rev’s little sermon. What made it all the more irritating was his delivery. For some reason, Lily didn’tobject to the loud-mouthed hellfire-and-brimstone preachers as much as preachers like Mr. CalvaryBaptist here. While the ideas he expressed were the same old damnation-and-judgment mambo, he spokein sweet, subdued tones with a simper on his face that Lily longed to slap off. The only thing worse thanregular hellfire and brimstone, Lily decided, was candy-coated hellfire and brimstone.
Lily spaced out for a few comparatively pleasant minutes, but when her attention returned to thegray three-piece suit behind the podium, he said, “And now, we’re going to hear from somebody whoholds our dearly departed in a very special place in his heart. I ask you: What can be more tender, moreprotective and sweet than a big brother’s love for his little sister? Michael Charles Maycomb, won’t youcome up and say a few words?”
Mike? Lily nearly dropped the baby off her lap in shock. According to Charlotte, Mike had beenintent on making Charlotte’s life as unpleasant as possible from the moment she was born. WhenCharlotte was an infant, her baby skin was covered with bruises from where Mike used to pinch her whennobody was looking. When she was a little girl, Mike took the axe from the toolshed and chopped hernew red wagon into splinters. When, as a young adolescent, Charlotte began to develop at a rapid rate,Mike insisted on calling her “Jugs.” And this was only the stuff Charlotte had told Lily about. No matterwhat Mike did when they were growing up, Charlotte told Lily, her parents dismissed it with clichés like,
“Boys will be boys.”
Now Mike was president of the Cobb County chapter of the Lord’s Lieutenants, an all-maleChristian paramilitary organization devoted to preserving traditional Christian values, particularly as theypertain to the submission of women. Prior to her death, Charlotte only saw Mike at unavoidable familyoccasions. Once, Charlotte had told Lily, Mike had cornered her and told her how being the liberal shewas, she should appreciate the Lord’s Lieutenants because they happily accepted black, Latino, and Asianmen into their ranks. Charlotte had replied, “How beautiful ... all races, creeds, and colors united in thespirit of misogyny.”
Charlotte told Lily afterward that she was sure this comment would have really pissed Mike off, ifhe had known what the word misogyny meant.
And so it was Mike whom the Maycombs had decided would memorialize Charlotte. It was