The Red Dirt Hymnbook by Roxie Faulkner Kirk

Author:Roxie Faulkner Kirk [Kirk, Roxie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FAM000000, FAM033000, FAM001000, MUS018000, REL030000
ISBN: 978-1-7339795-0-4
Publisher: Fine Dog Press
Published: 2019-05-27T00:00:00+00:00

I was sleeping hard, on my stomach, when I felt a heavy weight suddenly crushing my lower back.

My yelp of surprise went only as far my mattress because a steely hand was crushing my head, face down, into my bed. I panicked and tried to buck up, but JW was straddled on top of me, pinning my arms and forcing my nose and mouth into the sheets. He leaned down and whispered in my ear. “How does it feel? How do you like being smothered? Huh? You like it? Well, that’s what you’re doing to me. To us. To our ministry. You’re cutting my air off. Crybaby-ing about how I treat you. Making them think I don’t have my own house in order. They talked to my father about it. My father!” His fist twisted my hair and jerked. My head came up long enough for me to gasp for air, then he slammed it back down again. I made a muffled grunting sound. He leaned down and whispered again. “Why can’t you just be good? Why, Ruby? Why? Why do you humiliate me in front of my father like that?” He ground his weight hard on my hips, his weight crushing me. I moaned. I was suffocating. I concentrated on blowing out very slowly through the small crease in the sheets where I could still get air. He shifted his weight and I could tell he was hard, but I also knew he would never, ever do anything about it, here, with his mother on the bus. Instead, he leaned in and whispered, “I could do it for real, you know. Leave you. Drop you off somewhere and run off with Susannah. Let us Jaspers raise her right. She’d forget she ever had a mother. And you would never find us.”

He gave my head one last crushing push, then climbed off. I rolled over and moved as far away as I could. I made my body as small as possible and ran my shaking hands up and down, all over my body, touching, petting, reassuring me that it’s all mine, it’s all here, it’s still solid, and everything works.

The bus door swished open, gravel crunched underneath my window, and I realized Old Rev had been outside, waiting for JW.

“Did you handle it?” he asked.

“Yeah,” JW answered. “She’s sorry.”

Pause.

“I’m disappointed in you, Son. I thought you were more of a man than that.”

A quick scuffle, a gasp and the bus shuddered as something slammed into the side of it.

“I’ll do better, Dad,” said my husband in a tight, pained voice.

A second thud, and the bus rocked again.

“You are forgiven,” Old Rev said as something slid down the side of the bus. A long, long quiet passed where no one moved or spoke until Old Rev broke the silence, “It was the Lord’s Will. If next year is already booked up, we won’t be open to The Lord leading us in a new direction.”

JW sounded flat. “Are you talking about going

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