If you've spent any amount of time on Tybee over the past 20 years, you remember Roma.
She remains a revered Icon on the island ...
Somehow, though I don't know how, she was a Queen but we met when she was a lowly "Yard Goddess" a 60 year old grass eating machine, watering your plants and trimming your hedges.
She was Tybee's first lawn care service and though she did excellent work, she didn't look the part with short, wild gray hair exploding from the red bandanna wrapped around her head, sitting over tan, bare shoulders before a colorful halter top left over from the 60's... no bra ... and khaki shorts.
Around 11 every morning she'd break for lunch, go to Fannie's, drink Miller Lite while playing the slot machine on the counter, meet Judy and John O'Neil ... Trolley Joe ... Chicago Bob and eventually me ... whom she call "The Rev."
After lunch, she went home, showered and changed before returning with the same basic collection of people to shoot pool.
It was not a friendly little game.
We were cut throat competitive and Roma was the best of us all ... with her short little sawed off pool cue.
It was an intense game and she's aiming to shoot.
"Dear Lord Jesus," I pray out loud, "make her miss."
Snickering, mostly with confidence, she hits the cue which hits the 9 ball which hits the 7 ball which ... misses.
"What kind of damn minister are you?" she bellows.
Lining up for my shot to win the game, I smile, catch her eyes and answer, "A damn good one."
She didn't miss another shot the rest of the game ... or the rest of the day ... wiping up the pool table with my ... holiness.
We became good friends, fiercely coming up with tangible expressions of our love.
Like the December morning I came out my house to drive to the Breakfast Club to find a lit reindeer, stolen from someone's yard, epoxied to the top of my car.
Have you ever driven down Butler Avenue while it's dark with a lit reindeer on your car?
Even back then, the Tybee Cops will you over.
"Roma why did you put a lit Reindeer on my car?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Roma protests though her blue eyes start to dance, a thin angry smile explodes into laughter as she falls into my arms.
"Let's to it to O'Neil tomorrow," she giggles as we still embrace.
So we do.
We did lots of other things too.
"I need you at City Council tonight," bellows one afternoon through the phone.
"No Roma," I insist. "I don't do City Council."
"Dammit," she snaps, "I need a minister and you're mine."
"Since when?" I roll my eyes.
"Since now!" she yells slamming down the phone.
So I go to City Council which I am loath to do but I love Roma so there I sit.
I'm so glad I went.
The controversy was allowing Golf Carts on the streets.
The issue was Howard ... you all know Howard ... he's got physical disabilities .... rides his Golf Cart mostly to the Wind Rose and around Tybrisa ... it's the only way he gets around.
Someone on Council thinks it sets a precedence for others to drive Gold Carts on sidewalks without lights at night while intoxicated and has introduced a motion to make life safer for Howard and everyone else who wants a Golf Cart on Tybee.
"You are profiling a paraplegic!" Roma tells the City Council.
Honestly at the time, there were perhaps three Golf Carts on the island but City Council could see the future and moved to get things under control before bad things started to happen.
And Howard had hit a couple of people on the sidewalk and run into a trash can or two late at night.
Council states facts.
Roma takes it as a personal afford on the disabled.
"Anything else Mrs. Roma?" the Mayor asks.
"Yeah," Roma yells. "If you don't do the right thing then ... Kiss this!"
And she moons them.
Sitting on a table in the back, I place my hand over my mouth and am speechless.
Everyone else in the room is speechless too.
Storming out, Roma glares at me nodding her head to follow.
"You want to get a beer?" she asks once we're outside.
""Yeah, sure," I shrug.
In those days you could still walk across the street from City Hall to get your beer from Spanky's or the DeSoto which is where the members of Council got there's before the meeting.
"How'd I do?" she asks taking a long drawl from the Miller Lite.
"Well, nobody could argue with the end," I answer.
"Yep," she infectiously grins as only she can.
"Lemmie ask you this," I ask as we open the third can. "Why was I here tonight?"
"Gwafff," as only Roma can laugh. "If things got out of hand you could have done something."
"What?" I stammer.
"You'd have handled it," she laughs as only she can. "You're the Rev."
"Roma," I explain, grabbing her wrinkly face in my hands, "you just mooned the entire City Council. There is nothing I could do to follow that."
"Prayed," she laughs.
"Or pay bail," I sigh.
That's Tybee as it used to be ... Roma was Queen ... Cops let you go ... Howard was the only one with a Golf Cart ... nobody cared if you dove off the end of the Pier ... the Beach Bum Parade was a fun water fight ... you could arrange the letters on the sign in front of City Hall to say "Fireworks at 9! Elvis at 10!" on July 4th and Police Chief McCutchen, drinking beer across the street watching O'Neil do it, would just laugh ... tap John on the shoulder and ask, "What are you doing?"
Lots has changed.
Roma's question hasn't.
"What kind of damn minister are you?"
Honestly, I'm still struggling to answer the question.
Years ago, I wrote a book ... Our From Under the Rock which was about me being a minister without a Church.
It's my favorite title.
"Upon this Rock I will build my Church, "Jesus told Peter.
That rock has crushed a lot of people and I, for one, was really glad to get out from under it.
The book tells the story of my crazy and aimless wandering ... a sojourn if you will ... from birth in the Southern Baptist Convention to a rock-and-roll band, teen-age pregnancy, marriage, Seminary, divorce, a stellar career, another marriage ... and leaving the Church.
Which is not the same as leaving God.
It's not that I ever stopped believing in holy and righteous things ... that people are more good than bad ... all you need is love ... love is all you need ... music heals ... forgiveness is better than getting even ... anger hurts you far more than whoever it's directed towards ... we're more than we believe we are ... music is the language of the Angels ... death's merely the next beginning.
I need to write a sequel ... Out From Under Another Rock because lots more has happened since.
The stellar career crashed against a brick wall, I got divorced again ... lost myself completely in despair ... "made enough money to buy Miami but pissed it all away" ... got found by love ... married her ... had a baby named for a revolutionary because God had lots to go with overthrowing everything about the way I thought things should be.
Here's the funny thing about it all.
Try as I may, and God Dammit I tried, I could never stop being the Rev.
It's like God had a plan.
"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, "God says. "Before you were born I set you apart, I made you a Prophet to the nations" (Jeremiah 1:5).
I don't know about that prophet to the nations part but ... well there's no question I'm different ... molded in a way that my Jello of a life jiggles in another way than yours ... and every single one of us wonders about God ... especially if we don't believe.
Drinking beers outside of Fannie's on the sidewalk, I'd beaten her at pool and she was not happy.
"If you ever beat me, you can have my pool stick" she boasts knowing she can win any time she wants.
I hit an incredible, behind the back, bank off the side into the corner pocket shot.
"No flotching way," Roma says using the word she used to replace cussing, and she hands me her pool stick.
Not her favorite!
Another one.
This one.
Anyway, we're sitting on the sidewalk in front of Fannie's drinking beers after everyone else leaves, watching the "Tourons" ... combine the words "Tourist" with" Moron" equals "Touron" ... a word Roma invents to describe anyone she doesn't like ... and she says, "I have another present for you."
Reaching behind the throne Jenny Orr's made for her, Roma hands me a framed photograph of herself, as a teacher in Homerville, Georgia ... she is beautiful.
Long, flowing brown hair cascades on bare shoulders dripping into a white dress.
"Is this you?" I ask in disbelief.
"Shut up," she says before saying "flotching" in lots of various ways.
"Why?" I finally ask listening to the Ocean sloppily kiss the shore.
"I love you Rev."
Bursting into tears, I say, "I love you too Roma."
And if God is love, like the Bible says, then sure as Hell, the emptiness between us is full of it ... and we hug ... and in those days after Henrietta had died ... and I was divorced and alone ... we both went home ... me with her framed photograph ... knowing there's enough love in the world to find God anytime you need.
Roma and I gave it to each other that night.
"You know what you are Rev?" she asks toasting me.
"Yeah, the one who just beat you in Pool ... bad ... and won this stick ... that no one saw ... damn you!"
Giggling as only she could, Roma continues, "You're a damn good minister."
A long pregnant pause of silence follows as we lock eyes and finished our beers.
"You're not telling anyone are you?" I ask.
"About what?" she laughs, and we hug each other tightly before we both go our own way.
