to the school, which fed from Georgia Power Company.

  “Say it. Glory. Glory. Glo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-rrrrr-rry.”

  He lifted his arms and locked his wrists together as if they were handcuffed. He sucked in his lips until they wrinkled in the gaps where he had missing teeth, and he began to nod his head up and down. His eyes and nose and lips drew together until they were a scab on his skinny face. His hair looked as though some maniac with scissors had whacked gaps out of it.

  “Gloooo-rrry.”

  The congregation was overwhelmed by Preacher Bytheway’s frenzy.

  “Glory. Oh, glory, glory, glory.” The women’s voices were shrill screams. The men rumbled in bass counterpoint.

  “Wesley,” I whispered, “what’s going on?”

  Wesley did not answer. He was staring in disbelief at Preacher Bytheway.

  Freeman grinned and jumped up. “Glory,” he shouted. Wesley grabbed him by the shirt and jerked him down.

  “Freeman, you doin’ that to make me mad, and I know it. Now you shut up, or I’m leavin’.”

  Freeman giggled into his hands and slipped down to the edge of the chair. “Glory, glory, glory,” he said in a snickering, low, mocking voice.

  Preacher Bytheway had reached the takeoff in his trip to the outer space of evangelism. The two guitar players from Gaffney began a soft chording of “What A Friend We Have In Jesus,” and Preacher Bytheway picked up the bass dips with his arms, still locked at the wrists.

  “Oh, the Lord does love joyful noises. Help me, Jesus. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord. Yes. Yes. And you can do it. You can. You can do miracles makin’ joyful noises unto the Lord. Help me, Jesus. Give it over. Let it roll out of your souls. Say it to the Lord. And He will hear. He will hear. He will hear.”

  Preacher Bytheway’s voice began to singsong. He began to siphon off great gulps of air, nodding up and down, pumping with his locked wrists, twitching in the knees.

  “He will hear. Go—go out and preach. Go out. Out, I say. Oh, oh, yes. Preach the gospel. Gospel. To allllll my people. All my people—red or yellow, black or white. Help me, Jesus. All over the world. And tell them—tell them—tell them—of my words.”

  In the back of the tent we could see the congregation beginning to sway and rock, leaning into the beat. Someone started clapping in time. And another. And another. A baby crawled out into the aisle and started eating sawdust.

  “Tonight. Tonight. I tell you. We are goin’ to talk about—oh yes, talk about—God’s holy word in treatin’ all the creatures of the world with love and kindness. And how—help me, Jesus—oh, how it is that hell’s a-burnin’ a thousand times hotter’n the sun to them that’s mean and hateful and spiteful and—oh, help me, Jesus—and stompin’ on the weak and downtrodden. Oh, yes. Remember the Good Samaritan and how he stopped to help out the stranger. That’s God’s world a-workin’ in God’s word. Oh—oh, yes. It’s there in the Bible. I say—help me, Jesus—the Bible. It tells us about evil and good and how the two go ’round and ’round fightin’, and how—oh, help me, Jesus—how the Devil is sneakin’ into every life he can find not tended by the good shepherd, Jesus…”

  Wesley leaned forward in his chair. He could not believe Preacher Bytheway. He held his right hand over his heart.

  “What’s he sayin’, Wesley?” I asked. “Is he all right?”

  “He’s got the spirit,” whispered Wesley.

  I moved closer to Wesley. “I don’t want it,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Wesley, let’s go home. That spirit may get down here.”

  “It’s not a spook, crazy. He’s took with the Holy Spirit.”

  “Oh,” I said. Preacher Bytheway was retching on holy words stuck in his throat. “Wesley, anybody at the Methodist Church ever been took with the spirit?”

  “Lots of ’em. Hush.”

  “I never seen any.”

  “There’s different ways of being took.”

  Freeman leaned into Wesley. “That’s preachin’. Now, Wes, ol’ boy, you ever see such preachin’?”

  Wesley shot Freeman a look that would have killed a snake. Freeman laughed and sat back in his chair and began clapping his hands out of rhythm.

  Preacher Bytheway was again behind his pulpit, pounding on the Bible and declaring that an Atlantic Ocean of ice water wouldn’t last a split second in hell, hell was so hot. He jerked in his shoulders, jabbed the index finger of his right hand in the air, and swatted at mosquitoes with his left. He broke in midsentence to talk about God’s having a special love for animals and birds because He created them first and put them in the Garden of Eden and when it came time to flood the earth, he made Noah gather up two of every kind and float them around with him in his boat until the rain stopped and the ark landed. The two guitar players broke out of a vamp and slipped into “Amazing Grace,” and Preacher Bytheway started on a fox hunt of Scripture until he treed the passage about Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem, and that became his topic.

  It was as though Preacher Bytheway had been jolted by a charge from a car battery. He broad-jumped from behind the pulpit in a convulsion. He landed flat with his back bent at an awkward angle, and he whipped forward bringing his right arm over his head, like Alvin letting fly a knuckleball. He then began to stutter step, dragging his left arm behind him. He snapped the fingers of his right hand and did his singsong about Jesus selecting a lowly animal—“Yes. Yes. A ass. It was a ass.”—and how that meant we all needed to humble ourselves.

  A loud voice erupted from somewhere in the middle of the right side of the aisle. “Amen. Amen. Amen, Preacher!” Rev. Bartholomew R. Bytheway stopped dead between twitches, startled by such quick response to his sermon.

  “Yes, brother, that’s what I say. Amen,” Preacher Bytheway echoed.

  Suddenly, Laron Crook jumped straight out of his seat. “Oh, Preacher, I know what you mean. Oh, yes, I surely do.”

  “Tell us, brother. Tell us all. Let it out. Praise God. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord. Is Jesus touchin’ you?”

  Laron was wringing his hands. His chin was revolving as if he had a chicken bone caught in his throat and he was trying to cough it up. “Jesus—oh, Preacher, Jesus is touchin’ me. Helpin’ me. Leadin’ me.” Laron’s chin was spinning. If Jesus had him, it was by the throat.

  “Praise God. Tell us about it, brother,” shouted Preacher Bytheway.

  Laron Crook was nearly forty years old. He was six feet, five inches tall, and he had a sunken chest. He was slightly retarded—retard
ed in that fog of sad confusion. As long as he had lived in Emery, no one could remember Laron ever saying over a dozen words a day. Next to Alvin, before his conversion by baseball and Delores, Laron was the quietest man in north Georgia. He and his daddy had a farm near the Bio community and they traded mules, and sometimes field-trained them to know gee from haw. Occasionally, Laron’s daddy would get drunk and wander around Emery yelling, “Gee” and “Haw” and he would conduct a mule-training lesson under the tin roof of the cotton gin until Laron would arrive in a wagon and drive his daddy away.

  “Tell us what the Lord’s doin’ for you, brother. Tell us all,” begged Preacher Bytheway, motioning for Laron.

  Laron began to weave out to the middle of the aisle. There were a few restrained amens and everyone was stretching to see Laron.

  “Jesus knew what He was doin’, Preacher. Oh, I feel it. Feel it.”

  “It’s tinglin’, ain’t it, brother?” encouraged Preacher Bytheway. “The spirit’s tinglin’, ain’t it?”

  The two guitar players from Gaffney upped the tempo and cheated into a mild boogie sound. The applause picked up and matched the rhythm of the guitars.

  “If you love this good brother, say amen,” Preacher Bytheway shouted. “Do you hear me, people? A-a-a-a-men.”

  “A-a-a-a-MEN. Hallelujah.”

  “God bless you, Laron…”

  “I’m prayin’ for you, Laron…”

  “Amen, Laron…”

  “I’m filled with you, Laron…”

  Laron moved slowly toward the front of the tent. The back of his neck began jerking involuntarily and he held his elbows close to his sides and began to pump his shoulder blades up and down. His head was bobbing to the bass beat of the two guitars and the hand-clapping swelled in stereophonic wildness around him. His feet were tapping out a buckdance step.

  “Good Lord,” Freeman exclaimed. “Look at ol’ Laron, Wesley. You see that? Look at that fool.”

  “What’s he gonna do, Freeman?” asked Wesley, slipping back into his seat. Wesley and I had never seen such behavior in the name of God.

  “Depends on how took he is,” replied Freeman. “Maybe talk in tongues.”

  Laron Crook, nearly forty, six feet, five inches tall, was took. He was seized. Obsessed. Possessed. Surrendered into and commanded by. Laron was converted.

  “Preacher—Preacher—Preacher. Uh—Inee. Ddaa—pogg—uh—aeeee. Ahhh. Gunnnnnnn… Ahhhhhhhaaahhh… Aeeeeee…”

  Laron was talking in tongues. Preacher Bytheway was talking in tongues. The guitar players were playing in tongues, wild Latin-sounding dance music, and one of them was doing a click-click-click castanets sound with his mouth.

  Laron Crook’s conversion made St. Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus seem like a migraine headache in comparison.

  Laron whipped up on his toes—I swear, his toes. He jabbed and hooked his arms like Joe Louis shadowboxing. He came crashing in on his heels on a downstroke by the two guitarists, held a quick freeze, and then broke into a couple of German goose steps.

  “Show us the Lord, brother,” Preacher Bytheway urged, stepping out of Laron’s way and waving him front and center.

  “Amen, Laron…”

  “We’re with you, Laron…”

  “God bless you and your daddy, Laron…”

  Laron had circled to one side of the sawdust altar area. He began to jump and bicycle in midair. When he landed, he would skid into a split, claw at the air with his hands, and pull himself up. A couple of German goose steps and Laron would be leaping and bicycling in the air again. On his best jumps, he probably cleared four feet and he could pump three times with his legs before he hit ground.

  Then Laron slowed the tempo. He began to stiffen and skip on his left foot. Suddenly, his body snapped and went rigid. He pulled his left arm close to him, cocked his elbow and folded his wrist under his chin. His right arm shot out, straight toward the ground, two inches below his knee. His right hand was hinged and opened, his fingers spread like web feet. His right foot was lifted ankle high and he hopscotched in tiny, frantic steps across the sawdust.

  Laron Crook looked like Red Grange stiff-arming a midget.

  “God bless you, bro-THER.”

  *

  Rev. Bartholomew R. Bytheway anointed Laron Crook a preacher of the gospel of the Speaking-In-Tongues Traveling Tent Tabernacle, instructing him to continue the ministry of humanity that had moved him to the grandest, most spectacular display of being invested by God’s mysterious spirit that anyone had ever demonstrated. It was a touching ceremony. Laron confessed to sins as fast as he could invent them. He told long, funny stories about how he had been taught to mistreat animals by being master over them, but how that had now stopped and how he believed the Lord God Almighty had called him to do something special with “them poor creatures.”

  Everyone amened and hallelujahed and hugged Laron and wished him luck. Dover Heller promised he would quit kicking Bark in the head for chewing up rabbits. Laron said he’d work with Bark and try to train him with God’s gentle help.

  *

  The Speaking-In-Tongues Traveling Tent Tabernacle left at the end of the week. It had been a triumph for Rev. Bartholomew R. Bytheway. He had attracted his largest crowds, had delivered the Thursday noon prayer following the Obituary Column of the Air on the Edenville radio station, and he had ordained his first minister. The fact that Laron was Preacher Bytheway’s convert became the most exciting news event in Emery in years. Laron spoke up, proudly and often. If he wasn’t talking, he was meditating. He put himself on a strict disciplinary program—prayer at morning, prayer at noon, prayer at night, and no more R. C. Colas between meals. If he was in God’s service, Laron wanted to be in shape.

  During his first days of spiritual growth and adjustment, Laron’s constant companion was Freeman, when Freeman wasn’t working for A. G. Hixon in the warehouse and cotton gin. To Laron, Freeman was someone who had been misunderstood and poorly treated by life. It was a sympathy fired by the parallel of their childhoods, and oddly confirmed by their opposite personalities. If, in his new Born Again self, Laron could help out a fellow human being, it would be Freeman. Besides, no one in Emery knew animals as well as Freeman and Laron needed help in that commitment; Laron knew mules, but he had a way of repelling other creatures.

  Freeman loved the attention. He amened at appropriate times. He allowed Laron to save his worthless soul at least twice a week. He had visions so fearful and vivid, Laron would hyperventilate with excitement as Freeman, wallowing on the ground, described scenes that made the Book of Revelations read like a Flash Gordon comic book.

  On days when his personal evangelism fell on deaf ears, Laron would persuade Freeman to meet him in the late afternoon and they would go into the pastures and woods to communicate with God’s animals. These were special missions for Laron, and his zeal was inspiring. He was kicked by a goat in Horace Wilder’s pasture, chased across a cornfield by Otis Harper’s breed bull, bitten by Bark, pecked in the face by a nesting hen, and Freeman left him one night in the middle of Black Pool Swamp hooting away with a distressed owl. Laron had no idea it was Freeman hooting back.

  But Laron considered all these trials a test of his faith and, like Job, he would endure. “God forgive this dumb beast for kickin’ me,” Laron would say. “He knows not what he’s doin’.”

  The injury and humiliation suffered by Laron was God’s way of preparing him for a revelation. “When it happens, it’s gonna be mighty,” he claimed. “It’s gonna come like a hold-up man at night, when I ain’t expectin’ nothin’.”

  He was right.

  Laron was at Hixon’s General Store one Saturday afternoon, sitting under a water oak, recuperating from a severe clawing he had received while trying to separate two cats intent on mating. We had been listening to his wonderful interpretation of Old Testament stories for an hour when Freeman asked his question.

  “Laron, tell me something,” Freeman said innocently. “How co
me there’s a heaven for folks, but there’s not one for animals?”

  “Who said there’s not?” Laron replied. “Of course there is. Why, heaven’s not much different’n earth. Except that it’s freed of sin, and maybe a little cloudier. What makes you think God don’t believe in havin’ pets? Why, think about how nice it must be up there with birds tweetin’ and chirpin’ all the time. Must be awful pleasin’ to God and Jesus, and the saints and holy angels, to hear them birds.”

  “I thought they only had gold harps in heaven,” Freeman said.

  Laron peeled back the bandage and looked at a deep red wound on his hand. “Oh sure, they got harps. Gold harps. But they’s only for special occasions. Like Sundays, or Christmas, or Easter, or the Fourth of July. Rest of the time, heaven’s filled with birds singin’ and dogs barkin’ and things like that.”

  Freeman measured his words, folded them around in his mouth and dropped them like diamonds of pure wonderment. “But, gosh, I thought the only way you could get to heaven was by bein’ baptized,” he said.

  Laron’s head snapped like a whip. His eyes dilated. His sunken chest began to heave. You could see his heart pumping in his jugular veins. “That’s it. That’s it, Freeman. Praise God. That’s what the Lord has called me to do. I know it, Freeman. You are an instrument of the Lord God Almighty Jehovah.”

  Freeman crossed his arms over his chest, as if hiding from the fearful face of God. “What, Laron?”

  “The Lord God Almighty Jehovah, He who said I am that I am, has done delivered me a message, Freeman. Oh, yes. Not from no burning bush or from no mountain, mind you, but from the mouth of a babe. I can hear it, Freeman. I can hear it.”

  “Me, too, Laron. Oh, yes. Go out yonder and baptize my creatures.”

  “That’s it, Freeman. Them’s the Lord’s words, right out of His mouth. Praise His holy tongue. Amen. A-a-a-MEN.”