Riverstone - Chapter 1

       Boy, do I have a story to tell. The last month at Riverstone Baptist Church has been a doozy. Oh, I’m Randy. I go to Riverstone. I have come here ever since my parents divorced when I was about five or six. I’m twelve now. I’m what the big folks at Riverstone call one of the ‘bus kids’. Officially, that is. When they think I’m not listening, and sometimes when they do, I hear such comments like, ‘trailer trash’ ‘those juvenile delinquents’ ‘little snots’. Why do I keep coming if I hear those names? I guess it’s better than watching my mom throw up all morning. She doesn’t miss many Saturday nights getting drunk…so, I guess you can understand.
 
          They should have dropped the phrase ‘bus kids’ a long time ago. This church used to have a big old ‘sky blue’ 22 passenger van and would bring a full load of kids to church every Sunday. But I think that van and the real ‘bus kids’ program died about the time I was born. The church couldn’t afford to replace the bus, I heard, so ‘old man Jackson’ has been picking up kids on the way in from his farm ever since. Nobody has picked up kids on the other side of town in years, only those that live on a direct route from Jackson’s farm to Riverstone Baptist. Many times I’m the only one, and when he’s sick or out of town, nobody else comes to pick me or the others up. I either walk or stay home. This last month I rode some, I walked some.
 
 
          Riverstone Baptist is in the middle of a very small town. Cotton and cows. That’s about all that grows around here. Lucky cows, too. They are the milking kind, most of them. Not the eating kind. If you live outside of town in the country, you probably grow one of the two. If you live in town, there’s a good chance you teach school or work in one of the few businesses or offices in town.
 
 
          There is the cotton gin, the farm co-op store, Dairy Queen, the newspaper, Goldstein’s, the school, kindergarten through high school all in one place. Not one building, but you know what I mean. That’s pretty much it, except for an office or two that I don’t even know what are, and the churches. Riverstone, the Methodist church, and the Catholic church. Oh yeah, and the motel where mom and I live.
 
I told you I had a doozy of a story. I do, and I’ll get to it in a minute. I guess I might be the perfect one to tell it. As one of the ‘bus kids’, once I finish Sunday School every week, I’m pretty much on my own. Mr. Jackson is too busy doing his ‘ushering’ and well, I don’t think he really wants to do much with me anyway. “Pick the kids up...take ‘em home” I’ve heard him say several times. “I ain’t responsible for ‘em, other’n that.” 
‘Old Man Jackson’ lives about two miles out of town and is a tall, skinny, ugly man. Not that I’m a big one for following clothes fashions, since most of what mom and I wear comes from the Goodwill store about thirty miles north of here, but I think everyone agrees that everything ‘Old Man Jackson’ wears was made back in the sixties or seventies. I can’t complain though, he is a free ride to church, even though I walk farther than that everyday to school. He says it’s his duty to pick us ‘bus kids’ up, so I don’t complain.
 
          I usually sit right in the middle of the fourth row from the front. The church isn’t that big. It only has twelve rows in three sections. No balcony. Two aisles in the middle and two on the outside by those big fake ‘ice’ looking windows. I guess they could not afford real stained glass like I saw once at a big church about ten miles from here, so they have this pinkish, icy looking stuff. When I was real little, I used to think it really was ice. From where I sit, I can usually hear just about all the good gossip I ever need to hear. And boy do I hear a lot. I think most of the adults are totally unaware that I am listening. I stay real quiet and don’t look up much. Sometimes, Sundays are my best entertainment of the week.
 
          My mom takes care of the ‘flea bag’ motel on the edge of town. The ‘Sunset Motel’ is its real name, but most never call it that. Sometimes it’s the ‘roach motel’. We live in the last room on the right. The owner fixed up the room, sort of, so we could cook in it and not have to spend our money at restaurants. My mom has off from noon Saturday till Sunday midnight, so by 2:00 Saturday afternoon, she is usually wasted. She’s good about not drinking during the week, really she is. If she lost this job, we would be homeless. Lots of people say we are anyway, but mom has kept this job for three years now. The weekend help is the only relief mom gets. She keeps the office open about sixteen hours a day and is still on call all through the night. Amanda comes and works the day and a half each week mom is off.
 
 
          So you can see why I don’t mind going to church every Sunday, even to a church that doesn’t pay much attention to me. Don’t get me wrong, everyone is not that way. Some people at Riverstone really care about me, but they are busy, and I understand that. There are the Scott ladies, sisters-in-law, Roseanne and Margie. Roseanne’s husband died about two years ago. She never looks my way. His brother, Margie’s husband, died years and years ago. Margie is wonderful. She always says ‘hi’ and asks about my mom, and once or twice she has brought us food at Christmas. Roseanne always sits right in front of me on row three but Margie likes to move around. She loves people and I think she just likes being around different people every week.
 
 
          Emmy Davidson plays the piano over on the right side of the church. It’s an old upright Baldwin. Sounds horrible. Many times I have heard Mrs. Davidson gripe to her friends that the ‘high and mighty’ maintenance committee is just lazy or ‘tight with their money’ because they will neither tune the old thing nor replace it. I say just dump it on the edge of town. The electric organ that Mrs. Rogers plays on the left side of the church sounds much better. It is much newer than the piano, and Mrs. Rogers can make it sound like a flute, or, you know, that shiny brass thing that slides back and forth, back and forth. Or whatever she wants to make it sound like. Oh yeah, a trombone.
 
 
          Emmy is, well, how do I put it nicely, …she’s round. Just about from all sides. Her hair sits about a half-a-foot above her head. Mrs. Rogers is just average and plain. If you saw her in the store or Dairy Queen, you wouldn’t take a second look.
 
          Hubert and Alice Holman usually sit in the next row in front of me about three spaces to the right. They are kind of old, but not like the Scotts. I would say maybe fifty-five or so. They are not even grandparents yet, so I guess they are not too old. He owns a dairy, a big one. He always sleeps in church. Whenever no one is sitting to my right, I kind of scoot over little by little and pretend my coughing spells, just to see him wake up and pretend he wasn’t asleep.
 
 
          Chad and Winnie Wascom sometimes sit two rows behind me. They are ‘cool’. He teaches at a college way far away from here, maybe thirty or thirty-five miles away. They sit behind me when their son, Jimmy is in the nursery. He is ten years old, and way too old for the nursery, but he is kind of, I know this is not the word I’m supposed to use, but I don’t remember the bigger fancy word others use, so here it is. He is retarded, and he can’t speak at all, so when he isn’t in the nursery, they sit in the back so he doesn’t disturb many people. They have two other kids. Rob is four and Karen is six. They are ‘cool’ too. But too young for me to play with.
 
          Oh yes, I said I would tell you a story about the last month here at Riverstone. I promise, I will. Give me a moment.
 
 
          Brad Winston is single and also a dairy farmer, usually sits about two rows behind me. He hardly ever talks. Nice, but quiet. Kinda sweet on the school librarian. She’s a Methodist. I hardly ever see her at Riverstone.
 
          And then there is Inez. The ‘old bat’. The ‘town shrew’, as I’ve heard some old men call her. And a few names I wouldn’t want to repeat. Names I’ve heard right in the middle of church. I don’t like her. I’m not sure anybody does. She is an old bat. She hates kids like me. Well, not just ‘trailer trash’ I mean. But any kids. She hates them all. I’m not sure who she likes, except herself. I’ve heard talk that she has run most of our preachers out of town. She seems to enjoy that. I guess that’s why she comes here in the first place. She certainly doesn’t seem to enjoy anything else.
 
 
        Oh, about Inez’s row. She always sits on the very left spot on the second row in the middle. And nobody else does. The Baptists, the Methodists, and even a few of the town’s Catholics, if one ever visit, know not to ever try and sit on Inez’s row. She would probably bite them if they did, and I think she has a life-long case of rabies. I’m not going to ever try to sit there.
 
 
       Sometimes I don’t enjoy being here either, or enjoy the talk, but I keep it to myself. And people sometimes feel sorry for me and mom, and they will slip a few dollars into my hand or pocket. The guy that owns the Dairy Queen goes to the Methodist church, but he has several friends here at Riverstone and he likes giving ‘freebie’ coupons to his friends who pass them on to us ‘bus kids’. That’s kind of neat. Mom doesn’t always cook much on the weekends, so it helps.
 
       Yes, I’m getting to my story. I needed to tell you a little about Riverstone first. Like I said, Inez was very good at running off preachers around here, and from what I heard, she was the main reason Brother Mobley up and quit sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas of last year. He was here only eighteen months, about average. It usually takes them about two to three months to do what they call ‘calling’ a pastor. This time it was almost seven months. Some almost quit the church because it took too long. “School over in Windham hired a principal in only two weeks”, I heard some say. “They replaced the manager of the co-op in only a week”, others said.
 
 
       Margie Scott said, “but we are calling a shepherd to lead our flock, not hiring a manager.” I think she had it right.
 
          Well, one month ago, that new pastor came to town. Ron Anderson and his really pretty wife, Alisa. Ronnie Jr. is twelve, like me, and Carlie is nine. Brother Ron is a part of my big wild story. Another man came to town that same week, and a lady too. Some said she didn’t deserve to be called a lady. I kinda like her. And him too. He is really a neat guy. Let me tell you about the day they first came to Riverstone Baptist Church.