Stacey Lee

I originally wrote this on September 6, 2005. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I wanted to hear Stacey Lee's story. Stacey Lee is a character of mine from the town of Bliss, Texas in the ficitional Lucidia County. I'tried to type it up word for word, but I'm sure many of you know how hard it is to do that. So it has a few tweaks here and there. I'd like to one day turn it into a short story, but I'm not ready for everything in it to come to pass just yet. Enjoy!


"Stupid Preach," I said. I sat in the smoke filled Truck Stop staring at my lit book. Yet again I felled my lungs with the cylinder of bliss. Of Bliss, get it? I bought them just in the other room at the Bliss Truck Stop. "Turn that song off, Jolene!" Always playing that same stupid Kenny Rogers song. So what? I know when to hold them, and when to fold 'em, and it hasn't helped me yet. Besides the song reminds me of Preach, it was playing the first time he walked in this place. Course it's always playing.

I took one look at that wide-eyed kid and the Bible he carried, and dubbed him "Preach." I told him that he looked like the preacher down at the Pentacostal Church on Ophelia Drive with that big black book. I know what you're thinking, a church on Ophelia Drive? Yeah, the engenieers sure liked their Shakespeare. But back to the kid who came in with his Bible. He told me that the Lord is not mocked, then sat down in the booth next to mine. Booth number twenty-three, I'll never forget that number. "Oh, but I'm not mocking God, I'm mocking you." That seemed to shut him up. He just looked at me with that smug look. The look that said he didn't have to make a comeback to still win. He drank some coffee, read some in that bog, black Bible, then left the same way he came it... with barely a word.

After hald a dozen weeks, some where theres about, I came to find out that Preach attended LCC. Lucidia County College, is the nearest place for higher education and the geniuses who built it put it clear across the county where nothing but cows live. Even the hogs know to stay out of the Southwest corner of the county most of the time. That tidbit of knowledge came in mighty handy when gas jumped to two and a half dollars a gallon. Having someone to carpool with was a lot easier on the checkbook. But that didn't always prove to be the best of ideas. Stupid Preach, always trying to talk to me about religion. About how Jesus died for my sins. "What a crack," I told him. All churches are interested in is gettering your hard earned money, not the eternal resting place of my soul. They can spout it all they want, but I've known too many of them.

I do believe there was a time when that boy was in love with me. Why shouldn't he be. I'm everything his precious church ain't. I cuss, drink, smoke, and fornicate. Fornicate was the nice word preach used for what I did. I'm one of those "carnal" girls that his mommy warned him about. But even while he was in love with me, it wasn't lustful like every other fool in this town. Agape is what he called it, a concern for my soul. For my soul. My eternal life... or death. Sure I would've went to bed with him if he wanted. One lay's as good as another, right? Well, depends on the guy. Never would have dated him though, or courted as he often refered to it. He didn't ever look at my lewdly--lewdly there's a ten cent term for you. The most he ever did was try to kiss me.

Ironically enough it was the first and only time he had ever been drunk. He missed my lips comepletely, the poor kid. We were parked over a Quanah's Ridge, just South of the Truck Stop. I took him up there for his twenty-forst birthday. Only two weeks before I told him that I'd show him some fun when he became a man. I never expected him to take me up on it though. My kind of fun and Preach's are as different as poker and Scrabble. But that night he came to me, so I introduced him to my buddy Mr. Daniels. Now let me tell you, the three of us had a hoot. That is till Preach leaned over and tried to kiss me. So drunk he could barely sit up straight, and he tried to kiss me. That boy turned beet red. He jumped in his truck, Betsy, and fired her up.

The errie sound of his truck on the dark night seemed to last forever. By the time I sobered up enough to realize what had happened, Preach was long gone. I caught up to him about a mile outside of town. Betsy plowed headlong into a tree. Preach lay slumped over, his seat belt holding him upright. He just lay there. It didn't matter how loud I hollared, or how hard I shook him, he just wouldn't move. Next to him in the seat lay that big, black Bible. He had the thing open to the fifth chapter of Galatians. The Bible now was sprinkled with blood like when the high priest would sprinkle the blood of bulls and goats on the altar in the tabernacle.

Stupid Preach. The ambulance arrieved thirty minuets later. Preach's official time of death is recorded at twelve ten on August ninth. In reality it's much closer to August eighth and eleven thirty. There's no sense in sharing that with his mom though. Who wants to know that their son died on his birthday? Three days later I went to the funeral. Preach's mom gave me that big black Bible, she said I was his best friend. Some friend I am, he's dead because of me. Stupid Preach.

I had to "convince" the officers, but I talked the police into leaving the fact that Preach was drunk out of the reports. They all say that he fell asleep. The only time in my life that my skin felt like it was on fire. Later on I flipped through Preach's notes. He really was concerned about me. Every where I looked in that book it said, "show this verse to Stacey Lee," "Lord, please help me prick this girl's heart," and the like.

The very next Sunday I showed up at the little Church of Christ on the corner of Iago and Laertes. The one that he always talked about. Last night I was baptized there. It took the most Christ-like man I've ever known to die in sin for me to get it. I never understood the message until then. Stupid Preach.

"Jolene, I said to turn off that song."