The Devil in Pew Number Seven (14 page)

Sometime around 8 p.m. on Tuesday, July 1, 1975, her work was finally done for the day. She enjoyed a few minutes of tranquil quiet as she sat down with Danny to rock him to sleep. Wrapped in a pillowy-soft, baby blue nightgown and sporting a fresh cloth diaper that had been carefully pinned around his five-month-old bottom, Danny had been fed his last bottle for the night and was out like a light.

Transitioning him from the rocking chair to the cradle, Momma laid him on his tummy in his crib. Although space was tight, his crib was adjacent to my parents’ bed and a few feet from one of the two bedroom windows. Although the plan was eventually to give him his own bedroom down the hall, for now this was the most practical arrangement.

I could hear Momma hum a few bars of her favorite song, “Danny Boy,” as she eased out of the bedroom. Closing the door softly behind her, Momma then stopped by my bed for nightly prayers. Once again, we prayed for Mr. Watts and for God’s hand of protection over us. After we had prayed for several minutes and before I climbed under the covers, I embraced Momma. I buried my head against her neck and squeezed her with all the strength my little arms could muster.

I never wanted to let go.

I was still reeling from the gunshots that had hit our house just three nights before. I needed Momma’s assurance that everything would be okay, that tonight nothing bad would happen to me. To her. To any of us. I couldn’t shake the feelings of dread that Mr. Watts might strike again. Instinctively sensing the distress coursing through my body, she ran her fingers through my hair and kissed the top of my head.

“Mona?” Daddy was calling from the kitchen.

“I’ll be right there, Robert,” Momma said just above a whisper. True, Danny was a sound sleeper—most of the time. Even so, she didn’t want to wake him by speaking too loud.

“Hold me, Momma . . .”

“I am holding you, darling.” I could feel the warmth of her breath tickle my ear like a feather as she spoke. “But I’ve got to help your daddy put up the food.”

“Please . . .”

“Sweetheart, I’ll come back and check on you after a little while, okay?” She lifted me onto my bed and snuggled the covers around me.

“Promise?”

With a kiss to my forehead, she said, “I promise.”

I didn’t let go.

“Becky,” she said, cradling my face in her hands. “Do you remember what Psalm 91 says?”

Our eyes met. I nodded. It was one of her favorite parts of the Bible. Momma loved to quote from it whenever I was fearful. Softly and slowly, she spoke the words from memory, “‘He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.’ You’ll be fine. The Lord is watching over you.” With a smile that melted my heart, she said, “I love you, darling. Now off you go to bed.”

She kissed my forehead and then helped me under my covers. Turning out the light, Momma headed to the kitchen to join Daddy, who was preparing a variety of foods for the freezer. I could hear them as they worked at the other end of the small house. I pictured them side by side, cutting and wrapping the fresh fish Daddy had caught and the meat they had bought.

As I’d seen them do before, I knew they’d be cutting and placing the vegetables and fruit purchased at the market or picked from the garden into individual baggies. Since Momma often entertained unexpected guests, she liked to keep her freezer stocked with preportioned options.

The sound of my parents talking and working into the night had a calming effect on me, much like listening to the gentle waves of the ocean caressing the beach. The comforting rhythm of their voices ebbed and flowed until at some point, my eyelids yielded to the tidal pull of sleep. While Danny and I slept at one end of the house and while my parents bustled about like two beavers busy preparing food at the opposite end, three men entered our yard with dynamite in their hands and evil on their minds.

* * *

The strategy of this, the third bombing,
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was to position the charge of explosives near the corner of our house closest to where Danny and I were sleeping—a mere twenty feet from our beds. At 10 p.m., Mr. Watts’s three henchmen lit the fuse and then sped away. Like an extended thunderclap, the rumble from the blast could be heard more than two miles away and was felt by neighbors living several doors up the street.

Momma’s friend Carolyn Sellers, who lived on the other side of Aunt Pat’s house in a single-wide trailer, watched the force of the blast literally rock the peas in the pot on her stove. Turning to her husband, Roger, Carolyn told him, “Don’t go out there.
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That parsonage is plumb blown up. It’s not there.”

I have no idea why my room didn’t suffer damage, aside from dolls and framed pictures being knocked from my dresser. My parents’ room was hit hard. The bomb blew out three windows, two in their bedroom and one in their bathroom. The glass, wood frames, and windowsills sailed into the room like spears seeking a target.

In a blur of tears and screams, I fled my room and ran for my life. I found myself outside in the front yard, running in place as if a jolt of electricity were coursing through my nervous system. The palms of my shaking hands covered the sides of my head. My ears throbbed as if someone had taken a rubber mallet and struck my eardrums. When Daddy, running toward me, called my name, his voice sounded muffled, as if I were hearing it in muted tones underwater.

He dropped to his knees and pulled me to himself. I collapsed in his arms. “I’m here, sweetheart,” he said, over and over. “It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s okay.”

Through streams of hot tears, I saw Momma across the front lawn heading in our direction. Relieved that both of my parents were safe, I closed my eyes and tried to breathe. I felt Momma join our little huddle; her arms slipped around my waist as she nuzzled the back of my neck with her face. Although she tried to sound strong, her voice was shaky. “Oh, my darling, Becky . . . my sweet, precious darling.” At some point it occurred to me that Danny wasn’t with us, but I was too afraid to ask if he had survived the blast. Was that why Momma was sobbing?

Within minutes of the explosion, people from all parts of town flooded into our yard. Momma’s friend and singing partner, Eleanor Tyree, and her husband, James, who lived more than a mile away, had jumped into their car and were among the first to arrive at the parsonage.

Eleanor asked, “Where’s Danny?”
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“I . . .” Momma shook her head side to side.

Eleanor reached out and gripped Momma’s arm. “Ramona, is the baby all right?”

“He’s still . . . still in his room.”

Momma had been so unnerved by the attack that she couldn’t face seeing what might have happened to her baby. I think she expected the worst and couldn’t bring herself to go inside that bedroom. For his part, Daddy had watched me run out the front door and, recognizing that I might be headed straight into danger, chased after me. Who was to say there wasn’t still a sniper outside? Or maybe someone waiting to kidnap one of us? He knew these people were capable of anything, and his first instinct was to prevent anything else from happening to his daughter.

“Don’t you worry, Ramona,” Eleanor said, “I’ll get him.” With that, she raced inside. As Eleanor approached the bedroom, she expected to hear Danny crying, wailing in pain. Instead, there wasn’t a sound emanating from behind the closed door. She pushed open the door, snapped on the light, and gasped at the minefield of broken glass and torn drapes.

Still no sound from Danny.

How could that be? Was he dead?

After all, his crib, situated under one of the shattered windows, was directly in the line of fire. Eleanor hurried across the room to the baby. In spite of the fact that glass and wood fragments had cascaded into Danny’s crib, she couldn’t believe that he never woke up. Nor did a single sliver of glass or fragment of wood land on his body, which is a miracle considering that he was surrounded by razor-sharp objects.

Had Danny stirred or rolled over, his tender body would have been pierced like a pincushion in a hundred different places. Chunks of glass could have cut his face, his eyes, his bare arms with ease. Instead, as if an angel had covered Danny with his wings, not a scratch was found on him. Momma had been right when she had recited those words just hours before about God’s protection . . . “He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust” (Psalm 91:4).

With care, Eleanor plucked Daniel from the jaws of the lions’ den and carried him to Momma. By the time Eleanor rejoined us in the yard, a full contingent of police officers had descended upon us. Traffic on Sellerstown Road was immediately placed under surveillance. The familiar swirling red and blue beacons lit up the night sky, casting bursts of color against our faces as Daddy and Momma spoke with members of the church who had come to offer whatever help and comfort they could provide.

That’s when my daddy lost it.

While talking with friends, Daddy looked across the street and saw Mr. Watts, flanked by several of his thugs, standing at the edge of his driveway. Like a vulture enjoying a feast of death, Mr. Watts was surveying the damage. He seemed to be savoring the tasty chaos and the delicious panic created by the bombing.

A moment later, Daddy’s eyes met his.

They stared, unblinking.

Like two rivals facing each other before a gunfight in the Wild West, they stood their ground. Daddy stopped his conversation midsentence. He began to contemplate the unthinkable. In that moment, adrenaline pumping through his being, the old man, the barroom brawler, the ex-Navy fighter, threatened to assert himself. How dare Mr. Watts try to kill his family? Didn’t he have the right to defend his home from this deranged man?

Mr. Watts glared back at Daddy from behind his thick black glasses. Still staring, the corners of his mouth morphed into a smile, an evil, demented grin of satisfaction. As if rubbing salt in a wound, Mr. Watts began to laugh at the mayhem he had caused. Taking a cue from their boss, his goons began to chuckle too. The laughing and backslapping were all Daddy could take.

That night, the perpetrator had crossed the line.

With every raw fiber in him screaming injustice, Daddy set aside the biblical call to “love your neighbor as yourself” and the instruction to “pray for your enemies”—themes he had preached from the pulpit for years. Instead, driven by a desire to defend his family, Daddy took off like a charging bull across our yard toward Mr. Watts. Given his size and the magnitude of his wrath, it took several men, including James Tyree, to grab Daddy and hold him back from doing something that most certainly would have landed him in jail.

I had never seen my daddy so livid.

James Tyree was convinced by the look in Daddy’s eyes that if he had reached Mr. Watts, Daddy would have unleashed two-and-a-half years of pent-up rage and, quite possibly, have killed Mr. Watts on the spot. While wrong, no one would have blamed Daddy, considering all that Mr. Watts had put our family through.

A few of the church members later said they should have let Daddy go that night, come what may. If necessary, they would have gladly posted bond on his behalf. In their eyes, it was heroic for Daddy to settle the matter with his own hands.

And yet I know Daddy must have had deep regrets for allowing himself to get so close to the edge. He knew the Scriptures well enough to know that his struggle wasn’t against flesh and blood but against the devil, the enemy of his soul. After that momentary lapse in judgment, and in spite of what Mr. Watts would do in the future, Daddy prayed he’d never take matters into his own hands.

It takes a tough man to turn the other cheek.

* * *

Daddy was troubled over the impact that these attacks were having on us. Like any parent, he wanted his family to be safe. He yearned to protect us, though he prayed he wouldn’t resort to brute force. At the same time, as Daddy told a reporter the next day, “I’m no quitter.
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I will not desert my congregation.” Daddy vowed to stand his ground, even if it cost him his life; he wouldn’t hesitate “to lay down my life in defense of my church, but the continual danger that is inflicted on my wife and children has to be stopped.”

Speaking to another reporter after the third bombing, Daddy explained why he wasn’t packing his bags and leaving town: “So many of God’s soldiers
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spend their time retreating. The Bible teaches that when the wolf comes the hireling will flee, but the Good Shepherd will lay down His life for His sheep.”

Taking his cue from Jesus’ example, Daddy would stand by his congregation until God told him to move on. As such, Daddy would never let Mr. Watts drive him away from serving the Lord in Sellerstown. Daddy told the press, “When the Lord gets ready for me to leave this church, He won’t send the message by the devil.”

I’m not sure how Mr. Watts felt about that comparison.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he was flattered.

After all, his devilish plans were far from over.

Chapter 8

Holding On to Hope