A loud groan from the pew caught my attention as Pa danced three steps from one end to the other. Surely he could hear the poor wood yelling at him to get his giant self down. His face shone in high color, his smile blinding as he spoke animatedly. Pa hopped off the pew and reached to give the town’s ex-con, Tripp Murphy, a high five.

Tripp laughed but returned the high five with enthusiasm. If I’d done what the town’s ex-con did on his very first visit to this church, I’d probably go along with whatever Dave Foster came up with, too. Last month Pa got the wild hair to go pick Tripp up before service, not even giving no mind that the feller was two sheets in the wind.

Pa had practically dragged him inside and propped the drunk man up on the front pew. During Pa’s sermon, Tripp staggered to the altar. He opened his mouth and we all seemed to hold our breath, expecting him to confess his sins right then and there. Instead, his body spasmed and then an explosion of sour booze shot out of him. Tripp stumbled to the small part of the altar he hadn’t desecrated, curled up in a ball, and started snoring.

Pa had scratched the side of his beard, thick eyebrows drawn close together, and studied Tripp sleeping peacefully. Pa’s lip had twitched as he lifted his blue eyes and scanned the small congregation. “I reckon we just performed our first exorcism.”

I guess he was right because Tripp had shown up on Sundays ever since, sober and attentive. Pa said Jesus only wanted us to come as we were, so he would always be inviting all, no matter their circumstances.

Covered in an array of colorful tattoos with a silver hoop in one ear, Tripp Murphy caught people’s attention, but it was his glass eye that I had the hardest time looking away from. I’d find myself following its roaming track instead of his steady eye when he talked to me about his landscaping job for the city, cleaning up under the magnolia trees in town.

The city must have felt bad for sending him to prison for the murder of the teen whose remains had been discovered right in front of the courthouse, hidden under one of those magnolias. In the very same prison where Tripp was serving time, an inmate bragged to another about getting away with the teen’s murder, going into detail about hiding her body under the tree at the courthouse as a joke. Some sick joke, if you ask me. I think Tripp felt the same way. He was dedicated to his job and making sure nothing ever went undiscovered again under one of those voluptuous trees.