Chapter 17: The Long Way Home

from the novel Let the Weird Girls Preach

Odell’s friends convinced Imogene to let them take her home—to spend a little more time with her before they left. Imogene thought that was kind and was happy to have a few hours in the car by herself.

Viola, Claire, Augustine, Eliza Belle, and Edna Lee were conspiring when the Uber dropped Odell off.

“We’re taking you home,” Augustine informed her.

“Okay.”

“We didn’t know the best route, so we put some variables into A.I. and several options came up,” Augustine said. 

The prompt was:

Plan a trip from Atlanta to Satilla County, Georgia. Include stops along the way. The more esoteric and weird, the better.

“Your friend just got out of the psych ward. She’s stable, overstimulated, and allergic to group texts. She needs people—but not, like, people people. Plan a trip from Atlanta to Satilla County, Georgia. Include stops along the way. The more esoteric and weird, the better. She needs distraction for a while.”

“You asked what?” Odell threw like a dart.

Augustine continued, “According to A.I., a road trip is ideal: structured enough to feel safe, unstructured enough to feel free. You get motion, snacks, scenery, and the option to cry at a gas station without explanation. It’s healing—just with cup holders and a playlist.”

Eliza Belle, clearly the cruise director, took over.

“Odell you will ride shotgun even though you can’t have shotguns anymore. Viola you’ll drive the first leg.”

“Can we get a Chrysler as big as a whale?”

“Checked already. Best we can do this late is a Chrysler Pacifica with questionable tires and suspiciously high mileage.”

Edna Lee officially named the Pacifica “The Mothership.”

Augustine chimed in. “I’ve started a playlist,  ‘Catholic Guilt but Make It Festive.’ It starts with ‘Losing My Religion,’ because, of course, it does, stumbles into the ecstasy of ‘Like a Prayer,’ nearly weeps through ‘One,’ and ends with ‘Closer to Fine.’”

Eliza Belle plowed on. “We begin at Fresh Air barbecue in Jackson. Do not argue; it is the best. Odell, we can skip over to the Holiness Campground if you want.”

“Pass.”

“Got it” and a dramatic strike through on the page.

“Highway 23 to Macon. Two stops. Macon Beverage, the one on Eisenhower, and Edna Lee wants to swing by Mercer to see an old colleague.”

“He’s fun.”

“You get 15 minutes. This is about Odell.”

“We will not be going over to Milledgeville for two reasons: Central State and Flannery O’Connor. That’s really one reason,” she scribbled on her notes.

“Can we go just a little further down 75, and stop at Buc-ees,” Viola chimed in. “I’ve never been.”

The usually docile Claire turned ferocious.

“Absolutely not,” came the snap response. “Buc-ee’s is a loud, over-caffeinated Stuckey’s ripoff with better lighting and worse decisions. Folks act like it’s Disneyland for the gas-station crowd, but give me the real deal any day. Let’s be clear: the OG Roadtrip Respite still reigns as champion. You buy something from Stuckey’s, and you know what you’re getting—honest candy and the kind of dusty souvenirs that know exactly what they are.

Plastic gators, a snow globe with Elvis in a pickup truck—none of it pretending to be anything noble. It’s kitsch with conviction. The tacky doesn’t lie to you.”

Plastic gators, a snow globe with Elvis in a pickup truck—none of it pretending to be anything noble. It’s kitsch with conviction. The tacky doesn’t lie to you.”

Eliza Belle carried on: “Another highlight on the trip—Lyons, to trash talk onions.

Viola blinked. “Wait, what?”

“You don’t know about the Lyons–Vidalia beef? Epic. Lyons is the county seat, but Vidalia gets all the credit for sweet onions. Total glory hogs. Meanwhile, folks in Vidalia call the ones from Lyons ‘performative shallots,’ like that’s not fighting words. The rivalry’s older than the Lowndes–Valdosta football feud and twice as bitter.

”

She looked around. Faces stared back—equal parts confused, concerned, and unsure if she was serious.

“A.I. is so stupid,” Eliza Belle sighed and moved on.

“O-kay. We’ll not do that and cleanse our palates in Claxton instead. Head south for a brief and reverent stop at the site of Georgia State Prison in Reidsville,” Eliza Belle added. “RIP: Uncle Ransom, Cousin Tyrell, and Aunt Geneva—though hers was more of a spiritual incarceration.”

“Don’t forget my Mom’s brother-in-law,” Viola said. 

Eliza Belle finished, “We’ll descend on Savannah with the precision of General Sherman—except from slightly the wrong direction and fueled by sugar and Spotify. Bonus, we’ll be there for the Big Day, nice timing, Odell.”

Odell mathed the dates and looked concerned. “What does Imogene think?”

“What do I think about what?” Imogene said as she walked into the room, bags in hand. The group’s demeanor, “grownup nerds reveling in technology and road trips,” quickly changed to “outside the principal’s office” in a hurry.

“They’re taking me home,” Odell said. “The long way.”

“What? Down 16 and through Eastman? Why not; it’s prettier.”

“Via Savannah.”

“That is the long way.”

“Imogene. What’s the day after tomorrow’s date?”

She did the calculation in her head and shot The Look, raised her eyebrow, and bent over in a single motion. None of them had ever seen the Rumble Trinity executed together.

A theologian, a librarian, a grief counselor, a professor-farmer-knitter, a music nerd, and whatever Claire is—driving to Savannah on purpose. For St. Patrick’s Day, no less. That’s not a road trip; that’s a controlled social experiment in madness.

“Lord, have mercy,” Imogene said, letting out a long, low whistle. “A theologian, a librarian, a grief counselor, a professor-farmer-knitter, a music nerd, and whatever Claire is—driving to Savannah on purpose. For St. Patrick’s Day, no less. That’s not a road trip; that’s a controlled social experiment in madness. I’m not saying don’t go. I’m just saying I’d like to pre-authorize the group’s next ER visit—and remind you that public intoxication is still a chargeable offense even if you’re quoting scripture."

“Savannah, it is!” Eliza Belle announced. “We ride at dawn.”

The peanut stand at the Jackson exit leaned against a pine tree with a hand-painted sign that read: “Hot Boil’d: Original / Cajun / You Been Warned.”

They stopped.

Earl, the proprietor—shirtless but with an apron and confidence—offered samples.

Odell cracked one open and raised it like a wafer. “This is what my grandmother would’ve served at the Last Supper.”

They stood in the gravel lot, peanut juice dripping, the sun rising higher.

At Fresh Air, Claire went with just Brunswick stew. Viola, Odell, and Edna Lee ordered plates, and Augustine nearly lost her mind over sawdust and white bread.

“I’ll just have sweet tea.”

Edna Lee was allotted an additional five minutes if her Mercer friend met her at Macon Beverage. More, if it took some time to go over the bourbon offerings. “Way better selection than what you find in the A-T-L,” Eliza Belle boasted. She knew.

As they settled in for the longest leg of the trip, Augustine launched Spotify.

In the arms of an angel.

A loud  “Oh, hell no!” and a “Skip!” for good measure.

In Reidsville, they parked at the edge of a church lot. Pines blurred the view of the compound.

Odell stepped out with a dried flower from Zion’s End.

Claire joined her. “My cousin went in. Came out…different.”

Odell placed the flower under a low pine branch, and they walked back to The Mothership.

The Claxton fruitcake bakery smelled like orange peel of Christmas Past.

Claire got the cashier’s attention to ask a question. “Excuse me, how many folks have been by this week?”

“Not counting folks from around here?” the cashier asked. Claire nodded affirmatively.

The cashier paused.

“Y’all.”

They each bought one. No one questioned it.

Odell clutched hers like it had a soul. “Not everything heavy is holy,” she said. “but some things will survive the flood.”

Their Airbnb wasn’t even close to River Street, but it was the closest by the time they booked, a cancellation in Pooler. The yard featured one plastic flamingo. The welcome mat said “Namaste, Y’all” in faded vinyl. Inside, the décor could be best described as 1970s bird sanctuary—complete with owl figurines and duck decoys.

“This does not look like the pictures,” Edna Lee said, standing in the doorway, preparing a lawsuit in her mind.

“There’s a lava lamp in the bathroom,” Claire added. “I think the guest book is… sticky.”

Viola dropped her bag by the door and scanned the room.

“One night. No police. Maybe. Low standards. We’ll make it.”

A wind chime clinked outside. Something somewhere squawked, “My backyard.”

Possibly a parrot. Possibly a neighbor.

“Unpacking, then bourbon,” Eliza Belle announced. She disappeared inside and into the upstairs shower, singing “Convoy” at full volume like she was auditioning for a trucker opera. Downstairs, the rest of them flung themselves in the Cardinal Room; it smelled like every Southern grandmother’s guest room. 

Claire raised her mug first. “I’d like to offer a blessing for this moment. Blessed are You, Lord our God, who delivered us from The Mothership’s brakes nearly going out at the Soperton exit.”

Claire, sipping with quiet delight, held her mug up. “Let’s not skip over this bourbon, though. Eliza Belle did God’s work in Macon.”

Edna Lee—more of a wine girl—took a delicate sniff. “It smells like the Stations of the Cross.”

Odell cradled her bottle of spring water like it was sacred.

“Look at her,” Viola said. “Sanctified and sober.”

Odell raised her water bottle like a chalice. “What can I say? I’m spiritually aligned with aisle four. And thank you,” Odell said. “For the trip through pure Georgia weird. For the playlist. For driving 12 hours with nothing but gas station snacks and your collective dysfunction to keep me company. I didn’t know I needed this.”

On the Big Day, they parked The Mothership in a gravel lot behind a payday loan office. By sheer miracle, it was close enough to the parade route to walk. They paid $50.

“Savannah’s getting bougie,” Augustine quipped as she swiped her credit card through a device atop an iPad.

“You might want to check that account for a while,” Edna Lee recommended.

Savannah was vibrating.

A man dressed as a green Mad Hatter appeared, offering bootleg lime Jell-O shots from a Lucky Charms cereal box.

Edna Lee said, “He’s not regulated by anyone.”

Claire handed him a twenty.

Then came the vape shop.

A sign in the window read: “DELTA-10 — LEGAL ENOUGH.”

In thirty minutes, everyone’s perspective changed except Odell’s (“Seriously? No.”) and Edna Lee’s (“I have a license to protect”). She nearly sprinted back out to River Street and was seen accidentally therapizing drunk frat boys in tank tops.

“You don’t hate women,” she told one. “You’re just grieving your mother’s unprocessed issues.”

“She used to make me deviled eggs shaped like tulips,” he said, sniffing.

“I know,” Edna Lee whispered, stroking his arm. “You haven’t felt seen since she stopped.” She offered him a Werther’s Original and a tissue.

He wept into his Solo cup.

Claire started debating with a man dressed as a bush. Viola danced near a band she might have joined. Eliza Belle licked a popsicle she had not purchased.

Claire started debating with a man dressed as a bush. Viola danced near a band she might have joined. Eliza Belle licked a popsicle she had not purchased.

Odell called Imogene.

“We’re on River Street,” Odell said. “Some of us are, uh, ‘altered.’ There’s lime Jell-O in my pocket.”

“Sounds like a good time.”

“Claire’s arguing with foliage. Augustine is cataloging cobblestones. Can you imagine this crew with the munchies?”

“You mean…”

“New federal hemp law. Sort of legal.”

A pause.

“You’re not…”

“Of course, not!”

Imogene fell silent for what might have been the third time in her life.

She said, warm and dry: “I’ve done far worse in Savannah.”

“Imogene, I have to go. The parade’s almost here.”

“Behave. Or don’t get caught. I don’t have enough bail money for all’a’y’all.”

The Shriners were making their way toward Odell—tiny red cars looping in wide figure eights, their occupants waving like parade royalty. One zipped toward a stroller and high-fived a kid in a foam shamrock hat. Another veered at Augustine, doffed his fez, and handed her a green-frosted cookie. They didn’t speak. They just kept circling, offering whatever they had.

Next came the Savannah State Marching Band, leading with “Let Me Clear My Throat.” Horns sharp, drums heavy, booming down the street. Two drum majors worked the mic like preachers, calling the crowd into rhythm, who gleefully joined in, the sidewalk now a dance floor. Viola whooped. Augustine morphed into a saxophone. Claire was drenched in joy. Odell stood still but couldn’t help tapping her thumb against her leg in time.

After the final crescendo, the smoke came. The SCAD goths emerged from it: all veils and velvet and Doc Martens and purpose. One held a flaming papier-mâché bush aloft. Another swung sage in a silver incense burner. Signs read: “Let there be light.”and “Define light.” They moved as if the air around them was sacred. The smell of sage curled behind them. A few onlookers laughed. Others clapped. Most just watched.

Then—like thunder rolling in under glitter—came the drag queens. They didn’t announce themselves. They didn’t have to. Fog machines led the way. A portable speaker rolled behind them like a chariot of sound. Sequins caught sunlight like scripture on stained glass.

If drag queens had a liturgical calendar, Halloween in Atlanta was Christmas. St. Patrick’s Day in Savannah? This was Pentecost.

They were led by a full-on Billy Porter archetype—floor-length green cape, tuxedo romper, six-inch gold platforms, and a fascinator shaped like a shamrock halo, arms outstretched, mic in one hand, glittering fan in the other.

“Y’all ready for a taste of heaven? ’Cause the Spirit came dressed for the occasion!”

Judy Garland began: “I do my hair toss, check my nails… Baby how you feelin’?!”

The crowd—in time with the music—screamed in approval, “Feelin’ good as hell!”

Then, came “I Will Survive” with a dramatic interpretive trio with high kicks that made Augustine gasp.

Dressed in what could only be described as Southern Homecoming Queen couture, another roller-skated through the crowd, blowing kisses and stopping occasionally to affix stickers on the foreheads of onlookers.

All of them lined up for the most fabulous conga line ever to grace River Street as strains of “Love Train” filled the air.

At the height of it, one of the queens climbed onto the base of the Waving Girl statue. She removed her green feather boa and wrapped it gently around the statue’s shoulders. She gave the collie a loving pat.

The soundtrack moved on.

“We Are Family.”

Odell smiled before she even realized it.

The beat swelled.

She thought: “Luther should use this as a closing hymn.”

And then—without warning—it all fell in place.

She stood still while the others danced and looked back—mentally rewinding the parade.

The Shriners—greeting, welcoming, circling. Invitation.

The band—loud, joyful, full of anticipation. A hymn.

The goths—symbolic, mysterious, strange, and sincere. Scripture.

The drag queens—singing affirmation, survival, and love, fierce yet somehow tender. A three-point sermon.

Decorating public art—the benediction.

And now, this song.

“We Are Family.”

A postlude to encourage the departing saints.

It was all there—a liturgy no one meant to make, delivered by people the world mocks or ignores or fears. Shriners. Art kids. Queer performers. And yet: it was holy.

Completely other. An incarnation, proclaimed with go kart engines, a drum line, combat boots, and feather boas.

Completely other. An incarnation, proclaimed with go kart engines, a drum line, combat boots, and feather boas.

The central argument of Odell’s dissertation was right there, 15 feet away. God’s absence was human-made. We’d locked Him inside the churches, held hostage. God had not gone silent. He just couldn’t be heard outside the walls where the Church guarded him. What was unfolding on River Street was what happened when the least of these found their collective voices and cried out like rocks. This was joy and truth. Mercy you could dance to. Theology in wigs.

It didn’t tell her what to believe.

It invited her to belong.

Odell raised her hands in the air like she didn’t care and sang with the crowd:

We are family,

I got all my sisters with me…

As they sang the final chorus, voice thick with wonder, she whispered:

“If I had a St. RuPaul candle, I’d light it.”

By dusk, River Street had devolved into a Southern Bacchanalia: bagpipers, basslines, and the faint scent of discount cologne. Odell felt like a cross between a kindergarten paraprofessional and an exhausted chaplain.

The effects of the Delta-10, thanks be to God, were beginning to wear off. It was time to go home except they hadn’t made it more than a block before Claire screeched, “A goldendoodle!” She beelined toward it and crouched beside the dog’s very confused human.

“Do you know these were intelligently designed? Not like those pitiful purse dogs. This is what the Lord meant in Genesis 2.”

Claire poured the three tepid sips of water left in the water bottle she was carrying and proclaimed it a baptism.

“She means well,” Odell called. “She’s still recovering from something not FDA-approved.”

Viola had fully defected from the street band. “They went mainstream,” she explained. “Too much eye contact.” She now walked slowly behind a man with a monkey puppet and a crank organ, throwing imaginary rose petals.

“I guess the Juliett Gordon Low house is closed,” Edna Lee—proud recipient of the Girl Scouts’ Gold Award—said through misty eyes. 

“I wanted to see the Forrest Gump bench,” Augustine complained.

“Y’all wouldn’t even consider the Lady Chablis tour,” Eliza Belle added bitterly. “And she was a prophet.”

Odell stopped walking, turned around slowly, and said, “Do not make me take y’all back to the Bird House.”

By the time they peeled themselves off River Street and back to The Mothership, they were hollowed out—emotionally, physically, metaphysically. Claire declared she would kill for cheese fries. Augustine wanted silence and citrus. Eliza Belle muttered something about “a chicken tender as tender as my heart used to be.” Viola just said: “I need salt.”

They detoured toward Pooler, hoping to find anything open that didn’t have a huge crowd or a theme cocktail. The only option was a truck stop just off I-95—fluorescent lights buzzing. No line. No music. No crowd. Just aisles of hot dogs spinning, an overworked microwave, and a cashier who looked like she’d seen worse.

They fanned out.

Claire returned with a kombucha she didn’t trust and a package of sour candy. “Well-rounded,” she said. Augustine found a cold orange and a pack of spicy peanuts. “I need this more than life itself right now,” she muttered, peeling the fruit with reverence. Eliza Belle emerged victorious with a chicken tender basket and a tiny bottle of hand sanitizer. “This is what hope looks like in a Styrofoam box.” Viola grabbed two gas station egg rolls and a bag of salt-and-vinegar chips. “Don’t ask. Just know it’s right.” Edna Lee found a sleeve of pecan sandies and a box of chamomile tea. “It’s what my mama used to eat when she was trying not to cuss.” Odell picked a boiled egg, a chocolate milk, and a Payday bar. “Don’t psychoanalyze it,” she said. “It’s all protein.”

They filed back into The Mothership. Nobody spoke for a few minutes.

Then Edna Lee said, “I needed this.”

“Me too,” said Augustine.

Claire nodded. “I didn’t know how much until we were halfway to Claxton.”

Viola sighed. “I’ve been mean lately. I think I forgot how to laugh without sarcasm.”

“I remembered what I used to sound like,” said Eliza Belle, quiet. “Before everything got tight.”

Odell tapped the dashboard twice. “Y’all ready?”

Nobody said “yes.”

They just leaned back to let the quiet drive. Didn’t last long. Claire was riding shotgun.

“We could ride up I-16 ,” she said, questioning Odell’s taste in state highways. “Cut through Glennville.”

Odell stared at the highway ahead.

“The Metter exit?” she asked.

“No,” Claire replied. “One after that one. It’s straighter, smoother.”

Odell let out a soft exhale. “That’s the one with the peach bread sign. Led me to a Baptist church and a locked gate.”

Claire didn’t look up from her phone. “That sounds like your autobiography.”

In the back row, Viola stirred, blanket around her shoulders. “Y’all fighting again?”

“Just discussing geography,” Claire said.

“It’s always like this when Odell drives,” Edna Lee muttered from the middle row, picking a praline she bought on River Street out of her molars.

Claire tapped her phone again, holding it toward Odell. “If we go through Glennville, we can swing through Alma. It’s cleaner. Easier.”

Odell didn’t even look. “We are not going through Alma.”

“Why not?”

“Because Alma feels like a place where someone once made me cry in public. I don’t remember who, but I trust the instinct.”

Claire huffed. “Baxley’s worse.”

“Baxley has character. Baxley owns its dysfunction.”

“Baxley has that terrible intersection with the digital sign that’s always wrong.”

“It’s part of the experience,” Odell said.

Claire shifted in her seat. “I’m just saying, Alma’s better.”

A pause. The only sounds were the tires on cracked asphalt, the low hum of the A/C, and the rattle of a half-empty can of Mountain Dew rattling in a cupholder.

Augustine spoke without opening her eyes. “Can y’all table this cartographic morality play? Some of us are trying to disassociate responsibly.”

Augustine spoke without opening her eyes. “Can y’all table this cartographic morality play? Some of us are trying to disassociate responsibly.”

Viola leaned forward between the front seats. “Odell, which one has the gas station with the three-legged dog and the fried pies?”

“Baxley.”

“Then, that’s the Lord’s will.”

Claire stared out the window, sulking in that half-righteous, half-exasperated way that only someone raised on interstates and honor roll could manage.

The road opened up ahead, unlit and wide, the kind of Southern dark that swallows headlights whole. Somewhere past the treeline, a barn leaned into itself like it had stopped caring years ago.

They passed a bent, but still working, Georgia DOT sign.

ROAD WORK BEFORE BAXLEY

Then

DETOUR THROUGH ALMA

Claire didn’t say a word, but she did roll her eyes with enough force to be heard.

“Story of my life,”Odell said more out of embarrassment than irony.