Holy Ghost Girl (15 page)

Mama pushed the door open, flicked on a lamp, and put her finger to her lips. “Go get in bed and don’t turn the bedroom light on, you’ll wake up Pam and Randall.”

“But how will we know if Brother Terrell is okay?”

“Lower your voice. Brother Cotton will let us know.”

“But how will I see to undress?”

“I don’t have the energy to explain everything to you. Put your gown on. Don’t turn on the light. And don’t wake up the other kids.”

“But I’m scared of the dark.”

“If you’ve been good, there’s no reason to be scared.” She popped me lightly on the bottom. “Now, go on!”

She turned to pull out the couch and click it into a bed for her and Gary. I walked down the hall wondering how good I had been lately. Laverne startled me as she brushed past.
Not good enough.
I turned the handle on the bedroom door and stepped into the darkened bedroom I shared with Pam and Randall. My eyes found the window, then darted away from it. I didn’t want to see a demon peering in at me.
Blood of Jesus. Blood of Jesus. Forgive me for peeking tonight.
I felt my way over to the end of the bed, peeled off my church clothes, and left them in a pile on the floor. With my hands held out in front, I fumbled over the chest of drawers and counted down one, two, three to the third drawer, found what felt like my nightgown, and pulled it over my head and shoulders. Something in the corner caught my eye.
What is that?
I backed up until I hit the end of the bed and scrambled up between the Terrell kids. Randall sprawled along the outside edge of the bed. I threw his arm across his chest. He didn’t stir. Pam was hunched into a tight little ball with her face toward the wall, her arms wrapped tight around her abdomen, knees drawn in close, a cocoon of grief. I lay on my back and shut my eyes. Whatever I had seen a moment before, I did not want to see again.

My thoughts shifted to Brother Terrell. It wasn’t until that night that I considered the possibility that he might really die. I imagined the tent packed with thousands of people, the platform empty. I waited for a wave of sadness to roll over me, and was shocked to find relief instead. No more feeling guilty each time I ate a Hershey’s bar.
I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it.
If he died, what would happen to all those souls who had not heard the gospel? Would they burn in hell? Babies too? I thought how much it hurt when I burned my finger. I made myself imagine my body burning like that forever.

I thought about how Brother Terrell always had a gift for me and Gary each time he gave Pam and Randall a present. He didn’t have to do that. He wasn’t our daddy. I thought how good it felt when he patted my head and asked how I was doing, how I always wanted to say something funny to make him laugh, but never could. Everyone seemed more alive when he was around.
Please, God. Let everything go back to normal, please.
A selfish prayer when so many souls were at stake. Why was it so hard to be good? I felt myself drifting into that lake of eternal hellfire when the front door creaked open and startled me fully awake. A man’s voice. Brother Cotton’s. Then my mother’s and Betty Ann’s. No one screamed or cried. The door closed again.
Thank you.
I curled around Pam and pressed my knees into the bend of hers. Sleep blanketed my thoughts and everything that could go wrong in the world slipped away.

 

 

I woke the next morning to a warm, doughy smell. Biscuits. No one had baked biscuits since Brother Terrell started his fast. He could stand the smell of beans bubbling, cornbread baking, and chicken frying, but the smell of biscuits brought him to tears. I inhaled deeply and opened my eyes. A rheumy water spot stared down from the ceiling. On one side of me Randall snored, mouth wide open. On the other side, where Pam should have been, was an empty space. Voices rose and fell in some other part of the house. I pulled myself above the quilt, scooched to the foot of the bed, and lowered my feet to the wooden floor, smooth and cold. I slipped over to the door and pulled it open. Laughter. I walked down the hall to the living room, past the couch, cleaved in two with Gary sleeping in the middle. I wanted to rub my hand over the dark wool of his curly hair but thought better of it. There would be more biscuits if Gary and Randall stayed asleep.

Bright light washed across every surface of the kitchen. Shiny enameled stove and round-shouldered fridge, pale no-color countertops, cabinets with peeling white paint, faded linoleum traced with indecipherable patterns. My mother stood on one side of the stove, hand on her hip, stirring a cast-iron fryer full of tomato gravy. The light blurred and softened the strong features of her face and brought out the red and gold in her hair. On the other side of the stove stood Laverne. She flipped one strip of bacon, then another, jumping as the grease popped and splattered, laughing at the brief, sharp pain, so ordinary and expected. Betty Ann faced the counter, cutting into biscuits with a wooden handled knife and spreading butter, then fig preserves into the warm, flaky centers.

She let go that deep, throaty laugh, then whipped around to Mama and Laverne. “The steak!”

Mama dropped the long-handled spoon into the gravy and knelt in front of the oven broiler. “Laverne, hand me that hot pad.” She pulled out the pan with smoking meat and placed it on the counter in front of Betty Ann. “A burnt offering.” They laughed, voices mingling in a loose, rough harmony.

“Hey, can we get some of that food? We got a hungry man over here.” Brother Cotton’s voice drew my attention to the table where Brother Terrell sat, elbows propped on the round white table, a fork in one fist, knife in the other, a shiny white platter in front him. The haggard quality his face had assumed during the fast was softened by an eager, boyish grin. He turned that smile on the women and they giggled and bumped around, placing platters loaded with bacon and sausage, biscuits, eggs, and toast onto the table. Bowls of tomato gravy, cream gravy, and grits oozing with butter followed. The sun streamed through windows and across the table, catching on mason jars filled with honey in the comb, strawberry preserves, and fig preserves, turning them into jewels of light. Pam sat beside her daddy, beaming her big snaggletoothed smile at him. Something bubbled over on the stove and Mama scolded herself. I stood in the doorway, taking it all in: Brother Terrell, the light, all that food.

“Well, Miss Priss, are you going to stand there all day or do you think you might eat?” Mama held up a plate. I walked over and sat across from Pam.

Brother Terrell waved the women over. “Let’s bow our heads and pray together.”

Laverne stood behind Brother Cotton’s chair while Mama and Betty Ann flanked Brother Terrell. Mama bit at her lips and Betty Ann twisted a dish towel. Laverne placed her hands on her husband’s shoulders.

Brother Terrell dropped his head and prayed. “Father, we thank thee for this food. Bless it to the nourishment of our bodies, and bless the hands that prepared it. Oh Lord, we ask that you would be with us. We ask that you would enable our bodies to accept and use this food, so that we might be strengthened, Lord, to do the work that thou hast given us to do . . .” His voice grew softer as the prayer progressed until I couldn’t hear him at all.

The clock ticked. The coffee perked. Brother Cotton cleared his throat. No one wanted to disturb Brother Terrell’s prayer, even when he wasn’t saying a word. I opened one eye to see what was going on. Mama’s, Betty Ann’s, and Laverne’s heads were bowed. Pam’s eyes were squeezed shut. Brother Cotton’s head was tucked so low his chin almost rested on his chest. Brother Terrell’s eyes were open and he was chewing a biscuit and licking his lips. My mouth fell open and I looked right at him.

He winked at me, put the biscuit on his plate, and spoke. “Brother Cotton, when you’re done praying, could you pass the bacon?”

It was his old joke. Somehow we had forgotten it, or maybe we were glad to play along again. Betty Ann popped him with the dish towel. “David, you’re a mess.”

He spooned a lake of grits onto his platter, flipped three over-easy eggs on top, and stirred it all together. He shoveled a tablespoon into his mouth and didn’t put the spoon down until he scraped the platter.

Mama’s brow furrowed. “Maybe you should slow down a bit.”

“Jesus released me from the fast and told me to eat. Bless God, I’m eating.”

Mama exhaled a long-suffering sigh. “Maybe Jesus expects you to use wisdom.”

Betty Ann put one hand on Brother Terrell’s shoulder. “Honey, you ready for this steak?” In her other hand she held a platter on which rested a piece of meat bigger than her face.

Pam chimed in. “Yeah, Daddy, you want that steak?”

Betty Ann forked the meat onto his platter and he added bacon, a sausage patty, and two more biscuits covered with Mama’s tomato gravy. He chewed through it all, mouth open, slowing down only to sop the leftover grease, butter, and egg yolk with two more biscuits.

A whoop came from the doorway. “Daddy, you’re eating!” Randall jogged to the table, belly swaying. “We thought God was gonna take you.” He stood by his dad and draped an arm about his shoulders.

“I thought he was, too, son. Guess he ain’t done with me yet.” He let go a long, satisfied belch.

“Y’all got some cream to go in that coffee I smell? I ain’t had coffee in months.”

“I’ll get it, Daddy.” Pam jumped up and dragged her chair to the counter. She climbed onto the chair, lifted the percolator with both hands, filled the cup, and with slow, measured steps, walked it to her father. Brother Terrell flashed her a smile and took the cup. He scooped spoonful after spoonful of sugar into the coffee and poured in the cream. He lifted the cup to his nose and breathed in the aroma, took a long slurp, and set the mostly empty cup back down.

His eyes rolled back in his head and he drew a deep breath of satisfaction. “I feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven.”

The next instant, Brother Terrell opened his eyes wide and pointed toward the living room. “My God, my God. It’s an angel of the Lord, right here in this house.” His voice was a whisper.

A small figure stood in a shaft of light that poured through the living-room window.

It was Gary. Mama and Laverne groaned.

Brother Terrell slapped his knees and laughed. “I had y’all that time.”

Gary moved toward us, rubbing his eyes. “What? What?”

Mama stretched out her arms. “It’s nothing. Come here, honey.”

He toddled over to her. I cupped my hand over my mouth and leaned toward Randall. “He don’t look like no angel to me.”

Unsettled by the attention, Gary asked again, “What?”

Mama glared at me and reached down to pick him up. “It’s okay, honey. Brother Terrell said you were an angel.”

A big grin spread across my three-year-old brother’s face. “An angel.”

Mama picked the sleep from Gary’s eyes. “Let’s go wash your face.”

Mama stepped into the living room with Gary on her hip as Brother Terrell cleared his throat. It was what he always did when he had something important to say. “Listen, I need to tell y’all something. Carolyn, can you come on back in here? In the trailer last night, I had a vision.”

Mama let Gary slide down her body until his feet touched the floor. Three quick steps and she was back in the kitchen. Betty Ann turned off the water at the sink, dried her hands, and drifted back to the table, pushing her hair out of her eyes. Laverne set the dirty dishes she had gathered on the counter.

Brother Terrell looked at me, Pam, and Randall. “You kids go on and play now. We need to talk.”

“But Daddy . . .”

Betty Ann cut Randall off. “You heard your daddy, Randall. Now get dressed and go outside. All of you.”

As the four of us left the kitchen, I heard Brother Terrell say, “Jesus stood in my room last night.”

We shivered in a miserable little huddle on the tiny patch of a front porch. The gray mud of our yard oozed into the lighter brown mud of the dirt road that ran past our house and four other unpainted houses, and dead-ended at a dark, soupy field. Pam looked around. “What in the world are we gonna do?” It was cold and everything was still wet from last night’s rain. There was no dry place to sit or play.

Randall sighed, and his swollen belly strained at the fabric of his thin plaid cotton shirt. “Well, if there’s nothing else to do, I guess we could play husbands and wives again.” His tone was regretful, as if he had exhausted all other possibilities.

Pam allowed herself one comment. “You are a nasty boy.” She pointed across the street to the last house on the road. “I saw some kids there the other day. We could ask them to play.”

Randall shook his head no. “Them’s worldly kids.”

There were many reasons to avoid the unsaved. First of all, they were dangerous. Their picture-show-watching, ball-playing, honkytonking ways might tempt us from the straight and narrow. Second of all, they made us uncomfortable. Everything about outsiders—their clothes, speech, habits—seemed to belittle us, and that put us on the defensive. Mama mimicked the speech of the store clerks and bank tellers we encountered: “Oh mah. What dahling children. So smaht.” There was only one way to be in the world, one right way anyhow, and that was the way we were. Even local churchgoers with their smooth ways were suspect. They might be saved, but they were lukewarm at best, unwilling to make the required sacrifices. It was just a matter of time before God spewed them out of his mouth. These prejudices, spoken and unspoken, gave me, Pam, Randall, and Gary license to treat outsiders however we wanted, though I’m not sure the grown-ups would have seen it that way. If some local kid raised an eyebrow at the goings-on under the tent, we stalked and harassed them for the rest of the revival. Their brains would be splattered on the highway for making fun of God’s anointing. The devil would deep-fry them in a vat of boiling oil. Sores would cover their bodies and they would burn forever. We pronounced their doom in solemn oracular tones, and if they tried to defend themselves, we invited them to step out from under the tent to settle things. I was too scrawny and way too chicken to fight, and Gary was too young. That left the Terrell kids to wage our battles, and they usually won.