Southern Greed (3 page)

By
tracdhall

Nov 25, 2010

This book kept me wanting to read more! Made me laugh and cry. Love the characters-great personalities!
Im
going to order the sequel today.

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By
martha
-mills

Nov 21, 2010

A great effort.
I liked the insider descriptions of culture, situations, and locations where this book took place. I just ordered the sequel.

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By
amandalegg

Nov 9, 2010

I cried and I laughed what a great book. I got really into all the
charaters
made me feel as though I was there.

CHAPTER ONE

Growing up in the south, in a very fundamentalist church, I had always done the right thing for fear of going to hell if I didn’t.  I gave my heart to Jesus at the
age of
14.
  That was in 1957.

When I say I gave my heart to Jesus, this is how it happened.  After being told all my life that I would go to hell if I wasn’t “saved,” I had begun to have nightmares about hell, a horrible way to bring up a child.

So, with all the confusion that goes on in the adolescent years, and with my hormones raging, I just knew that the feelings I was having were sinful.  After living in fear for too long I decided to surrender.

Looking back now, as an adult, I can see how the whole process works.  It’
s simple
manipulation through fear, guilt, and shame.  In other words, when you hit adolescence and you get horny, they see it as an opportunity to double their
guilt trip efforts and get you down to that altar and get you saved.

It didn’t matter that the evangelist who prayed
o
ver me to be saved was the same one who raped me later on in the week of the revival.  No one believed me anyway and claimed that I wasn’t saved like I cl
aimed
to be
or I wouldn’t have lied
about a
good
man of God like the Reverent Jacobs.

I repented for my lies about the good reverend and he got away with rape and probably continued his campaign with other unsuspecting adolescents.

I was a good girl and made my mama proud, by becoming a leader in the church and helping other young people repent and be saved, until well into my twenties.

I had taken a job in a small dress shop, called Toot
s
ies, right out of high school and had, after several years of
hard work,
become assistant manager
at the age of twenty three.

Having lived into my twenties and never tasting life, so to speak,
you might say I was ripe for the picking.

I had finally convinced my mama that I was old enough to have my own apartment, even though she was convinced I wanted to do something I needed to hide or I would have just stayed at home.

I want to take a moment here to describe myself.  I have always been a mousey little thing with brown hair and blue eyes.  My hair is very fine and I always look like a wet rat to me.

CHAPTER TWO

One night near closing time, I was
walking around the store making sure the girls were straightening up, putting things back on hangers etc., when I
almost bumped into the most gorgeous man I had ever seen.

He stood smiling down at me with the deep dimples on his cheeks and with the bluest eyes I had ever seen.  His hair was almost blue-black with a curl he kept pushing off his forehead.
  His shoulders were wider than any I had ever seen on any men in the church but his hips were narrow.