The
Intersection of Pick-up Trucks and Holy Water
© 2007, Todd Sentell
Dear Flannery,
Forty-three years after you died
too young, a Georgia historical marker was stuck in the ground
across the highway from the end of Andalusia's driveway.
Friday morning, in the shadow of
the Badcock & More furniture store sign, just before the
dedication ceremony started, a suntanned fellow in a red pick-up
truck drove past and honked his horn. For an instant, I thought
Parker was back.
The mayor of Milledgeville spoke
about you in his Milledgeville accent. And then, a priest with an
Irish name in a huge white robe from your old church, Sacred Heart,
got up in front of everybody and moved his hands around and read
some things from out of that book that's not exactly the Bible. He
said some things that a few of your fellow Catholics repeated with
him and then the priest flicked the historical marker, while it was
still covered with an official Georgia historical marker blue cover,
with holy water. He flicked his wood water wand six times. I
counted. The first time he flicked it at the cover you could see the
cover quiver but it never did again. If there was a moment you would
have loved the most, other than that redneck in the pick up truck
blasting the earnestness out of the hot air, it was that holy water
business. I'm not Catholic, but these were some moments I deeply
understood anyway, especially since we were across the street from
where you made literary history because of those hard, perpendicular
intersections you designed in your stories and two novels--the
perfectly timed crashing together of personalities and religion in
all its strange forms... and its haunting aftermath. We were having
some near crashing together of religion and personalities right
there--right by a loud highway in a modern time as we quietly stood
in the grass that belonged to your marker and a discount furniture
store.
After that priest blessed your
marker, the fellow who's in charge of the Georgia Historical
Society got up there and said he was pretty sure that was the first
time in the history of Georgia historical marker dedication
ceremonies that one's been flicked with holy water. Everybody
laughed and nodded at each other. God … did I think of you right
then. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who got the literary and
personal importance--to you--of that moment. I saw you smiling
down at this one, too: after everyone stopped laughing I wanted to
shout out, like Hazel Motes would at discovering a blasphemer …
that the feller who's in charge of the Georgia Historical Society
is wearin' a tie covered with the logo … of the state of South
Caroliner!
After the roadside ceremony, we
were invited to come across Highway 441--very carefully--for a
reception in the main house. Your house and yard were populated with
people speaking in only Southern accents and they were talking about
how they knew you and when. Or how and when they knew your mother.
On your front porch an old woman grabbed my arm and asked me if I
was in church Sunday … that she saw me. I said I wasn't ... I
live one hundred miles from here ... but if my evil twin was there
then good for him. The lady, tottering on feeble pegs, told me her
name but I didn't get it because she spoke in an accent so rich
her words came out like syrup. She said she had moved onto the farm
when she was fifteen and that you and her were opposites. She said
she lived in that building over there. She pointed at it with a
crooked finger … at the old shed where Andalusia's caretakers
keep an old donkey named Flossie. I wondered if she was drunk. Who
cares. We were all drunk on you. Standing in your bedroom doorway
gawking at your crutches, your bed, and your writing table. I'm
sure you think that's repulsive--a bunch of people crowded at
your door like that. But I'm a respectful hick. I gawk with misty
eyes but I don't point.
I'm not going to go on about the
condition of the house and the buildings around the property. Just
to say they'll be back in better shape soon. There's a man in
charge and a foundation has even been developed and the man in
charge works hard to preserve you … your place.
Heading back home up Highway 441 in
my truck, I passed a couple of Georgia roadside markers of another
kind--those homemade crucifixes people make and stick into the
ground near where a family member was killed in a car or truck or
motorcycle accident. You never know. When you see one, and you see a
lot of them in the South, all you know is that death happened right
there and somebody wants you to by-God know it. But it's never at
that intersection you write about. You always see those crosses on
some long, straight stretch of highway or country road. I think of
you as I travel my long stretch of road and across fields of living
fire, sometimes in a straight line and sometimes real crooked … as
your voice strikes up in my mind … your voice climbing upward, on
key, into a starry field … and those who love you so much come to
that moment of your grace on that road sooner rather than later if
we're paying attention and we thank you for it … whole companies
of white trash and bands of black niggers and battalions of freaks
and lunatics shouting and clapping and leaping like frogs and those
who have always had a little of everything and the God-given wit to
use it right … and we all honk our truck horns in your honor ... and shout hallelujah.
Todd Sentell is a Georgia native
and author of the social satire, Toonamint of Champions |