Comin' Home

Junior Bradshaw steered his truck toward exit 156 on his way home to Four Holes from an overnight business trip. As much as he disliked being away, comin’ home made it palatable. Although Four Holes didn’t offer much like bigger cities, the people living there loved the quiet when the crickets weren’t chirping and the slow pace of life there.

Driving home gave Junior time to contemplate life and he often had deep thoughts. Junior was capable of contemplation whereas most in Four Holes would think, just not all the time. This is why everyone looked up to Junior. They knew he owned extra capacity.

This day he was passing the cotton fields and was thankful the farmers did not have to put up with boll weevils. His mind drifted to a sermon Preacher Pat gave about the Israelites and how they thought leaven in bread was a metaphor for evil. He had never had unleavened bread. He favored a good yeast bread, preferably straight from the oven with melted butter on it.

On the home stretch, he passed the Free Will Holy Roller church just outside of Four Holes. He knew some of those people, good people who kept to themselves. They had a pastor named Jerry. He ran a hardware store during the week and would proselytize sometimes when he thought a customer receptive. Jerry was a foot-stomping type of preacher who favored raising his voice in the pulpit more than speaking softly. If you attended Free Will Holy Roller, sleeping through the sermon, even on the back pew, was not an option. The parishioners stayed awake.

Of course, this was different than Preacher Pat who was likely to use words like “consider” and “think.” His style was a bit more sedate and cerebral. He thought it was better for God to do the work and not him. If you ever heard Pastor Jerry, you thought God himself was speaking. Not that one was better than another, the styles were just different. Junior knew not to look down his nose at someone just because they were different. But some in Four Holes were not that accepting.

As soon as the image of Pastor Jerry left him, Junior thought about the world outside Four Holes and how it appeared to be full of leaven and boll weevils. He didn’t even like to read the paper or watch the news, but he knew what was going on. He thought things were upside down, that society was putting the cart before the horse, or worse, leaving the horse in the barn. His way of seeing things was that today everyone had rendered God unto Caesar. This saddened Junior.

Preacher Pat would tell his people to pray earnestly over the matter. Pastor Jerry, in his booming voice, would say, “TALK TO JESUS!” I think Jesus would hear all of them, but I’m not sure whose voice reached him first.

Then, it dawned on Junior. Everyone’s coming home one day. Some just don’t know where that home is going to be. Some do.

And only as Junior can, he thought, “Really.”