Chapter Two
Carol and Cheryl and Bonitasue
The parsonage office was clean and neat but smelled like a burying ground for old hymnals. The musk of mildew met me head on. Reverend Mayfield sat opposite me behind a desk that appeared too small for his huge frame. His red and blue plaid bathrobe fit him like he didn’t care how it fit.
“Well, Weldon,” he boomed, smiling, filling the room with his huge teeth. “So, you’re off to join the Army!”
I nodded and smiled, then settled into a long and suffocating rehash of one of his old sermons: something about growing into adulthood, about discarding old things for new.
As far back as I could remember, the reach and influence of Reverend Mayfield had always been the lamb’s blood on our door. For Dad, though, his inclusion in our lives was something far more meddlesome than corrective, and with enough sting to send him sneaking out the back door and over our cyclone fence whenever he came calling. Dad was uncomplicated enough to understand this as survival, and, after a time, it became equally uncomplicated for me.
I sat undaunted at the game we played, the one we’d played many times before: he in his shell of consecration and me in a state of contrition. Though I could never quite surrender to all his guidelines, laws, and doctrines he insisted he’d received from God, they had, over time, led to sizeable amounts of blame-filled self-examination. It was God’s way, according to Reverend Mayfield, of purging me and bringing me into a place where I could be worthy enough to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. Often, though, I saw it as his way of adding fuel and even fire itself to the guilt he left in his wake.
“It is our final hope,” he said, his words leaching through the imaginary curtain I’d drawn between us. “Don’t you agree?”
Without the slightest idea what he’d been talking about, I nodded my compliance, but not before he continued. Then, somewhere in the midst of his reflections, right after his account of Jesus’ warnings about the end times, my attention drifted to someplace deep within me. The picture of Reverend Mayfield’s large mouth and thick lips droning the lessons of spiritual responsibility sent my mind careening toward a world far beyond the cramped confines of his office; to prurient images of Carol and Cheryl and Bonitasue cheerleading along the sidelines of the football field, jumping, yelling, pom-poms flaring.
ON-WARD VI-KINGS
ON-WARD VI-KINGS
CHARG-ING DOWN THE FIELD
…hands clapping, outstretched arms swaying, urging the crowd left, then right. Voices screaming. Legs jumping, pounding, dancing wild and free.
CHEER FOR BLUE AND GOLD FOR-EV-ER
NEV-ER SHALL WE YIELD
RAH! RAH! RAH!
…they flowed. Evenly. In step. In time. Measured. Precise. Their skin, alive and satiny, glistening under the flood of lights. Their hair, long and flowing, tossing in a blur. Voices, lips, and eyes. Breasts and hips and thighs. Strong and seventeen.
THOUGH THE THUN-DER
BANGS A-ROUND US
WE WILL WIN TO-DAAAAAAAAAAY
. . . and always there was the spandex and the adumbration of what it masked. Only a suggestion of it, a microsecond, during cartwheels.
000000000000000000000UR TEAM WILL
FIGHT LIKE CHAMP-IONS,
VIIIIII-KINGS AAAAAAAAALL THE WAAAAAAAAAAY.
“Well, what do you think?” he thundered.
“Think?” I queried, the interlude with Carol and Cheryl and Bonitasue still swarming at a delicious pace.
“Yes. What do you think? Do you think you’d like to give it a try?”
I stared straight ahead, my mind a blank, oblivious to what he’d been talking about or what he wanted me to try.
“I don’t think you’d ever be sorry,” he said. “Think of it as an opportunity.”
I felt the temperature in my neck and face begin to rise, flush, and swell.
“Edenfield has long been an institution we’ve been proud of.”
Edenfield? Is he talking about college? I hope he doesn’t think I’m considering college. I’m going Army! It’s set. Guaranteed.
“And think of the associations you’ll make. Why, that alone is worth the money.”
My head began to spin. I had to get away. If it meant everlasting peace and global prosperity, I couldn’t go to college. I couldn’t even pass high school algebra. It was Mr. O’Hanian who had offered to let me pass Algebra I with a “D” if I promised not to take Algebra II. Freddie Heartland stood a better chance than me.
He droned on, unaffected by my lack of enthusiasm. I continued to stare straight ahead, mesmerized by his gargantuan features and his refusal to lick the spittle from his lips. “I’m not only talking about a distinguished education,” he said, “but a Christian education. A place where you can develop a personal relationship with God, a place where you can witness His work firsthand.”
I felt a sense of isolation. What would I do amid those born again? Hundreds of them. All day. Every day.
“...Christian ethics and values, theological concepts...” He was relentless. Selling. “Well, what do you say?” he finally said, his grin coaxing me toward an answer.
For a moment I imagined myself at Edenfield, a white-robed choir in the background, their voices blending the strains of the Alleluia Chorus and blocking out images of Carol and Cheryl and Bonita Sue.
“Well?” he asked. The room seemed to swirl from the sudden hush.
“I don’t have any money,” I managed to mumble, inspiration having abandoned me.
“Don’t worry about the money,” he countered. “We can provide you with whatever assistance you need.”
Caution lights flashed inside my head. “I mean NO money!”
He leaned forward, resting his hands in prayer-like fashion on top of his desk. “I know,” he whispered through a half smile.
At this point I didn’t wonder. Nor did I much care. The only thing I wanted was a quick exit. This whole thing had already gone too far. A word of prayer had turned into the ultimate shell game. My mother and the preacher. Hoodwinkers. Manipulators of the American dream.
But it was too late. I was going Army. I knew what I wanted. It was caissons. Over hill, over dale. No college flummery for this American boy. It’s goodbye and good luck to you preacher man. Thank you and good morrow!
I arrived in Edenfield on June 29th.
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