The Ancestor - prologue. (pgs. 1-2.)
August, 1966.
Amber Springs, Missouri.
Billy Dean Simon sat trembling in spite of the roasting midsummer heat, in the old wooden pew at the very front of the Amber Grace Assembly Church of God. Beside him on his right, his mother
Ann Simon sat at attention, her back ramrod-straight, her prematurely graying hair pulled back into a severe netted bun, her lips forever pressed white and bloodless into her own trademark line of pious disapproval. She wore once again that faded, blue flowered Sunday dress - her only dress without obvious holes or patches, she held her head high and wore it to church week after week, pretending to ignore the other women's catty whispers and offers of petty charity. Oblivious now to the fact that her son was shaking and pale as death, she sat fanning herself with a dime-store paper fan printed on both sides with pictures of Jesus, and concentrated intently on the shouting, sweating, white-shirted young preacher behind the pulpit.
Leaning against Billy's left arm stood his baby sister Beth, two years old to his ten, tapping her black plastic Mary Jane shoes impatiently against the faded wood of the pew, and sucking loudly on a bottle of lukewarm grape Kool Aid. Now and then she gave his thigh a smarting kick, or leaned so heavily on him that the weight of her nearly pushed him over. But right now she felt more to him like a dream, than anything real. He hardly felt her bruising kicks and affectionate leanings, hardly heard the sermon exploding in front of him even as the shouts reverberated in his ear drums. Hardly felt even the Missouri summer heat that sweltered in the chapel like an oven, oiling his skin and his straw-colored hair with sweat.
His body was a thing removed from him now, sitting here in its customary place on the pew, at proper attention in spite of his violent trembling. His mind lingered up in the shadows of the roped-off and seldom used balcony, still struggling with the question of whether or not to believe that the awful thing the preacher had just done to him up there had really happened.
Billy had been sitting alone at the piano when the whole thing started, keeping himself quietly occupied by thumbing through the hymnals. Baby Beth had been dutifully deposited in the
church nursery, the first Sunday morning baby to arrive, as always. And Mama had disappeared back into the kitchen, in hopes that the higher-up ladies would allow her to contribute the skillet of fried potatoes she'd brought and to take part in the preparation of the after-church
potluck - or 'potlick', as Brother Todd liked to call it.
He had just removed his starched white Sunday shirt and laid it carefully across the piano
bench, when he glimpsed a shadow stealing across the bench, the shirt, the piano keys, the hymnal.
Amber Springs, Missouri.
Billy Dean Simon sat trembling in spite of the roasting midsummer heat, in the old wooden pew at the very front of the Amber Grace Assembly Church of God. Beside him on his right, his mother
Ann Simon sat at attention, her back ramrod-straight, her prematurely graying hair pulled back into a severe netted bun, her lips forever pressed white and bloodless into her own trademark line of pious disapproval. She wore once again that faded, blue flowered Sunday dress - her only dress without obvious holes or patches, she held her head high and wore it to church week after week, pretending to ignore the other women's catty whispers and offers of petty charity. Oblivious now to the fact that her son was shaking and pale as death, she sat fanning herself with a dime-store paper fan printed on both sides with pictures of Jesus, and concentrated intently on the shouting, sweating, white-shirted young preacher behind the pulpit.
Leaning against Billy's left arm stood his baby sister Beth, two years old to his ten, tapping her black plastic Mary Jane shoes impatiently against the faded wood of the pew, and sucking loudly on a bottle of lukewarm grape Kool Aid. Now and then she gave his thigh a smarting kick, or leaned so heavily on him that the weight of her nearly pushed him over. But right now she felt more to him like a dream, than anything real. He hardly felt her bruising kicks and affectionate leanings, hardly heard the sermon exploding in front of him even as the shouts reverberated in his ear drums. Hardly felt even the Missouri summer heat that sweltered in the chapel like an oven, oiling his skin and his straw-colored hair with sweat.
His body was a thing removed from him now, sitting here in its customary place on the pew, at proper attention in spite of his violent trembling. His mind lingered up in the shadows of the roped-off and seldom used balcony, still struggling with the question of whether or not to believe that the awful thing the preacher had just done to him up there had really happened.
Billy had been sitting alone at the piano when the whole thing started, keeping himself quietly occupied by thumbing through the hymnals. Baby Beth had been dutifully deposited in the
church nursery, the first Sunday morning baby to arrive, as always. And Mama had disappeared back into the kitchen, in hopes that the higher-up ladies would allow her to contribute the skillet of fried potatoes she'd brought and to take part in the preparation of the after-church
potluck - or 'potlick', as Brother Todd liked to call it.
He had just removed his starched white Sunday shirt and laid it carefully across the piano
bench, when he glimpsed a shadow stealing across the bench, the shirt, the piano keys, the hymnal.