Songbird (15 page)
Ruby joined up with the crusade not long after. And Grace “people who need people” Underhill swore at the both of us “up one side and down the other,” as Ruby says.
W
e see all kinds of people at our crusades. Up-and-comers. Down and outers. To and froers. Over and underers. There's people that smell like roses. There's others that look like they haven't intersected with a tub in weeks unless it was some old rusted one they'd slept in at a junkyard. Lots of them have no home in which to settle down, and boy, can I relate. Call me “Mrs. Motor home Hopewell”!
You ever notice how many
FOR SALE
signs really poke through lawns in your town? They spring forth from the earth like some sort of fungus. Seems like everybody is selling something. Especially houses. If there's one thing I inherited from Mama it's the want of a home of my own.
Winnebagos don't count.
No matter what anybody may tell you, they just don't count. Retirees’ words don't count because they've already owned a home so they can't know how much a camper van doesn't count if you've already had a real place of your own.
First of all, they don't include Garburators. At least ours doesn't.
Second, they build the cabinets in the kitchen areas out of that particle board stuff, thin and unsubstantial. And if you try to paint them, I can tell you right now, it won't be long before all sorts of paint dandruff drifts down all over the place. Don't try putting border up around the top of the walls either. What a nightmare that turned out to be! Harlan rarely loses his temper with me, but that time … my lands!
I may sound ungrateful and I suppose I am, because after what happened with Mrs. Evans and then that Richard Lewellyn, I might have ended up homeless, a drug addict, or even a woman of the evening.
But I still dream about a place that when you slam the door it doesn't shake the entire living space.
It's been four years since Harlan and I married and I figure it's time I finally give in and learn how to cook. Now living in an RV can make that difficult, but with just the two of us, how big of an oven do I really need?
I almost burn the place down making cherries jubilee. Even had to sneak into a liquor store somewhere in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, for the sherry.
Harlan scratches his sparsely populated scalp in wonderment when I carry it to the dinette in the RV. Flaming away, the dessert scares him just as much as it scares me. He grabs the pan and throws it right out the door onto my new pair of rain boots.
Why me, God? Dexter boots! Seventy-five percent off the clearance price!
Now, I don't know much about much, but I do know this: no matter how bad things seem, there's always somebody worse off than you! And so when the apostle Paul said “Give thanks in all things, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you,” I think this applies to the negative as well as the positive.
Thank you, Lord, that I’m not a parapelegic.
Thank you, Lord, that I’m not pickin’ trash in search of dinner.
Thank you, Lord, that I’ve never wintered without a good warm coat with a zipper that works.
Thank you, Lord, I’ve never had an evil uncle or Mama never brought home an evil boyfriend that abused me sexually or hung me in a closet because I breathed wrong.
Thank you, Lord, that, although I’ve gone hungry, it's only been because I’m dieting.
See what I mean?
So many true horrors abound, not ruined shoes and desserts, and we can either contribute to them or redeem them. That's what I view myself as nowadays. Motor home and all. A redemptress.
I like the sound of that. Although if the term goes abroad the women's libbers might say, “Oh, no, Charmaine, you're not a ‘redemptress,’ you're a ‘female redeemer.’ ”
I’m still singing all these years later, and Harlan is preaching in Lynchburg at some revival meetings. Mid-July pounds us hard and, well, pass the deodorant and turn up the A/C is all I can say!
Harlan's meeting with the folks over at Oak Baptist, going over last-minute details, so I head up to River Ridge Mall to do a little shopping. Not that Lynchburg is the fashion capital of the world or nothing, but I find a cute little sweatshirt for Harlan's nephew at Thalheimer's. I prefer to sew my own clothing as we're traveling down the road. I head out into the mall.
A girl cries on the bench near the fountain. So, me being who I am, I just walk on over to the Orange Julius stand, order a couple of Orange Juliuses, and hurry back over to the fountain before she can leave.
“Here.” I hand her the drink.
And she looks up at me, distrusting first, then slightly amazed. She takes the drink, though.
“I’m Charmaine, what's your name?”
“Brandi.” And then she sips, a strand of her dirty-blond hair catching in the corner of her mouth. She pulls it back and over the shoulder of her T-shirt.
“I saw you were crying and I just thought you might want something to drink. Crying always makes me so thirsty.”
You know, I can keep talking and talking, and I fight against it all the time. So instead I just determine to sit there and sip along with her. I don't ask her what she cries about, though I am dying to know. I don't ask if I can help. Chances are I can't.
I’m not pretending this isn't awkward, either. I feel a little off-kilter.
“Did you see that cute little outfit in the window at the Weathervane?” I ask after figuring that babble is better than awkward this time.
“The yellow one?”
“Uh-huh. I just love these twinsets they're coming out with, don't you?”
“They're okay.”
And we sit some more. I mean, after all, twinsets seem a little old-fashioned now that this shaker knit sweater-stuff covers everybody these days. And with men's undershirts underneath! Watching these kids wearing their sweatshirts inside-out with men's boxers for shorts tickles me! Harlan and I have ourselves some good laughs over that one.
“You hungry?” I ask.
“No.”
“Me neither. My appetite just goes right away when I’m upset. Well, anyway” — I sigh — “enjoy your drink. I was just in here to get my husband Harlan some new underwear and me some perfume and thought you looked thirsty.”
She smiles. “Thanks for the drink.”
“You need a ride home or anything?”
“I just live across Timberlake, behind the Hardee's.”
“That's still quite a walk.”
A group of guys over at the arcade steal her attention. Some dork-boy with a letter jacket stuffs half a candy bar inside his curled-under sneer and bellows, “Get over here now, Brandi.”
She gets to her feet right away and then gives me an apologetic smile. “That's Brent. He's my boyfriend.”
“Come on, Brandi!” he yells. “I said ‘now’!”
I touch her arm and dig into my purse for my business card that says “Charmaine Hopewell, singer, evangelist, speaker” and my phone number, which is actually Harlan's sister's phone number, who takes our calls while we're on the road. Mrs. Evans's little songbird is sketched in light blue behind all the info. “If you ever need
anything,
call me.”
And she takes the card and runs over to Brent the Dork. He grabs the card, reads it, points to me, and laughs, making fun of all my red hair. But Brandi snatches the card away and buries it in the front pocket of her shorts.
That age is so hard to navigate. Mrs. Evans always knew what to do for sore hearts and that's one of those little things I cling to when I think about how Mama never did come back, how the weeks collected together to form months that ganged up into years until three pocket calendars had each one of their 365 squares Xed over. Three years. I stopped Xing then. I think about Mrs. Evans and how she availed herself to me and I choose to concentrate on that whenever I possibly can.
I
t's the first time I’ve visited their graves side by side. Patricia Jaffrey Evans and Sara Gray Jaffrey. Oh, Grandma Sara. I didn't know she'd died until I tried to find her in the nursing home. I imagine her eulogy, all the wonderful things her pastor had to say, how the people in the pews must have cried. I picture James and Francie, Stacy, and Mr. Evans sitting there listening. James would have been crying, Francie stone-faced. Mr. Evans would have been looking down at his hands or fidgeting with the flap on his suit coat pocket. And Stacy would have held me to her side as we both tried not to weep.
I lay a bouquet of red carnations upon each of their graves and I sang, “Home Beyond the River.”
I’m not sure how long I sit there with them, their earthly husks buried deep into the soil. But the sunshine becomes a denser gold, the trees a darker green, and I know I’ll see them again someday. And I’ll thank them properly for saving me.
T
here are rimes when I lie back and gaze at the sky. Particular to no time of day, I choose rather to take my atmospheric thrills when the time is right.
Winnebagos actually aren't all that bad for sky watching, especially when Mel drives.
Sometimes, when Harlan prays in the bedroom cubicle at the back, Mel—our sound man and one of five people the Harlan Hopewell Evangelistic Crusade now employs—drives. He drives with as much attention as he tackles everything else. You should see him crimp wires, test mics, and coil the cords! A poetry of precision, our Mel.
His clothing, usually gray Dickies and a plaid shirt, bears the heavy, sharp markings of a hot iron. I’d bet fifty bucks he shines his rubber-soled wingtip shoes before each service and when he talks once in a blue moon, he says what he means and nothing more.
No wonder he never married.
Pity him.
Pity the girl.
And heaven help us, pity the children! Some folks are too good to have kids because the life for those kids could well fall into the “provoke not your children to wrath” category. Merely by existing with such precision and discipline, Mel George would be a stumbling block for his own offspring.
So when Mel drives I get to look all over the place with nothing to listen to but the hum of the motor, the bumps of the tar lines in the road, and sometimes Dr. J. Vernon McGee on the gospel radio.
I love that man. I love the way he asks my permission to speak there on the radio. “Now may I say to you … ?”
And me being who I am I always answer, “Knock yourself out, Reverend McGee!”
Now, if Mel's driving, this little smile stretches the right side of his mouth. If Harlan's driving, he laughs out loud and it is not a pretty sound, but I don't mind it.
Harlan says he's never met a funnier person. But I have to tell you this, Harlan makes me want to be funny. I never wanted to be before I met him. Sometimes I wish he'd take me a little more seriously, but nobody's perfect. Another lesson I’ve learned all too well! But he loves my sunny outlook and my smile. He says, “I can't imagine life without your smile. Don't ever change, Shug.”
That's what he calls me, Shug. Another nickname for Myrtle Charmaine!
So far, I’ve been able to hide how hard it is for me to get out of bed and the blackness that every once in a while threatens to overwhelm me. I think to myself, “How much better can life get?” And the dragon stirs within, waiting for more happiness to be eaten upon his emergence. That is what I assume. I do hope I’m wrong. Winter is especially grueling and many's the day I pretend I’m acting in a movie, that I’m playing the role of Charmaine Hopewell in
Her Everyday Life,
and the real me watches it all from her seat in a darkened theater.
H
ow I wound up with my hair in this flour paste, I cannot say. I thought I was only making a cake! We're back in the Baltimore area doing a crusade up in Bel Air. Frank and Anita and Luella and her kids sure were surprised when Harlan and I came walking into Suds ‘N’ Strikes for some grilled cheeses and orange soda.
On the way to the church, I decided to make a homemade dessert, a real cake like Grandma Sara used to make. We stopped at the Giant supermarket, and picked up the ingredients listed in the magazine I bought. I figured, why not get started right away? Why wait until we settle down on our campsite?
And now here I stand with half the contents of the bowl dripping down from top to bottom.
“You all right, darlin’?” Harlan yells from the driver's seat.
And I start to cry. Doggone it! Why didn't I listen to him? He told me we'd be getting off the interstate and going down over hill and dale to the little church.
But did I listen?
Of course not.
“You like little cakes or big cakes with hair in them?” I holler back while sniffing away the tears.
Harlan pulls over, leads me back to the bathroom and washes my hair. I weep as he holds me in his arms, my hair soaking his Arrow shirt.
You can't do anything right, Myrtle.
I
dial Bee Hopewell's number in Lebanon, Tennessee.
“Hello?”
“Bee?”
“Charmaine, I am so glad you called for messages. One just came in from a lady named Frances Evans. She said it's urgent. She said you'd know right away who she is.”
Oh, my lands! Francie!
“Well, she left a number for you to call. Eight-oh-four area code.”
“She's still in Virginia, then.”
“I guess.”
“How's my brother?” Bee asked after she gave me the number.
“Fine. Have you ever heard of Mathers and Minnick?”
Bee thought for a spell. Bee takes her time in the thinking department, flipping through her thoughts like skirts on hangers. But that's Bee for you. She takes an hour to eat dinner, which explains her heft. “Oh, yes! Aren't they those psychology guys?”
“Christian psychologists to be precise.”
“Well, Char, let me tell you, as far as I’m concerned, all people need is Jesus to cure what ails them.”
“That's what Harlan says. Hey, he gave me a Cabbage Patch doll a couple of weeks ago. It's the cutest thing! And since it wasn't around Christmastime … well, they're easier to come by now is all.”
“Don't I know it!”
Yes, I’m twenty-two now. Too old for dolls.