Distance Learning

1987- We'll ask the preachers to pray for her. He's healed a lot of folks. The reverend Bevel Summers. Maybe she ought to see him sometimes.

1988- She stood looking down at him as if he had become a marvel to her. ''I'II have to see you meet him today,'' she said. ''He's no ordinary preacher.  He's a healer.  He couldn't do nothing for Mr. Connin though.  Mr. Connin didn't have the faith but he said he would try anything once.  He had this griping in his gut.''

1989- ''That's Bevel,'' Mrs. Connin said, taking of her coat. ''It's a coincident he's named the same as the preacher.  These boys are J. C., Spivey, and Sinclair, and that's Sarah Mildred on the porch.  Take of that coat and hang it on the bed post, Bevel.''

1990- ''Git away!” Mrs. Connin shouted. “that one yonder favors Mr. Pamdise that has the gas station,'' she said. “You'll see him today at the healing.  He's got the cancer over his ear.  He always comes to show he ain't been healed.''

1991-  If he had thought about it before, he would have thought Jesus Christ was a word like ''oh'' or ''damn'' or “God,'' or maybe somebody who had cheated them out of something sometime.  When he had asked Mrs. Connin who the man in the sheet in the picture over her bed was, she had looked at him a while with her mouth open.  Then she had said, ''That's Jesus,'' and she had kept on looking at him.

1992- ''The Life of Jesus Christ for Readers Under Twelve.''  Then she read him the book.

1993- ''If you ain't come for Jesus, you ain't come for me.  If you just come to see can you leave your pain in the river, you ain't come for Jesus.  You can't leave your pain in the river,'' he said. “I never told nobody that.'' He stopped and looked down at his knees.

1994- His voice grew soft and musical.  “All the rivers come from that one River and go back to it like it was the ocean sea and if you believe, you can lay your pain in that River and get rid of it because that's the River that was made to carry sin.  It's a River full of pain itself, pain itself, moving toward the Kingdom of Christ, to be washed away, slow, you people, slow as this here old red water river round my feet.

1995- ”I know from my own self-experience,'' a woman's mysterious voice called from the knot of people, “I know from it that this preacher can heal.  My eyes have been opened! I testify to Jesus!”

1996- ''Listen,'' Mrs. Connin said, ''have you ever been Baptized, Bevel?''

He only grinned.

“I suspect he ain't ever been Baptized,'' Mrs. Connin said, raising her eyebrows at the preacher.

''Swang him over here,'' the preacher said and took a stride forward and caught him.

 

1997- “If I Baptize you,'' the preacher said, ''you'll be able to go to the Kingdom of Christ.  You'll be washed in the river of suffering, son, and you'll go by the deep river of life.  Do you want that?''

 

1998- His mother sat straight up. “Well the nerve!'' she muttered.

“Furthermore,'' Mrs. Connin said, ''he’s a healer and he prayed for you to be healed.''

''Healed!'' she almost shouted.  “Healed of what for Christ's sake?''

“Of your affliction,'' Mrs. Connin said icily.

 

1999- ”I know from my own self-experience,'' a woman's mysterious voice called from the knot of people, “I know from it that this preacher can heal.  My eyes have been opened! I testify to Jesus!”

 

2000- The father had returned with the money and was standing near Mrs. Connin waiting to give it to her.  His eyes were lined with red threads.  “Go on, go on,'' he said, “I want to hear more about her affliction.  The exact nature of it has escaped . . .''  He waved the bill and his voice trailed off.  ''Healing by prayer is mighty inexpensive.'' he murmured.

 

2001- ''Come here, Harry,'' his mother said.  He automatically lifted his direction toward her without opening his eye any farther. ''Tell me what happened today,'' she said when he reached her.  She began to pull off his coat.

 

2002- “Don't let George go off with that,'' his girl said.

“I tell you it's valuable,'' George said. “1832.''

2003- He shut his eye and heard her voice from a long way away, as if he were under the river and she on top of it.  She shook his shoulder.  “Harry,'' she said, leaning down and putting her mouth to his ear, “tell me what he said.'' She pulled him into a sitting position and he felt as if he had been drawn up from under the river. ''Tell me,'' she whispered and her bitter breath covered his face. 

 

2004- He got up and tiptoed into their bedroom and stood in the dim light there, looking for her pocketbook.  His glance posed her long pale arm hanging off the edge of the bed down to the floor, and across the white mound his father made, and past the crowded bureau, until it rested on the pocketbook hung on the back of a chair.  He took a car-token out of it and half a package of Life Savers.  Then he left the apartment and caught the car at the corner.  He hadn't taken a suitcase because there was nothing from there he wanted to keep.

2005- Mr. Paradise’s head appeared from time to time on the surface of the water. Finally, far downstream, the old man rose like some ancient water monster and stood empty-handed, staring with his dull eyes as far down the river line as he could see.