Show Me (Thomas Prescott 4) by Nick Pirog (best ereader for textbooks .TXT) 📗

“It’s okay, guys,” I kept saying. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”

I could still hear their whining as I drove from the farm. I did a U-turn, came back, and let them into the house.

I was not the alpha.

I started my revival marathon at Randall’s church. I was starving, and he promised delicious barbeque.

Holy Trinity Lutheran was on the south side of town, and I pulled into the parking lot. All of the one hundred black people who lived in Tarrin, plus another twenty white people, were dressed in their Sunday best and hovered under four large white tents set up on the church’s front lawn.

The men were wearing suits, and the women were clad in dresses of every color imaginable.

According to Randall, over the course of two days it would be many hours of preaching, followed by long stretches of eating, plus games and activities for both the kids and adults.

I parked the Range Rover and stepped out.

I was dressed to the sevens, which was about as high as I could go with the clothes I packed—at least the ones that still fit. I was wearing tan slacks and a blue button-down, which, due to my increased girth, was testing the limits of the cotton gin. I nearly added a tie, but after three failed attempts at tying it, I gave up.

Randall was huddled with two men and two little girls. He spotted me as I strolled across the grass and headed in my direction. He looked dapper in a black suit with a red tie and his beard was a half inch shorter than it was a couple days prior. It was the first time I’d seen him without his trademark straw hat, and his bald head reflected the noon sun.

“Dergen!” he shouted, pulling me into a hug.

“She told you?”

“I took Roscoe in for his checkup yesterday, and she told me.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “Could be worse. Your first name could be Holy!”

He laughed at his own joke, then ushered me back toward the group and introduced me to his two brothers-in-law and his two daughters. The girls were twins named Keesha and Kaylin. They were seven. Keesha had on a bright yellow dress, and Kaylin’s was lavender. Their skin was a caramel brown, and I guessed their mother was white.

Next, Randall ushered me to a table stacked high with barbeque. There was a beautiful woman behind the table. She was curvy with brown hair and sharp green eyes—Randall’s wife, Alexa.

She came around the table and gave me a long hug, thanked me for giving Randall some work, then loaded my plate high with ribs and pork shoulder.

“She seems great,” I told Randall, sidling up next to him at a picnic table.

“She’s the best. She teaches English at the high school.”

“How long have you guys been married?”

“Nine years.”

I didn’t know how to phrase the question so I just came out with it. “I know this isn’t exactly the South, but how does that go over in a small town?”

“Interracial marriage?”

I nodded.

“It’s gotten a lot better here over the past couple of decades. A lot of the hate died off with the last generation. Sure, it’s still there. Hell, Alexa’s dad didn’t take to me for about three years.”

“And now?”

“We’re like this.” He crossed his fingers.

He wrestled down half a rib, then changed the subject. “So, your farm?”

I knew where he was headed and I said, “I’m in.”

He raised his eyebrows. “It’s not gonna be easy.”

“Why live on a farm if you’re not gonna fucking farm?”

He laughed, nearly choking on the meat in his mouth.

I patted his shoulder. “Careful, I can’t have my head foreman dying on day one.”

He slapped his chest with his hand, coughed, then said, “How ‘bout I stop by on Monday and we can go over what needs to be done?”

“Sounds good.”

There was a loud whistle, and Randall said, “Eat up. The service is about to start.”

A sixty-something black preacher gave an impassioned sermon about resisting sin during these next three months of summer. He pleaded with the youth to stay away from the “devil’s brew” and to chasten themselves against the “temptations of the flesh” on those hot, humid nights.

The sermon lasted two hours. Make that, I lasted two hours. The sermon could have lasted six for all I knew. I slipped out under the guise of using the bathroom, then darted to the Range Rover, and found my way back to Main Street.

Tarrin Baptist was on the south side of Main Street. Lutheran United was across the street on the north side. More than two hundred people permeated the front lawns of both churches, and many tents were sprawled on the street, separating the two. If there were any resentments between the two factions, they’d set aside their differences for the day.

Or so it seemed.

It took me a few moments to locate Annie from the home goods store, who, to my great pleasure, was standing behind one of the tables in the buffet line. In front of her were two metal dishes stacked high with glistening fried chicken.

I guess I would start my diet tomorrow.

Annie forced me to take four pieces—two breasts and two thighs, which she thought was hilarious—and I happily obliged her.

I was headed back to snag a drumstick when a woman grabbed me by the arm.

“We need you,” she said.

I traded glances between the metal pan of glistening chicken and the enchanting blond woman tugging on my arm.

“Can I just grab—”

“No!” she yelled. “There’s no time.”

“What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

“The tug-of-war,” she said, pulling me across the street toward Lutheran United at a jog.

I couldn’t help but notice the uppermost of her pink dress bouncing up and down as she ran.

We made it around to the back of Lutheran United where there was a large grass courtyard and a sand volleyball pit. The volleyball net was gone and lying across the length of the sand was