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    If the Holy Spirit Comes for You
    If the Holy Spirit Comes for You
    If the Holy Spirit Comes for You
    Ebook29 pages24 minutes

    If the Holy Spirit Comes for You

    By Barb Johnson

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    About this ebook

    The lives of four unlikely friends intersect on the backstreets of New Orleans. Living amid poverty and violence, these fragile heroes of the American underclass redefine our notions of family, redemption, and love.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 20, 2009
    ISBN9780061966392
    If the Holy Spirit Comes for You
    Author

    Barb Johnson

    Barb Johnson has been a carpenter in New Orleans for more than twenty years. In 2008 she received her MFA from the University of New Orleans. While there, she won a grant from the Astraea Foundation, Glimmer Train's Short Story Award for New Writers, and Washington Square's short story competition. She is the fifth recipient of AROHO's $50,000 Gift of Freedom. This is her first collection.

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      Book preview

      If the Holy Spirit Comes for You - Barb Johnson

      If the Holy Spirit Comes for You

      Short Story

      Barb Johnson

      For Virginia Sonnier

      And for Mid-City—

      heart of New Orleans,

      heart of my heart

      Contents

      Begin Reading

      Acknowledgments

      About the Author

      Praise

      Copyright

      About the Publisher

      If the Holy Spirit Comes for You

      Dooley cradles Reet’s head in the crook of his arm, and the pig’s breath comes out in moist puffs that warm and then chill Dooley’s face. He’s not supposed to name the animals, but he does it anyway. Scooching deeper into the hay at the corner of the barn, he turns Reet’s floppy head toward his little sister, T-Ya. Feel her nose, Dooley tells her and leans across so she can reach the pig’s face.

      T-Ya runs two little fingers down Reet’s snout. Bawoney! she squeals, pulling her hand away, sniffing it and then holding it to her chest. T-Ya is only three and says all kinds of things that don’t make sense, so it takes Dooley a few seconds to get what she means. He touches Reet’s nose, and his stomach turns. It does feel a little like baloney.

      Dooley has brought T-Ya down to the barn to keep her from waking their mother so early. He wouldn’t mind spending the whole day in here, but today’s his thirteenth birthday, and his uncles will probably be by to get him any minute, another reason Dooley’s come outside. If he stayed up in his bed, the uncles would come in and pull him right out from under the covers, and he’d be on a hunting trip before he could say, Hold up, hoss. His mama wouldn’t go against them, and his daddy, their brother, is offshore. The uncles want to make his birthday special on account of his daddy being gone, and hunting is special to them. They go every Sunday morning of the season, while Dooley’s aunts and cousins are at Mass.

      In catechism, Dooley learned

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