The Wisdom of Hair by Kim Boykin Page B

every Sunday.
    As the organist played music, folks talked amongst themselves. Then she played a little louder; everyone was quiet as the choir filed in like a green-robed army. The minister was a solemn, wiry-looking little man with salt-and-pepper hair and Coke bottle–thick glasses. Mrs. Farquhar had raved about him and what a joy for the Lord he had, but he didn’t look very joyful to me.
    But the music director looked downright euphoric and would make just about anybody who wasn’t a Christian want a dose of what he had. He talked before every song, and we sang five or six of them, about what the song meant or what it meant to him personally. Whenthat music began, he waved his arms like nobody’s business and shook his head about like he was conducting a great orchestra. Watching him, all I could think about was that I sure would like to give that man a good haircut. He only had about six long, wispy sections of hair that in the beginning were combed in such a way as to try to hide the entire top of his bald head. By the time he was done with the first song his hairs were wild and everywhere, but after each hymn he sat down, took a little black plastic comb out of his pocket, and slicked his hair back across the top of his head.
    Mr. Farquhar loved to sing. He had a big, deep voice, and you could hear him over everybody. He also liked to say “Amen” every five seconds or so when he wasn’t singing. Mrs. Farquhar would smile and nod and say, “Yes, Lord” so softly you could just barely hear her, because I don’t think women were supposed to say “Amen” out loud like her husband did.
    When it was time for the sermon, that little wiry man stood up at the podium and preached against everything known to mankind. Some things I knew were bad, like drugs and running around, but others I didn’t know. TV was bad. Rock music was bad. He even said beach music was bad. I’d always liked those old songs, and I thought it was funny that the rest of the world had pretty much forgotten The Tams, The Drifters, and the like. But those groups seemed to make a good living playing their sinful music at every single beach town up and down the Carolina coast. And if Jesus himself came down and took a poll of that whole congregation, most all of them would have had to admit they shagged on a regular basis, even if it was just in the privacy of their own homes.
    But in the Bible, Job didn’t listen to rock music or beach tunes, and the way the preacher tied the whole message into Job’s troubles it sounded like he did. I guess the preacher wanted us to believe that all of Job’s sins caused his suffering, but it said right there plain as day in the pew Bible that Job was a righteous man.
    After the service, everybody shook my hand. Mrs. Cathcart came clear across the other side of that big sanctuary to tell me she was glad to see me at church. Mrs. Farquhar introduced me to several people, telling them I was just like a daughter to her, which I didn’t know. Mr. Farquhar said that he didn’t want to visit all day like they did most every Sunday because he was hungry, so we slipped out the side door without shaking that preacher’s hand, which was fine by me.
    Back home, when Nana was living, we used to have a family reunion at our house. The men would set up big tables made out of sawhorses and plywood, and smoke deer meat or wild turkeys, sometimes a whole hog. The women would cover the tables with whatever came out of the garden that summer. Even with all that, I had never seen such a spread like the one on Mrs. Farquhar’s dinner table.
    There was fried chicken and mashed potatoes, gravy in a little silver boat, and fancy dinner rolls with butter hardened into the shape of sunflowers. Mr. Farquhar loved vegetables, so we had butter beans, corn, crowder peas, sliced tomatoes, and fried okra. The fine linen tablecloth and little napkins were hand-embroidered with Mrs. Farquhar’s initials, NGF, and the food that wasn’t