Chapter VIII

©2008 Robert Sommers

Lavelle was plainly worried. There was something in his sister's voice that bothered him and he couldn't put his finger on it. He pulled the wet curl of jet black hair up tight between his middle and index fingers and sheared it off with his sharp scissors. It had been a long day and thank the lord, he had been blessed with a steady stream of customers. One last cut and he could get ready for the revival meeting and start making the pasta.

The sun was starting to set on the mountains. It was filled with the most beautiful colors of coral, pink and yellow. People that saw the pictures of the Needles sky would swear that it was unreal and made up but he was lucky enough to see God's glorious light show every evening. Praise the lord!

As pastor of the Abyssinian Methodist Church of Needles and the proprietor of the Kurl and Kut Beauty Salon, conveniently located in the rear of the building, Lavelle had an important position in the community. His beautiful creme colored 1920's spanish revival bungalow gleamed on the otherwise battered street. It's grape stake fencing and the white gypsum rock that covered the front lawn presented a picture of immaculate tidiness. The peaked wooden sign for the church rose out of the middle of the rocks and had a quote written on the bottom in removable thalo blue letters, " Jesus will never let you down".

And Lavelle could provide testimony to that. He had managed to stay on the straight and narrow and not get seduced by the Devil's temptations. He had been offered a four year free ride track scholarship to Cal State Los Angeles to hurdle at the same time he had been called to the lord. But he had never regretted his choice. Yes, materially he was a poor man, but he had managed to feed his wife and daughter and to minister to the unfortunate. The lord's word said that the wicked will prosper in this life and the righteous in the world to come.

The pastor had a wide variety of souls to minister to. Many of his parishioner's lives had been touched by drugs, abuse and alcohol. Some had been cleaned out in Laughlin and couldn't make it a foot farther. Others were loners who couldn't seem to fit in. His steady stream of sinners came in all colors, shapes and sizes. But they all had been touched by the lord's loving hand. I come for the least of you, Jesus had said.

If only his sister would hear the word. "Oh Lord", he intoned to himself," remove the scales from her eyes..." The haircut finished, his client got up from the chair. Lavelle slowly flipped the open sign over and peered out the door into the darkening sky.

by RSommers