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Show in my father's house/ 18 It says we mustn't use tobacco, but your own daddy smoked a cigarette in my ear to stop its aching. It's all right to use these things sometimes." "Then why can't I taste it?" She sighed and held the goblet for me. My mouth puckered. "It's awful! Why are we drinking that stuff?" "Shh. Because Brother Musser is here and it's a very special dinner -- kind of like the Last Supper." Brother Musser, stationed at the head of the table, and my father at the other end, laughed and joked with the mothers. But the two men across from me sat grim and cold as two folding chairs. I hadn't seen them for a long time and asked my mother who they were. "Members of the council," she whispered. "That one is Aunt LaVona's brother." The last time I saw the men, a much larger group assembled in a long, low hall built entirely of concrete so that voices echoed hollowly as people rose and spoke, their faces twisted or wet with emotion. I sat on my mother's lap because she didn't play the piano in those days; she had been "hiding out" -- staying at home with me because I was proof that my father had recently lived with her. One man had stood and pointed to the eight or ten men who posed along the front wall, facing the crowd. "These are the true council!" he boomed. "I'll kill the first man who says |
