“Yes, ma’am.”
“Now get on home and study for that math test.”
“It’s just a quiz,” I reminded her.
“Study,” she repeated.
When I got home, Everett and Wanda were sitting on the couch, talking to Mamma and Daddy. I could tell that Wanda had been crying. Her eyes looked like pictures of boxers I’d seen, without the bruises. She and Everett were sitting close though, so I knew that the problem wasn’t between them.
Daddy motioned me to his lap, and I sat down there with him in his chair, my skinny legs almost as long as his. I sat in Daddy’s lap all the time—big as I was by then. But that day was the first time I paid attention to what his knees felt like against the backs of my thighs. I imagined what it would feel like to sit on James’ lap and then whispered a little prayer for forgiveness.
“Honey,” Daddy said to Wanda. “It’s just going to take some getting used to.”
“But I miss them so bad, though,” Wanda stammered. She was fatter than the rest of us, but then she’d only been living at Fire and Brimstone for a couple of months. “I just don’t understand why I can’t go see them.”
“Nobody’s saying you can’t see them,” Mamma interjected. “Go if you want to. But you know that the minute you step foot in their house, you’ll be breathing the air of their sinfulness.”
“I know,” she whimpered. “It’s not that I don’t like it here ... ,” and she buried her face in Everett’s shirt.
Everett looked at us while she cried. Everett had a lot of muscles, and the muscles in his face were begging.
“Wanda,” Mamma said, “you got to pull yourself together.”
She looked up with her face all red and ugly and said, “I miss their bad manners and their jokes. I miss their drinking and fighting. I even miss laying in the bed on Sunday mornings and listening to Daddy snoring down the hall. I know it’s a sin, to wish for those things. I know it is.”
“What you have to do,” Daddy told her, “is try to feel the way Jesus felt, dying on that cross for our sins. You have to think of your life as an example like Jesus’. Because one day your sinful people might look at you and see that they can step right off the broad road to destruction and onto the narrow path to righteousness, just like you’ve done.”
“I pray about it,” Wanda said.
“And we pray about it too,” Everett assured her. “We pray for your family every day, just like you do. And don’t that make us a stronger family here, joining our hearts in prayer?”
“Yeah.” She tried to smile.
Daddy scratched my back while they talked. I bit my bottom lip and shamefully pretended his fingers belonged to James.
Mamma got out of her chair and went over to the couch and sat down on the other side of Wanda. “I know I can’t be your mother, child,” she said. “You’ve done got a mother of your own, and maybe one day, through your example, she’ll see the state of her heart. But I want you to know that I’ll be everything for you that I can.”
And then Wanda leaned over and cried on Mamma for a while. Daddy winked at Everett to reassure him, and I saw that Daddy’s eyes had tears in them too.
“Where you been, Peanut?” Everett asked me, trying to keep his voice steady and change the subject at the same time.
“On the porch with Nanna,” I told him.
“Can you believe how this girl’s growing?” Daddy asked him. “Bet she’s shot up three inches this year.”
“She ’bout old enough to go out on dates,” Wanda sniffed, and Everett passed her his handkerchief.
“Not my baby,” Daddy said.
“I don’t want to go on a date,” I said.
“Not til she’s eighteen,” Mamma teased—because most everybody in our community was married by seventeen or eighteen. “And then she can only take a date to church.”
Later that night, before Wanda and Everett left, Mamma suggested that whenever Wanda got homesick, she should pinch herself with clothespins for distraction.
“Physical discomfort is one of the best ways to keep your mind on Heaven,” Daddy agreed.
That night I carried a handful of clothespins to bed with me, since my mind was on everything but Heaven. I clamped them to the skin on the inside of my arms and on my stomach. I saved two for my nipples, and those hurt almost too much to bear.
That night I prayed that God would guide me, would help me forget about James’ mouth and his hands that I couldn’t stop imagining. I prayed that God would cleanse me with a dose of Jesus’ pain and keep my body clean and sacred just for him.
And when I couldn’t keep my mind on Jesus, I told myself the story of Nanna and Grandpa to keep from remembering the way kisses felt.
Leila watched him from the window of the bedroom she shared with her cousin Imogene. Herman Langston, spiffed up and brave, walking towards the back door. Whenever she thought he might look her way, she’d duck back behind the yellow curtains. But he wasn’t looking. He didn’t even know which room was hers. He kicked at acorns as he made his way to the house.
“What’s he doing?” Imogene asked from the bed where she sat embroidering flowers on a tablecloth.
“Knocking. He’s knocking on the door.”
“Right now?”
“Yeah, he’s knocking right now.”
They sat quietly, straining their ears to hear what happened in the next room. Leila held her breath at the sound of her uncle Ernie’s heavy feet plodding across the floor and then the squeak of the door opening.
“They’re shaking hands,” Leila whispered. “How’s my hair look?”
“Fine,” Imogene told her. “Rub at your cheeks though. Rub them hard to get some color.”
“He’s got flowers.” Leila grinned.
“You’re so lucky,” Imogene whined.
They sat there and waited to hear Uncle Ernie’s voice call to Leila, but it never happened.
“Can you see anything?” Imogene asked.
“He’s still on the doorsteps, wait—he’s leaving.”
“What?”
“He’s leaving.” Leila stood at the window, staring out, not trying to hide, hoping he would see her.
“Lei-laaa,” Uncle Ernie called from the other room.
“Sir?” she yelled back from the window, and when she did, Herman turned that way, looked and smiled, held up his hands.
She grinned back at him and waved.
“Can you come in here for a minute? And you too, Imogene.”
“Be right there,” Leila called back, still facing Herman, who was walking on, turning back shyly to catch her eye from time to time.
For the next hour, Uncle Ernie talked to the girls about courting. He said that Herman Langston could sit with Leila in church, if he was willing to go, but that there’d be no holding hands or touching of any kind. He said he’d already told Herman, and that once he’d proven his intentions for Leila, he might be able to accompany her on walks.
Back in their bedroom, Imogene shrieked and giggled, and Leila blushed. It wasn’t until later that she saw the pink azalea flowers lined up across the outside of the windowsill.
The church and its classrooms were sacred places. Anything done there had to be done with the spirit of God in mind. Once when Mustard was little and church was dismissed, he hopped up off the pew and dashed outside. Bethany yanked Olin up, unhooked his belt before he even knew what was happening, and followed Mustard out onto the church stoop where she blistered his backside in front of God and everybody, beat him until he wet his pants, just for running in the sanctuary.
But in the fellowship hall, a rectangular building situated just behind the holy structure and surrounded by some scraggly pine trees, we could be ourselves. That’s where we ate, when the whole church ate together, and that’s where we had our youth retreats.
A couple of times each year, the Fire and Brimstone young adults would host retreats for the Fire and Brimstone youth. On those occasions, all the children would bring blan
kets and pillows from their houses, and we’d praise God from twilight to daybreak if we felt like it, studying scripture and singing songs and talking about everyday situations we faced that the adults didn’t have to.
David and Laura and Everett and Wanda and Ben Harback and some others who weren’t yet shackled with children of their own would lead us in workshops about how to deal with the children on the bus who made fun of us, about how to know when we should tell our elders about unholy books we might be reading in school. We did fun things—like building a bonfire and destroying fashion magazines that somebody brought in from town just for the occasion.
We had boiled peanuts and popcorn. We could talk about anything there.
But that all happened later, after Grandpa Herman had given his sermon.
Each time, Grandpa Herman would come in early. We’d all eat supper together, and then he’d lecture us while we sat at the wooden tables in front of him. Then he’d tell us to put our heads on the table, with every head bowed and every eye closed.
Obediently, we’d follow his instructions.
Then he’d ask us to raise our hands if we wanted to go to Hell. He’d say, “Unless you’ve been saved and baptized in the precious blood of Jesus, each and every one of you will be going to Hell.”
And then he’d tell us stories about how Jesus was coming back, any day, probably within the next five years, and that we needed to be ready to greet him. He said that unless we’d been baptized, when the rapture happened, we’d be left behind. We’d wake up one day and call out “good morning” to our parents and hear no reply. We’d look for them only to find their clothes left in the bed.
He said that we’d run out of food. That big bugs would chase us around and sting us with their tails, and that though we might be sickened unto death, we could not die.
He said we’d turn on the faucet in the bathroom and find only blood running out and would have nothing to drink.
He said evil multitudes would come unto us and cut off our limbs, and that we wouldn’t die. We’d sit there, with no legs to run with, and be stung and stung again by the beasts.
And then he’d say, “But you don’t have to be left behind. You can go straight to Heaven with all of God’s special children if you’ll only open your hearts to Jesus, ask him for forgiveness and welcome him into your hearts.”
And then he’d tell us to raise our hands again if we feared going to Hell. Whoever raised their hand would be taken away to the church where Grandpa Herman would lead them to salvation.
It happened the same way each time. The youngest children invited to the youth retreats would get saved right away. I’d raised my hand years earlier, but each time Grandpa Herman gave his after-the-rapture speech, I found it hard to catch my breath, hard to focus on God’s love and not God’s meanness and spite. I thought that really I wasn’t saved at all.
Grandpa Herman said that when you were truly saved, you felt like you could fly. But I never felt that way. Not about Jesus.
And each time I knew that I must not really be saved, that I must not have opened my heart to him. I tried to figure out how you go about opening your heart. I tried not to think about being left behind, but in the nights, I kept slipping out of bed, checking the faucet to make sure it wasn’t bleeding.
On that occasion, it was John who went away with Grandpa Herman and came back testifying. We listened to Grandpa Herman’s words coming out of John’s eight-year-old mouth, and it made me feel sick all over.
But then we broke into groups, and my group had just me and James and Pammy and Lorrie Evens and Joshua Langston, both older cousins who lived on the other side of the compound. David and Laura were our leaders and they talked to us about “Teenage Temptations,” about how at our age, we might be tempted to put on lipstick at school or smart-mouth a teacher in hopes of winning the affections of a boy or girl in our class. But they said it was important for us to wait until all those urges passed and until we had secured our hearts in Jesus. They said we would find a mate among God’s special children if we didn’t show off, and to come and talk to them if we had problems because it hadn’t been too long since they were our age.
Then they took questions, and Lorrie asked about kissing, and I could see David and Laura both thinking that next time, Lorrie would have to move up with the high-schoolers that Everett and Wanda taught. Laura told her it was “inappropriate,” and Lorrie shut up.
Then Pammy asked if it was a sin if we accidentally let our knee socks fall down and a strange boy saw our legs. David told her it wasn’t one, but that she should keep her socks up, and Lorrie suggested that she could get rubber bands to hold them at the top.
I didn’t ask anything at all, but I worried that the next year when Pammy went to junior high and had to dress out for gym, she’d tell.
It was almost midnight by the time Ben Harback released the younger children. Then they began playing Red-Rover, and he started the popcorn, and pretty soon, the older groups were let out too.
Pammy and I made up a little cushiony bed, and then we sat up talking for a while. Some of the smaller children fell asleep, and across the room, Ben Harback and David sat with some boys telling jokes, and Lorrie Evans was in the corner talking to Wanda and Laura and pretending to be all grown-up.
Me and Pammy sat on our pallet and pulled a thick white blanket over us, up to the neck. Mustard came and stretched out beside Pammy, and she said, “You can’t sleep here. You have to sleep with the boys.”
Mustard said, “I don’t want to sleep here anyway. I want Ninah to tell us a story.”
And then James sat down beside me, and Barley sat at the foot of the bed, and Mustard smacked Barley with his pillow, and Barley hit him back, and everybody laughed.
“Everything okay over there?” Ben Harback called.
“Yeah,” Barley hollered. “Ninah’s gonna tell us a story.”
“Shhhh,” Laura whispered loudly. “Some people are sleeping. Y’all keep it down.”
“Go ahead, Ninah,” James said. “Tell us a good one.”
“Hmmm,” I thought. “Okay. I’ll tell you about the time that Nanna and Grandpa Herman lost their shoes.”
Barley settled down and pulled the tail end of our blanket over his legs. Pammy moved over to make room for Mustard, and James moved in closer to me.
“See, back in the days when Nanna and Grandpa first started courtin, he’d come by her house early in the morning and pick her up for school. And that was how they dated. Just walking to school together.
“One day Grandpa Herman picked her up, and they set out on the dirt road towards the schoolhouse two miles away.”
“I’m glad we’ve got buses now,” Barley said.
“Me too,” Pammy echoed.
“Anyway, it was a sunny day, in April maybe, and the sap was running in the trees so the whole place smelled like pine, fresh and warm.”
James, who was sitting next to me Indian-style, had started to shiver, and I moved in closer to Pammy so that our sides were touching and offered him part of the blanket.
“Thanks,” he said.
“What happened next?” Mustard asked, sleepy.
“Grandpa Herman told Nanna that they should take off their shoes and not wear them that day. That they should hide their shoes somewhere and pick them up on the way home.”
“Could you go to school without shoes?” Barley asked.
“You could way back then,” Pammy answered, and yawned.
“So they stopped on the side of the road. And Grandpa Herman peeled off his shoes, but Nanna was shy about her feet. Grandpa Herman said, ‘Look,’ and did a little dance for Nanna with his white skin shining.
“And then he sat back down beside Nanna and started unlacing her boots.”
“Nuh-uh,” Pammy said.
“Yes he did,” I promised. “He reached down and untied her shoes and then he pulled them off her feet one at a time. And then he reached up and took her socks and pulled them down too, slowly, d
own her legs.”
“Really?” Mustard said.
“Yeah. But he didn’t touch her skin.”
About that time I felt a poke and realized it was James’ hand, resting on my leg. I pulled in my breath quick and kept talking.
“He folded her socks up neatly and stuck them back inside her shoes, and then Grandpa helped Nanna up. They felt the prickles underneath their toes of baby blades of grass just breaking through the soil.”
“So what’d they do with their shoes?” Barley asked.
“Wait a minute. I’m getting to that,” I told him.
I looked around, and Laura and Wanda were still talking to Lorrie. David and Everett and Ben were still giggling in the corner. Nobody was looking our way at all. James’ fingers fumbled lightly at my leg, at the skin behind my knee that’s softer than newborn biddies. I slid down a little, and my dress slid up, and then he was massaging the place where my knee changed to thigh.
“They took their shoes and stuck them in a drainage pipe that ran underneath a dirt road. The pipe had a lot of dirt packed over it, but it was like a bridge, separating two sides of a creek. Except the creek had dried up. Anyway, that’s where they left their shoes for the day, and they danced all the way to school, feeling dusty sand powder up around their toes and leaving footprints side by side for anyone to see.”
James’ eyes were only half open. His mouth was half open too. Pammy, laying right beside me, didn’t notice a thing. I was very still.
“But that day at school, it started raining. It rained from the time they got there until just before they left. And when Grandpa Herman met Nanna on the school steps after the last bell, they knew they were in trouble deep.”
He reached up quickly, to the middle of my thigh, shifting his body as he did it so that anybody who was looking would just see the blanket change positions from his movement.
The heat rushed up my body and into my face. I licked my lips and kept talking, trying not to breathe out loud.
“They got their feet and legs all muddy walking back to the pipe,” I told them. “Nanna had splats of mud above her knees that she had to flick off with her fingernails. But then when they got to the place they’d left their shoes, they were gone. Washed away by the creek that had come back to life in the storm.”