Holy Ghost People

You're awake.

Who the fuck are you?

You left your wallet and keys at the bar I work at.

You know, after you got your ass kicked.

Catch.

Get the fuck out. Ah, not a morning person?

No.

How about I get dressed first?

If you're gonna tell a story,

it's best to tell it straight and true.

But what if the truth ain't straight?

This here's the story of two sisters torn apart.

The question is: By what?

Fate?

God?

Me?

Maybe.

I found him last night outside the bar I work at.

How many times we got to keep doing this, Wayne?

Always trying to make me look bad in front of my people.

- Hey! -

- Get off him! - Step off, bitch!

Hey, man, you all right?

Want me to call the cops?

Tell me what you want me to do.

Learn how to mind your own fucking business.

The story really starts when I was 15...

and my mama got cancer.

One day we're all sittin' around her hospital bed...

while they drained her blood out like a bunch of mosquitoes.

Next it's just me and my sister...

figuring out the world for ourselves.

Once upon a time, we could hide our pain by slipping into a costume.

Liz, a princess,

and me, Wonder Girl.

But after Mama died, things got complicated.

I could get high a dozen times and stop whenever I wanted,

but for Liz,

it wasn't like that.

There's people you miss when they're gone.

Then there's the people that's so tangled up with you...

that losing them means cutting off a piece of your own flesh right along with them.

You cut off that much of yourself,

it's bound to leave some scars.

Get in.

Thanks... for bringing my shit back.

Not much I can really do with six bucks and a military I.D.

See you around.

I'm Charlotte, by the way.

Come on, Shirley.

Ah, Jesus.

Hey!

I need a favor.

Hey!

I need to borrow your car.

No.

But, uh, that's what friends do.

They borrow things.

Oh, you have a friend now, huh?

- When did that happen? - When I needed a car.

Get out. Well, how about a ride?

Look, um,

my mom's not doing so good.

I need to go get my sister,

bring her home.

I'll pay you.

$200.

Everything I got.

Let's go.

Where we going?

Up Sugar Mountain.

After this, you can stop coming around, okay?

Yeah.

When you're alone in this world,

you learn to find help anywhere,

any way you can,

including bending the truth about your own dead mama.

The trick is to find someone who might just be worse off than you are.

They're the ones who've got nothing to lose.

I haven't seen or heard from Liz in over a year.

Then a letter came in the mail.

She wrote that she missed me,

that she was sober and living at a church up on Sugar Mountain.

Needed me to come get her right away.

Why?

She didn't say.

Just that she was scared and needed to come home.

What is this place?

A church, I think.

Goddamn it.

Thank you.

All right.

All right.

Welcome. Welcome!

Yeah!

This Bible don't lie. No, it don't!

No!

It don't do nothin' but tell God's plain truth...

every word.

Every word.

You don't get to pick and choose, now, honey, do ya?

This ain't no ice cream parlor.

What do you like, Smiling Bobby? Vanilla?

No!

How about bubblegum?

It ain't like that, is it? No, sir.

No, it ain't! He knows it, Brother Bill.

You're either all in... or you're out.

- That's right! - You're out!

You are out into that lake of fire to burn for eternity.

But it don't have to be that way. Do it, Brother Sherman?

No, sir. No, it don't.

And why is that? Why is that?

That's because Jesus sent us the Holy Ghost.

But there's only one way to receive that spirit, isn't there?

We got to be in one accord.

Are we in one accord? Yes!

Amen!

Bless your name, holy Jesus.

Satan's sheddin' big ol' tears tonight.

Yeah!

He's a big boy, ain't he?

I call him Satan, 'cause he's so big and mean.

It's these deadly serpents the Lord sent us to handle... without fear.

Our hearts are filled with the Holy Ghost. Mmm.

Get on up here, Brother Cole.

Satan wants to talk to you.

Hey!

Where is she?

I don't know.

I'll be in the car.

You hear stories trickling down the mountain...

of people up here following their own sort of laws.

Old laws. You know?

The kind where blood gets shed when they're broke.

Cops don't even come up here,

let alone a city girl poking around, asking questions.

How you doing?

How can we help you?

Well, I was wondering...

Mm-hmm?

I was wondering if I could join your church.

And what about your gentleman friend? He wanna join too?

Oh, uh, that's my daddy.

Oh, well, your daddy don't seem too interested.

He has problems with his nerves.

Socially.

Hmm.

We're not so easy to find.