by Z. Z. Packer
“Now we won’t be able to walk to the bathroom by ourselves!” the big girl said.
“Yes you will,” the troop leader said, “but maybe we’ll wait till we get back to Decatur—”
“I don’t want to wait!” the girl said. “I want my Independence badge!”
The girls in my troop were entirely speechless. Arnetta looked stoic, as though she were soon to be tortured but was determined not to appear weak. Mrs. Margolin pursed her lips solemnly and said, “Bless them, Lord. Bless them.”
In contrast, the Troop 909 leader was full of words and energy. “Some of our girls are echolalic—” She smiled and happily presented one of the girls hanging onto her, but the girl widened her eyes in horror, and violently withdrew herself from the center of attention, sensing she was being sacrificed for the village sins. “Echolalic,” the troop leader continued. “That means they will say whatever they hear, like an echo—that’s where the word comes from. It comes from ‘echo.’” She ducked her head apologetically, “I mean, not all of them have the most progressive of parents, so if they heard a bad word, they might have repeated it. But I guarantee it would not have been intentional.”
Arnetta spoke. “I saw her say the word. I heard her.” She pointed to a small girl, smaller than any of us, wearing an oversized T-shirt that read: “Eat Bertha’s Mussels.”
The troop leader shook her head and smiled, “That’s impossible. She doesn’t speak. She can, but she doesn’t.”
Arnetta furrowed her brow. “No. It wasn’t her. That’s right. It was her.”
The girl Arnetta pointed to grinned as though she’d been paid a compliment. She was the only one from either troop actually wearing a full uniform: the mocha-colored Α-line shift, the orange ascot, the sash covered with badges, though all the same one—the Try-It patch. She took a few steps toward Arnetta and made a grand sweeping gesture toward the sash. “See,” she said, full of self-importance, “I’m a Brownie.” I had a hard time imagining this girl calling anyone a “nigger”; the girl looked perpetually delighted, as though she would have cuddled up with a grizzly if someone had let her.
ON THE fourth morning, we boarded the bus to go home.
The previous day had been spent building miniature churches from Popsicle sticks. We hardly left the cabin. Mrs. Margolin and Mrs. Hedy guarded us so closely, almost no one talked for the entire day.
Even on the day of departure from Camp Crescendo, all was serious and silent. The bus ride began quietly enough. Arnetta had to sit beside Mrs. Margolin; Octavia had to sit beside her mother. I sat beside Daphne, who gave me her prize journal without a word of explanation.
“You don’t want it?”
She shook her head no. It was empty.
Then Mrs. Hedy began to weep. “Octavia,” Mrs. Hedy said to her daughter without looking at her, “I’m going to sit with Mrs. Margolin. All right?”
Arnetta exchanged seats with Mrs. Hedy. With the two women up front, Elise felt it safe to speak. “Hey,” she said, then she set her face into a placid, vacant stare, trying to imitate that of a Troop 909 girl. Emboldened, Arnetta made a gesture of mock pride toward an imaginary sash, the way the girl in full uniform had done. Then they all made a game of it, trying to do the most exaggerated imitations of the Troop 909 girls, all without speaking, all without laughing loud enough to catch the women’s attention.
Daphne looked down at her shoes, white with sneaker polish. I opened the journal she’d given me. I looked out the window, trying to decide what to write, searching for lines, but nothing could compare with what Daphne had written, “My father, the veteran,” my favorite line of all time. It replayed itself in my head, and I gave up trying to write.
By then, it seemed that the rest of the troop had given up making fun of the girls in Troop 909. They were now quietly gossiping about who had passed notes to whom in school. For a moment the gossiping fell off, and all I heard was the hum of the bus as we sped down the road and the muffled sounds of Mrs. Hedy and Mrs. Margolin talking about serious things.
“You know,” Octavia whispered, “why did we have to be stuck at a camp with retarded girls? You know?”
“You know why,” Arnetta answered. She narrowed her eyes like a cat. “My mama and I were in the mall in Buckhead, and this white lady just kept looking at us. I mean, like we were foreign or something. Like we were from China.”
“What did the woman say?” Elise asked.
“Nothing,” Arnetta said. “She didn’t say nothing.”
A few girls quietly nodded their heads.
“There was this time,” I said, “when my father and I were in the mall and—”
“Oh shut up, Snot,” Octavia said.
I stared at Octavia, then rolled my eyes from her to the window. As I watched the trees blur, I wanted nothing more than to be through with it all: the bus ride, the troop, school—all of it. But we were going home. I’d see the same girls in school the next day. We were on a bus, and there was nowhere else to go.
“Go on, Laurel,” Daphne said to me. It seemed like the first time she’d spoken the whole trip, and she’d said my name. I turned to her and smiled weakly so as not to cry, hoping she’d remember when I’d tried to be her friend, thinking maybe that her gift of the journal was an invitation of friendship. But she didn’t smile back. All she said was, “What happened?”
I studied the girls, waiting for Octavia to tell me to shut up again before I even had a chance to utter another word, but everyone was amazed that Daphne had spoken. The bus was silent. I gathered my voice. “Well,” I said. “My father and I were in this mall, but I was the one doing the staring.” I stopped and glanced from face to face. I continued. “There were these white people dressed like Puritans or something, but they weren’t Puritans. They were Mennonites. They’re these people who, if you ask them to do a favor, like paint your porch or something, they have to do it. It’s in their rules.”
“That sucks,” someone said.
“C’mon,” Arnetta said. “You’re lying.”
“I am not.”
“How do you know that’s not just some story someone made up?” Elise asked, her head cocked full of daring. “I mean, who’s gonna do whatever you ask?”
“It’s not made up. I know because when I was looking at them, my father said, ‘See those people? If you ask them to do something, they’ll do it. Anything you want.’”
No one would call anyone’s father a liar—then they’d have to fight the person. But Drema parsed her words carefully. “How does your father know that’s not just some story? Huh?”
“Because,” I said, “he went up to the man and asked him would he paint our porch, and the man said yes. It’s their religion.”
“Man, I’m glad I’m a Baptist,” Elise said, shaking her head in sympathy for the Mennonites.
“So did the guy do it?” Drema asked, scooting closer to hear if the story got juicy.
“Yeah,” I said. “His whole family was with him. My dad drove them to our house. They all painted our porch. The woman and girl were in bonnets and long, long skirts with buttons up to their necks. The guy wore this weird hat and these huge suspenders.”
“Why,” Arnetta asked archly, as though she didn’t believe a word, “would someone pick a porch? If they’ll do anything, why not make them paint the whole house? Why not ask for a hundred bucks?”
I thought about it, and then remembered the words my father had said about them painting our porch, though I had never seemed to think about his words after he’d said them.
“He said,” I began, only then understanding the words as they uncoiled from my mouth, “it was the only time he’d have a white man on his knees doing something for a black man for free.”
I now understood what he meant, and why he did it, though I didn’t like it. When you’ve been made to feel bad for so long, you jump at the chance to do it to others. I remembered the Mennonites bending the way Daphne had bent when she was cleaning the restroom. I rem
embered the dark blue of their bonnets, the black of their shoes. They painted the porch as though scrubbing a floor. I was already trembling before Daphne asked quietly, “Did he thank them?”
I looked out the window. I could not tell which were the thoughts and which were the trees. “No,” I said, and suddenly knew there was something mean in the world that I could not stop.
Arnetta laughed. “If I asked them to take off their long skirts and bonnets and put on some jeans, would they do it?”
And Daphne’s voice, quiet, steady: “Maybe they would. Just to be nice.”
Every Tongue Shall Confess
AS PASTOR EVERETT MADE the announcements that began the service, Clareese Mitchell stood with her choir members, knowing that once again she had to Persevere, put on the Strong Armor of God, the Breastplate of Righteousness, but she was having her monthly womanly troubles and all she wanted to do was curse the Brothers’ Church Council of Greater Christ Emmanuel Pentecostal Church of the Fire Baptized, who’d decided that the Sisters had to wear white every Missionary Sunday, which was, of course, the day of the month when her womanly troubles were always at their absolute worst! And to think that the Brothers’ Church Council of Greater Christ Emmanuel Pentecostal Church of the Fire Baptized had been the first place she’d looked for guidance and companionship nearly ten years ago when her aunt Alma had fallen ill. And why not? They were God-fearing, churchgoing men; men like Deacon Julian Jeffers, now sitting in the first row of pews, closest to the altar, right under the leafy top of the corn plant she’d brought in to make the sanctuary more homey. Two months ago she’d been reading the book of Micah and posed the idea of a Book of Micah discussion group to the Deacon Jeffers and he’d said, “Oh, Sister Clareese! We should make you a deacon!” Which of course they didn’t. Deacons, like pastors, were men—not that she was complaining. But it still rankled that Jeffers had said he’d get back to her about the Micah discussion group and he never had.
Clareese’s cross-eyes roved to the back of the church where Sister Drusella and Sister Maxwell sat, resplendent in their identical wide-brimmed, purple-flowered hats, their unsaved guests sitting next to them. The guests wore frightened smiles, and Clareese tried to shoot them reassuring looks. The gold-lettered banner behind them read: “We Are More Than Conquerors in Christ Our Lord,” and she tried to use this as a focal point. But her cross-eyes couldn’t help it; they settled, at last, on Deacon McCreedy, making his way down the aisle for the second time. Oh, how she hated him!
She would never forget—never, never, never—the day he came to the hospital where she worked; she was still wearing her white nurse’s uniform and he’d said he was concerned about her spiritual well-being—Liar!—then drove her to where she lived with her aunt Alma, whose room resounded with perpetual snores and hacking and wheezing—as if Clareese didn’t have enough of this at the hospital—and while Alma slept, Clareese poured Deacon McCreedy some fruit punch, which he drank between forkfuls of chicken, plus half their pork roast. No sooner than he’d wiped his hands on the napkin—didn’t bother using a fork—he stood and walked behind her, covering her cross-eyes as though she were a child, as though he were about to give her a gift—a Bible with her very own name engraved on it, perhaps—but he didn’t give her anything, he’d just covered her wandering eyes and said, “Sing ‘On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand.’ Make sure to do the Waterfall.” And she was happy to do it, happy to please Deacon McCreedy, so she began singing in her best, cleanest voice until she felt his hand slide up the scratchy white pantyhose of her nurse’s uniform and up toward the control-top of her pantyhose. Before she could stop him, one finger was wriggling around inside, and by then it was too late to tell him she was having her monthly womanly troubles. He drew back in disgust—no, hatred—then rinsed his hand in the kitchen sink and left without saying a word, not a thanks for the chicken or the pork roast or her singing. Not a single word of apology for anything. But she could have forgiven him—if Sisters could even forgive Deacons—for she could have understood that an unmarried man might have needs, but what really bothered her was how he ignored her. How a few weeks later she and Aunt Alma had been waiting for the bus after Wednesday-night prayer meeting and he drove past. That’s right. No offer of a ride, no slowing down, no nothing. Aunt Alma was nearly blind and couldn’t even see it was him, but Clareese recognized his car at once.
Yes, she wanted to curse the Brothers’ Church Council of Greater Christ Emmanuel Pentecostal Church of the Fire Baptized, but Sisters and Brothers could not curse, could not even swear or take an oath, for neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. So no oath, no swearing, and of course no betting—an extension of swearing—which was why she’d told the other nurses at University Hospital that she would not join their betting pool to predict who would get married first, Patty or Edwina. She told them about the black and white hairs and all Nurse Holloway did was clomp her pumps—as if she was too good for the standard orthopedically correct shoes—down the green tiles of the hall and shout behind her back, “Somebody sure needs to get laid.” Oh, how the other RNs tittered in their gossipy way.
Now everyone applauded when Pastor Everett announced that Sister Nina would be getting married to Harold, one of the Brothers from Broadway Tongues of Spirit Church. Then Pastor Everett said, “Sister Nina will be holding a Council so we can get husbands for the rest of you hardworking Sisters.” Like Sister Clareese, is what he meant. The congregation laughed at the joke. Ha ha. And perhaps the joke was on her. If she’d been married, Deacon McCreedy wouldn’t have dared do what he did; if she’d been married perhaps she’d also be working fewer shifts at the hospital, perhaps she would have never met that patient—that man—who’d almost gotten her fired! And at exactly that moment, it hit her, right below the gut, a sharp pain, and she imagined her uterus, that Texas-shaped organ, the Rio Grande of her monthly womanly troubles flushing out to the Gulf.
Pastor Everett had finished the announcements. Now it was time for testimony service. She tried to distract herself by thinking of suitable testimonies. Usually she testified about work. Last week, she’d testified about the poor man with a platelet count of seven, meaning he was a goner, and how Nurse Holloway had told him, “We’re bringing you more platelets,” and how he’d said, “That’s all right. God sent me more.” No one at the nurses’ station—to say nothing of those atheist doctors—believed him. But when Nurse Holloway checked, sure enough, Glory be to God, he had a count of sixteen. Clareese told the congregation how she knelt on the cold tiled floor of University Hospital’s corridor, right then and there, arms outstretched to Glory. And what could the other nurses say to that? Nothing, that’s what.
She remembered her testimony from a month ago, how she’d been working the hotline, and a mother had called to say that her son had eaten ants, and Sister Clareese had assured the woman that ants were God’s creatures, and though disturbing, they wouldn’t harm the boy. But the Lord told Clareese to stay on the line with the mother, not to rush the way other nurses often did, so Clareese stayed on the line. And Glory be to God that she did! Once the mother had calmed down she’d said, “Thank goodness. The insecticide I gave Kevin must have worked.” Sister Clareese had stayed after her shift to make sure the woman brought her boy into Emergency. Afterward she told the woman to hold hands with Kevin and give God the Praise he deserved.
But she had told these stories already. As she fidgeted in her choirmistress’s chair, she tried to think of new ones. The congregation wouldn’t care about how she had to stay on top of codes, or how she had to triple-check patients’ charts. The only patients who stuck in her mind were Mrs. Geneva Bosma, whose toe was rotting off, and Mr. Toomey, who had prostate cancer. And, of course, Mr. Cleophus Sanders, the cause of all her current problems. Cleophus was an amputee who liked to turn the volume of his television up so high that his channel-surfing sounded as if someone were being electrocuted, repeatedly. At the nurses’ stati
on she’d overheard that Cleophus Sanders was once a musician who in his heyday went by the nickname “Delta Sweetmeat.” But he’d gone in and out of the music business, sometimes taking construction jobs. A crane had fallen on his leg and he’d been amputated from the below the knee. No, none of these cases was Edifying in God’s sight. Her run-in with Cleophus had been downright un-Edifying.
When Mr. Sanders had been moved into Mr. Toomey’s room last Monday, she’d told them both, “I hope everyone has a blessed day!” She’d made sure to say this only after she was safely inside with the door closed behind her. She had to make sure she didn’t mention God until the door was closed behind her, because Nurse Holloway was always clomping about, trying to say that this was a university hospital, as well as a research hospital, one at the very forefront of medicine, and didn’t Registered Nurse Clareese Mitchell recognize and respect that not everyone shared her beliefs? That the hospital catered not only to Christians, but to people of the Jewish faith? To Muslims, Hindus, and agnostics? Atheists, even?
This Clareese knew only too well, which was why it was all the more important for her to to Spread the Gospel. So she shut the door, and said to Mr. Toomey, louder this time, “I HOPE EVERYONE HAS A BLESSED DAY!”
Mr. Toomey grunted. Heavy and completely white, he reminded Sister Clareese of a walrus: everything about him drooped, his eyes like twin frowns, his nose, perhaps even his mouth, though it was hard to make out because of his frowning blond mustache. Well, Glory be to God, she expected something like a grunt from him, she couldn’t say she was surprised: junkies who detox scream and writhe before turning clean; the man with a hangover does not like to wake to the sun. So it was with sinners exposed to the harsh, curing Light of the Lord.
