About fifty years ago in Durgenville, a bunch of Holy Rollers castrated the statue of a bird dog on the courthouse square. At first, I had my doubts, but the lady who told me about it, Tillie Schaefer, was not only there, but she produced a newspaper account that backed her up, so I know it to be true.
To begin: There have been three major schisms in the history of the Christian church. We all know the significance of the year 1054, do we not? For that is the year of the Great Schism, when the Eastern Church in Constantinople and the Western Church in Rome turned to one another, and said, "Phooey on you!" That's the first split. And we all know the year 1517, when Martin Luther tacked up the 95 Theses which collectively said to the Roman Catholic Church, "Double-phooey on you!" That's the second big split, which we call the Reformation. Seems to me we've been in a reformatory ever since.
What you may not be familiar with is the year 1962, when the Full Gospel Apostolic Tabernacle underwent the Third Great Schism of Christendom. And all because a fellow named Shorty Killabee was reading the Ten Commandments when he suddenly blanched with fear and foreboding. Why? Because Shorty realized that most all Christian churches, including the Full Gospel Apostolic Tabernacle—were profaning the Sabbath by celebrating it on the wrong day—namely, Sunday instead of Saturday. How could such a thing have happened? he wondered. With his encyclopedic grasp of church history, Shorty blamed the Catholics. Suffice it to say that Shorty's conviction concerning the Sabbath took root and split the FGAT into two branches: The mother church and the new church, aptly called the Full Gospel Sabbath Keepers Apostolic Tabernacle. This history is significant only because it explains how Bob Tidwell happened to be in the Western Auto when all hell broke loose.
The year of our story was a full decade later, 1972, and by this time, the FGSKAT had established itself as a viable institution. The by-now "Reverend" Killabee was collecting enough money to keep the air conditioning running; the choir had put together a special praise and worship band with guitar, pan pipes, drums, and French horn; and the children of the church had gotten used to attending Sabbath School on Saturday mornings while their friends were playing tag in the dew-spangled grass. Adequately compensating the FGSKAT children was the satisfying spiritual superiority they felt by doing something different from everybody else. This they learned from their parents.
If for some reason, however, the children weren't sufficiently smug in their separated significance, the Elder E. C. Skaggs had arisen to reassure them. For in the spring of '72, E.C. declared, "This here country is goin' to hell in a hansom. We'un's gotta do somethin'!" Everybody in the church knew that E.C. was a sour, dour, harumphing grump who smelled of sebum and Vitalis and gave no damn for the children, any children, not really. But when he said he'd like to take on the Sabbath School bulletin board to teach the children Holy Truths, the Reverend Killabee said, "It's yores, Elder Skaggs! And God be with you."
So it was that every Sabbath morning for six months, the children witnessed another example of God's wrath directed against anybody who wasn't them. Lord only knows how many hours the Elder Skaggs spent cutting out felt cloth figures of sinners and flames and devils and also symbols of sin—whiskey bottles and cigarette packs and curvy ladies—but one could only suppose that he never watched Love, American Style on Friday nights. Catholics, Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, back to Catholics and Episcopalians, Baptists, the FGAT mother church, more Catholics, even Mennonites and Waldensians found themselves suspended by thumbtacks and writhing in a felt cloth hell, until the children had become so wrought and anxious that E.C.'s wife, Ora Lee, put her foot down and said, "What is wrong with you, old man? Yore goin' to send every one of them kids to the psych ward over in Little Rock! Stand down and let me take that bulletin board." Ora Lee had been raised Baptist, and no one before E.C. had ever had the affrontery to consign Baptists to hell. Catholics? Of course. Baptists? Never. She was furious. "Chew on that, you old fart!" And indeed E.C. seemed to be chewing on Ora Lee's words, for he stood in their living room agitating his jaw in a nervous and somewhat senile manner.
So it was that E.C. gathered himself for a final flourish, a phantasmagoria of agony so crowded with sinners and so ornamented with demons that it evoked comparisons to Michelangelo's Last Judgment. A vast orange and red sea spilled over onto the walls, and floating atop the felted flames was the FGSKAT church building with its chipboard spire. E.C. had even cut out a three-foot figure of the Gentle Savior that he taped on the wall over the bulletin board. The left hand was thrust downward in condemnation while the right gave the "okay" sign to the floating ark—a triumphalist depiction of the Full Gospel Sabbath Keepers Apostolic Tabernacle, world without end, amen!
E.C. had vented his mighty spleen, and now he sat in a pew, a man so meek he looked like he might just inherit the earth.
Now back to Ora Lee. After E.C. took his seat in the sanctuary, she told him in no uncertain terms, "Now you listen to me, old man—I need yore help with the pitchers. Just once, try not to screw up somethin' I want to do." According to Tillie, Ora Lee thought it would be nice to thumbtack some pictures of the children on next Saturday's bulletin board, so the "young'uns could see theirselves worshipping the Good Lord with their own kith and kin." That's why Ora Lee brought her Polaroid camera to church, and that's why during the sermon, she was squatting down and rolling up on her tiptoes and crouching sideways the way she saw photographers do on T.V. Ora Lee took pictures of the praise and worship band, of the children lifting holy hands, and of Reverend Killabee holding his Bible over his head; she photographed speakers in tongues and interpreters of tongues; she snapped healings and swoonings and ecstatic quiverings. All with her Polaroid.
In the annals of photography, there has never been another camera equal to the Polaroid. You could snap a picture, and right then and there, the picture would come whirring out of the camera. Then all you had to do was wait a minute or so—typically spent fanning the picture up and down—and peel back a flap of chemical paper, and voila! You had a developed picture.
Not that the Polaroid was perfect; the old'uns among you may also remember the "red-eye effect." More often than not, when you took a picture with a Polaroid, especially if you used the flash, folks' eyes came out red and glowing. The result was pretty eerie, as most everyone will agree. But for the Elder Skaggs, whom Ora Lee had enlisted to unpeel the photographs and lay them out on the pew, the effect was galvanizing, terrifying, and dare I say, gratifying. For with every developing picture, with every new set of glowing devil eyes, the Elder Skaggs became increasingly convinced that everybody in the FGSKAT was possessed by Satan, Prince of Darkness. Margaret Turnbutt, the French horn player, looked like a hefty gal on the verge of whoredom. The kids looked like extras from Children of the Corn. Elder Thompson looked like an affable, sleepy-eyed old demon whose closing eyes glinted red. Many have pondered how it was the eyes of the Reverend Killabee came out looking normal—well, except for his walleye, but that had nothing to do with Ora Lee's Polaroid. Tillie speculated it was the angle at which Ora Lee took the picture, which made Reverend Killabee look as tall as a water tower. Regardless, the good Reverend was not among the possessed, and after the service, E.C. caught Killabee by the coat sleeve. They stepped outside the church to engage in earnest conversation. Tillie told me, "I saw 'em lookin' at them pictures what Ora Lee took, but I had no idee what was gonna happen next."
The next Sabbath rolled around, and when the children entered their classroom, they were surprised, and somewhat relieved, to see the bulletin board was empty—no fire, no Catholics, just cork. Huh? What's up with that? they wondered. The children had their lesson [my favorite Old Testament story, namely, the time Jehovah sent a couple bears to kill forty-two boys who made fun of Elisha's bald head—author's note] and went upstairs to the main sanctuary. The praise band was playing that great old hymn, Hey, Jesus, Rock my Sins Away, while the faithful were taking their seats. The children had no sooner squirmed in between their mothers and fathers than the Reverend Killabee strode up to the pulpit.
He stood for a moment gripping the pulpit on either side; he hung his head and his hair fell forward; he shook his head and his hair swang; then he threw his head back and shouted: "He's here!" The congregation gave a collective jump in their pews, and for some unholy reason that's still being debated, Margaret Turnbutt played "Charge" on her French horn. The Reverend looked at Margaret and shook his head. "He's here, y'all," he whispered.
The church was quieter than it had been in its entire history. They heard Elder Thompson gently snoring. They heard the central air humming in the basement. They heard the outside sounds of people in the street and automobiles shifting gears and a radio playing music. The Reverend Killabee leaned over the pulpit with his eyes starting from his head, and he hollered again, "The devil's here, and he's inside you! Can you smell it?"
Everybody sniffed.
"Can you smell it?" he asked again. "That's the smell of sulfur, the smell of fire, the smell of HELL! I say unto you, 'The devil is here!'"
By now the congregation had become disconcerted and looked at one another in distress. The Reverend Killabee continued, "Last Sabbath, Sister Ora Lee—God bless her soul for the furtherance of our deliverance—took some pictures. I'm a-gonna pass them out to you now." And with that the preacher turned and flipped a photograph to the praise band. Billy Ibsen picked it up, laughed like a Scooby-Doo villain, and began playing low-down, dirty blues on his guitar; Margaret Turnbutt fainted dead away; John Walker starred mincing about and playing the pan pipes like Bacchus himself. Then the Reverend walked down the aisle, passing out photos as he went. "Look at the eyes, people. That's all you gotta do. Just look at the eyes." And as the faithful saw themselves with devil eyes a-glowing, they launched into a frenzy. They began jumping up and down, cursing and blaspheming, and rending their garments. Elder Thompson stood up with his thumbs tucked behind his suspenders and began reciting the Gettysburg Address.
Of course, E.C. was giddy from it all. Yes, his wife had taken the pictures, but it was he who peeled back the chemical paper, arranged the photos side by side on the pew, and watched them come into being. He was the first to observe the glowing eyes and ascertain their demoniac significance. He was the one who showed the pictures to Reverend Killabee. And most important, it was he, the Elder E. C. Skaggs, who demanded of Killabee that something must be done! Every bulletin board E.C. had ever decorated, every Chick tract he had ever passed out, indeed, every Bible verse he had ever misapprehended had been but small pebbles dropped into a vast sea. But this time, this time, by God, he had pushed the Statue of Liberty off the Washington Monument into the First Lady's lap. He had made an impact. He bowed his venerable head to give thanks.
The decibel level had grown intolerably loud, even for the Full Gospel Sabbath Keepers Apostolic Tabernacle, and Bob Tidwell, who owned the Western Auto across the street, said later that he had seriously considered locking his door and taking the rest of the day off. He said it was almost like he had an intuition. In fact, he said, he'd even thought about taking his .22 pistol out of the safe, but changed his mind: "Ah, hell, that's just ridiculous."
It wasn't fifteen minutes later that a French horn came crashing through his window, followed by Margaret Turnbutt, who was foaming at the mouth and hiking her skirt over her head. She was followed by several other church members, who though obviously addled had nevertheless opted to enter through the door. They were all clamoring for hammers, chisels, and "the ballocks of the beast."
To understand what happened next, I'm going to have to tell you a little about the layout and history of Durgenville. Like all sturdy Missouri county seats, Durgenville has a town square; in the middle of the square is the courthouse, and catty corner from the courthouse on the courthouse lawn stands the town statue. More than anything else, it's the statue that sets Durgenville apart from the other county seats, because while the other towns may have stone soldiers or city founders, Durgenville is the only one with the statue of a dog, a bird dog, to be precise, named Old Blue.
According to the plaque bolted in Old Blue's pedestal, the dog had belonged to one Wilbur Longstreet, colonel in World War I and long-ago mayor of Durgenville. His daughters, Amy and Mary Beth, had been playing around a pond in the dead of winter, when they fell through the ice. Without wasting a minute, Old Blue bounded to the hole, dragged the girls out, and commenced baying and barking until someone came to tend to them. The children were fine, but as always happens in stories of this sort, Old Blue contracted pneumonia and died. In honor of this heroic deed, though Amy and Mary Beth never really did amount to anything, Wilbur commissioned the statue to be made and set on the courthouse lawn.
Well, this is all fine and good, particularly if you're looking at Old Blue and the courthouse from the front. But if you've driven around the square, and you're coming up on Blue from the backside, it becomes readily apparent that he was a fine specimen of a male dog. His tail stands erect and rigid, and suspended beneath are what look like two tennis balls in a nylon stocking, you know, like witty rednecks hang from the trailer hitch on the back of their pick-ups. Now whether Old Blue had been genuinely endowed with testicles of this magnitude or whether they were supposed to be symbolic of his bravery or whether the artist just had a perverse sense of humor, no one will ever know. But everybody in Durgenville has either laughed or winced or complained or reacted in some fashion because it's simply impossible to drive up on a pair of dog balls that big and ignore them.
Of course, another question that's arisen is why the FGSKAT concentrated their demoniac energies on Old Blue's testicles. The most plausible theory—and the one Tillie believed—is that a concerned businessman stuck his head in the door of the church and shouted, "Here now! What's all this hullabaloo?" But because of all the ruckus, what the people heard was, "Here now! What's all this? To hell with Old Blue!" In any event, immediately thereafter, the folks came spilling out the front doors and into the street, yelling and calling for the "ballocks of the beast." That's why Margaret hurled her French horn through Bob's window, and that's why they ransacked his store. Bob said it was the damnedest thing he's ever seen:
"If I live to be a hunnert, I'll never forget the way them folks carried on. I kindly asked them what they wanted, but they just kept hollerin' and pointin' to their eyes, like they had some kind of magical powers or somethin'—hell if I know. You know Terry Eldon? Works out at the chicken plant? Well, he was crazier'n all of 'em, 'cept maybe the Turnbutt gal. He called hisself 'King of the Red Eyes' and said he'd been commissioned by the Prince of Darkness to bring back the ballocks of the beast. I was tryin' to talk some sense into him, when Margaret started whoopin' and flappin' her skirts, and then she flang herself into my nail bin. Nails went flyin' everywhere, and I thought she'd surely killed herself, but she didn't have a scratch on her. Well, that set Terry off again, and he started slinging stuff everywhere. I thought, I'm getting' the hell out of here, and when I went outside, I saw Sheriff Walker drivin' up with his lights flashin'. I said, 'Sheriff, you gotta do somethin'; them loonies is tearing up my store.'"
"Old Walker gets out of his car and shoots off his gun straight over his head, like that 'uz gonna do some good. The only thing that would-a worked would-a been if he started shootin' them, but he ain't thought of that yet. Anyhow, here they come: Wavin' hacksaws and hammers and chantin', 'The ballocks of the beast! The ballocks of the beast!' Walker pulls out his bullhorn and says, 'You people, you stop this! You are breaking the law and disturbing the peace!'"
"Hell, they just pushed past him and went over to the courthouse, with him followin' along and shoutin' into his bullhorn and actin' like a idiot."
"I didn't realize it at the time, but most of the church had already gathered around the statue, and they were chantin' the same thing: 'The ballocks of the beast! The ballocks of the beast!' I went over there, and who do you think I saw? That damned E.C. Skaggs who runs the secondhand store over on Third. They had already hoisted him up on their shoulders and before anybody had a chance to do anything, he took a cold chisel and hammer and castrated Old Blue. He held them nuts over his head and the crowd went crazy, screamin' and shoutin' and raisin' all kinds of hell."
"'Course by now, the whole town has stepped outside to see what the hell is goin' on. That's about the time Shorty Killabee limps up, looking all rained on and run over, with that one eye a-lookin' off to nowhere, and he hollers, 'Peace! Be still!' And right away, those folks just hushed. I think E.C. sees how silly he looks, settin' on a man's shoulders with a pair of cement dog balls in his hands, 'cause he dropped down in the crowd and hustled hisself off."
"Then old Shorty raises his hands and says, 'Devil! I charge thee to come out of these people!' Then he starts to squawkin' in unknown tongues and shoutin' 'In the NAME of JEE-zus!' and you know what? It done the trick. Them people gave a mighty whoop, and the next thing you know, they was back to normal, well, as normal as those folks can be. They straggled back into the church, lookin' at the ground and actin' ashamed, which they should've been, the damned fools."
"I caught Shorty by the arm and said, 'Yore damned church wrecked my store!' And you know what he said? 'Jest be glad they didn't wreck yore soul, Bob.' I told him, 'I'll take care of my soul. You'd better by God take care of my hardware store, 'cause I'll sue yore ass.' And I will, too, if he don't make it right. Damned fools."
And that's about all there is to tell. Galena did hire a mason to stick some new and unexceptional testicles onto Old Blue; you can still see them today when you visit. Ora Lee has given up on the Full Gospel Sabbath Keepers Apostolic Tabernacle manner of worship and is back to attending the First Baptist Church. Tillie said she dropped by to visit Ora Lee and noticed that E.C. had put Old Blue's balls on his bowling trophy shelf. She said E.C. seemed right proud of them.