Christian charity, I knew, would have had me smile at Shannon but avoid her like everyone else. It wasn’t Christian charity that made me give her a seat on the bus, trade my fifth-grade picture for hers, sit at her kitchen table while her mama tried another experiment on her wispy hair—“Egg and cornmeal, that’ll do the trick. We gonna put curls in this hair, darling, or my name an’t Roseanne Pearl”—or follow her to the Bushy Creek Highway store and share the blue popsicle she bought us. My fascination with her felt more like the restlessness that made me worry the scabs on my ankles. As disgusting as it seemed, I couldn’t put away the need to scratch my ankles or hang around what Granny called “that strange and ugly child.”
Other people had no such confusion about Shannon. Besides her mother and me, no one could stand her. No amount of Jesus’ grace would make her even marginally acceptable, and people had been known to suddenly lose their lunch from the sight of the clammy sheen of her skin, her skull showing blue-white through the thin, colorless hair, and those watery pink eyes flicking back and forth, drifting in and out of focus.
“Lord! But that child is ugly!”
“It’s a trial, Jesus knows, a trial for her poor parents.”
“They should keep her home.”
“Now, honey. That’s not like you. Remember, the Lord loves a charitable heart.”
“I don’t care. The Lord didn’t intend me to get nauseous in the middle of Sunday services. That child is a shock to the disgestion.”
I had the idea that because she was so ugly on the outside, it was only reasonable that Shannon would turn out to be saintlike when you got to know her. That was the way it would have been in any storybook the local ladies’ society would let me borrow. I thought of Little Women, The Bobbsey Twins, and all those novels about poor British families at Christmas. Tiny Tim, for Christ’s sake! Shannon, I was sure, would be like that. A patient and gentle soul had to be hidden behind those pale, sweaty features. She would be generous, insightful, understanding, and wise beyond her years. She would be the friend I had always needed.
That she was none of these was something I could never quite accept. Once she relaxed with me, Shannon invariably told horrible stories, most of which were about the gruesome deaths of innocent children. “... And then the tractor backed up over him, cutting his body in three pieces, but nobody seen it or heard it, you see, ‘cause of the noise the thresher made. So then his mama come out with ice tea for everybody. And she put her foot down right in his little torn-open stomach. And oh Lord! don’t you know ... ”
I couldn’t help myself. I kept going over to Shannon’s house to sit and listen, openmouthed and fascinated, while this shining creature went on and on about decapitations, mutilations, murder, and mayhem. Her stories were remarkable, not fantasies like the ones I made up. Shannon’s stories had the aura of the real—newspaper headlines and autopsy reports—and she loved best little children who had fallen in the way of large machines. It was something none of the grown-ups knew a thing about, though once in a while I’d hear a much shorter, much tamer version of one of Shannon’s stories from her mama. At those moments, Shannon would give me a grin of smug pride. Can’t I tell it better? she seemed to be saying. Gradually I admitted to myself what hid behind Shannon’s impassive pink-and-white features. Shannon Pearl simply and completely hated everyone who had ever hurt her, and spent most of her time brooding on punishments either she or God would visit on them. The fire that burned in her eyes was the fire of outrage. Had she been stronger or smarter, Shannon Pearl would have been dangerous. But half-blind, sickly, and ostracized, she was not much of a threat to anyone.
Mr. and Mrs. Pearl were as short as Shannon was, and almost as pale. Neither of them trusted their fine complexions to the sun’s glare. Mr. Pearl always wore a dark worsted fedora and a suit to match. Mrs. Pearl stayed in the store out of the sun and wore both hat and gloves whenever she went out. They always looked secretive and self-contained, their prim mouths shut tight. It was impossible to imagine them naked, stepping out of their baths or pressing their pulpy bodies close together in the privacy of their bedroom. They looked like children dressed in their parents’ clothes, and their various enterprises seemed to me no way for grown people to make a living. Mrs. Pearl admitted they never quite covered Shannon’s medical expenses, so they took up collections from sympathetic congregations.
I couldn’t imagine asking strangers to pay your bills, but I didn’t say anything. I was so careful with the Pearls, so quiet and restrained and politely attentive, I might have been a cousin of theirs. It was worth it to me to play at being one of them. With Shannon and her family I finally got to meet the people I’d dreamed about—the Blue Ridge Mountain Boys, the Tuckerton Family, the Carter Family, Little Pammie Gleason (blessed by God), the Smoky Mountain Boys, and now and then—every time he’d get saved—Johnny Cash. Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday prayer service, revival weeks; Mr. Pearl would book a hall, a church, or a local TV program. Because I was Shannon’s friend I got to go on the tours, to meet the stars of both the country western and gospel circuits. That was enough to stop me worrying about my fascination with Shannon. I could easily credit the whole enterprise to my odd but acceptable lust for gospel music.
Shannon knew the words to every song in the Baptist hymnal and spoke familiarly of every gospel group that toured the Opry circuit. Gospel was her family’s life, and she knew all there was to know about it, though she didn’t seem to feel the music’s impact the way I did. Shannon made fun of preachers and choir singers, telling her most devastating jokes about the hallelujah jumpers, who completely lost consciousness of themselves when they sang and began to spring up on the balls of their feet, swinging their arms in the air. I could never have told her my secret ambition, never have told her that I cried when I listened to tent shows on the radio late at night.
“Those eyes of yours could break the heart of God,” Mrs. Pearl told me as she patted my black hair fiercely. I blinked and tried to tear up for her. “Lashes, oh! Bob, look at the lashes on this child. You grow up you can do Maybelline commercials on the television, honey. ’Course, not that you’re going to want to. You don’t ever let anybody talk you into putting any of that junk on you. Your eyes are a gift from God!” She leaned close to my shoulder and put one hand on the top of my head, turning me so that I looked directly into her eyes. Her caramel-brown pupils were enormous flat surfaces that reflected nothing; her voice was honey-coated and sincere. I could not tell if she was making fun of me or speaking from her heart.
“Mama has more ways of saying ‘God’ and ‘Jesus’ than any preacher I’ve ever heard.” Shannon blinked her pink eyelids at me. “She’s got a talent for it, talking real soft and low one minute, saying ‘Gawd’ so that you see him in your mind like some kind of old family relation, all quiet and well-mannered like an old man. Or she can drag it out long and loud, ‘Gaaaaad,’ and just shock you senseless. When she really gets going she’s got this hollow-sounding moan that just about rocks you off your feet.
“Her ‘Jesus’ is even better. Everybody says ‘Jesus’ so much round here, you forget sometimes who he was supposed to be, but Mama rations her Jesuses. You hear her say ‘Jesus’ the way she does and you know for sure that Jesus was a real person, that little boy used to bring doves back to life, that quiet young man never known to curse or fornicate. You can just see him—a man, like your daddy maybe, aged by the sins of the world, a life sacrificed for you personally.” Shannon cackled her raspy laugh.
“I’ll tell you. I couldn’t stand it when I was little, but I got used to it as I got older. Now I love it, people getting all pale and nervous when Mama starts talking about ‘Gaaaaad.’ ”
The bookstore never made any money. It was Mrs. Pearl’s specialty sewing that was the backbone of the Pearl family income. Not surprisingly, she was famous for gilt-rendered scenes on the costumed sleeves and jackets of gospel performers. I got to where I could spot a Mrs. Pearl creation on the “Sun
rise Gospel Hour” without even trying. She had a way of putting little curlicues at the base of the cross that was supposed to suggest grass, but for everyone who knew her, it was an artist’s signature.
There was no doubt that Mrs. Pearl loved her work. “I feel like my whole life is a joy to the Lord,” she told me one day, surrounded by her sewing machines and racks of embroidery thread. She was knotting tassels on a red silk blouse for one of the younger Carter girls. “My sewing, Mr. Pearl’s work, the store, my precious daughter.” She glanced over at Shannon with a look that mirrored the close-up of Mary and the Baby in the center of the Illustrated Christian Bible that was always on special down at the store.
“Everything that comes to us is a blessing or a test. That’s all you need to know in this life... just the certainty that God’s got His eye on you, that He knows what you are made of, what you need to grow on. Why, questioning’s a sin, it’s pointless. He will show you your path in His own good time. And long as I remember that, I’m fine. It’s like that song Mr. Pearl likes so much—‘Jesus is the engineer, trust his hand on the throttle...’ ”
Shannon giggled and waved me out on the porch. “Sometimes Mama needs a little hand on her throttle. You know what I mean?” She laughed and rolled her eyes like a broken kewpie doll. “Daddy has to throttle her back down to a human level or she’d take off like a helium angel.”
I couldn’t help myself. I laughed back, remembering what Aunt Raylene had said about Mrs. Peart—“If she’d been fucked right just once, she’d have never birthed that weird child.” I poked Shannon on one swollen arm, just in case she could read behind my eyes.
“Your mama’s an ayn-gel,” I whispered hoarsely, mocking the way Mrs. Pearl would say it, “just an ayn-gel of Gaaaaad.”
“Gaaaaad damn right,” Shannon whispered back, and I saw her hatred burning pink and hot in those eyes. It scared and fascinated me. Was it possible she could see the same thing in my eyes? Did I have that much hate in me? I looked back at Mrs. Pearl, humming around the pins in her mouth. A kind of chill went through me. Did I hate Mrs. Pearl? I looked at their porch, the baby’s breath hanging in baskets and the two rocking chairs with hand-sewn cushions. Shannon’s teeth flashed sunlight into my eyes.
“You look like the devil’s walking on your grave.”
I shivered and then spit like Granny. “The grave I’ll lie in an’t been dug yet.” It was something I’d heard Granny say. Shannon grabbed my arm and gave it a jerk.
“Don’t say that. It’s bad luck to mention your own grave. They say my grandmother McCray joked about her burying place on Easter morning and fell down dead at evening service.” She jerked my arm again, hard. “Think about something else quick.” I looked down at her hand on my arm, puffy white fingers gripping my thin brown wrist.
“That child will rot fast when she goes,” Aunt Raylene had said once. I felt sick.
“I got to go home.” I pulled air in fast as I could. “Mama wants me to help her hang out the laundry this afternoon. ”
“Your mama’s always making you work.”
And yours never does, I thought.
“I like your family,” Shannon sometimes said, though I knew that was a polite lie. “Your mama’s a fine woman,” Roseanne Pearl would agree, eying my too-tight raggedy dresses. She reminded me of the way James Waddell looked at us, of his daughters’ smug, superior faces, laughing at my mama’s loose teeth and Reese’s curls done up in paper scraps. Daddy Glen was still working for the Sunshine Dairy and continued to take us over to his father’s or one of his brothers’ every few weeks, though they never seemed any happier to see us. Their contempt had worn my skin thin, and I had no patience for it. Whenever the Pearls talked about my people, I’d take off and not go back for weeks.
Now I took a deep breath, trying to get my stomach under control. Sometimes I really couldn’t stand Shannon.
“We’re gonna go to the diner for supper tonight. They have peach cobbler this time of year.”
“My daddy’s gonna make fresh ice cream tonight.” Shannon smiled a smile full of the pride of family position. “We got black walnuts to put on it.”
I didn’t say anything. She would. She would rot very fast.
The gospel circuit ran from North Carolina to South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama. The singers moved back and forth on it, a tide of gilt and fringed jackets that paralleled and intersected the country western circuit. Sometimes you couldn’t tell the difference, and as times got harder certainly Mr. Pearl stopped making distinctions, booking any act that would get him a little cash up front. More and more, Mama sent me off with the Pearls in their old yellow DeSoto, the trunk stuffed with boxes of religious supplies and Mrs. Pearl’s sewing machine, the backseat crowded with Shannon and me and piles of sewing. We would pull into small towns in the afternoon so Mr. Pearl could do the setup and Mrs. Pearl could repair tears and frayed embroidery while Shannon and I went off to picnic alone on cold chicken and chow-chow. Mrs. Pearl always brought tea in a mason jar, but Shannon would rub her eyes and complain of a headache until her mama gave in and bought us RC Colas.
Most of the singers arrived late.
It was a wonder to me that the truth never seemed to register with Mr. and Mrs. Pearl. No matter who fell over the boxes backstage, they never caught on that the whole Tuckerton Family had to be pointed in the direction of the microphones, nor that Little Pammie Gleason—“Lord, just thirteen!”—had to wear her frilly blouse long-sleeved because she had bruises all up and down her arms from that redheaded boy her daddy wouldn’t let her marry. They never seemed to see all the “boys” passing bourbon in paper cups backstage or their angel daughter begging for “just a sip.” Maybe Jesus shielded their eyes the way he kept old Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego safe in the fiery furnace. Certainly sin didn’t touch them the way it did Shannon and me. Both of us had learned to walk carefully backstage, with all those hands reaching out to stroke our thighs and pinch the nipples we barely had.
“Playful boys,” Mrs. Pearl would laugh, stitching the sleeves back on their jackets, mending the rips in their pants. I was amazed that she couldn’t smell the whiskey breath set deep in her fine embroidery, but I wasn’t about to commit the sin of telling her what God surely didn’t intend her to know.
“Sometimes you’d think Mama’s simple,” Shannon said one night, giggling oddly. I wished she would shut up and the music would start. I was still hungry. Mrs. Pearl had packed less food than usual, and Mama had told me I was always to leave something on my plate when I ate with Shannon. I wasn’t supposed to make the Pearls think they had to feed me. Not that that particular tactic worked. I’d left half a biscuit, and damned if Shannon hadn’t popped it in her mouth.
“Maybe it’s all that tugging at her throttle.” Shannon giggled again, and I knew somebody had finally given her a pull at a paper cup. Now, I thought, now her mama will have to see. But when Shannon fell over her sewing machine, Mrs. Pearl just laid her down with a wet rag on her forehead.
“It’s the weather,” she whispered to me over Shannon’s sodden brow. It was so hot that Jesus and the lamb were wilting off the paper fans provided by the local funeral home. But I knew if there had been snow up to the hubcaps, Mrs. Pearl would have said it was the chill in the air. An hour later, one of the Tuckerton cousins spilled a paper cup on Mrs. Pearl’s sleeve, and I saw her take a deep, painful breath. Catching my eye, she just said, “Can’t expect that frail soul to cope without a little help.”
I didn’t tell her that it seemed to me all those “boys” and “girls” were getting a hell of a lot of “help.” I just muttered an almost inaudible “yeah” and cut my sinful eyes at them all. If they’d let me sing I’d never shame myself like that.
“We could go sit under the stage,” Shannon suggested. “It’s real nice under there.”
It was nice, close and dark and full of the sound of people stomping on the stage. I put my head back and let the dust drift down on my face, enjoying th
e feeling of being safe and hidden, away from the crowd. The music seemed to be vibrating in my bones. Taking your measure, taking your measure, Jesus and the Holy Ghost are taking your measure ...
I didn’t like the new music they were singing. It was a little too gimmicky. Two cups, three cups, a teaspoon of righteous. How will you measure when they call out your name? Shannon started laughing. She put her arms around me and rocked her head back and forth. The music was too loud, and I could smell whiskey all around us. Suddenly my head hurt terribly; the smell of Shannon’s hair was making me sick.
“Uh uh uh.” Desperately I pushed Shannon away and crawled for the side of the stage as fast as I could, gagging. Air, I had to have air.
“Uh uh uh.” I rolled out from under the stage and hit the side of the tent. Retching now, I jerked up the tarp and wiggled through. Out in the damp evening air, I let my head hang down and vomited between my spread hands. Behind me Shannon was gasping and giggling.
“You’re sick, you poor baby.” I felt her patting the small of my back comfortingly.
“Lord God!”
I looked up. A very tall man in a purple shirt was standing in front of me. I dropped my head and puked again. He had silver boots with cracked heels. I watched him step back out of range.
“Lord God!”