Published Tuesday, April 29, 2008 9:49 AM
Updated Tuesday, April 29, 2008 9:51 AM

 

My Hometown 4/30/08

Episode 4: The Pope comes to Tellers Gap


Who knows how rumors like these get started?

Perhaps an overheard remark here or there, or a dropped name meant to impress a pretty woman who is definitely out of your league that is taken out of context by the party sitting at the next table over.

Nobody quite knows for sure how all this started or why, but most agree when it started.

On a Thursday morning, at 9:04 a.m.: The Pope is coming to Tellers Gap.

Mavis Cathey started it, as best as it can be determined. She heard Ned Chambers say something to Ted Pickens at the corner counter over his pancakes and sausage, and Marietta’s special slow-cooked grits at Nick’s Dew Drop Inn while she wiped down a table behind them. She heard it distinctly and clearly and will stand fast behind it to her dying day.

Ned said, “The Pope is coming Sunday.”

Just to be sure she gave the table another swipe around the corners and she heard Ned mention the words “Pope” and “coming here on Sunday” three times.

Her first thought as she scrubbed away a stubborn smear of dried ketchup: “Why hasn’t someone said anything about it before now?”

Mavis even interrupted and asked Ned to clarify, something she is quite infamous for doing around town, being the self-admitted busybody that she is, which she defends just as steadfastly by saying it’s part of quality customer service to keep her clients informed of the town’s latest gossip.

“Mavis could put out a newspaper on just her gossip alone and give the Daily Citizen a run for its money,” Old Nick always said.

“Who you talking about, Ned?” Mavis leaned in between them.

And Ned confirmed it right then and there.

“Who do you think I’m talking about? The Pope?”

There it was, out there in the open, no longer a secret.

The Pope is coming to Teller’s Gap. It all made sense to her now.

Ned Chambers was a Deacon at First First Baptist, and while Southern Baptists don’t think much of the Catholics – in fact, she thought, some Southern Baptists don’t even think much of other Southern Baptists – leave it to those come-uppity ne’er do wells at First First to try and pull a stunt like this.

“We’ll show them,” Mavis Cathey said to herself. “Pope or no Pope we’ll show the world how proper Southern Baptists ought to act.”

Mavis waited until the breakfast rush had waned and made a beeline down Main Street for the Second First front steps and the weekly Thursday morning Deacon Fellowship breakfast and prayer meeting.

“I tell you,” Mavis said, slamming her hand down on the lunchroom table so hard she knocked over a glass of orange juice. “I would expect nothing less of WT (pronounced Dubya Tay) Howell. Leave it to him to invite the Pope to town and not tell us.”

“Sister Mavis,” Pastor Brother Billy T. Love said. “Pastor Brother WT (pronounced Dubya Tay) is a snake in the grass. We will do those highbrow snobs at First First one better and in the grand Second First tradition we will do it five minutes before they do.”

At that moment, Pastor Brother Billy T. convened a special Top Secret Deacon’s Coven where he and his fellow Deacon Brothers donned the ceremonial Black Robes of the Elders.

This assured that word would get back to those at First First because Deacon Brother Harlan Musselwhite had only seen the Black Robes of the Elders come out of mothballs once before in his life and that was 52 years ago when he was eight and his Daddy Lee Arthur slipped on the same robe he now would wear. Deacon Brother Harlan was married to a Brandywine – Eleanor, and everybody knows the Brandywines are staunch First First Baptists, and Miss Ellie hasn’t gone a day over the entire 58 years of her life without talking to her momma.

“Momma, you would not believe who is coming to town on Sunday.”

The customary pregnant pause would follow for dramatic effect.

“The Pope, that’s who. Yes, the Pope. No, I’m not lying – may lightning strike me dead if I am. Yes momma, I know the Pope’s Catholic, but Harlan attended a special Deacons Brother Coven today. He got to wear the Black Robe of the Elders. Yes momma, they brought out the Black Robes! See? I told you the Pope is coming.”

And that’s how train wrecks start.

Pastor Brother Billy T. called the mayor and informed him of the Deacons Brother Coven and why the Black Robes of the Elders were pulled out of storage. The mayor, Big Earl Culpepper exclaimed, “Tarnation! We’ve got to hurry. WT (pronounced Dubya Tay) only left us three days.”

“Snake in the grass he is,” Pastor Brother Billy T. hissed and did the little snake fang thing with his fingers. “Leave it to First First Baptist to keep this from the rest of us.”

“Hear these words by mayoral decree, I declare this coming Sunday to be ‘Welcome Pope Day.’ This will be the finest pastoral celebration Tellers Gap and all of the South has ever seen.”

The mayor even stood and waggled a pudgy biscuit-and-gravy soaked finger at the rafters, “The South will rise again!”

And of course because Pastor Brother WT (pronounced Dubya Tay) Howell had nothing to do with any Pope coming to Tellers Gap, when he heard word of the Black Robes of the Elders coming out of mothballs he believed in all sincerity that the Pope was indeed coming to Tellers Gap on Sunday and somehow Pastor Brother Billy T. had finagled a way to get him here. He convened a special Deacons Brother Coven of the Garnett Hood.

“We’ll show Pastor Brother Billy T. who put the First in First First.”

Somewhere out there in the great abyss of idiocy wandered a poor and lonesome conclusion and look at how fast everybody jumped to it.

Like moths to a porch light.

 

Next week: Welcome Pope Day