J. Malcolm Garcia’s book Alabama Village tells the story of John and Dolores Eads and their Light of the Village ministry. An excerpt follows.

Da’Cino Da’Marcus Dees wakes up in a house across the street from Light of the Village. John and Dolores recently bought the property and dubbed it the Lighthouse. They plan to use it for children who need a place to stay. Da’Cino will provide supervision. It has been completely remodeled. A little work still needs to be done – installation of cabinets and baseboards – but not much.

Da’Cino stands about six feet, four inches and keeps a beard cut to a thin line along his jawbone. He likes to wear T-shirts and gym shorts and flip-flops no matter the weather. A wide smile explodes across his face when he laughs. What up my boi! he shouts when he sees children at the church. He wants them to look at him as someone who lived through what they’re experiencing and made it. Most people say no way when he tells them he’s from Prichard. They think he has a Mexican name even though he’s Black.

Before he moved into the Lighthouse, he had been spending nights with a sister in Gulf Village. He didn’t complain, but the kid thing drove him crazy. Man, the house could be so loud. His sister has five kids ranging in age from one to thirteen. In addition to them, she would also watch the children of her friends. Da’Cino would sit in his car after work until all the kids had gone to sleep. At least he had a place to lay his head. The subsidized housing he had lived in as a child was much worse. One house in particular had no water or electricity. He and his brothers and sisters heated bathwater on the grill his momma used to cook. Each of them washed in the same water until it was gray, soapy, and cold. His momma, Mary Dees, never renewed a lease, moving every year. Maybe she thought she’d get some- thing better, something different. Da’Cino only knows that she never settled on one place for long.

Da’Cino grew up in the Village and was about eight years old when he first saw John and Dolores playing games with other children near the abandoned crack house. He was cutting grass with his stepdad, Joe. Da’Cino always worked. At first with Joe and then on his own when he grew older. He took his first job at Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen in Mobile when he was sixteen. At seventeen with the help of John and Dolores, he moved to Spanish Fort about twenty minutes away for a maintenance position at a movie theater. Over time he became shift leader and then manager. He stayed for six years until he accepted a job with the Wind Creek Casino in Atmore, about forty-five minutes from Prichard. Three years later, he became the manager of Premiere Cinema 14 Eastern Shore in Spanish Fort and moved back. John cosigned the lease for his apartment.

Da’Cino lost his job and then his apartment at the start of the Covid pandemic in 2020. He applied for jobs, but no employer responded to his resume. He began couch surfing between the homes of four sisters and volunteered at the church to fill his time.

Why don’t you work for us? Dolores suggested one day.

Come back tomorrow.

Da’Cino assumed she was joking and didn’t return.

I thought you were going to work for us, Dolores said when she saw him again.

You were for real? Da’Cino asked. The next day, he showed up.

He enjoys working at the church and playing with the kids, but the job never ends now that he lives across the street. After the church closes, people knock on his door at all hours, and they keep coming back, asking for food, clothes, and to use his phone. He’d prefer to live near Prichard, close enough to stay involved with John and Dolores but far enough away that people couldn’t track him down after work. He didn’t tell his homeboys and his family where he lived when he first moved to Spanish Fort. His momma would call when she was short on cash. You got twenty dollars so I can get a pack of cigarettes? He heard that so many times he lost count. He would tell her, I’m working, you know what I’m saying? I’ll come and see y’all when I come to Prichard if y’all ain’t busy.

No one gives him credit for nothing. When he bought a used Toyota Camry, people said, Oh, the church got that for you. But it didn’t; he bought it. He saved money and everything. His first car, a Honda Civic, John and Dolores helped him buy that. His momma will ask him, Call Mr. John and Miz Dolores for this and that. He never does. He won’t beg for other people. Why are these white people out here playing with kids?

Da’Cino remembers wondering when he first saw John and Dolores. White people bought drugs in the Village and left. They didn’t play with no children. Other church people had worked in the Village, but they always left. They couldn’t meet the need, they said. Da’Cino thinks they didn’t want to deal with the need.

It was weird. What is this? Da’Cino wondered. He didn’t get it, white people all smiling and happy to be here. He wasn’t happy. Why were they so happy? John stunned him when he walked over and talked to his stepdad and persuaded him to let Da’Cino join the other children. He couldn’t believe he was having fun with white people at an abandoned crack house they were already calling a church. They wouldn’t be here long, he assumed, like every other church. Black, white, it didn’t matter. They all left. Maybe they were all about showing charity. Get their numbers up. Look at us. Look at how many people we’re helping, but they weren’t helping nobody. Not when they quit on them. He assumed John and Dolores would leave too. No way were these white people going to stay. Why were they doing this? What do they want? How long was this going to last? What made them want to be here? For years, Da’Cino asked himself these questions but he was reluctant to raise them with John and Dolores. He wasn’t shy; he just didn’t trust them because their presence didn’t make sense. Sometimes Dolores approached him, and then he had to talk. It would just be the two of them. Dang, this short little white lady’s going to want to talk, he thought. He never disrespected her but if she was speaking and Da’Cino’s horseplay interrupted her, Dolores would pull him aside and look him dead in the eye, a smile on her face. She never got loud or mean. You know what you’re doing, Da’Cino? Do you want to be disruptive? she asked a voice so soft it folded around him like licorice. He couldn’t move. She wouldn’t speak another word until he answered. She’d wait. Look at him through her big, round glasses. And wait. And wait. And wait. Until he finally spoke. He knew he better have the right answer or she would look so disappointed he’d want to cry.

In 2019, Da’Cino developed a staph infection. He couldn’t bend the fingers in his left hand. He didn’t know how he contracted the infection. His arm just started swelling one day. He went to three emergency rooms and each one dismissed the problem as tendonitis. This ain’t no tendonitis, not with my arm this big, Da’Cino told himself. The doctors at a fourth ER agreed and rushed him into surgery. John and Dolores stayed with him the whole time. His momma, brothers, and sisters never visited. Da’Cino has his duties. On this morning, a Sunday, he wakes up to open the church for Bible study. After he dresses, he sorts through a thick ring of keys before he leaves the Lighthouse and unlocks the security door to the church. Stepping inside, Da’Cino walks through a door to the kitchen. He takes a stack of paper cups from a cabinet and sets them on the counter. He finds packets of Kool-Aid, tears them open and pours them into a yellow cooler and adds cold water and ice. Sets the cooler on the counter beside the cups.

He turns on lights illuminating yellow cinder-block walls covered with photographs of families who attend the church. Some of the smiling men, women, and children wear blue Light of the Village T-shirts. One of them, Marion “Mayo” Awudu, a young man with dreadlocks, has a goofy grin. He was shot in 2019. Next to his photo, a picture of Cindy Darrington, a longtime church participant. She died in 2020. Her oldest son, Jesse, attends a community college. She would be pleased. She always wanted her children to have an education. Other photographs show spent bullets, a splintered window, a shell casing, reminders of where John and Dolores built their church. Keeping it real, Da’Cino has heard John say in Bible study. We can never forget where we are.

Everyone knows Da’Cino as ’Cino from the church. His mind gets all twisted – trying to be an example, living across the street but not being part of the ’hood. Who am I? he wonders. He has homeboys who hang out and sell drugs but he never joins them. They do their thing, and he does his. He doesn’t tote a gun. He’s never been to jail, not even close. He’s about to turn thirty. That shocks him. He feels old thinking about it and wishes he could remain younger instead of growing older, but it beats the alternative. Many of his homies never reach their mid-twenties. When he was little, older people in their thirties ran the streets. Now, he’s their age and it’s all younger people walking the blocks. Back in the day, people didn’t shoot in broad daylight like they do now. As a child, he could go outside. But even in those days, he had to be situationally aware. He never knew that expression until he heard Mr. John use it. No one told him, ’Cino, don’t go there. He just knew, like instinct passed from one generation to the next. Like how wild animals run from people because they know they’ll be shot. Instinct. Sometimes he gets a bad feeling like it’s a cloud blocking the sun, and in the shadow of that feeling he thinks, Yeah, I’m not going over that way. The uneasiness comes from something he can’t define but it tells him to get out, almost as if he’s hearing voices. But he doesn’t hear voices. It’s just a presence that warns him. Instinct. Or ghosts of people already dead – but he doesn’t believe in ghosts. It’s his call to listen to it or ignore it. He listens. The presence never lies, and he’s still alive. If he hears two gunshots, that’s just normal. But if he hears multiple shots, he worries. That presence creeps up on him. Two shots? He assumes someone is testing their gun. Multiple shots? It’s a shootout and they’ll go through every bullet in the magazine, and it doesn’t matter who they hit. Sometimes, they start shooting as they pull out their guns and blast their own feet.

He was eight years old when he saw his first shooting. He and his brothers, Marco and Jamichael, and their stepdad, Joe, watched a man chase and shoot another man in front of a Prichard convenience store on a sunny afternoon when the only other sound was traffic. Smoke flashed out of the shotgun and Da’Cino’s legs turned to noodles. He had gone to the store on his scooter but after what he’d just seen, he couldn’t move. The ambulance took a while to arrive, and the wounded man bled out in front of the store. The store owner wouldn’t let him inside. He didn’t want blood on the floor. Joe shouted to Da’Cino and his brothers, Y’all get over here! And they ran to a store across the street and bought what they needed. Joe acted no more out of sorts than he would have if the first store had been closed. That night, Da’Cino refused to go outside. He didn’t want to walk into any surprises.

Shootings happen so often in and around the Village, he has stopped keeping track. Nothing minor about a dude shooting a gun; it’s heavy, but he’s been around it so many times that he knows how to react so people don’t know that he’s reacting at all. His legs still turn to noodles but he doesn’t acknowledge his fear. If he feels too much, he’ll break down. He’d be crying all the time. Everybody would be like that. He doesn’t know where that jolt of surprise and fear goes. Somewhere. It gets diluted somehow and drains away and something else replaces it – something cold and blank that allows him to respond calmly so that he moves past his fear without dwelling on it, stuffs his feelings down deep where he can’t reach them or hopes he can’t. The effort leaves him exhausted like he has been on his feet all day.

He sleeps through shootings. Not always, but most times. You didn’t hear that last night? No, Da’Cino will say, what happened? He gets used to it. Well, not used to it. Something else. He incorporates shootings into his life. Like eating and sleeping. Oh, someone’s shooting; give me a Coke and some of those fries. He can’t summon the fear he felt when he was a child and saw the man die in front of the convenience store. He remembers that moment but he no longer feels it.

A gray 2011 Prius with decals of the American and New Mexico flags and Airborne wings turns onto the grass in front of the church raising a flurry of flies and dust. Two dogs on Baldwin start barking, stop, and then trot into the woods, and the silence that had been present all morning returns. John and Dolores get out of the car followed by a teenager, Jamez Montgomery, who they picked up in Mobile. He has been with the church since he was five and lives with his grandmomma Deborah Lacey, the momma of his uncles Jerome and Mayo.

John and Dolores carry boxes of oranges and grapefruit that a friend gave them to distribute in the Village after church. Jamez follows them inside.

What up, Bo?

John shouts.

What up, Bo? Miz Betty says.

John walks behind the counter and scoops up a sausage patty and slips it in a sliced biscuit. He calls almost everyone Bo – men and women, boys and girls, sparing himself embarrassment when he forgets a name. He has been saying Bo for so long now that everyone calls him Bo.

What’s the word, Bo?

You got it, Bo, Da’Cino says.

John considers the dozens of photographs on the walls. One shows Da’Cino wearing a yellow T-shirt and flashing gang signs. Goofball, John thinks. Da’Cino wouldn’t hurt a soul. As a kid, Da’Cino smelled so bad. His family never had running water. They’d go for months without water.

John remembers an afternoon when he and Da’Cino handed out flyers for a Thanksgiving meal at the church. There were many more houses in the Village then – not in good shape but still livable. It was like a scene in a movie. Da’Cino pointed to a cluster of men John had spoken to. The guy on the left, that’s my dad, Da’Cino said. My real dad. John didn’t know what to say. Da’Cino laughed. That’s what he does when he feels uncom- fortable, laughs off the pain. His father never came around and his mother kept to herself and let the stepdad control the house. Da’Cino can be very dismissive of his mother but he always visits her. John presumes he wants her love as much as any other kid. His father’s too, probably. A child’s need for their parents doesn’t end because they have become adults or because their parents denied them affection. The desire to be loved doesn’t disappear with age. There is a constant yearning, John thinks.

Da’Cino didn’t hit it off immediately with John and Dolores. He was always very polite but he hardly spoke. Dolores would give him a ride home and play music, and he would just whisper along with the songs. At the church he seemed to have fun, playing tag, football, basketball and just hanging out. John would take him and his brothers out to mow grass and then he would buy them something to eat. Over time he spoke a little more. As a teenager, Da’Cino needed a place to live because his mother was moving across town, and Da’Cino wanted to remain involved with the church. With his mother’s permission, John and Dolores placed him with a couple from the Village they knew and trusted. They bought Da’Cino a cell phone so they could check up on him. The phone took their status way up in Da’Cino’s eyes. His joy turned into pranks. He’d call and say, Hey, meet my uncle, Uncle Click, and hang up.

Da’Cino occasionally refers to John as his godfather. John appreciates the compliment but he doesn’t endorse it and respectfully corrects him. Thank you but I’m not. He is more like an uncle, a visiting relative. Someone who sees Da’Cino and other church participants and then leaves for the drive home to Bay Minette. John wants to avoid being sucked into something manipulative: You’re like my dad, give me some money. Not the end of the statement. That’s a comma, not a period. They want something behind the praise. Call him cynical but he has been doing this work for more than twenty years. He won’t be used. They have their own fathers and mothers. He can’t be them. During the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons, he encourages everyone to say something nice to their mothers. They are still their mothers, flaws and all, and those flaws didn’t materialize out of nowhere. They had their trials. If their fathers stayed involved, say something nice to them too. And even if they didn’t. They too had their trials. Forgiveness is love.

Supporters of the church have told John: You and Dolores let Da’Cino stay across the street for free, he should show gratitude. John understands why they think that, but Da’Cino will never express his appreciation the way others would expect. He won’t ever say, Thank you for letting me live here. But whenever John needs him, Da’Cino is available. So when someone says he should be grateful, John can only agree and leave it at that. He gets what they mean but he doesn’t expect anything nor should he. He doesn’t work in the Village for gratitude but to fulfill as best he can God’s Word as he understands it. So many of the church participants have never known love. When they experience it, they take and take and take before it’s gone, because they have not known anyone who gave and stayed.

Now after all these years, John and Dolores feel a part of the community. At first, the Village intimidated them. Still kind of does. They don’t want to ever be complacent. The families here know them, but that only carries them so far. All they have to do is be in the wrong place at the wrong time and say the wrong thing or look at someone the wrong way and it’s over. Period. Just like that.

An old photograph on the wall near the one of Da’Cino shows John and Dolores in front of the church years earlier with nine kids clustered around them. What year, John asks himself? Two thousand four, maybe?

John looks at Mayo’s photo. He could be so silly, and loud. Mayo could be heard a block away. He always had this sleepy half smile on his face. He rarely got mad and when he did he never stayed angry for long. He played basketball, teased the other kids on the court, and called them sorry. One summer, when Dolores and John held a Bible camp, Mayo’s older brother, Jerome, got into a car wreck. Mayo must have been about fourteen. Jerome almost died. Mayo asked Dolores, Can you talk to him about God? He brought him to the ministry, his face all messed up because of the accident. Mayo loved his brother and was afraid for him. Mayo told Dolores his brother wanted to learn about Jesus.

For a few weeks he had a job at a Mobile motel working security. His first job, a real job. A homeboy got it for him. He was happy but he didn’t last but a week. He was busted smoking weed.

Mayo died in 2017. Twenty-six years old. Shot in his yard on Hale Drive. A memorial of faded purple, and green plastic flowers marks the spot where he fell, his name painted in pink letters on a board beside a fallen candleholder. The ministry held an evening memorial service for him behind the church.

A cross of candles flickered from the ground illuminating the night. Everyone said a little something. John remembered when Mayo was fourteen and participated in a field trip to a water park. He couldn’t swim and used an inner tube. He wore it even when he stood in line to buy a hot dog.

You’re at a snack bar, John told him.

I know, Mayo said, but I ain’t letting this go.

After everyone spoke, they released balloons into the air.

John thinks Mayo died after getting into it with somebody and humiliating them in a battle of words. Death has as much of a presence in the Village as the people living here, attaches to them like a second shadow. When John hears the pop, pop, pop of a gun, his mind flashes with questions: Where’s this going? Is it someone just testing his weapon or something worse? After twenty years in the Village he has not grown used to the violence and doesn’t want to, but he works with so many children who have. He recalls one April afternoon in 2014 when he stopped in Gulf Village to pick up the three Darrington boys, Jesse, Jeremiah, and Jerel, for an after-school program. Jeremiah got in the front seat. Every kid wants the front seat. Their mother, Miz Cindy, walked outside, spoke to John, and left just as two men running between houses began shooting at each other. A driver behind John jumped out of his car and ran. John could not back out. He reached over to push Jeremiah’s head down, but he was already on the floor as were Jesse and Jerel. John was the only one sitting up, exposed. He dropped down and counted thirteen shots. Then the shooting stopped. Wind stirred. The absence of noise seemed louder than the gunfire. John absorbed the stillness settling around him until Jeremiah sat up, broke out a juice box, and stuck a straw in it.

OK, Mr. John, he said. We can go now.

They are all likable, the killers and the victims. John enjoyed Mayo but no one outside of his family thinks about him now. The same people who believe Da’Cino should express gratitude say Mayo got what he deserved. He brought it on himself, living as he did. It’s no secret what can happen flashing cash, running in the streets, but did Mayo or anyone else deserve it? John doesn’t think so. A lot went into making Mayo who he was. John doesn’t apologize for him, but it’s too dismissive to say he asked for it.

Excerpted from Alabama Village: Faith, Hope, and Survival in a Southern Town by J. Malcolm Garcia (Seven Stories Press, 2025). Used by permission.