The Devil in Pew Number Seven Read online

  Adjacent to Momma’s tribute, the paper ran an article by Wray Thompson entitled “More Harassment at Sellerstown Parsonage.” After a summary of the most recent assault, Momma was quoted as saying, “We used to look for the siege20 of harassment every three months. But now it’s every week. My husband, though, is not afraid for himself. He would die for the Lord.”

  How was Momma’s article received by the man behind the persecution? I imagine somewhere, hunched over the newspaper, Mr. Watts read Momma’s words while plotting his next move. The timing of the mischief that night could have been a coincidence. More likely it was a direct response to these two articles, sort of like an unconventional letter to the editor. Either way, Mr. Watts aimed to send us another signal that he meant every word of his promise to drive us away.

  That night, with yet another gunshot blast, the mercury-vapor light in our backyard was shattered. Thankfully, Momma and I were not at home. We had taken up shelter elsewhere during Daddy’s annual eight-day missions trip to Colombia, South America. There was no way he’d leave his pregnant wife and child alone in the house.

  Not with Mr. Watts watching our every move.

  * * *

  With the exception of the frequent, daily phone calls designed to keep us on edge, there were no more shootings, bombings, tire slashings, or other acts of physical intimidation during the rest of December. The relative calm remained throughout January, relative in the sense that we lived each day on the narrow edge of fear that today might be the day when something terrible might happen to us.

  Maybe the attack would come in the dead of the night.

  Perhaps during broad daylight, although less likely.

  We lived with the dark reality that something awful could strike us at any moment. After several months of being the target of Mr. Watts’s campaign of terror, I know I never felt safe. I doubt my parents did either. For me, this tension was greatest as the sun melted into the horizon. Without its warm glow outside my window, I dreaded going to sleep. My mind was tormented by questions that no child should have to entertain.

  Why did Mr. Watts hate us?

  Why did we have to always live in fear?

  Why did life have to be so hard?

  Why didn’t God stop these bad things from happening?

  Would God really allow one of us to get hurt?

  Aware that I, at times, dreaded going to sleep, Momma would kneel down by my bed and recite the classic children’s prayer from the eighteenth century with me: “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” Those were not empty words. I meant every word of that prayer. I’m sure she did too.

  Much to my surprise, I remember Momma began praying for Mr. Watts. She prayed long and hard for God to take away his root of bitterness and his deep-seated anger toward our family. And she prayed that Mr. Watts would one day give his heart to Jesus. When I asked her about that, she recited Matthew 5:44, saying, “Becky, Jesus said, ‘But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.’” Part of loving our enemies, she explained, included forgiving them when they wronged us—even if they hadn’t asked for forgiveness.

  Even if they weren’t sorry.

  Momma explained that we had been forgiven by Jesus for all of our sins, which is why He expected us, in turn, to forgive others. Taking the teachable moment one step further, she pointed to Romans 12:14, where Paul, a follower of Jesus, calls us to “bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not.” Looking back on those conversations, I can see that Momma was, as best she knew how, teaching me that forgiveness is close to the heart of God.

  That forgiveness is the language of heaven.

  That forgiveness should be a way of life.

  Even when it was humanly inconceivable to do so.

  I would soon need to be reminded of this perspective. And yet, thankfully, the welcomed respite from any serious display of trauma continued into February. This was especially good news for my mother, who spent her wedding anniversary giving her husband the ultimate anniversary present: a son. Which was quite the gift, considering she wasn’t supposed to be able to bear any children of her own.

  On February 11, 1975, Robert “Daniel” Nichols was born, a healthy, bouncing baby boy, at the Southeastern General Hospital in Lumberton. And just as my parents had given me a biblical name, so they gave one to their son, who was always called Daniel.

  With the arrival of my brother, the joy returned to our home. I welcomed seeing Momma and Daddy laughing again, unlike the last six months when they had had worried, drawn looks on their faces most of the time. Now that Daniel was finally in his arms, Daddy couldn’t stop smiling. I know he couldn’t wait to take Daniel fishing and hunting—and teach him about the game of football.

  He’d pick Daniel up with his huge hands that engulfed my brother, study his face with proud eyes, and say, “That’s my boy!” Daddy knew Daniel would be the one to carry on the family name to future generations. And maybe, just maybe, Daniel would follow Daddy’s footsteps and become a pastor—perhaps he’d even fill the pulpit in Sellerstown once Daddy retired.

  In the Bible, Daniel obeyed God completely, which I’m sure Momma and Daddy hoped would be the case with their son, too. You know, a great name to live up to. And, whether or not they consciously intended it, there was a deeper significance behind the choice of my brother’s name. In the Bible, Daniel was betrayed by those closest to him and then thrown into a lions’ den filled with hungry creatures.

  Ironically, my brother Daniel had been born into a lions’ den of sorts, betrayed by his closest neighbor before he had even taken his first breath. In fact, his doctors noted that Daniel was born with a nervous condition, which they attributed to the impact of the threats and acts of violence against us during Momma’s pregnancy.

  * * *

  Daniel wasn’t the only one suffering from frazzled nerves. The year before, at age three and a half, I had experienced a complete meltdown that I can only attribute to the impact that two home invasions and the relentless late-night phone calls had made upon me.

  During the summer of 1973, my family took a much-needed vacation and traveled to Cherokee, North Carolina. Nestled in the shadows of the majestic Smoky Mountains, the fresh air of Cherokee seemed to be the perfect remedy to the harassment we had been experiencing. We had met up with our relatives, including Aunt Dot, Grandmother Nichols, Aunt Martha, and her daughter, Linda. Momma’s friend, Sue Williams, came along on the trip as well.

  While window-shopping one afternoon, a colorful Indian feather headdress caught my eye. I just had to have it. You see, both sides of my family have Cherokee and some Choctaw blood. Daddy was a good sport and coughed up the money. After I donned my new headdress, we stopped to pose for pictures at various spots in the Oconaluftee Indian Village, an authentic replica of community life for the Cherokee Indians in the eighteenth century.

  While my parents gravitated toward a frontier church, I was attracted to a Wild West train ride. Happy to please their Indian princess, they paid the fare, and we boarded the train. I sat securely in my daddy’s lap as the steam engine belched gray smoke and we started to inch forward. Since it was an open-air train with no sides to obstruct the view, we moved slowly, which seemed fun for me and I’m sure peaceful to my family.

  That is, until the cowboys came.

  Materializing almost out of thin air, with bandanas masking their faces, the cowboys swooped down toward the train on horseback. With whoops and yells, they fired their guns into the air. Rather than pick up steam to evade the bandits, the train slowed to a stop. I was beside myself. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why we were no longer moving. Didn’t the engineer know we were in trouble? Didn’t he care that we were under attack? Why didn’t someone tell him to get away from them?

  Stunned at the drama unfolding, I watched in disbel
ief as the cowboys dismounted their horses and hopped aboard the train. Walking up and down the aisle, they started yelling for the passengers to hand over their money. What was this? The cowboy bandits had been shooting guns, and now they were robbing people.

  I became hysterical.

  Try as they did, my parents were unable to comfort me. Daddy scooped me up in his arms and carried me off the train until the “show” was over. How was I supposed to understand it was all just part of the train ride, part of the “fun”? A ride that had started out as an enjoyable afternoon turned into an absolute nightmare for me. While this staged event might have been fake, by age three I knew there were bad men in the world. Men who thought nothing of terrorizing others.

  We had one living across the street from our house.

  And now this.

  I’m sure I ruined the “fun” experience for some of the other passengers. If they had known what was really going on in my little world, maybe they would have understood why I screamed and cried for five minutes straight while turning different shades of red. With hot tears running down my face, I was convinced we were in mortal danger.

  And while my reaction may have “embarrassed the fire out of her,” as Momma would sometimes say, my hunch is that she completely understood why this event triggered such a distressed response from me. It was too much for my nervous system to handle. She, too, had felt the consequences of Mr. Watts’s relentless intimidation.

  All of us had.

  * * *

  And now Danny, a newborn, had signs of a nervous disorder.

  I can’t say for certain, but I imagine one of the hopes Daddy and Momma held was that Mr. Watts would have tired by now of his lunatic tactics to get my family to leave the church and our home.

  Was it too much to believe that Mr. Watts would somehow come to his senses and realize that we were happier and more resolved than ever to stay? Was it possible that Mr. Watts, watching our home from behind the curtains of his front window, might experience a change of heart? Would he take into account that there were now two small children in our house and, in turn, resist his monstrous desire to attack a harmless family?

  Chapter 7

  The Toughest Guy in Town

  He paced.

  Faint rays of midnight moon, like bloodless fingers reaching down through the blackened sky, illuminated his white T-shirt with a feeble glow. The rim of his mahogany brown fedora blocked the moon’s frail hint of light; his face remained in the company of dark shadows. Wearing pajama bottoms and plaid slippers, the man appeared to have just rolled out of bed. Heels occasionally scraping against the asphalt, arms swinging as if beating against the muggy air, he peered at our house through thick lenses encased in onyx black frames as he walked.

  Like a restless apparition quarreling with an unseen foe, Mr. Watts mumbled to himself with every step. Face twisted into a perverse knot of frustration, muttering a stream of irritated broodings, he marched up and down Sellerstown Road for several hours. Some nights as he stalked the silent street, he wrapped himself in a bathrobe as if he were a king surveying his domain. In spite of the summer heat, at times he’d rub his hands together as if they needed to be warmed, then clench his fingers into fists of rage.

  He continued to pace.

  Aunt Pat’s older daughter, Terri, had a ringside seat21 during several of Mr. Watts’s nightly excursions. Terri and a friend, then both fourteen, slipped outside from time to time to sneak a smoke. They’d hide in a deep ditch near the road to light up. Ironically, the ditch had been dug out around Aunt Pat’s house by Mr. Watts and Bud Sellers for no reason other than to annoy Aunt Pat. Since Bud owned the property bordering Aunt Pat’s house on three sides, she could do nothing to stop him.

  The moatlike trench just so happened to provide the perfect hiding spot to smoke. Like the two mischievous country girls they were, Terri and her friend talked and giggled while engaging in their forbidden pleasure. That is, until they heard the footsteps and the undertone of unintelligible murmuring. Even at low volumes, Mr. Watts’s gruff, raspy voice ignited an ominous feeling; a shiver of fear chilled their hearts as he approached.

  As unrehearsed as a hiccup, they instinctively ducked down. They hoped that the distinct tobacco fumes wafting overhead, like smoke billowing from a chimney, didn’t betray their location. Maintaining a position just below the crest of the hiding place, they watched in silence as Mr. Watts conducted his disquieting vigil. The last thing they wanted was to give him the impression, however false, that they were there spying on him. Life for them would become unbearable if they were discovered. Our family was living proof of what happened if you ended up on his wrong side.

  I can only guess why Mr. Watts chose such a late hour to creep back and forth on our street. There was nothing illegal about going for a walk at that time, mind you. It was just so . . . odd. Had he been an exercise buff, which he most certainly was not, physical training just made more sense during the daytime. Besides, plaid slippers do little to support a serious workout regimen.

  Why did Mr. Watts wander the streets with nothing more than the blanched moon as company? Was his nocturnal activity designed to remind his neighbors—many of whom were indebted to him—that he was always watching? Why did he occasionally stop and stare at our house before resuming his restless quest? Was he wondering why his attacks against us weren’t working? Was he scheming new ways to drive us away? It seems to me that the lack of sleep may have contributed to his troubled state of mind.

  * * *

  I knew a thing or two about the impact of losing sleep. When awake, I lived with the constant fear that we were never truly safe. I’d jump at the sound of a car door slamming or at the screech of tires squealing, even if the noise came from someone arriving home for dinner or a neighbor racing down the road just for the fun of it.

  And when I was asleep, the nightmare we were living followed me into my dreams, allowing sleep to come in fitful bunches. As much as I needed the rest, sleep failed to offer a refuge from the storm brewing in my life. To this day, thirty-some years later, I have a recurring dream so vivid, I still wake up in a cold sweat.

  When I was five years old, I dreamed that I was lying asleep in my bed when a noise at our kitchen door jarred me from my rest. My eyes opened with a series of blinks to adjust to the night-light slanting through the slats in my closet door; given my heightened fear of the dark, I developed the habit of leaving that soft light on. It served as a comforting friend, should I awaken before the friendly sun filled my window.

  Rising from bed, I took my blue bear by the hand as if we were exploring buddies and moved toward my bedroom door. My heart beat out a rapid warning to proceed with caution. Narrowing my eyes, forehead bunched into a knot, I looked down the hall to see what had caused the commotion. I found Mr. Watts standing just inside the kitchen door, illuminated by the pale, yellowed light above the kitchen stove. He said nothing but motioned with his hands for me to come to him. Dressed like an undertaker in a nondescript, charcoal gray suit and wearing his hat, Mr. Watts appeared to have something important to tell me.

  I glanced in the direction of my parents’ room, found them asleep, and then, defying all logic—since when are dreams built upon logic?—I naively proceeded down the unlit hallway. Without uttering a word, Mr. Watts turned and held open the kitchen screen door. He gestured for me to step outside. For reasons I cannot explain, I didn’t feel as if I had a choice in the matter. As a moth is drawn irresistibly to the flame, I felt obligated to go with him regardless of the consequences.

  Once outdoors, standing under the darkened sky in my white and pink ankle-length nightgown, I found his car parked in our driveway. Bud Sellers was waiting for us in the front seat. After placing me in back, Mr. Watts eased behind the steering wheel and then backed out of the driveway. I stole a look at our home, where my family slept unaware of my departure. With the safety of my house now out of view, I clutched my bear to my chest and sunk into the cold vinyl seat. I looked throu
gh the windshield to see where we were headed.

  The headlights failed to penetrate the blackness more than a dozen feet; these shafts of light were absorbed faster than they could be projected as if their twin beams were being swallowed by a black hole. I could see little beyond the hood of the car, which appeared to stretch forward about the look and length of a coffin. Neither man spoke. I couldn’t speak, nor did I dare say a word. I had witnessed Mr. Watts’s behavior in church, the way he sneered at Daddy during the sermon and the way he stomped out the back door, slamming it until the house of God shook.

  I feared this man.

  Conversation was out of the question.

  As far as I could tell, we were lost. I had no idea where we were, where we were going, or more importantly, why I was being taken for this ride. Fear was my unwanted backseat companion as we traveled an unfamiliar, unlit stretch of winding road in the hills. Like a roller-coaster ride minus the fun, the friends, or the assurance that the ride had been inspected and certified safe for its passengers, we continued upward.

  The car sped on.

  Leaning hard on the curves, Mr. Watts rocketed into the night way too fast for my racing heart. While Daddy sometimes drove to town with a lead foot, he never traveled as recklessly as this. Although the car windows remained closed, my hair blew into my face as if they had been open, allowing gusts of the night-chilled air to whip my long, chestnut brown tresses into a frenzy.

  Driving hard around a bend, still climbing, higher, faster, my chauffeur from hell let go of the wheel. Without warning, Mr. Watts and Bud Sellers opened their car doors in unison and jumped out of the car. Only then did I comprehend the danger awaiting me. With no time to escape, the car became airborne. I sailed over the edge of a cliff, trapped within the metal casket. I tried to cry out, but no sounds escaped from my parched throat.