All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred eighty)

All Bedlam Courses Past

Chapter Seven

Can’t Leave for Staying

(part one hundred eighty)

His wandering mind saw fault in this. Gremots kept touch with Hawses. No, he should visit her in person. Easier into a face-to-face talk bringing a casual word.

He used the cot roughly to drag himself to a sit, took the bottle and drank down to the last finger. He would feel better soon, already could not regret this theft. For the coolness and gentler air, Richard went to the porch and put his back to the wall. Glorious color, the haze insistent with it. Local trees have something to sell you, the wind lifting their skirts. Here’s beauty, and if you like beauty, well…

What the bargain’s hook must be, he couldn’t quite build into his conceit. A siren song, however, encroached.

“When the angels come for me, when the angels come for me, be no tears and be no cryin, when the angels come for me, be no fears and be no dyin, over there they’ll be no sighin, for reunion shall be sweet…”

The voice, reaching a high, cracked note, dropped, to Jesus’s feet. More of the clap-along chorus of angels. Bayard was visible on the road below. He started up the path, not greeting Richard but closing to a focus on his face. “Wake up there.”

“Not if I don’t want.”

Bayard smacked him on the arm and tugged his sleeve. He was gone, then, inside.

“Mr. Everard, it’s Preacher come to pray you home.”

Taking this intrusion as cooked up between Carolina and Shad, Richard listened to Bayard tell a string of lies. That Mr. Everard was a good man, husband and father, not a churchgoer, but a Christian in his heart. Florid imagery of Daddy’s soul thirsting as the hart panteth after the spring, Daddy’s flesh crying out for the living God. For no good thing does he withhold from them that walk uprightly.

“Take this man unto thy almighty bosom, dear Lord Jesus.”

If only. Richard pictured a child-sized man in a giant’s arms, enemy arms, writhing with indignation…

“Love, love, heavenly love, blessed forgiveness, peace from above…” Bayard at song again.

Love. What if it were true? His father, or any sinner, to be flayed raw by the most painful, the most incurable of agonies, remorse.

Vengeance the Bible-whackers of the world had threatened all along. You will be loved. You could not give love, but here, and for eternity, receive it.

You could not open that hand to your prodigal, but the waters here, as Bayard was presently saying, are ever-flowing. You could not, out of a human heart’s love, sacrifice your comforts…

Your comforts being scorning, refusing, disbelieving, deriding, baiting, taunting, crushing, predicting, belittling, naysaying, blaming, complaining. Grudging, stinting, shortchanging.

But God the Father and Jesus the Son love you, Daddy. Are you dead yet?

192

Bedlam

All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred eighty-one)

(2024, Stephanie Foster)