Holy Ghost Girl by Donna M. Johnson Read Free Book Online Page B

cigarettes, but Randall remembered.
    “Time to be sinners. Gimme the matches, Pam.”
    He put a cigarette between his teeth and struck the match. He puffed and coughed and puffed some more until the tip glowed steadily. He passed the matches to Pam, who lit one and handed it to me, then lit another for herself. We puffed until we grew dizzy and slipped to the ground. Randall tried to stand and stumbled.
    My stomach lurched, but I smoked on. Randall threw down his cigarette butt and fired up another. He walked around the barn puffing hard and waving the cigarette in the air. Pam and I put our dresses into our panties and followed him, bony hips swaying. We threw our halfsmoked stubs on the ground and pulled out three more. Gary roamed around the barn and stared at us, chocolate smeared across his face.
    The fire started in a corner of the barn, just a few sparks at first, nothing to worry about, then a little lick of yellow tinged with blue and another and another. Nothing we couldn’t have stamped out, if we had worn shoes, only we saved our shoes to wear to church and went barefoot when we played. Randall grabbed a handful of hay and tried to pat out the flames, but that made the fire hungrier and soon it was dashing here and there like a mad dog with us running behind it, and then in front of it yelling, “Help, help, please help!”
    Pam grabbed our jar of drinking water and sloshed it toward the heat. Randall grabbed Gary and headed for the door. Pam and I screamed and pushed behind him. We dashed through the yard screaming, “Fire! Fire! Fire!” Our mothers ran into the yard, long hair flying. One of them grabbed a hose. Neighbors appeared and tossed buckets of water.
    The volunteer firemen, mostly farmers, arrived in old pickup trucks, more of an afterthought than a firefighting threat. The barn could not be saved, they declared; too far gone. They stood around in their overalls, talking, spitting, and smoking. So different from pictures of firemen. No boots. No hats. No big red truck that I recall. Just a bunch of old men doing old-men things, there to ensure the fire didn’t spread to their properties. Pam, Randall, and I stood behind and to the side of the firemen, watching the flames rush through the small wooden building. The dry wood crackled and popped like a big campfire, only no one roasted hot dogs or toasted marshmallows. On what had been the right-hand side of the barn, a charred skeleton framed the yellow-orange glow of destruction. Long rectangles of corrugated tin dangled from what was left of the beams that just a few minutes earlier had supported the holeriddled roof. Rivulets of fire lapped the perimeters of the window from the inside, then rushed out in a torrent. Soon the left side, too, would be gone. My mom slumped by the side door of the house with Gary hanging on one hip, a dazed look on her face. Betty Ann stood beside them, arms loose at her sides, her head cocked as if studying the fire for clues. Brother Terrell was still praying in the woods behind the barn. I did not like to think what would happen when he returned. I chewed my fingernails, Pam cracked her knuckles, and Randall hopped from one foot to the other, his neck turning like a periscope as he scanned the distance looking for his daddy. Smoke poured from the barn and formed a tall black column against the Georgia sky. Brother Terrell was bound to see it wherever he was.
    Randall spoke for all of us. “Lord, I wished we’d burnt to death in the fire. Or at least been hurt.”
    Pam nodded. “That way he’d have to feel sorry for us.”
    Brother Terrell had never whipped me, but I had seen him slap after Randall with a belt. I was more terrified by the redness of his neck and the way he pinched his tongue into a hard little point between his teeth than I was of the belt. When my mother wanted my attention fast, she called out, “Don’t make me call Brother Terrell.” While none of us, kids or adults, wanted to get caught on