colin spoelman

an excerpt from the story…

“This all started with some Abelia bushes.” Ronnie knew his story well. “I was here on my way up to a couples’ getaway in the Shenandoah and had the luck to pass through here. Debbie’s got a taste for Baptist architecture, so we often make our way off the beaten path. That’s where you find the greatest treasures.”

“Anyone driving through here would have been looking to get lost.”

“That’s exactly how we came here. We’re from southern Alabama, you know. Debbie and I started a church we called Ridgeway. We were Baptists, from way back, but we felt that the style of worship, with the hymns and sermons, just wasn’t much of a celebration of the Lord’s word. So I left the church where I had been preaching and started a new church. There’s a picture of it up on the wall.”

Kyle noted that he was indicating the painting of the steeple-topped shopping mall.

“We grew quickly. Young people flocked to the church because the message meant something to them. People get raised with Christ, but the churches weren’t speaking their language. We did that. A decade later things were going pretty well. I passed on the day-to-day ministry to some of our younger pastors, and I was all but retired. We bought a lake house with six bedrooms. I guess you could say we had it pretty good.”

Ronnie looked out the window, and let his expression shift from goofy smile to grim stare.

“And then came that fateful weekend in Virginia. We drove here on a Sunday afternoon. And my wife, Debbie, she asked to stop and look around in your community. It looks so different from the surrounding area, we wanted to know more. So we stopped in to church and met the late Reverend Hoskins, who was kind enough to give us a tour. We marveled at the beauty of the landscape, the simplicity and harmony of this strange, little coal town, but also, we saw that people had fallen on hard times. Reverend Hoskins showed us how the company had planted hedges, but since the company no longer maintained public space, those bushes had grown wild and untamed, much like the community itself. As you know, the company just left all these empty buildings, boarded the windows, closed the doors, and walked away. The Reverend explained how people were having a hard time finding work, with the mines closed down. As we looked out the window of our car, we could see row after row of empty houses, and the houses that were lived in were in a bad state of repair. The Reverend explained that you the arson problem, hoodlums burning empty houses for sport, causing destruction to a vital piece of history, not to mention someone’s property. It just seemed so unnecessary to us. We bid the Reverend goodbye and promised to keep him in our prayers.”

“Well, by the time we got back to Alabama, in that big empty house, all we could think about was coming back here and trimming those bushes.” Ronnie paused for reflection.

Kyle thought of a calm lake in Alabama, ringed by live oaks covered with Spanish moss and three-story brick houses. He saw Ronnie at the barbecue, surrounded by the flustering of church ladies. He thought of Ronnie standing on a boat dock at dusk, holding his arms out, expecting to part the waters.

They talked further, and Ronnie explained how he brought a group of retired ministers together to discuss ways to help the community. When Reverend Hoskins died, Ronnie knew it was time to give up that lake house once and for all. He moved here, into one of the old foremen’s homes up on the hill and started to fix up the house, while negotiating to purchase the hospital from the city as a headquarters. The municipality didn’t want anything to do with the hospital as it was a maintenance burden, and Ronnie got it in exchange for a promise to fix it up.

Ronnie brought a group of youth in from Alabama to clean out the old mining implements and furniture and set up the hospital as dormitory housing for more youth groups. Ronnie recruited more youth groups from all over the south and Midwest, bussed in fifteen passenger vans from Akron, Kokomo, and Kalamazoo.

Ronnie led Kyle around the hospital, showing him how churches sponsored individual rooms. Kyle looked around. Instead of rows of beds, as he expected by the Reverend’s description, the patient wings of the old hospital had been transformed into individual rooms, with desks, dressers and decor. The rooms were filled with hardwood furniture, fixtures and knick-knacks from local artisans, and of course, the ubiquitous scripture murals.

“Looks more like a hotel than a dormitory.”

“Well, that’s part of the plan. I’d like to develop this property into a retreat for Baptist ministers. Kind of a conference and meditation center.”

“What does the city think of all this?”

“Well, I imagine they think of me as a crackpot with a lot of big ideas. But let me tell you, they are going to be surprised to see what happens to this little town when we get through with it.”

Kyle nodded. He decided not to complain about the noise, at least not yet. Ronnie had opened his eyes to a greater concern—that of Ronnie’s stated intentions not exactly meshing with public perception. For now, there would be no value in airing any displeasure or grievance. He wanted to investigate a little further before giving Ronnie a reason not to like him.

Until that afternoon, Kyle had no serious complaint with the operation. There were people who needed the help. And despite the noise, the kids brought a little bit of energy to the old town. But there was something fundamental that did not align here. Ronnie sensed perhaps, but obviously did not know that he built his operation on holy ground. Jerusalem residents had very little, but they did have their history and they took pride in the way that history got told and the way the history was written on their little town. Kyle knew that any attempt to eradicate those scars, however ugly, would not be met with smiling faces.

And there was also this disturbing suggestion of a conference and retreat center. Kyle imagined his town, populated with thick-jowled, gray-haired men, puttering around town in their Lincolns and Cadillacs, meeting for breakfast and lunch and dinner and coffee in between. Children were one thing, but legions of sanctimonious old church ladies might one day descend on Jerusalem, with digital cameras, department-store clothes, and dyed hair. It was a vision of the apocalypse and Kyle swore that it would not happen. Kyle shook Ronnie’s hand and promised to see him again, smiling and deferring to the older man, letting him have the final goodbye.

On his way out, he paused at the area that had once been the lobby. Ronnie’s groups had turned it into a kind of common lounge space, with ping pong tables, foosball, and comfortably ratty couches. Kyle fixed his attention on a portion of wall, hidden partially by a white marker-board covered with what appeared to be group assignments of some sort. On the wall, engraved into the oak paneling were names of men who had died in mining accidents. The dark stain of the wood made the names hard to read, and Kyle wondered if it would be possible to miss them completely. Above their names read:

These miners died with honor supporting families and a nation.

Kyle traced the names, which might have been mistaken for the winners of an annual golf tournament had this oak paneled wall been in a suburban country club. He scanned them until he found a familiar one—his great-grandfather, Walter Mullins. His great-uncle on his mother’s side was here too, though he had died later from black lung. His name was added in the fifties when the town took over hospital briefly as a municipal building. But it became too costly to heat in the winter, so they moved into the post office building and this memorial wall passed from public view: a forgotten memorial to forgotten people.

Kyle looked at the names, stained dark with coal soot and the patina that old wood develops after a time. He became conscious of someone’s gaze behind him. He turned to find Ronnie looking at him.

“Anything else we can help you with?”

Kyle pointed to his ancestor’s name. “My great-grandfather was a bolter in number thirty-one. Died in an explosion.” Ronnie stepped closer and nodded. He looked hesitant. “All the children of these men live here.” Kyle looked out at the valley visible through the windows. “Be careful with legacy, Reverend.”

Ronnie eyed him cautiously, wondering if perhaps he had missed a note of psychosis in the earlier conversation. But that flicker of caution vanished and he nodded. The men shook hands again.

On his way out of the hospital, Kyle again noticed the girl with brown hair. She noticed him, too, and kept her eye on him, smiling vaguely and politely, though her gaze continued. Kyle felt a surge of confidence, despite the ambivalence he read on her face. She scratched her nose with a gloved hand, and turned away, her hair loosely following her head.