We Are Gathered Here

[Teresa]

In the '60s my family spent weekends with a couple they affectionately referred to as "Betty and James the pains",  a loud and messy duo who were late to everything and clearly had severe undiagnosed ADHD. 

 

There's video footage of my mother and Betty dancing the "twist", then James holding Betty over his knee for a playful spanking - a young James Garner and freckled Patty Duke beaming on old 8 mm reels.

 

In a shopping strip on Fort Worth's Vaughn Avenue, beside Wayne's Convenience store where my brother was often sent to buy a forgotten gallon of milk or loaf of Mrs. Baird's, there was a makeshift Baptist church where James would occasionally preach.  We sat in metal fold-up chairs while "Brother" James paced on a small stage, emphasized Bible truths with his hands slicing and pounding the air, and though I was too young to understand the message, his 6'3" frame made me feel safe and his voice was mesmerizing, like a Boom! married to a violin; sometimes he sang beside my mother, dwarfing her 5'2" frame as she harmonized with a tamborine bouncing on one hip.

 

It was a Monday in 1984 when James and Betty knocked on my apartment door in Houston, late as usual, Betty frazzled and asking if I had a pair of pantyhose because she had "a dadgum runner"; their lined but familiar faces were like warm ghosts from a life that died more than seventeen years before, which made the drive to Jack Rowe Funeral Home awkward, maybe because their presence made me feel too young to be behind the wheel.

 

My mother's funeral was attended by many of her friends, my sister and I the only family except for the pains who officated with uncharacteristic poise; Betty sang a poem my mother had written about light and Jesus, while James mended souls from the pulpit. 

 

 

[Peter McNiff]

Long time since I read any of your pieces, Teresa. You just get better; and good to know there is a purpose to it all.

[Tara Moreno]

I admire the way you manipulate sentence structure and grammar to suit your expression. I like how you reference boom! then give the reader a sense of their own booming jolt when you disclose that your vivacious mother had died. You leave us wanting to know more. I would love to this in short story length.

Bravo.

[mal]

A great reminder that, what goes around comes around,and in real life its often a little more painful , but just as relevent. ( More Please ).

[Cita]

So sorry I didn't comment earlier.  I am serious when I say I am buying TEN of this book when it is released.

[Mike Handley]

Funny that you mention 8mm. That jerky B&W footage is exactly what my mind conjures when I read these.

[Brittany]

You paint an amazing canvas with every story you tell, T. I feel like Angela in that your memories are definitely something to look forward to reading :). Your paragraph in the middle made an ordinary scene seem extraordinary just in how you told it.

[Angela]

I look forward to the telling of your memories more than almost anything else on site.  The images are so vivid, and there is always at least one phrase gem that makes me wish I were a better writer.  Hope you will do reruns when you run out of memories.

[Toby Tucker Hecht]

True friendship may take a lapse but it never dies.

[Ron. Lavalette]

What a couple. seen through time's lens.  Marvelous writing.  Having recently reconnected (coincidentally at a funeral) with some old, aging, and long-lost friends, I can relate.

dadgum's a wonderful detail.

[Margaret Whittle]

A visualization by words,  I could see the "pains"...