Sarah Joan’s Town - June 23, 2016
Seventy miles out of New Orleans, Molly L'Amant, steered her 1983 Corolla down an unmarked dirt road. Spanish moss slapped at her windows from either side as her balding tires slipped and slid through patches of mud, despite slowing to a crawl. Her headlights, already dim, became more and more useless as they became covered in muck. She squinted through her glasses, the trees and the road growing indistinct and ominous in the growing dusk—surely there’d be some lights by now. A trail of taillights to follow and a bright and welcoming tent at the end of this road. As she drove further and further into the bayou, she felt more and more certain that she’d taken a wrong turn. She wrung the steering wheel with sweaty fists and as she did, she felt her left arm spasm—a shock of pain running from her fingertips to her elbow, leaving her muscles weak and trembling.
“Shit,” she muttered, letting go of the wheel with her left hand and trying to shake the numbness out of her arm. The heat, the stress of driving, the fight with Grace were all causing her MS to flare up like a fucker. She should have just turned the car around the moment she saw this scab in the landscape that they called a road and headed to her mother’s.
She shook her head at herself for even being here, miles from civilization where a dazzling New Orleans urbanite like herself could get raped by a gator or eaten by a family of Cajun Crackers. But Patty Godot had raved about this revival, said that this white girl was the real thing, that she’d felt God walking among them, that she’d felt reborn after, a child of the human race. Yeah, Molly thought to herself, the touch of a white girl might just clear up Patty’s clap too, so long as she chased it with a full course of antibiotics after.
The whine of the cicadas drown out her sputtering, wheezing engine but the air was otherwise still and thick. Through the undergrowth, she spotted a flash of light. Headlight, porchlight or flashlight, it was proof that there was at least one other human being at the end of this road, so she coaxed a bit more speed out of her poor car.
She and Grace had planned on coming here together that night. They’d met at a gay singles mixer at First Covenant Baptist two years before and both had been raised in the faith. First Covenant was only Baptist in name, having split from the main church years ago, they might as well have been Unitarians. She supposed that they both wanted something more visceral, something transcendent, a faith that demanded more of them than a contribution to the monthly potluck.
Tonight, Grace had announced to Molly that rather than looking for transcendence at the revival, she’d seek it in Patty’s bed. Molly didn’t stay in the apartment for long after that, stalking out and tearing away in her car the moment Grace uttered the words “open relationship.” She’d decided to come to the revival because she didn’t have anyplace else to go.
She drove into a clearing and almost rear ended a parked car. It wasn’t a parking lot and there didn’t seem to be rhyme or reason to the arrangement, so she pulled into an empty corner the furthest away from the mean looking bog at the edge of the packed dirt. The light she’d seen seemed to be a bonfire. It was a ways up a narrow trail and on top of a low hill. Through the screen of trees, Molly made out dark silhouettes against the fire.
God damn, it looked like some Voodoo ritual shit going on up there, not an ol’ time revival. Yet tacked to the trees at regular intervals were signs carefully printed on purple poster board, written in sparkle puffy paint and sprinkled with bright confetti: “The Flame of Our Lord, Sarah Joan Clarke. All Are Welcome.” The juxtaposition was disquieting at the least, yet gave her enough reassurance that she was in the right place that she could leave her car behind.
Walking through the sopping ground and looking up the hill toward the fire, mud seeping into her flats, Molly felt uncomfortable. Late to the party. She was the only one there in the makeshift lot, and that loneliness pressed her onward. She felt that if she stood still, the serpents would crawl out of the mud and wind themselves around her legs, dragging her back into the dark water.
She walked the path, her dripping shoes in hand. As she started uphill the path became dry, dusty and criss crossed with thick gnarled roots. She stubbed her toe, bit back an expletive. It was so quiet. The vague human shadows resolved themselves against the light, but she couldn’t hear anything from them. The bayou seemed to consume the sound of the bonfire and everything around it, she didn't dare break that silence.
The hill was steeper than it looked so that nearing the top, she had to use her hands to pull herself up, grasping roots and limbs. Her own breath was loud in her ears, her senses were filled with the harsh tang of burning green wood. She slipped and fell to her knees, tearing her jeans before she finally crested the hill and came to the congregation.
The fire was so bright, and Molly’s glasses were now covered in grit, so Sarah Joan Clarke’s audience never became anything more than shadows. She could see was that they were mostly barefoot, spattered in mud up to the knee and red with dust everywhere else. Molly looked down at herself and saw that she looked the same. They stood in a semicircle, or sat on nearby logs. Each of them rapt, facing the fire.
She had this creeping sensation, like all these folks had just been sitting there, maybe for hours, waiting in perfect silence for Molly to arrive. It made her skin crawl, as if the serpents had slipped down the back of her blouse and were running their cold, dry bellies down her spine. Her mouth was dry, like she’d supped on the dust from the path. She stopped just short of the bonfire’s light and warmth, shivering a little. Perhaps a god waited in that fire, but Molly doubted that it was her God.
The silence was broken by a gentle chord played on an acoustic guitar, then a high clear voice began to sing.
There are loved ones in the glory,
Whose dear forms you often miss;
When you close your earthly story,
Will you join them in their bliss?
Will the circle be unbroken
Is a better home awaiting
Molly knew “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” of course, had sung it countless times along with countless choruses at a dozen churches since she was a child. She’d always heard it sung loud and joyous, a gospel anthem to the promise of heaven and family. But she’d never heard it like this before. Slow, almost halting, and with a deep sadness as if the young woman singing it had seen those most beloved to her die, and was begging the Lord Himself to be reunited with them.
Now Molly saw her. Sarah Joan Clarke, sat on a stool atop a small, roughly constructed platform on the far side of the fire. Mostly in shadow, her face was nonetheless illuminated in flickering shades of orange and yellow, a curtain of sparks seemed to engulf her and raise her up as she sang.
Her song filled the air like the smoke, exploring verses that Molly had never heard before. With a voice both powerful and fragile, Sarah Joan sang of emptiness, as death stripped away every comfort of Earth and replaced it with impossible longing.
All the lost ones, beckon to you
As they rest in His embrace,
In your sorrow, will you join them?
And in leaving, find your grace.
Will the circle be unbroken
Is a better home awaiting
The guitar fell silent and Sarah Joan bowed her head. Molly felt tears on her face, hot from the bonfire. During the song, she’d stepped as close as she dared to the flames. Dropping her gaze, she wiped the tears away. Her shoes, which she’d let fall during the song, were in the ashes, the toes smouldering.
turnnoffyourmind
jbbartram-illu
tangentwithtanner
gummygunk
origamiaround
stormborns