One night the preacher called on the telephone and said he wanted me to go with him to the Decker place. As a matter of fact, he got me out of bed as it was past midnight when he called. I pulled my clothes and coat on and waited on the porch for him. Shortly, I saw his headlights rounding the bend down in the draw in front of the house and walked out to meet him.
Getting in the car I accepted his apology for getting me up, but he said he thought he might need me in this situation.
"Which situation?" I asked.
"Well, Jimmy came over to the parsonage about an hour ago and said he had trouble there at the house and feared for his life and the life of his kids."
Well, it was the week before Christmas and more than a little chilly and the moon was coming up late and it was one of them thangs the scientists talk about, because the moon looked like it was as big as my barn it was so close to the earth. Pretty though, and you could almost read by it it was so bright.
Jimmy Decker had moved into the community with his three younguns and started coming to the church. He was from way up north somewhere, I thank it was Minnesota of some such place. He had been a rough customer and lived for a while in the cab of his old Ford truck, til Togo Sloan offered him an abandoned chicken house on his place. This was before Jimmy got his younguns. Jimmy used to get drunk and drop onto this old pile of cardboard and raggy quilts to sleep it off. The rats had made a house up under that cardboard and he could hear 'em scratchin' under his head, whereupon he'd slam his fist down on his pillow and they'd run to the bottom of the pile for a while.
Anyhow, the Free Will Baptists was having a brush arbor camp meeting over west of the railroad tracks and Jimmy got to going on account of the singin' and he up and got saved. Purely cleaned him up, inside and out. Quit drinkin', got a hair cut ever' two or three weeks and went to work. After a while he got tired of the the doings at the Free Willers with their "in grace, out of grace," and started coming to the Baptist church where the emphasis was on "once in grace, always in grace." He was there ever' time the doors was open and he come along in knowledge in a powerful way. For instance, he got to memorizing Bible verses and before long he had the whole book of Romans down pat- could rattle it off like an auctioneer in a sweat. Ever'body jist was amazed at the way Jimmy come along, and some of 'em even thought he might surrender to preach and was prayin' that the Lord would call him.
Well, Jimmy had these three kids by an old gal over in Addington Bend. They never was married, but they was his alright, same black hair and black eyes. Well, their mama was trashy and that ain't a harsh judgment in her case. Had this old boyfriend that went to messin' with the two girls and that littlest one wadn't but four or five. So Jimmy come to the preacher and told him about the mess and they went to Marietta and talked to John Steel Batson who was a high-powered lawyer and a member of the State House of Representatives. Well, John Steel got 'em a lawyer friend who eventually got custody of them kids for Jimmy. He rented a little place over west of the tracks and folks give 'em food and clothing poundings. You should of seen Jimmy and them kids when they showed up at the church in them new clothes, all clean and shiny. It would've brought tears to your eyes. It did mine.
Well, they went along for a good while like that, regular at work and school and church. People was always doing for them and glad to do it. And Jimmy, he'd help anybody with needs, especially the old folks. He was handy, was Jimmy, and smart. The whole thang looked like something out of the book of Acts.
Now, after about a year like this, Jimmy started seeing this woman down south of White Rose, close to the River. Ever'body knew about her and she wadn't much more of a moral character than the mother of them three kids. This went on for a while without much anybody knowing about it, but in a small community like ours, people talk.
The first time Jimmy got in trouble, the preacher bailed him out of jail up in Marietta and took him to this girl friend's place because the kids was there. Her name was Wanda and she was a tragic thang-heavy set, teeth missing in front, and far from clean. She had this addled boy who had been kicked by a mule and had a steel plate in his head. The old house was a decrepit mess- when the preacher steadied himself on a porch post when he went up the steps, the post fell over and hit one of twenty or so dogs that filled the yard. The kids was all cryin' when they saw their daddy- he'd been in a fight and had a nasty black eye. Anyways, the preacher got 'em in his car and took 'em home and the next day had some kindly, but plain dealin' with their daddy. Jimmy straightened up for a while, went forward and rededicated his life to the Lord, but before long he was heard to be down on the River and staying nights in that little shack of a place south of White Rose. Those of us who watched it all happen, watched in pure grief, on account of how good Jimmy had started on the Christian way. But, mostly we grieved about them kids.
So, that's about where thangs stood on that cold night in December with that big old moon, and me and the preacher going across the tracks at Thackerville to that little rent house of the Deckers...
To be continued...
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