Why Beulah Shot Her Pistol Inside the Baptist Church. Clayton Sullivan

      

      Why Beulah Shot Her Pistol Inside the Baptist Church

      Clayton Sullivan

      NewSouth Books

      Montgomery | Louisville

      NewSouth Books

      P.O. Box 1588

      Montgomery, AL 36102

      Copyright 2004 by Clayton Sullivan. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by NewSouth Books, a division of NewSouth, Inc., Montgomery, Alabama.

      ISBN 978-1-58838-167-5

      eBook ISBN:978-1-60306-074-5

      LCCN: 2004021673

      Visit www.newsouthbooks.com

      To My Students

Table of Contents

       Chapter 1

       Chapter 2

       Chapter 3

       Chapter 4

       Chapter 5

       Chapter 6

       Chapter 7

       Chapter 8

       Chapter 9

       Chapter 10

       Chapter 11

       Postscript

1

      The first thing I’m gonna’ do is tell you my name, and after I’ve told you my name I’m gonna tell you about the tub of trouble I’ve lived in for the past six years. My name’s Beulah Rainey. I live in New Jerusalem, Mississippi. There ain’t too much to New Jerusalem. If you blinked your eyes goin’ through it you’d miss it. It’s in Jones County about seven miles southwest of Laurel where they have the Masonite factory and a bunch of poultry plants. New Jerusalem has three stores, a big, consolidated school, and two churches. There’s the Methodist church. And then there’s the New Jerusalem Primitive Baptist Church. That’s the church I’ve belonged to all of my life.

      Up until three days ago I was a married woman. I was Ralph Rainey’s wife. My husband’s full name was Ralph Jefferson Davis Rainey. He never talked about or used his two middle names. He always went by “Ralph.” But I ain’t his wife no more. I’m now a widow woman. That’s because three days ago Ralph upped and died on me. I wasn’t expecting him to die. But that’s sure what he done.

      This morning we had Ralph’s funeral at the New Jerusalem Primitive Baptist Church and then buried him in the cemetery that’s across the road. Or at least I’m guessing they buried him. I didn’t hang around to see.

      Most people think when you’ve just come back from your husband’s funeral you’re gonna be real sad and down in the dumps. You’re expected to be all teary-eyed and you’re supposed to have a lump as big as an apple in your throat. But I don’t. I’m goin’ to be honest with you. For the first time in years I’m at peace on the inside. I’m as calm as a summer’s breeze now that Ralph’s gone. I’m not sure where he’s gone but by golly he’s gone. I won’t have to mess around with him anymore. And I’m glad about what I done this morning at the end of Ralph’s funeral service. I’m sure what I done made a lot of people mad. I know I made his mama and daddy mad. I made his two brothers mad. And I made his sister who lives over in Baton Rouge mad. But I don’t care. If they don’t like what I done they can kiss my foot.

      I’ve got sense enough to know a widow woman ain’t supposed to be talking the way I’m talking. But all I’m doin’ is tellin’ you what I think. Before I got married I was a Buchanan. And here in Jones County and around Laurel they say “Buchanans believe in talking straight.” Or as my daddy has always said, “Buchanans call a spade a spade.” So I’m calling a spade a spade when I tell you I’m glad Ralph’s six feet under in the cemetery. Why do I feel this way? I feel the way I do because my husband was no good. My mama told me he ain’t no good before I married him. But I didn’t believe her. Of course I believe her now. To be up front with you, my husband was a bastard. That’s exactly what he was: a bastard. And I sure oughta know. Because I was married to the bastard for six years. And don’t nobody know a man like the woman who’s married to him.

      I’ll admit most of my neighbors here in New Jerusalem have the idea Ralph was a fine, upstanding man. Everybody knew he was a deacon in the Baptist church and never missed a Sunday goin’ to church. I wanted to believe he was a fine man too when I married him. After all, I’d known him all my life. The Rainey farm and my daddy’s farm ain’t but a mile apart by the way the crow flies. And my folks and the Raineys have always belonged to the same church. But after all I’ve been through with Ralph it doesn’t ring my bell that he was a big-shot deacon who led the singing and helped take up the collection every Sunday at the New Jerusalem Baptist Church. Which is where, I listened to Ralph and let him con me into marrying him.

      At the time it happened I didn’t have sense enough to know a con job was being done on me. But one was. I remember exactly when and where and how it got started with me and Ralph. It started on a hot Sunday in June. The Sunday-morning worship service had just got over with. Most everybody had walked out of the church and was standing out front visiting and talking with one another. But I’d stayed inside. I’d stayed inside so I could do a little practicing on the church piano. I was sittin’ at the piano and I was playing “Onward Christian Soldiers.” Or at least I was trying to play it. “Onward Christian Soldiers” has a lot of sharps and flats and it ain’t an easy song to play. By the way, me playin’ the piano was more my daddy’s idea than mine. He always said he wanted me to be good enough at playing the piano to someday be the pianist at the New Jerusalem Baptist Church. That’s the main thing my daddy has always wanted me to be: the church’s piano player. That’s why I was taking piano lessons once a week. Every Thursday afternoon Mama would drive me seven miles up to Laurel so I could take piano lessons with Miss Hopson. Well—like I was saying—I was playing “Onward Christian Soldiers” when out of the clear blue sky Ralph walked over to the piano. Most primitive Baptist churches don’t have pianos. But our church does. It has an upright Baldwin piano. Ralph stood right next to the piano and listened to me play. He didn’t say nothing until after I’d finished the last stanza. I’ll never forget what he said when I was through. He smiled at me and said, “Beulah, you sure can play the piano good.”

      When he said that I said, “Thank you, Mr. Rainey. It’s mighty nice of you to say that.” Back then—before I really knew Ralph—I always called him “Mr. Rainey.”

      He then asked, “Do you by any chance know how to play ‘Sweet Hour of Prayer’?”

      “Sweet Hour of Prayer” ain’t like “Onward Christian Soldiers.” It’s easy to play on the piano. It doesn’t have a lot of sharps and flats. I said, “I sure do.”

      Ralph said, “I wish you’d play me a little bit of ‘Sweet Hour of Prayer.’ I love that song. They sang it at my Granddaddy’s funeral.”

      So I played him a stanza of “Sweet Hour of Prayer.” When I’d finished playing it Ralph said,