Wrapped in Rain(34)
When the sermon was over, Miss Ella would grab our hands; we'd form a circle and listen while Pastor Danny prayed. When he finished, she'd turn off the dial and then turn to one of us. "Okay, your turn." We'd pray, asking God to keep us safe and take the devil out of Rex, and then Miss Ella would pray and ask God to keep the devil out of us.
When I was twelve, she took me to Atlanta to see my father-dinner with the soulless man atop his Atlanta high-rise. Like Napoleon, he chose the spot because from it he could look down on all the worlds he'd conquered.
Miss Ella herded me through the elevator door like a mother hen cramming me in between the hips of fifteen different people, all carrying leather bags and wearing dark suits and unhappy faces. A couple had umbrellas. I looked down and saw thirty feet, all shiny, stiff, and uncomfortable looking. Between the tight space and the mixture of fifteen perfumes, aftershaves, and hairsprays, and the swinging movement of the elevator, I grew dizzy and lightheaded.
If Miss Ella had a vice, it was spending too much money on hats-she loved them-but Rex didn't pay her much more than minimum wage, so she was selective. I remember looking up through all those shoulders, elbows, arm bags, and red fingernails and seeing this bright yellow hat accentuated with a pheasant cock feather. Yellow and red amid a sea of gray. Miss Ella was like that. Light in the darkness.
When the elevator lifted off, so did Miss Ella. With a captive audience, she lit into them. "I'd like to take this opportunity to give a little gospel message. The Lord Jesus loves you and offers you forgiveness and an opportunity for repentance and asks you to follow in the apostles' teaching."
That woman was a piece of work. I looked around at all those faces and just smiled. Those unhappy people got sixty floors of gospel preaching whether they liked it or not. To this day, I'm convinced that half exited the elevator long before their floor arrived. And to this day, I think Miss Ella spent her whole life guarding three things with her life: Mutt, me, and that Book.
Chapter 10
MOSE PRACTICED MEDICINE IN A LITTLE HOUSEturned-clinic just seven miles from Waverly, so growing up, my image of what a doctor is, does, and should be centered on him. Still does. When Miss Ella was teaching me to ride a bike and I flew over the handlebars, scraping my knees and busting open my lip, Mose sewed me up and put a Band-Aid on each knee. When Mutt had a fever that wouldn't break and soaked through two sets of sheets, Mose sat by the bed all night, listening through his stethoscope. And when Mutt woke up and asked for a popsicle, Mose went downstairs, picked through the box until he found three cherry-flavored ones, propped his feet up on the bed, and slurped with us. And finally, when I hurt my back and came home carrying my x-rays under my arm, Mose took one look, wiped away a tear, gave me a bear hug, and said, "Son, I loved to watch you play baseball."
Mose is the only man to ever hug me.
And when his sister got sick and she finally told him about the cancer, Mose told her she was a stubborn old woman, but that didn't stop him from bringing her breakfast and dinner every day or reading to her at night. Sometimes, he'd stay all night. After more than fifty years of doctoring, Mose sold his practice to a young doctor out of Montgomery and retired. And while he quit officially doctoring people, I discovered he still had a thing for horses.
Five years ago, I heard of a racetrack outside of Dallas with a stable of about eighty stud cutting horses. The owner had a reputation for breeding champion cutting horses for ranches across West Texas and other cowboy states. I spent a few days shooting the cutting horse competitions, the horses, and the cowboys who rode them.
When the horses turned three, the owner would run them in a few races, hang their ribbons around their necks, and then sell the semen or the horse for the right price. On a whim, he bought one Tennessee Walker and tried his luck but had none. A dark brown horse, black mane, seventeen hands high. He was magnificent. But he hated the track owner or he hated to show. Either way, he never won a thing. After a couple of shows and a lot of wasted money, the track owner tired, returned to his cutting horses, and quickly stuck the Tennessee Walker in a stall and started calling him "Glue." When he gave me the tour of his stables, he pointed to the horse and said, "That's Glue! 'Cause you need it to stay in the saddle, and it's what I ought to turn him into."
Over the next few days, I often found myself walking by Glue's stall. By the end of the weekend, Glue was sticking his head out the stall window and I was carrying carrots in my pocket. I casually inquired about a purchase price, and the track owner sold him on the spot for three thousand dollars. He even threw in two saddles and all the tack I would ever want. I paid a local cowboy to carry Glue and me back to Alabama, but I really had no plans for the horse. I just thought I'd let him roam the pasture because it was empty and Mose was bored. I figured the two would get along famously. And I was right. After a few months, Mose and Glue were inseparable. I told Mose, "Mose, he's half yours. Whether you want the front or back, it's up to you."
But then something happened that I wasn't expecting. A couple of local plantation owners stopped at the rail along side the paved road and inspected our horse. Mose was sitting atop the tractor, cutting the pasture grass, but stopped, leaned against the fence, and slipped his hands in the sides of his overalls.
"Excuse me sir," they said. "This your horse?"