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

said, “I’ll be damn.” Daddy don’t usually cuss. He don’t cuss unless something really gets his attention.

      Mama cut bait. She said, “You marryin’ Ralph Rainey is the last thing in the world I want you to do. He ain’t no good.”

      Daddy got downright huffy. He didn’t like what Mama said. Which is why he looked at her and said, “Why do you say that? He’s a deacon at the church. He leads the singin’ every Sunday. He’s the best songleader our church has ever had. What do you mean sayin’ he ain’t no good?”

      Mama said, “I know he ain’t no good because of what Ruth Ann used to tell me.”

      Ruth Ann, in case you’ve forgotten, was Ralph’s first wife. She’s the one who died from a brain tumor.

      Mama kept on. “Ruth Ann used to get me aside and tell me Ralph wasn’t nothing but a hypocrite. She said he was a lollipop at church and at his cafe. That’s the very word she used. ‘Lollipop.’ But Ruth Ann said that around the house—when it was just him and her—he could be as mean as a rattlesnake.”

      Daddy said, “I don’t believe it.”

      Mama snapped right back, “Why would I make it up? For some reason which I never figured out Ruth Ann felt I was the only person she could talk to about Ralph because nobody else would believe her. She told me Ralph got so mad at her a time or two that he gave her a whippin’. One Sunday at church we went into the lady’s room and she showed me some bruises she had on her legs where ‘lollipop’ had whipped her. She told me he used his belt and that his belt felt like hot water mixed with iodine. Them bruises was big. I seen ’em with my own eyes.”

      I could tell Mama and Daddy didn’t see eye to eye on what kind of man Ralph was. So I didn’t know what would happen when he came by the house to talk to them about marryin’ me. But come by he did. Like I said, he come by the house on Tuesday evening. He and Mama and Daddy sat on the front porch. Mama and Daddy sat side by side in the swing. Ralph sat in a rocking chair. Me and Earline sat down on the front steps and listened. Earline is my baby sister. That’s what we done. We didn’t talk. We just sat and listened. While we was listenin’ I give Ralph the once over. Ralph would never win a contest for bein’ the best lookin’ fellow in town. The main thing I didn’t like about him was his teeth. Ralph had buck teeth. They stuck out like a horse’s teeth stick out. His daddy and brothers have teeth that stick out too. Their teeth stickin’ out is how you can tell if somebody in Jones County is a Rainey. Everybody says they all look like horses. Of course they don’t say that to their face. They say this behind their back. There’s a lot of things people say behind your back that they don’t say to your face. My granddaddy used to say that if everybody knew what everybody else had said about ’em behind their back there wouldn’t be two friends left on the face of the earth. I expect he’s right about that.

      Ralph got right down to it. He didn’t beat around the bush. He said, “Arnold, I’ve come by to tell you and Josephine I want to marry Beulah.”

      Arnold is my daddy’s name and Josephine is my Mama’s name.

      Ralph rattled on. “Since Ruth Ann died I’ve been mighty lonely. I don’t have nobody to talk to in the morning when I get up and I don’t have nobody to talk to in the evening when I get home. The only family I have is Oscar and you know what kind of kid he is. His roof don’t have all its shingles. Like it is now, all I do is work and work and work. I work like a Turk at my cafe and I work like a Turk on my farm with Sumrall.”

      Sumrall, in case you don’t know, is an albino who works for Ralph. He lives in a shack on Ralph’s farm. I’ve heard Ralph say he’d never let a darky live on his place. But he let Sumrall live on his farm. That’s because Ralph believed an albino brings you good luck. I’ve heard him say, “An albino is a two-legged rabbit foot. Let one work on your farm and you’ll get enough rain in the summer to raise a good watermelon crop and cotton crop and corn crop.”

      Ralph kept on telling Mama and Daddy about how hard he worked. He said, “I work from can to can’t. But there ought to be more to life than work. That’s why I want to get married again. I can take care of Beulah. I can take care of her real good. I ain’t sayin’ for one moment I’m a millionaire. But between the farm and the cafe and the butcher shop I make a good livin’. At least the tax commission thinks I make a good livin’ cause they’re always on my tail for more tax money.”

      Ralph rolled on like the Mississippi River. He kept on talking about how lonesome he was and how he made a good livin’ and how he needed somebody to help him out. At the time I didn’t know what he meant about him needin’ somebody to help him out. I learned later what he meant by that.

      Daddy took his cigar out of his mouth and said, “Ralph, this all sounds mighty good to me. If you want to marry Beulah, I’m all for it. She’ll make you a good wife.”

      But Mama didn’t agree. She didn’t agree one bit. She spoke up and said, “I’ve got my doubts. Beulah’s too young to get married. She ain’t but sixteen.”

      Ralph said, “Josephine, for cryin’ out loud, sixteen ain’t too young for Beulah to get married. A lot of gals here in Jones County get married by the time they’re sixteen. That’s how old Ruth Ann was when I married her.”

      Mama come right back at him. She said, “Beulah ain’t got sense enough to get married. She’s smart but she’s still wet behind the ears. I think she oughta finish high school before she gets married. She ain’t got but one more year and then she’ll be through.”

      Daddy didn’t see it that way. He said, “I quit school after the fifth grade and I’ve made it just fine. I’ve made a good living bein’ a welder at Masonite. If finishin’ the fifth grade was good enough for me, then I think finishin’ the eleventh grade oughta be good enough for Beulah. Just who does she think she is? The queen of England?”

      Mama said, “I’ve always wanted Beulah to go to college. She makes good grades. Miss McDonald—her math teacher—stopped me one day at the meat counter in the Jitney Jungle Grocery and told me Beulah was the smartest girl she’d ever taught math to. She said that to me out of the clear blue sky. You can go from one end of Jones County to the other and you ain’t gonna find a single Buchanan who has ever went to college. I’ve always wanted Beulah to be the first Buchanan from New Jerusalem and Jones County to have a college degree. She’d make a good school teacher.”

      Mama wantin’ me to go to college was news to me.

      Daddy said, “That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard you say. There ain’t no need in the world for Beulah goin’ to college. She’d make a better wife than a school teacher.”

      Like I told you, while Mama and Daddy and Ralph was talking about me and Ralph gettin’ married, I sat on the front steps. I didn’t say nothing. I just listened.

      Mama, Daddy, and Ralph kept talking. They went back and forth. Saying the same things over and over.

      Out of the clear blue sky Daddy farted. He farted a big one. It makes Mama mad when Daddy farts when we have company. She don’t say nothing about him farting when it’s just Daddy, Mama, Earline, and me. Mama said, “Arnold, what you just done is embarrassing. I’ve told you a thousand times not to fart when we have company. And Ralph here is company.”

      Daddy said, “Ralph ain’t company. I’ve known Ralph Rainey all my life. Company is somebody you don’t really know.”

      Daddy went on to say, “Ralph, let’s leave it like this. I’m all for you and Beulah gettin’ married. But Josephine here ain’t. I think me and Josephine need to do some more talking just between ourselves. And I think I want to pray about this. Whenever I come to a fork in the road I believe in praying about which way to go.”

      Ralph said, “Arnold, that sounds good to me. And I’ll tell you what: I’ll pray about it too.”

      My daddy said, “After Josephine and me has talked some more and after I’ve taken it to the Lord in prayer, I’ll get