Children of Saul

“Payday is coming!  It’s at the door already.  These evil Sixties have debauched our  nation.  The whole West Coast is tainted with the sex and moral decay of Sodom.  Soon it’s coming to a screeching halt.  Payday is just around the corner.”

The sermon thunderstormed out of Brother Saul’s sweat-beaded face, heading for an audience with faces filled with wonderment.  The forty-two of them soaked up his frenzy--all except the children sleeping on their quilts down on the hard plank floor, and the one willow-slim young blonde with blueberry eyes that glanced with agitated indecision toward the doorway.

“Mikele!”  Aloma Powers shot a scathing whisper at her, but she wasn’t listening.  Instead, she slid out of the school desk that enclosed her like a barely-open trap.  Not stopping, she half-tiptoed and half-ran from the sultry school room out into the freshness of the night.   She had heard her mother’s blaring whisper.  Everybody always heard her mother.

The girl’s pursed lips whistled with relief as soon as she was out the door.  Out there, her frustrated sigh could blend into the blackness blanketing the pickups and old cars parked beside the school.  In that darkness lay the dusty two-mile road to the edge of Powell’s main-street drag.

As she rushed past the crossroads corner where the school house stood, she glanced back at the building’s wall with light from three long windows outlining tree trunks standing guard around the children’s swings and slides.  “Oh, God in Heaven, are you out here?   I’m asking you again if you’re ever gonna hear my prayers.  Please don’t  listen to my preacher dad in there--unless you’re listening to me, too.  Even though you know I’m in an awful battle with him.”

Consternation tightened in her as two bouncing headlights appeared on the road in front of her, with dust clouds dimming them.   She turned her head sideways from the light and walked in the weedy grass above the ditch that cut its dark way down beside the narrow road.  “Please, Father,” her prayer persisted, “help me get away from him before my life is ruined.   But maybe it already is.”

She felt her face flush hot with panic as she saw the car slowing down.  Her steps edged closer to the ditch as she kept hurrying.  The car stopped in the road beside her.  Dusty weeds scratched at her legs beneath the gathered skirt as she walked faster, almost stumbling, and not looking at the car.

“Hey, Kelly--”  A male voice called from the open window on the driver’s side.  ‘It’s me, Paul Teller.  I’ve been helping out at the mailing office, you know.”

She halted, bending to slap her lower legs free from the crawly, itchy things that seemed to be all over them.

“You recognize me, don’t you?” he asked, opening the door and taking three steps toward her, while the motor droned and headlights beamed through a fog of dust. “Can I take you where you’re  going?  I hate to see you walking out here at night.”

“Thanks, Father,” her lips said silently in the direction of the stars.  “Just help me.  Don’t forget me.”