I turned to see someone sitting in the chair beside mine—an old woman wearing a bright blue suit, a hat with a tiny feather tucked in a ribbon at the brim. When she removed the hat, I could see the way her face had been shattered by time—something acidic and clean about her eyes, washed-out and elsewhere. It seemed a bright light had faded everything they’d ever seen, gifted them with emptiness.
We knew you’d come, she said. We just knew it.
In one hand she held her hat and in the other, a cane—the handle was a rabbit’s head, polished cherrywood, gleaming gem for an eye.
Our new jesus.
She tapped the cane on the ground and smiled her tiny teeth.
All this time we spent waiting and being called foolish. We never been foolish, we know, just faithful. And I knew it, knew it all along, knew this happy day would be upon just us given enough time. I thank our Lord I lived to see it.
She nodded.
Now, tell me, how long’d you know? Did you know the whole time or did it only occur to you lately?
I said nothing but she squinted at me and shook her head as if I were speaking to her, as if she were listening to a large, important story.
And how’d you find out about it? Did he come to you and tell you direct?
She stared into my eyes and I stared into hers. Such a prone and open tenderness, one I’d never seen or known before. I did not blink. I did not move.
Well, I’ll be.… It’s quite a story, ain’t it? What a life our God has given us. To be this close to it all. To be this close. In all things, we trust you. In all things, we follow you. We follow you to the end.
She and I sat there quietly for a while.
One last day. One last sunset. She shook her head. Her smile was so broadly held I could nearly hear its silent laughter. All this, all of this is leaving now. All of us, your children, we’re leaving now. All the birds are going to die. All the dogs, all the unbaptized, all the worms and beetles. Begin again. Something new. Maybe nothing. Nothing at all forever. It was all for this, wasn’t it? It was all for this now. This last day.
She looked out calmly for a while and the light kept shifting on us, then, seeming to forget me completely and still watching the wind barely fluttering the dogwood branches, she said, Did I ever tell you what I think about it? What I think is—what the problem is—what the real problem of it all is—they ought to stop all their fuss. I know they mean well, or some of them at least mean well, but they all ought to stop calling themselves something—you know? Religion, yes. Clergy, no. That’s what I say.
Mama, take this, a younger man said, handing her a few white pills and a cup of water. She brought her shaking hand up to her mouth and the water spilled from the cup, dampened her lap, but her eyes never unsteadied, not for a moment.
THE COUCH HAD BEEN MADE UP like a bed, the sheets tucked into the cushions, pillow there, folded quilt there. A woman standing beside Dr. Corbin was smiling with a hidden intensity. We’re so glad you’re here, she said, her arms coming toward me, then around me, the warmth of her body coming near then against mine. She held me like that awhile and warm tears from her face fell down my neck, down the back of my shirt, cooling on my skin, dampening the cloth, sinking into me.
Now that’s enough, Dr. Corbin said, we ought to let Pew get some rest now, don’t you think so? She detached from me and I could see how reddened her eyes had become, as if she were allergic to me. A phone rang and she moved quickly into the kitchen to answer it.
Binnie’s a good woman, Dr. Corbin said, looking toward the kitchen. We heard her speaking into the phone, her voice concerned and intent. But she gets overwhelmed by other people—she has to be careful of that. Taking care of others. It takes something, you know, it takes something from you to take care of another person and there’s only so much a person has to give.
It’s Randall, she called out from the kitchen.
See now, here we go, Dr. Corbin whispered to me, then shouted, Oh, and how’s he doing?
Just needs a place for the night—
Oh, does he?
I said I’d ask you.
Suppose it’s all right. We’ve got the other couch if Pew don’t mind.
I nodded. Pew don’t mind, Dr. Corbin called out. Suppose it’s all right then.
He’s my nephew, Binnie said as she came back into the living room with a pile of folded sheets and quilts. And from time to time my sister sends him out. They have these disagreements. He’s had trouble finding work.
More like keeping it, Dr. Corbin said. Binnie sent her eyes at him in a tiny, quick way, then aimed them back at her task of laying blankets and sheets on the couch. You can’t say it ain’t true.
He’s a good young man.
Ain’t so young anymore.
He’s young on the inside. Binnie’s tone shifted, her eyes heavier. He has a young heart.
Yes. Yes, he does.
I lay on one of the couches and covered myself with the blankets.
You’re just going to sleep in your clothes like that, Dr. Corbin said, are you?
I looked up at him to say yes without saying yes. He smiled. Makes getting up a little faster, don’t it?
A while later, Dr. Corbin was gone and only Binnie was there, standing by the front window, waiting until Randall came in wearing a plaid pajama set and dirty slippers.
I thank you, Aunt Binnie, I do thank you.
No need to thank me. You have a roommate this time. Did you hear?
That’s what I heard.
This is Randall, Binnie said, announcing him to the room.
Nice to meet you, Randall said, a hand extended toward me. I slipped my arm from the quilts and took his hand, was shaken by it.
Now you let Pew sleep, you hear? Don’t go talking all night like you do. Everyone needs a good night’s sleep, you know. And Pew’s going to the festival.
Oh, is that right?
Yessir, now you get to sleep.
All right, now, all right, Randall said, pulling the quilt up to his chin as Binnie left us, turning out the lights as she went. I lay in the dark silence awhile, aware of another body, a stranger’s body, in the room with me, a comfort both far off and nearby. I could not hear him breathing but I knew he was. The air in the room moved differently from how it had when I slept in that attic room.
The way I see it, some people just live slower than others is all. His voice cut through the dark and silent room. Mama says I’ve reached an age that I have to do this thing or that thing and I don’t want to do either and she said it’s a problem. I don’t think so but she does think so. She said she can’t stand to have me at home another minute. I think her mood might change. She misses me when I’m not there, that’s what she says anyway, so I come over here sometimes, then I go back. Her own son still at home and it makes her sad is what she said. I’m only thirty-five, I said, and she said, Only thirty-five! I don’t see it as that old. I think I live slower. I think I might live to two hundred. People used to and I think I might start it again.
Randall, Binnie’s voice called from the bedroom. Now quit it, will you? Pew ain’t trying to talk to you. Everybody needs to sleep right about now so get to it.
Yes, ma’am, he said, reverent and quiet. The bedroom door shut. The house became still and more still and stiller still.
Can I ask you something? he whispered after some time had passed.
Yes, I whispered back.
How old are you?
I can’t remember.
It’s better that way—his voice was getting lost and sleepy—it’s better you don’t ever know. You could live a long life that way. You could probably grow up slower if you don’t know. You know, I do a lot with my time, I really do. I spend a lot of time thinking about things. Like how if you look at a word for long enough or if you say the same word over and over, it starts to sound crazy, or it starts to not even sound like a word or not even look like a word. I spend a lot of time thinking about that.
/> An appliance in the kitchen began to buzz.
It’s making ice. Aunt Binnie got her one of those kinds of freezers that makes the ice. It used to scare me when I slept over but I know it now. It can’t scare you if you know it’s going to happen. But then there’s all kinds of things we don’t know that are going to happen. And so it’s scary sometimes, I think it is, scary to have to go around out there. They told me you don’t live anywhere and I find it hard to believe. I don’t know how a person could do that. It’s confusing. It’s that feeling, that feeling of staring at a word for so long it’s not a word anymore. I don’t ever want my mother to go away.
He was silent for a long time.
Nobody’s mother should ever not be there, but my mother told me all mothers eventually are not there. I can’t understand it. I don’t even want to.
We slept.
SATURDAY
I WOKE WHEN the house was still dark and silent, a morning sky just beginning to brighten at the windows. Randall was gone. The quilts and sheets he’d slept on were folded neatly, stacked at the edge of the couch. I went to the front porch and watched clouds that never made good on the threat of rain. Light was beginning to flicker through when Binnie came out with her hair held back in a pale yellow cloth. She set a cup of coffee down beside me, wordless, and went back inside. Sometime later Dr. Corbin brought out to me the brown paper sack that Hilda had given him and emptied it on the table. A dress, a pair of pants, a pair of stockings, two thin shirts (each of them missing buttons), two pairs of clean socks, and a thick white bathrobe.
I guess you’re s’posed to take your pick, Dr. Corbin said, looking at the clothes. The robe—that’s useful though—you’ll need that today.
The bathrobe had a few little holes at the seam of one sleeve. I stood, put myself inside the robe, tied the white sash around my body, and sat down again. Dr. Corbin sat, too, each of us drinking that bitter coffee, listening to birds.
It starts in a few hours, he said after some time had passed between us. You know—I was a part of the group that started it all those years ago, started the festival. And I believed it was what we all needed—I believed in it then. Now, though, I can’t say I am altogether sure I understand what it does to people … I felt so sure then—of course I was younger. It’s easier to be certain of things then—and the older you get, the more you see how certainty depends on one blindness or another.
A bird landed on the railing and Dr. Corbin stopped talking to look at him. The bird turned his head one way, then the other. He stooped, widened his wings, and went away.
Forgiveness is sometimes just a costume for forgetting. I don’t want it to be so—but every year, just before it begins, I start to feel this way. And then what? I forget about it.
In the street several policemen marched by, dressed in white and carrying white guns.
Hey there, little possum, Dr. Corbin said to a girl sprinting up the stairs.
I’m not a possum! She climbed into his lap. Mama told me to come over here. She stood on his knees and took his ears in each of her little hands.
Why are your ears so big?
So I can hear when a little possum sneaks up on me, Dr. Corbin said.
Who is that?
This is our friend Pew.
Why does she look like that? Her voice lowered as she turned away from me.
Dr. Corbin gave no answer, picked up the child, and went inside, calling out for Binnie, telling her a little possum called JJ had come by looking for breakfast. The door shut, and for a few minutes I could hear the muted sounds of lives being passed inside the house—a chime of fork on plate, doors opened or shut, words muffled through walls.
I’m not sure what I can even explain about it, Dr. Corbin said as he joined me on the porch again. It became something I didn’t mean for it to be … maybe it means something to them that keep doing it—I don’t know. I guess Steven already told you what you need to know—and anyway, I guess you’ll see when you’re there. There’s hardly any use in explaining it. It’s a ritual. We make them, people make them, and they don’t really mean anything, even the ones that supposedly mean something—even they don’t really mean anything. They’re just something to do.
A white police car drove by slowly; Dr. Corbin waved.
Well, I guess I ought to take you that direction about now.
On the drive I saw families on the sidewalks in white, girls in white dresses and white stockings, white suits on the fathers, mothers draped in white. White hats and white shoes. Someone pushed a wheelchair that held someone draped with a white blanket, and boys were in white short pants, babies were swaddled in white, white vests were over white shirts, white scarves.
A few white trucks carried children in their beds. On the back of one truck was a sign, red letters on white—
ALL LIVING THINGS
ARE BROKEN THINGS
A large group of boys all together carried one wide sign—
ALL FAILURES
ARE FORGIVEN
And a group of girls carried another behind them—
ALL FAILURES
ARE FORGOTTEN
We’re here, Dr. Corbin said. Just follow the crowd where they go. I can’t drive up any closer. I’ll meet you right here once it’s over. I looked at him for a while. It was hard to feel as if I’d ever see anyone again. The day was peeled back like that, something raw and ending.
The crowd was all walking in the same direction, a synchronized flood. Small children and babies hung in the arms of the larger people, unaware and unable, and a spare cough or sneeze sometimes broke through the warm silence, as the body has its ways to speak without speaking.
The crowd become more dense, slower. The trucks rolled along with us. Church bells were ringing and sirens sang in the distance as we approached a large dark building in the center of the parking lot. Above a doorway wide enough for many cattle to pass through, a large flap of canvas hung—
MAY WE FORGET
ALL WE FORGIVE
Just inside the entrance, children were being left in a large room full of children, some weeping, some gleeful, most sitting bored and quiet on the floor. In a glimpse I saw a few women—some pregnant, some carrying a baby in each arm—moving among the crawling and mumbling children. I kept in step with the crowd as we went deeper into the building. No one looked into anyone’s eyes. The silence became more silent, more silent still.
At the end of the hallway—a massive space. The ceiling was higher than any church I’d ever known. The tall windows on one side of the room were fogged with dark soot, and the walls were the color of molasses, and the wooden floor creaked with our steps. Wide ceiling fans spun above us. The robe I’d almost forgotten had come slightly undone. I tightened it. Some people were taking others by the shoulders and leading them to specific points around the room, putting them in some kind of formation. A set of hands guided me to a spot and set me there.
Through the crowd, in profile, I saw Hilda in a white dress. Her face looked smaller and softer and less clear than I remembered. I wondered what she would say, but I didn’t want to hear her say it. Did she feel she’d wronged or been wronged more in her life? Did anyone ever know which was true? How much harm did we cause without knowing it? How much harm did we cause when we were certain we were doing such good?
Something about the way Hilda’s hair had been tightly contained on the back of her head made me feel the pressure and presence of every person who had never been born, and even in this large room nearly full and still filling with people, even in this crowd, I felt that infinite crowd, all those other selves that both existed and did not exist, lives both impossible, unborn, never born, and still present.
The few lights in the room, already dim, grew dimmer. Baskets of black scarves were passed around. Everyone took a scarf, tied it over their eyes, and through the crowd I noticed Nelson watching everyone do this, before doing the same—covering his eyes and letting his arms go slack at his sides. Young men at the edg
e of the room pulled on ropes as pulleys above us creaked, and wide white curtains came down, separating some people from others, grouping some of us together, creating soft hallways and rooms within this room. The air in the room tightened, seemed to resist my lungs. I tied the scarf over my eyes as everyone else had. The shuffling of the crowd stilled, then stilled more. I heard the fans shut off, a solidity taking over, then a bell sounding several times.
Many voices began at once—some I seemed to know, some I almost remembered, some I could have remembered, some I did not know, some I thought I did not know, some I recognized, some that sounded like my own, some that seemed to belong to people long lost to me, some that sounded like people I would later know or one day become—but the words were unintelligible at first, too far away or spoken too quickly, too softly, too warped. People began to move, the steps tentative at first, then faster, hands held out to blunt the meeting of one body against another, shoulders lightly knocking together, feet stepping on feet then correcting themselves.
I’ve been lying //
Cheated on last year’s //
with her for several months //
may have taken //
Half sentences or full sentences, men’s and women’s voices, defiant or sorrowful, spoken quickly, spoken slowly, they came like a chorus, shared a sort of cadence—
I don’t tithe as much as // judge them //
I cheated on //
charge blacks more so they won’t //
given bribes to some at the //
not sure I’ve ever been grateful //
my brother’s lawn mower and sold it //
dream of divorce // I take everything for granted //
she would die sooner rather than later //
I judge them // not sure I believe in God //
I beat that little girl // people at the courthouse //
don’t want to help them //
I cheated on my algebra //
still haven’t told him yet // I’m not sure I love my wife //
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