Wiley Cash - A Land More Kind Than Home

When I got about halfway across the field, I stopped and looked back and saw that Joe Bill hadn’t even moved yet. I waved my hand for him to follow me, but he smiled and shook his head and I knew that he’d been lying about coming with me. I thought about going back, but I didn’t want Joe Bill calling me a chicken again, even if he was one himself. And then I thought about Stump being in there with Mama and I looked out over the grass at the back of the church and I saw that air conditioner vibrating in the window, and I figured I’d already come too far to think about turning around.

I looked back at Joe Bill again and he whispered something, but he was too far away for me to hear what he said. He put his hands around his eyes and looked at me like he was trying to block out the sunlight. I turned around and walked toward the church, and soon I was close enough to make out the song they were playing, and I knew it was “Have Thine Own Way, Lord.” Sometimes Mama sang that song to me and Stump before we went to bed at night, and the words popped into my head like I was lying in bed and singing right along with her, but instead I was out there in that field behind the church, hunkered down and walking low to the ground with that song singing itself in my head.

A LITTLE BIT OF ROOF HUNG OFF THE BACK OF THE CHURCH, BUT IT didn’t offer hardly any shade at all, and by the time I made it to the church I could feel the sun burning through my shirt. I looked at my shadow where the sun threw it up on the concrete wall in front of me, and I thought about how easy it would be for Mama or Mr. Gene Thompson or Miss Lyle or somebody else to come around the corner of the church any second and catch me spying. I imagined seeing their silhouettes move against the wall while they crept up beside me. I could almost feel somebody tapping me on the shoulder, and I tried to think about what I’d say to somebody if they found me back there.

The air conditioner hung in the window just about eye level with me, and when I stood by it I heard that it was rumbling so loud that I wouldn’t be able to hear somebody sneaking up on me. It was so loud that I couldn’t hardly hear the music coming from inside the church. When I got closer I felt the heat coming out of it, and that hot air poured down into my shirt collar and blew back my hair like I was riding in my daddy’s truck with the windows rolled down.

I stood there in the sun with the hot air blowing on me, and I looked up and down the right side of the air conditioner until I saw a tiny crack up toward the top of the window between the concrete and the plywood where a little bit of light was coming through from inside the church. I looked around for another crack that might be lower, but I couldn’t find one, so I stood on my tiptoes and reached up and grabbed ahold of the old, rotten window ledge and pulled myself up just a little so I could see in. The music inside the church came through the wall and pounded against my knees.

I raised myself up just as high as I could, but before I could even look inside I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I let go of the ledge and dropped down to the ground and stepped back, and as soon as I did I saw another silhouette thrown up against the wall right beside mine. I turned around and started to run toward the woods, but before I could even get going my nose smashed right into Joe Bill’s chest and he grabbed my shoulders to keep me from knocking him down. His eyes were wide open, and he was looking right at me. He put one hand over my mouth like he was afraid I might holler out, and then he put his finger to his lips.

“Shhhh,” he said. We stood there looking at each other for a minute, and then he moved his hand off my mouth so I could talk. “Did I scare you?” he whispered. He smiled like he thought it was funny.

“Dang it, Joe Bill,” I said. I pushed him as hard as I could to get him out of my face.

“You better hush,” he said, just loud enough so that I could hear him over the air conditioner and the music pounding on the other side of the wall. “Did you get to see anything yet?”

“I ain’t had the chance to look,” I whispered. I pointed up to where light from inside the church was showing through the crack between the board and the wall, and then I watched Joe Bill cup his hands around his eyes and peer through it for a minute. He looked back at me.

“They’re just singing,” he whispered.

“Let me see,” I said.

“Go over to the other side and look for another crack,” he said. “This one’s too high for you.” I tugged on his shirt and tried to pull him away, but he wouldn’t move, so I ducked under the air conditioner and found another crack to look through. It wasn’t quite as high as the one I’d been looking through before, but I still had to get up on my tiptoes and prop my arms up on the window ledge so I could see in. I got both my elbows up on the ledge and braced my knees against the wall, and then I cupped my hands around my eyes just like I’d seen Joe Bill do.

I could see right into the church; it almost felt like I was inside there, standing right down front on the little stage and looking into the people’s faces out in the audience. They were all singing just like Joe Bill said they were, but the guitar and the drums had stopped going and the only sound was the singing voices and somebody I couldn’t see banging away on the piano. It was a whole lot darker in there than I’d thought it’d be, especially with the sun so bright behind me, and I couldn’t see too far past the first couple of rows. I looked around and tried to catch a sight of Mama and Stump, but it was just a small crack that I was looking through and I couldn’t quite see everything inside there.

Everybody inside was standing up from their folding chairs and clapping their hands to the music. Some of them swayed back and forth and sang with their eyes closed. That air conditioner rattled and rumbled right up against my head so loud that I couldn’t hardly hear nothing else for it, and that hot air poured onto my face and blew into my hair, and it seemed like I could feel that hot air getting pumped out of the church and right onto me and Joe Bill.

It didn’t take long for my shoulders and my elbows to get good and sore from holding up my weight, and I dropped down to the ground to give them a rest. I ran my fingertips over my elbows and used my fingernails to pick off the flecks of dried paint and pieces of old wood that had gotten stuck on my skin. Joe Bill ducked under the air conditioner and came over to my side.

“This is boring,” he whispered. “All they’re doing is singing. I think we should leave.”

“Then go on back to the river,” I said, but I hoped he wouldn’t because I didn’t want him leaving me up there all alone. He watched me pick at the dried paint on my elbows, and then he looked back across the field toward the trees.

“I just think we should get going,” he said. “They’ll be letting out here soon.”

“But I haven’t even seen Stump yet,” I told him. “That’s the whole reason we came up here.”

“I’m just thinking that we shouldn’t be doing this,” he said.

“Now who’s acting like a chicken?” I asked. Joe Bill stood there for a second, and then he ducked under to the other side of the air conditioner. I turned back to the window and got up on my tiptoes again and raised myself up with my elbows and cupped my hands around my eyes to peer in through that crack.

Not a single one of the people inside had sat down yet, and somebody was still banging away on that piano even though it looked like they’d all stopped singing. Just about every one of them had their eyes closed, and some of them had their hands up over their heads like they were waving big at somebody who might be too far away to see them.