Songbird (13 page)

“Yeah. You know what I mean?”

“I guess so. Like there's kids, Jere and Gloria's kids, and Bob and Jean's kids, and Lou and Pete's kids, and then there's foster kids, like we're some big nebulous blob with kids’ arms and legs sticking out?”

“Something like that, although I’ve always thought of it more like being in some black hole of a womb by the lady with the name ‘Foster.’ The Foster kids. They don't mean nothing to nobody.”

“Amazing the difference an apostrophe ‘s’ makes.”

“All the difference in the world.”

The light from the mission struck our faces.

“You ever want to get married and have your own kids someday, Ruby?”

She shook her head, then shrugged. “I don't know yet. What if I died or something after they were born? Then what?”

The music inside stopped.

“I want my own kids. And I want them to have an apostrophe ‘s’ before their title of ‘kid.’ And I want them to have two names. I want it to be Charmaine and Ralph's kids or whatever”

“Ralph?”

“It's the first name that came to mind.”

“Still.”

“Ruby, that isn't the point.”

Ruby curled her long fingers around the door handle. “I know, but couldn't you have come up with something a little more suave than Ralph right off the bat?”

“I guess not. My lands, here I was opening up and you start in on me.”

She yanked on the door. “Lets get inside where it's warmer

“You said it.”

We walked inside.

Oh, my goodness! I saw the collection of misfits inside the large, unadorned room and I wanted to fall to my knees and weep, but all I could do was let the usherette, aged and smiling, dressed in a bright yellow Salvation Army-style uniform, lead me and Ruby to the front row of wooden folding chairs.

The music started up again.

7

T
hank You, God. Thank You, God. Thank You, God.

I got to my feet there in the rescue mission, feeling the warmth of a rickety heating system that clanged a tinny merengue in direct opposition to the rhythm of the old hymn belched from an old organ. Under the pressure of the fingers of a man who reminded me of the cowardly lion, only thinner, “At Calvary” stuttered.

“Years I spent in vanity and pride,” they all sang with conviction.

Vanity? Pride?

These people?

Now, me, I realized, could attest to both of these earthly attributes. Up there every day jiggling my hiney in time to Supremes’ tunes. Pouting out Shirelle lyrics like I knew anything about what the songs said. And the Marvellettes? Don't even get me started. That “Mr. Postman” song gets me to this day. Because rest assured, after Mama left I felt like I lived for that man, hoping against hope he'd be bearing a maternal love letter.

Stop in the name of love.

Reflections of the way life used to be.

Baby love, my baby love.

Mama said there'd be days like these.

A piano joined in with the organ, and the man's fingers moved with the tenderness of the lover I hoped to have someday.

Ruby handed me a Kleenex. “Let's sit down before we make more of a scene.”

“Well, at least the song is still going.”

“I like it. Have you ever heard it before?”

‘”At Calvary’? Of course! Who's never heard of ‘At Calvary’?”

“Me.”

“Oh.”

“Come on. ”

We sat on old wooden fold-out chairs painted a chalky yellow. “You think these seats will hold us?” I whispered.

“It's worth the risk. Look there's a songbook on the floor.” She picked it up. “What did you say that song was called?”

I told her.

Ruby turned to the song and her quilt of an alto wrapped around the notes and warmed them to perfection. I couldn't sing, so I let her do it for the both of us.

“You were made to sing gospel music, Ruby,” I whispered, feeling almost prophetic.

Ruby just smiled, nodded, and kept on reading notes.

I remembered what it was like to pray as I sat there listening to Ruby sing. The hymns continued for ten more minutes.

“Mansion Over a Hilltop.” “Rock of Ages.”

“Nearer My God to Thee.”

Ruby's voice filled me.

The heating system seemed to say, “Come, come, come. Come, come, come.”

“Nearer my God to Thee, nearer to Thee.”

For some people, spiritual renewal comes on gradually like the flowers of spring. The crocuses of realization bloom. The daffodils of decision open up next. Then all sorts of blossoms burst forth. The white blooms of obedience. The red tulips of intimate prayer and finally, the roses of unending praise.

For others, spiritual renewal is like venturing into a hothouse in mid-winter, heaters at full blast behind a snowstorm swirling about the crystal panes of glass. The door opens, and more heat ventures out than cold swishes in with your entrance and you find yourself barely able to breathe in the vapors of blooming flowers. Hibiscus, tea roses, hyacinth, paper whites, lilies, and gardenias. Oh, the white pure gardenias that puff out breaths of sweet perfume from their gentle petals, rounded, sweet petals that expand when your head descends in shame and fashion a pillow, a perfumed, Holy bosom.

“Cast all your cares upon me.”

“I will give you rest.”

Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus.

My Lord and Savior, I am weak and weary.

I prayed for Him to let me lay my head upon His chest, to hear the beating of His holy Heart. I prayed that He'd fine-tune my ears. I gave myself back to Him.

“I’ll give back the gift you gave me,” I whispered.

Nobody wants your gift, Myrtle Charmaine, least of all God.

“Be quiet, Mama,” I whispered. “This has nothing to do with you.”

“What?” Ruby leaned over. A tear from her great brown eye splashed on my forearm.

I took her hand. “Ruby?”

“It's nothing, Char. Look, here comes the preacher man.”

8

I
never expected the preacher to be the same guy that had been pouring punch over at a side table as the singing was going on. In fact, I didn't really notice him, until the piano player stood up and said, “And now it's time for the preachin’! Reverend Hopewell?”

And that was it. The entire introduction.

Trust me on this one. We're a lot slicker these days, but not |quite as dandy as that couple down in Charlotte.

The guy at the punch table straightened up, finished ladling the red mixture into a Styrofoam cup, smoothed his suspenders with shaking, flat hands, then grabbed a big brown Bible at the |corner of the table. Now I mean really big, like the wee bit smaller cousin of the family Bible. Hardback, too.

“My, my,” Ruby whispered and I held back the laughter.

“Must be serious about God's Word, Ruby.”

“Either that or he's half blind and needs the big-print version.”

Back then, I wondered how Ruby knew of the large-print version. Turns out there was one in the closet of her room in one of her foster homes, but I didn't ask right then because Reverend Hopewell thumped his Bible down on the lectern and stared.

He just stood there looking at the crowd and all I could think was how glad I was we weren't in our costumes or he might have thought we were prostitutes or something. But we sat there in our hats and coats looking respectable and his eyes alighted first on Ruby who nodded once like some wise old sagey person, and then they rested on me. I couldn't see the color of his eyes because of the peckish lighting there in the mission, not to mention it sprayed a general green glow everywhere, but they were rimmed by dark lashes that spiked out in isosceles triangles underneath his blondish brows.

Half his mouth lifted, then he looked down at the Book, slid a slender, nonmanicured hand over dark blond hair that seemed to be thinning before our very eyes, and cleared his throat.

“The man needs a hairpiece,” Ruby whispered.

“Are you going to listen to the message or not?” I hissed.

“Okay, okay. I’ll be quiet.”

“I’d appreciate that, Ruby.”

Then the preacher said, “Let's pray.”

So we did.

And it was just like he brought us right up to God's throne and that he knew what was in our hearts. He talked about waywardness and loneliness and asked the Holy Spirit to comfort. He talked about sin and stain, and praised Jesus for His blood that washes it all away. He prayed for every one there, rich and poor, male and female, black and white, down and out, “and all ways in between dear Lord, because You know and love us all. Amen.”

“You believe that?” Ruby whispered.

“Believe what?”

“That God loves everyone.”

“Of course.”

“Oh.”

The preacher cleared his throat. Oh, what a skinny guy! Thank the Lord he didn't have a big old Adam's apple or he'd have been stereotypical. His hair shone a soft gold, fine and precious, and his eyes were kind. That's all. Just kind eyes with dark lashes.

He'd slipped on a plaid sportscoat during his walk to the podium. The shades of burgundy, gray, and green, caught my eye, too. I realized the jacket was thin, close to threadbare, with faded fibers bunched up too close in some places, spaced too far apart in others.

I leaned closer to Ruby. “If he's like most preachers, get ready for some fire and brimstone.”

“Mm”

Then the preacher closed his eyes and prayed to himself for about ten seconds and I liked that although I wondered if it was for show like those swimmers and Olympic athletes who make the sign of the cross before competing, leaving you wondering if they really prayed at all.

But his fingertips skated lighter than fairies’ feet on the slick surface of the lectern and they vibrated a little like tender branches in a winter.

This nervous preacher was asking God to calm him. I just knew that. For some reason, I was able to crawl into his head.

When he began his sermon, I did my own praying, because I knew that it wasn't an accident that I sat there, perched precariously on a yellow wooden fold-out chair in the middle of a sad little storefront mission in Atlantic City.

Then a fiery message gushed like a consuming lava river from the lips of the preacher who had been shivering in the winter of nerves only a moment before, a fiery message like nothing I’d ever heard before. But it wasn't the fire of hot coals or blowtorches. It was a cauterizing fire, sent from God to clean out the festering misery of the soul. See when a man is given a gift like Harlan's and he uses it for the Lord, you can believe him when he tells you God loves you and wants you to live a victorious life of faith. You can believe him when he says, “Choose you this day whom you will serve.”

“God loves you! He's calling you to come. Won't you come today as brother Windsor plays the invitation?”

And he pleaded with the Holy Spirit to come and touch hearts and turn them toward the cross. And brother Windsor began “Just As I Am” and I sang, too, one of the only voices in the crowd.

“Do you know Jesus? Why not come and kneel at the altar and make sure you're going to heaven? Why not become His child?”

I turned at the touch of Ruby's hand on my arm. She cried and said, “Come with me, Charmaine. Will you?”

“Of course, Ruby.”

Harlan held out a hand. “Now is the hour of your salvation.”

And we knelt there together as Ruby prayed to have her sins forgiven. It really is like the song says. “Oh, precious is the flow, that makes me white as snow. No other fount I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”

9

I
n the back corner of the mission hall the preacher and Ruby sat in deep discussion. They leaned forward, knee-to-knee on two of the fold-out chairs, Ruby asking questions and this Harlan Hopewell fellow answering them, flipping through the pages of a much smaller Bible, looking her in the eyes, patting her arm, nodding his head, shaking his head. One time, I believe I saw a tear glisten on his cheek.

|Having consumed about five cups of Hawaiian Punch, I read a flyer about the Harlan Hopewell Evangelistic Crusade once with each cup. The crusade consisted of the preacher, Harlan Hopewell, and the piano player, Henry Windsor, and the brochure said they met in seminary in 1968 where they started going to prisons “to spread the Gospel message that Jesus saves!”

I did the math. He was about thirty-one years old now and sure looked younger, like a gangly older teen. He hadn't lost that innocent earnestness of someone on the first round of dough-rising in the ministry. He didn't appear to have been punched down yet by fellow Christians, the air of pure intentions and calling puffing out with hopes and dreams. But I assumed that would come. Sooner or later, it always came. Unless of course, he stayed on the road and didn't have to deal with the same old complaining Christians day after day. According to the brochure, they'd been to every state below the Mason-Dixon line and east of the Mississippi.

Preacher Hopewell grew up in Chesapeake, Virginia, and Henry Windsor hailed from Greenville, South Carolina. A picture of the two of them in front of the High Point Theological Seminary sign gave me indication they'd been called to do exactly what they were doing, for behind them the motto, TELLING OTHERS IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH shone in gold letters. I guessed Windsor was the spirit and Hopewell was the truth.

I looked over at Ruby and Preacher Hopewell and realized this discussion would last a while. The old couple that ran the mission walked over to me on Hush Puppies.

The woman, in a plain, long-sleeved peach floral dress with matching belt, smiled and said with a soft, high voice, “They might be a while. Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

I shook my head. “No, thank you. I just drank so much punch I couldn't put anything else in!”

“I’m Loretta and this is Joe, my husband. We run this place.”

“I’m Charmaine Whitehead.”

I’d noticed the couple earlier in the evening, sitting in two chairs at the back storefront window where Ruby and the preacher now sat. The lights of the neon cross outside illumined their hoary heads, the lady's tarnished with yellow, the man's gradually getting darker the farther down it flowed from the top of his large head.

“How did you come into the mission tonight?” Joe asked, straightening his brown tie and hiking up his plaid pants by a belt with a huge brass buckle that said “Mack” with a bulldog looking out from between the legs of the “M.”