Q Road by Bonnie Jo. Campbell Page B

old native grasswith chemicals in order to plant hybrid tropical grass; within a few months they would replace the decaying Taylor farmhouse with a pole barn-style clubhouse and convert the remaining three solid outbuildings to utility sheds, which they’d paint red and white like toy barns.
    Milton had always been more religious than the rest of his family, and from the time he was young he had found his strength and solace in Jesus Christ. As a boy, Milton used to watch his family’s cattle move slowly across the field, and he considered that those beasts might be Christians too, without their even knowing it. He admired the way they brushed against each other easily and the way they clustered together at dusk like a congregation, mooing gently as they stamped their feet and swished their tails. His parents’ decision to sell the farm saddened him and, though he was a grown man, that sense of loss gradually overwhelmed him, became unbearable. A few weeks after his parents left town for good, there was a full harvest moon, and sometimes the roundness and tug of a full moon are too powerful for those who’ve become detached from the planet, and Milton just kind of let go.
    It was the very same night Margo shot Johnny, in fact, that Milton experienced Jesus coming to his bed in the form of a body of light, both vaporous and solid, and Jesus entered him through every opening, even the pores in his skin, so that Milton’s whole body of flesh glowed the way Jesus’ heart glowed in the pages of Bible study books. A half mile to the north, meanwhile, Rachel dug into the floor of the Harland barn with a round-end shovel. As Rachel’s hands blistered and as those blisters broke open, Milton experienced the soothing caress of His holiness and an embrace from both within and without his own body. A feeling of acceptance flowed all through Milton, assuring him that Jesus loved him even when his thoughts were reprehensible, and Milton in turn loved wholeheartedly every soul in his community, Christian or no, the quiet farmers and the troubled teenagers alike. Bathed in thesoothing light of His touch, Milton knew his own mission in this life: to bring the people of Greenland together as their community changed, to discourage folks from going away as his parents and so many others had done. Milton wept and prayed his thanks to Jesus and His love for hours, until the sun rose.
    Milton emerged from his night of holy bliss feeling cleansed and redeemed, filled with joy at knowing he would create a place where bodies and souls could mingle in the name of Jesus. He opened his Bible that morning to the following passage:
    Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase: So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.
    â€”P ROVERBS 3:9–10
    From the farm’s sale, Milton’s parents had left him enough money to build a modest house, but after that night he decided instead he would spend the money remodeling the barn into a church center for evening activities such as Bible discussions and staged dramas, worship of all kinds. He contacted the church officials immediately, but to his surprise the Greenland Methodists resisted any association with such a venture. Though Milton assisted in teaching at the Bible school, the church officials had always held back from embracing Milton fully; they worried that his enthusiasm flowed too easily, that there was something altogether too expansive and expressive about him. Before a new despair could begin to settle into his heart, however, Milton miraculously (praise Jesus!) came upon a new and better option. With the help of several gentlemen from the church, who preferred to remain anonymous, Milton got a line on a liquor license, and he began transforming the barn into the Barn Grill. Milton’s vision of the establishment included a small vinyl Bible beside the napkin holder on each