The Mostly Honest History of the City of God, Texas

 

prologue

Well, then. I’ll bet you’re reading this because you’re itchin’ to know more about the city of God. You saw it in a magazine somewhere, or noticed the sign out at the city limits like I did and were just going to drive on by.

But you got to thinking. A city. In Texas. Called God.

Hmmm. Something like that can get stuck in one’s craw.

I’d say I first became interested about twelve years ago. I was working my way towards Dallas when I noticed that sign, just off the interstate. It was one of those standard green ones, a piece of sheet metal on poles, barely big enough to notice. But the words sure were noticeable, couldn’t help but make me smile once I realized what they were saying.

Apparently, God was just five miles down the road.

I could feel my decision to end up in the big city begin to wither under the warmth of a better idea. I spun the wheel just the least little bit to the right and began my descent from the heady speeds of the highway to the more everyday pace of north Texas farmland. I landed at the access road stop sign. The motor had calmed down to a purr, but was still anxious to continue on. After a respectful pause I turned left and obeyed the Follow-the-Arrow-To-God signs, letting them guide me around the edges of giant cornfields and pastures as I said hi to sturdy heifers with eyes saying it would be a wonderful thing if they could say hi back. God got closer and closer.

I snuck in one end of town and began working out the lay of the land, starting with Main Street. I saw churches, silos, sky-blue wraparound porches. I heard John Deere green-and-yellow contraptions as big as starter houses rumble so loud they took over the world, then let it go as they rumbled away.

I saw a farmer in a field, just watchin’, and a group of young girls playing in a yard. I felt like a tourist, or like someone might at their first social in a new church - the smiles and nervous laughter and even the smell of potato salad make you think you might be at home here, too, some day.

And actually, I’ve stuck around for quite some time now. I’ve watched this town go about its daily business during days where the sun shined and days where it didn’t. I’ve watched the people struggle, succeed, fail, and succeed again. And I have to say most of the time what I’ve seen makes me proud of this little piece of Texas. I feel like I’ve been watching a son grow up right!

So if you want to know more about the city of God, Texas you’ve certainly come to the right place. Are you curious as to how the town is laid out? That’s an easy one - it just ain’t that big! Want to know the pecking order – who’s on top (or who thinks they’re on top) and who isn’t? I can tell you that, too. Want to hear about the people who live here? I’ve come to know them all – where they live, what they do, how they think, even how they behave when they’re all alone, and they feel they’re the only ones who notice or care…

So what I’ve really been up to all this time is exactly what these farmers do twice a year - I’ve been harvesting, laying aside a crop or two of information for just such an occasion as this. Now that the work’s done all I have to do is show you the things I’ve learned, shuffling it around a little bit depending on what you want to know. I’m more than happy to do this for you. God is a special place, and people need to hear about it.

Well, enough of this, here’s what let’s do. Let me pull everything I’ve come to learn into a good old fashioned story, give you a small piece of the town’s history so you can understand the whole. Wouldn’t that be best? I can also make it so that it’ll keep your interest going, even during the dull parts. I don’t think anybody’d mind if every so often I stick in something just for fun - put a little tall in the tale. Do you?

I mean, if you want to know the facts you can ask the librarian over in the next county. She’ll give them to you dry; he was born then, she got married here, these people died then and then and there.

But you pulled off the interstate for the same reason I did. We both know dates and names aren’t the same as really knowing. I’ll see if I can’t use what I’ve learned about tale-telling to shake the truth awake, rouse it from its natural state of lazing around just the other side of he and she and there and then. I'll back off a bit, try to keep a low profile, and let the story tell itself. I mean, you don’t want to hear about me, you want to hear about God! But I'll pop back up every so often, don’t you worry. As I learned from tales past, there’ll be plenty of times where I just won’t be able to help myself.

And if you want to get to know the city of God, you’ll have to get to know its best resident, Sonny Stephens. We’ll start sometime in September last year - I forget the actual date - just before that string of difficulties he fell into. More specifically, I think we'll start with the sorry state of his right hand…