Chapter 10

Sunday morning came bright and early, as mornings tend to do. I haven't worn a suit since I quit the Red Hawk Police Department way back in 1988, and don't plan to start, but Cecelia's made me some very nice church shirts over the years, and I put one on – a turquoise one with silver piping around the yoke and my initials embroidered discreetly on the right pocket. That, a good pair of jeans, and my usual church boots which don't have the scars and stains and rundown heels of my everyday boots, were what I put on that morning. I knew that downstairs Cecelia would make sure that my good hat was ready – she knows by now that I'd as soon go out the door without my pants as without my hat on.

Mama had cooked French toast, and we spread butter and homemade watermelon preserves on it, and ate like hogs. And then we set out – Mama and Daddy took Darlia in Mama's car, which has become their church car, and Cecelia riding with me in the Blazer. We headed out of town in the same direction as Hope Baptist Church, though we turned off north before we got there, to get to Mount Tabor, where Daddy and Mama have been members for decades, and where Cecelia grew up.

It was our first Sunday in Leanna this trip, and when the choir leader saw Cecelia he smiled and waved and motioned her toward the choir room. Mama and Daddy circulated while Darlia zoomed toward a group of girls about her age. I made my way through the people toward the front, where Rev. Goodson – the third pastor I've known at the church – and the associate ministers were talking. In a black Baptist church every preacher who's a member is an associate and has a part in the program, and any visiting preacher gets to have a part as well. It cuts down on the cost of hiring a minister of this and a minister of that, and even with the sometimes autocratic authority that black pastors have it's fairly close to the Biblical plurality of elders. In fact, I suspect that Tyrone Jackman, who founded our church in Albuquerque years ago and had known Cecelia in Leanna when she was in her teens, began to move the church toward its current plurality of elders partly because of his experience with a multiplicity of preachers in southern black churches.

Eventually, about 10 minutes after the official time, the organ began playing, people began finding seats in the pews, and all the preachers went up the three steps to our seats on the "pulpit," as they call the platform at Mount Tabor. As the organ played – and I don't mean in any mournful manner either – the choir came out from the side door and filed into the loft behind our seats. Cecelia, now in the maroon robe with gold lapels that marked the choir director, came and stood between the pews and the platform, to the left of the pulpit from our perspective. She'd led the choir for a year or so in her teens, and now whenever she comes back, her first Sunday she leads the choir again.

She tilted her head toward the organist, who broke into something even more sprightly – you don't hear much of that slow, ponderous organ music in a black church the way you do in fancy liturgical white churches – and began swaying. I knew the choir was rocking behind us, and on the pulpit and in the pews people began to sway in their seats, and to tap their feet or nod their heads or otherwise keep time with the music.

I've never seen the lyrics to the first song written down, but I knew them by heart, for I've been singing them since 1990 in Dallas.

He's all right, He's all right, He's all right with me!
He's all right, He's all right, He's all right with me!
He's just all right! He's just all right!
He's just all right with me!

And then we roared into the second verse, where we sang that we'd tried Him and found out He's all right with me. We ran through that two or three times, and by then half the congregation was standing. Without a pause we moved into another song just as energetic, and then another.

Then Cecelia gave the organist another signal – I can see her do it, but I have never figured out how they both know which signal means what – and the tempo slowed. I recognized the music to "Amazing Grace," but much slower than I've ever heard white people sing it. I've heard blacks describe it as "dragging." It's not dull and it's not boring, but it does take about twice as long to get through a hymn when you "drag" it. Perhaps one of the reasons that it's not boring at that slow pace is the grace notes – everyone adds his own, and though there's no unanimity about it, they all blend together harmoniously.

And so we went fast and slow, calm and frenetic, for 45 minutes or an hour, with an interruption for prayer and the offering and recognition of visitors, which that day was just me, Cecelia, and Darlia. And finally Cecelia rolled her hands one last time to indicate that we'd go through the verse again, and she and the choir and everyone else sat down, and Rev. Goodson came to the pulpit to preach.

You do not get out of a black church in a hurry, unless you're willing to walk out before the service is even half done. We'd started a little after 10 AM, and it was nearly noon when we finally made our way out the door. And at that we were hurrying, for we wanted to eat before we went to the sacred harp singing. We would have to eat at home – Leanna doesn't have a single chain restaurant, fast food or otherwise, and all the places it does have close on Sunday. Probably these days there wouldn't be too much comment if someone decided to open on Sunday, but so far it hasn't happened. Even the people who don't believe a word of the Bible still respect the day of rest in Leanna.

It was sandwiches again, there being no time for Mama to cook even if we hadn't beaten her home by 30 minutes. Of course Cecelia knows how to cook, but she can't cook any faster than Mama can – no matter who's at the stove, it still takes a certain amount of time to do food right.