The Sledding Hill Read online

  Now the only time Eddie has actually seen me is in a dream. That’s no big trick, because he remembers what I look like. The rest of the time he just sort of feels me beside him. But I gotta get seriously visible now, and I need to get it right.

  Eddie looks above the congregation at the huge triple doors leading to the outer foyer, and what he sees is his old friend yours truly, standing atop Summer’s Hill in my snowsuit and my stupid Russian hat with the earmuffs, holding my daddy’s cue cards. Eddie actually smiles and waves, which causes the entire congregation to turn 180 degrees to stare at the door. He steps to the pulpit, the same pulpit from which the Reverend Tarter just delivered his lode. Eddie is intimidated, more than he thought he’d be. He gazes into the faces of the congregation, and his throat clogs. He sees me waving above them and focuses on the first card, which just says TALK. “I’m nervous,” he says. “It’s been a long time since I’ve said anything. But the testimonial classes I’ve been taking have prepared me, I think.” He takes a breath, looks at the next card, which reads LIFE, JESUS.

  “It’s a scary step to give your life to the Lord, because it means you have to just give up and have faith that he’ll know what to do with it when he gets it.”

  Many in the congregation nod and smile slightly.

  “When you think of all the people in the world who are doing that, he must be pretty busy. You get worried he won’t handle yours right. But then you ask Reverend Tarter, and he reminds you who Jesus is, and you relax.”

  Eddie leans forward on the pulpit, gripping it at the sides. He looks up and sees the word DAD on my next card. “Everybody here knows my dad died last year,” he says. “I don’t know whether you know this part or not, but my dad and Reverend Tarter didn’t see things the same way. I used to listen to them argue down at the service station, and when they were done I’d ask Dad how anybody was supposed to figure out which one of them was right.”

  There is a silence, like the congregation is waiting for Eddie Proffit to say Tarter was right and his dad was wrong. My next cue card wasn’t in Dad’s book bag. I make it on the spot, because dead guys can do that, and I hold it up high. It says DO IT!

  “My dad said, ‘Do the numbers, Eddie. Do science and the numbers.’”

  He looks up at the next card and sees LEVITICUS and takes a deep breath. If he goes here, he passes the point of no return. His mind bounces now, but it bounces the way he wishes it would always bounce: from cause to effect, though those probably aren’t the words he’d use.

  He sees Leviticus the way he pictures it from reading the Bible: vastly unpleasant. He sees Matthew Shepard hanging on a fence in Laramie, Wyoming, because, and only because, he was gay. His mind jumps to fire hoses pointed at black people in the sixties, a bomb explosion in a small church in Birmingham, Alabama, and he remembers what Reverend Tarter said about the mark of Cain. He does the math. About ten percent of Americans are African American. About ten percent of Americans are homosexual. Nobody chose it. It’s the math. God created the math.

  “One thing you do when you’re getting ready to testify is read as much of the Bible as you can understand, because you know the stuff that’s in there is supposed to tell you how to live your life, and that’s also why you take the class, so you’ll have somebody to ask about the parts you don’t get. Like if you believe in statistics, approximately one person out of every ten is gay. The baptism classes tell you that’s a sin. Like, a big one. There’s this book in the Old Testament, Leviticus, that says if you do what gay people do, you are an abomination. There aren’t many things worse than an abomination.”

  The congregation is beginning to wonder if they’re about to experience something very different from your run-of-the-mill testimony.

  “Only what if you are gay?”

  Tarter registers his first signs of discontent. Eddie waited until the last minute to give him the text outline, and now Tarter starts to thumb ahead. From his chair to the side, he whispers, “Get on task, Eddie.”

  Eddie hears him. Tarter doesn’t realize the last thing he wants is for Eddie to get on task.

  “If you are, it means you can’t ever have sex your whole life. Because if you’re gay, you aren’t going to want to have sex with the opposite sex and you can’t have it with the same sex, because Leviticus goes for the maximum punishment. It says, ‘the land will spue you out,’ which…I’m not sure exactly what that means, but it sounds radical. See, and this is where my dad comes in. Science and math, remember? Ten percent. It’s always been ten percent, even when Leviticus was written. Now you know it can’t be hereditary, because that would mean gay people would beget other gay people and most gay people don’t beget, so there would be this serious drop in gay people. It’s just ten percent at random. If being gay was really a sin, that would mean that God went and created one out of every ten people and made it a sin for them to have sex, for their whole lives. I hear over and over and over how God is a loving God. Now I could see where that could be a little bit funny if it were only for a few weeks or something, but not for your whole life. So I figure whoever wrote Leviticus was just a bigoted guy, just like whoever the guy was that decided the mark of Cain was being black. And I’m thinking I like girls, see, but there wasn’t this day when I woke up and said, ‘I think I’ll like girls.’ I just did. So I figure it has to be the same way with being gay. You wake up one morning and you say, ‘I like boys,’ only you are a boy. If you had a choice, why would you choose that? So you could get called names and beat up more in school? Just because information is church information doesn’t mean it shouldn’t include common sense, should it?”

  I’m still there if he needs me, but Eddie’s not checking me out above the door anymore, so I’m checking out the crowd to see if there’s going to be, like, a backlash or something, because some really big loggers and ranchers are getting restless. I hold up the card that says CHURCH BUSINESS/SCHOOL BUSINESS, hoping maybe he’ll glance up.

  “Speaking of school,” Eddie says, nodding at me so I know he felt the bump, “I know the people in this church all want to ban the book Warren Peece, and you’re going to the school board meeting to say so. I think it’s pretty clear from what I’ve said so far that my baptism is postponed indefinitely, so this is probably my last Sunday here, but I’ll be at school every day for the next four years. I’d like to make a deal with you. I won’t come here and bring my school business, and you don’t come there and bring your church business.”

  Mr. Tarter rises and moves slowly toward Eddie, but when Eddie sees him he backs away. “Guess I better wrap this up,” he says. “But man, I’ve got so much more to testify to.”

  Tarter motions for two church elders to move in on Eddie from the sides. Eddie steps toward the crowd to avoid them, but two larger members of the congregation move in from there. No escape.

  Tarter moves faster. You can almost see his pulse in his neck from across the room. In fact if you’re me, you can. The Reverend Tarter has a healthy heartbeat.

  Eddie glances around, sees himself closed in on all sides, but all his fear is gone. He looks up at the cue cards where I have written RUN FOR IT. Behind him, ten feet above the pulpit, is a huge stained-glass window with a picture of the Virgin Mary backed by a white halo, and below that window is a ledge. Eddie runs directly at the congregation, reverses direction three inches from two elders’ outstretched fingers, and sprints past the pulpit; jumps, curls his fingers over the window ledge, pulls himself up far enough to get a grip on the handle at the bottom of the window, and pulls himself the rest of the way. He stands, looking down. The sun shines through the window, through the Virgin Mary’s halo, and makes a perfect aura around Eddie Proffit.

  Most of the men trying to get to him are too out of shape to pull themselves onto the ledge. Maxwell West, the most athletic, falls back to the floor when Eddie steps on his fingers.

  The next card says JESUS.

  “About Jesus,” he says. “What would Jesus do? I’ve read that book y
ou are all supposed to help get rid of because of how it’s going to mess up our minds. Then I look around at all the people who like the book, and the ones who like it most are the ones who never get anything from our school and they never get anything from here either. They aren’t cool. You know who they are? They’re ‘the least of my brethren.’ So the minute I say, ‘What would Jesus do?’ I know the answer. He’d do what Billy’s dad and Ms. Lloyd did. He’d give this book to people and read it to people, because Jesus was a guy who liked to make people feel better and that book makes some people feel better. So there.”

  If I still had any influence, I would remind my friend that “So there” is probably not testimonial material.

  Tarter motions to Mrs. Alexander, the church organist, but her eyes are riveted to Eddie, who looks seriously like an angel up there with the Virgin Mary’s halo around his head.

  “Man,” Eddie says, “the school janitor takes a chance because he does like these kids and because he wants to do something nice for somebody after his own kid is gone, and he just finishes reading the book to them. That’s all he does. He finishes reading the book. The school janitor did what Jesus would do. He read to the least of his brethren. And for that he gets fired. If Jesus is smart, he won’t be coming back soon.”

  Eddie’s about to get off task. I’ve got WRAP IT UP on the next card, but he is not looking.

  “And you know what? If Jesus did come back today, like everybody in this church thinks he will before they die, nobody would listen to him. Jesus would do what Jesus would do and you’d just think he was another Mr. Bartholomew. I mean, think about Jesus. I’ve been reading all about him. He was a rebel. He would be right up here with me, telling you guys that kids can think for themselves and it’s okay for them to read about hard things.

  “In fact I might be Jesus. What about that? I might be Jesus. If you read the Bible Cliff Notes, you know that when he was young, he didn’t even know he was Jesus. I mean, he knew his name was that, but he didn’t know he was the Christ for sure. There were a whole bunch of things he had to do before he could be the Christ, which is a title and not a name, by the way, so you can use it in vain.”

  I see Eddie’s mom in the choir stall, looking on in horror. She does not want to have to explain to the congregation how her son thinks he’s Jesus.

  “Like, he had to stay out in the desert forty days and forty nights, which is a way long time if you’ve ever been to the desert. So he had to prove himself. And if he wouldn’t of, then he wouldn’t of been Jesus Christ and somebody else would of had to come along and do it. And now somebody has to come along and do it again. So maybe it’s me. Maybe I haven’t proved myself yet. Maybe one of the things I had to do was get up here out of your reach and yell at you and tell you that stupid book is okay, and why don’t you leave us alone.”

  The Reverend Tarter has physically moved Mrs. Alexander to the organ, and she mercifully begins pounding out a really upbeat version of “The Church in the Valley by the Wildwood” and all of a sudden you can’t hear Eddie Proffit anymore, but you can see his mouth moving, and I retire the cue cards completely and the church custodian is bringing the ladder, and this sermon on the ledge is about over.

  The ladder comes up and Eddie comes down, sticks out his hands as if in surrender, and when the elders relax, he bolts for the door, is down the sidewalk, down the street, and gone.

  16

  HOW TO PREPARE YOUR SCHOOL FOR AN AUTHOR VISIT

  The parking lot to the American Legion Hall is full by six thirty on Monday evening. The hearing starts at seven thirty. Bumper stickers in this lot are a little more evenly matched, one side sporting I READ BANNED BOOKS and INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM ROCKS and the other side declaring exactly how many men and women it takes to make a real marriage (one of each), next to the word Jesus inside the outline of a fish. There is a heaviness in the air. People have been arguing in the supermarket and the drugstore. One fistfight broke out in the sawmill parking lot.

  Most folks with differing opinions cannot talk about it civilly and have agreed not to try. Tonight, they have a forum. My friend Eddie Proffit isn’t present because he is in the one room at the county hospital reserved for mental-health patients. It was the Jesus thing. Though he was only seen as hysterical for leaping up in front of the Virgin Mary, his “I might be Jesus” speech as related by Reverend Tarter seemed problematic to the mental-health professional, who has been on the job only a week and a half and was therefore susceptible to Tarter’s concerns about Eddie’s “delusions of grandeur.” Eddie’s mom was easy to convince because she has become more and more accustomed to the worst thing happening and Tarter’s idea that the devil got inside Eddie sounded about right. Eddie told her she is going to feel really stupid when he comes out evaluated sane while everybody in the Red Brick Church is paranoid schizophrenic. He also called my dad to tell him what surprise to expect at the meeting on Monday. When he heard, I thought my dad would run up there and kiss him.

  “Think they let you run cross country if you have a diagnosis?” Eddie asks me from his hospital bed. He’s operating the motorized adjustment mechanism, raising his head, then his legs, then both.

  “Want me to go find out?”

  “Sure,” he says. “I got time.”

  “They’ve never had reason to make a decision one way or the other,” I tell him, “but there’s no written rule against it.”

  “How do you know that? I thought you were gonna go find out.”

  “I did. Dead guys waste no time. In fact, there’s no such thing.”

  “Man,” he says, “I sure hate to miss that meeting.”

  “Won’t matter,” I say back. “Fifteen minutes after church yesterday, your message was out. No sense being redundant.”

  “Yeah, well, go check it out and report back,” he says. “I wanna know if they like my little surprise.”

  A buzz emanates from the American Legion Hall as the start time approaches. Almost everybody here knows Eddie went bananas in church over the censorship issue, but what most of them really heard is that he thinks he might be Jesus. The YFC kids sit together near the front, while most of my dad’s furnace-room crew is grouped off to the side. Hundreds of adults fill the rest of the seats.

  Mr. Northcutt, the school board chair, speaks. “The board has been here since seven,” he says, “and has taken care of our other business so we can focus exclusively on the curriculum issues at hand.” He reads the protest directly from the paperwork turned in by Maxwell West, who is not elected to the board yet but plans to be, and who has a seat at the board’s table because he is lodging the protest. Ms. Lloyd is also there, as the primary person opposing the challenge. She is both dressed and fit to kill.

  When Mr. Northcutt finishes reading the formal challenge, he turns over the floor to Maxwell West. Maxwell reiterates what is in the formal statement, then, “We are at a moral crossroads in our nation’s and our community’s schools, and as parents and responsible adults it is time to turn and stand our ground. From school shootings, to allowing provocative language and dress, to passing out condoms, to banning God from our children’s education, we are simply falling into an abyss. It is simply immoral to stand by and do nothing.” He speaks in a calm, reasonable tone. Max West is a pretty popular guy, even though plenty of folks don’t agree with what sometimes seem like rigid views. He’s a go-to guy when a community member dies or is hit by catastrophe, whether that person is a church member or not.

  “The material in the book in question, Warren Peece, plainly and simply takes our children further down that path. It is time to let morality and common sense take over, and common sense tells me it is foolish to allow poison into our children’s minds.” He makes his point twice more, and sits.

  When it’s her turn, Ms. Lloyd stands, leaning straight armed on the table, addressing the board first directly. “I’ve loved books all my life,” she says. “When I was a little girl, I knew I would be a librarian—not because I wasn’t po
pular or athletic, because I was both those things. I loved books I liked and I loved books I hated. I got my first library card when I was six. By the time I was eight, my mother took all the restrictions off that card. She would have taken them off earlier, but she didn’t know they were there. I learned things from the characters of Dr. Seuss, Harper Lee, Kurt Vonnegut, and Alice Walker. I have never read a book that didn’t enrich me. Even a bad book taught me something about storytelling. I simply can’t remember a bad experience with a book.”

  The Reverend Tarter shakes his head. There is unrest among the members of his congregation, who are seated together not far from the speakers.

  “Warren Peece has gotten wonderful responses from many of the kids who were reading it,” Ms. Lloyd goes on. “When given the choice to read something else in its place, not one student took the option. There was lively discussion. Kids who don’t read were reading or having the book read to them, exactly the response any good teacher would normally die to have. I sent home a permission slip, was more than willing to let parents who may have been offended by the language or the issues have their student read an alternate book. Not one did, until this challenge. It seems fine to me for any parent to object to a book and have his or her child read something else. It seems un-American to let that parent tell the school district or the parents of other children what they can and should read in school.”

  She steps back from the table and turns to face the audience full on.

  A man named Jeremy Godfrey rises from the middle of the Red Brickers. He doesn’t know his son sat through the furnace-room readings. “Ms. Lloyd,” he says. “I don’t for one minute doubt your dedication to the kids or to books, but you’re simply wrong on this one. We had one of our best students, a boy in your class, read the book and critique it on issues and language, and I for one simply cannot see how you think it’s healthy for our kids to be reading this garbage—and I don’t use that term lightly—when there are so many good books out there. For the life of me, I don’t know why you chose that book, or any of Mr. Crutcher’s books, for that matter. His positions are so clearly biased. Why didn’t you choose something less controversial?”