Mary Mae and the Gospel Truth

by Sandra Dutton

  Since Orlin, being God, don't have to make a puppet, Brother Lucas says he can help Jonathan Safer make Adam.

  "You boys and girls bring these puppets in next Sunday," says Brother Lucas.

  Orlin Coates takes Brother Lucas's empty bag and pulls it over his head. "God here. I think I'll make me a universe."

  And then, I don't know why, I just can't stop myself, I say, "Is this really the way God done it?" I'm the only one in my Sunday school class that goes to DeSailles North, the only one that has Miss Sizemore.

  "What do you mean, Mary Mae?" says Brother Lucas.

  "Did God really make the world the way it says in the Bible?"

  Orlin Coates pulls the bag off his head, crosses his arms like a school principal. "Mary Mae, I'm surprised at you."

  "The Bible is God's holy word," says Chloe, and she's glancing from me to Brother Lucas, shaking her hair all over her shoulders, looking at me like I'm lost to Hell.

  Jed Bean and Chester Morley ain't paying no attention, just pretend fighting with yardsticks.

  "Mary Mae, this puppet show has a purpose," says Brother Lucas.

  Orlin's folding the paper bag up all perfect, like he never had it on his head. "It's to show us the true Creation," he says.

  ***

  Mama picks me up and wants to hear all about the making of the puppet stage. "We didn't do nothing like that when I was in Sunday school," she says.

  We get home, and she finds an old yellow and white checked apron, says I can use it for Mrs. Noah.

  "They didn't have checks in them days," I say.

  "How do you know?" says Mama.

  "Because I seen the pictures. They weared stripes, like Joseph's coat of many colors."

  "We don't have no stripes," says Mama, "so you're just going to have to use this." Mama don't like buying things she don't have to. She runs up a yellow checked puppet's body on her portable sewing machine.

  "Looks like a housewife," I say.

  "That's exactly what she was," says Mama. "Now get you some hair and paint on a face, and you'll have you a real nice puppet."

  Only color yarn I can find up in the attic is blue, so I glue it on, but I don't know how to carve, so I just paint on a face with poster paint. I do a pink mouth, orange cheeks, and purple eyes.

  And I set Mrs. Noah on a pop bottle on my dressing table.

  6. Day by Day

  Sunday, Brother Lucas brings the puppet stage to church in the back of his pickup. The boys go out and carry it in, and we set it up in the junior corner.

  Chloe pulls Eve out of a shopping bag, holds her up. She's got two big red titties with sparkles in the middle.

  "Got these off my mama's coat," says Chloe.

  Chester Morley whistles.

  "Shut up," says Chloe.

  Then he looks at Mrs. Noah. "Ew, blue hair."

  "Looks better than yours," I say.

  Chester's glued on some carpet padding for Noah's hair, looks like a thatched roof, and his coat's made from a dirty dishtowel.

  Jonathan Safer don't have Adam done yet, since he wasn't there Wednesday. And Orlin Coates didn't help him none by working on it at home. Just hands him the block of wood. But Jed Bean done up the Devil like a real artist. Carved out a snake's head with its mouth open and glued in a long red tongue. Had to add him another finger hole, too, since the snake's head needs to set sideways, not straight up and down. He done it with his daddy's drill. Then the rest of the snake's body is made from old pajamas with a red and blue diamond pattern.

  Brother Lucas brings in a box of permanent Magic Markers and an old sheet ripped up so we can do the backdrops.

  "We'll just draw what God done," says Brother Lucas, "except for Day One. We don't need to draw nothing, since God just separated the light from the dark. We'll use a flashlight and this here backdrop." He takes out a bamboo pole with some black cheesecloth stapled onto it and puts it across the back of the puppet theatre.

  Orlin and Jed, they draw Day Two, where God separates the water from the sky. Chester Morley, him and Jonathan Safer do Day Three, making plants and trees. Me and Chloe, we're doing Day Four, where God makes the sun, moon, and stars. But I start thinking, How did God separate the light from the dark on Day One if he didn't make the sun, moon, and stars till Day Four?

  I ask Brother Lucas.

  "Mary Mae, if God wants to separate something before he makes it, that's his privilege. Don't go asking questions. This is the Bible, Mary Mae."

  "Maybe it was a different kind of light God made on Day One," says Orlin, trying to play Brother Lucas.

  "You mean he made some infrared rays?" I say.

  "Maybe there was glow-in-the-dark rocks," says Chester Morley.

  "There wasn't no rocks till Day Three," I say.

  "Mary Mae, you got to have faith," says Chloe. She looks at Brother Lucas to make sure he heard, then fluffs out her angel hair.

  Jed Bean moves on to Day Five, making sea monsters and fish and birds. He's good at that. The rest of us color them in. Orlin's doing Day Six, drawing a lot of animals.

  Them Magic Markers is making the junior corner smell like a paint factory.

  We attach each of them pictures to a bamboo stick with a staple gun, and then we roll them up and rest them across the top of the puppet stage. Orlin hammers in some nails between each stick to keep them separate. So we got Days One to Six all lined up. Don't need no Day Seven, since God didn't do nothing but rest. Brother Lucas asks who would like to be in charge of the backdrops.

  Ain't nobody wants to do it, so I say I will. All you got to do is pull down each day.

  Meantimes, Chester and me's supposed to draw the ark, but we ain't good at animals. Jed Bean helps us out by copying a picture Brother Lucas give us. It's got all them animals marching into the ark, but while he's outlining the elephant, I start thinking again. "What about dinosaurs?" I say. "They got to be on the ark."

  "Mary Mae, the Bible don't have no dinosaurs," says Chloe, real loud so Brother Lucas can pat her on the head.

  "Bible talks about beasts," I say.

  "Well, yes," says Brother Lucas. "It does." He takes a breath, heaves it out. "You go ahead and put them in," he says to Jed.

  I start thinking about trilobites, too, but since they was in the water, I know we don't got to worry about them.

  So Jed Bean puts two Tyrannosaurus rexes behind the elephants. Me and Chester color them in, but we're running out of time, so Brother Lucas says we'll have to finish next week.

  We put the Magic Markers away. But I start thinking about bugs and insects. "Where are we going to put them insects?" I ask Brother Lucas. I'm following him up the stairs to the main hall with Granny's guitar.

  "Why are you so worried about insects?"

  "Lord made insects, too," I say. "They got a whole building full at the zoo."

  Brother Lucas sighs again. "Mary Mae, you read Genesis. Bible says the ark is three hundred cubits long."

  "What's a cubit?"

  "Cubit's a forearm." He says it like it's something any dumb-dumb would know. "Point is, the ark was one and a half football fields long. Now that's a pretty big ship. Noah for sure would have had enough room for insects."

  "But insects don't stay where you put them," I say. "They crawl around. Or fly. And insects eat other insects. How are we going to keep all them insects separate?"

  "Maybe they was in little tiny cages."

  I'm wondering what them cages was made of, but you can tell Brother Lucas don't want to talk no more. "Mary Mae," he says, "the Lord performs miracles. You got to remember this is a holy expedition." And he goes up the aisle and sets with his wife.

  I just want to know things. It seems to me the Bible ain't giving the whole story. How was all them animals fed? That's what I'd like to know. Most all of them eats something different, and there wouldn't hardly be room enough to hold all their food. I done been to the library at school. Couldn't find nothing. Just pretty picture books with Noah a-standing there and all t
hem animals marching in. Nobody goes inside and tells how they done it. So I'm thinking maybe the Lord was dropping food down onto the ark hisself. Like he give free food to the children of Israel.

  ***

  Granny and I sing "Devil's Got Your Number," only this time I play guitar and she plays fiddle.

  Sister Coates asks who would like to give thanks.

  "I'm grateful I got a dollar per hour raise," says Chester Morley's mama.

  "I'm glad I don't have to move to Tampa," says Billy Grover.

  "My gardenias is coming into full bloom," says Wanda Brierly. "Laundry room smells like a perfumery, and I got six new buds."

  "Praise Jesus," says Sister Coates.

  ***

  She preaches on the third commandment, Exodus 20:7: "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." I can tell Mama's real pleased that Granny's getting this lesson. She's saying "Amen" and "Oh yes" to everything Sister Coates is a-saying. But after benediction Granny can't find her glasses and cusses up a storm.

  "Granny!" says Mama.

  "Sweet Jesus," says Granny, "I apologize!"

  ***

  Before we leave, I got to talk to Sister Coates. "How can you count each generation twenty years when some of them Bible people didn't have kids till they was ninety years old?"

  "Mary Mae, all I can say is, you got to trust the Bible scholars. They been adding up them numbers longer than we have."

  "But I like to add them up myself."

  Sister Coates nods, like she understands, but her eyebrows is a-going up at the same time, like she wishes I would quit.

  "I got another question," I say. "Who wrote the Bible?"

  Sister Coates takes a deep breath and looks at her watch. "Bible was wrote by God, but he was dictating to a lot of folks," she says. "They wrote on scrolls and stored them in pots."

  "Do you think things was left out when they was copying?" I ask.

  "Oh, they was pretty careful," says Sister Coates.

  But I ain't so sure.

  7. Questions

  "Mary Mae, sit down here," says Mama.

  It's Sunday afternoon. She points to the seat on the other side of the table. I know something's coming on.

  "I been meaning to talk to you." She takes a sip of her soda. "Sister Coates says you've been asking a lot of questions."

  "She likes questions," I say. "She says if we got any, just ask."

  "There are things you should not question." Mama slides her glass to the side, sets her elbow on the table, and talks with her pointer finger. "You do not question the Lord's plan. You do not question the Lord's grace. You do not question the Lord's word."

  "Why not?"

  "What do you mean, why not?" Mama looks around the room like she can't believe I'm questioning her. "Mary Mae, Satan has come and had a heyday in your head."

  Right away I'm thinking of Jed Bean's Devil puppet, how it's setting right under my forehead. "I just like to know things, that all."

  "All you need to know is right on that sticker we put up, John 3:16. You do not need to know about generations. You do not need to know why the Lord done anything. He has his reasons. If you're learning things at school that don't mesh with the Bible, you got to tell your teacher you ain't allowed to hear it. She'll have to give you another assignment."

  "I don't want no other assignments. I want to do what everybody else does."

  "I'm warning you, Mary Mae, if you're learning things that ain't in line with what we believe, I'll have to take you out of school."

  "You can't do that."

  "Yes I can. I'll teach you at home."

  "But it ain't legal."

  "Oh yes it is. I read about it in Christian Testament."

  Mama goes and gets her magazine. It's opened up to a picture of a mama and two kids setting at a table. Mama starts reading. "'I just did not like what was being taught in the schools,' says Mrs. DeVries, 'and I discovered it is my right as a parent to educate my children at home.'"

  "Hmmph," I say. "I don't want to stay at home. All I'd get is Bible and spelling."

  "That's all you need," says Mama. "That and a little bit of numbers. Now I don't want to do that. Lord knows, I got enough to do down at Harbin Plumbing. But I got to be certain you're being brought up Bible. Why can't you be my sweet little Mary Mae? It's all so easy if you just believe what the Bible says and don't go asking no questions. Mary Mae, you got to be a witness for others. Like what we done last Saturday, spreading the message of the Lord."

  "I do want to spread the message," I say. "I want everybody to go to Heaven. But I want to know things, too. Like how come the ground's all set down in stripes? And how come there's all them little animals in the rocks around here?"

  Mama goes over to the refrigerator for more ice. "What little animals?"

  "They's seashells around here because this used to be an ocean. One kid even found a trilobite." I don't tell her who.

  "What's that?" says Mama.

  "It's a little animal used to live a long time ago."

  "Is it mentioned in the Bible?"

  "I don't think so."

  "Well if it ain't in the Bible it ain't a real animal."

  "But lots of things ain't in the Bible."

  "If you ask me," says Mama, taking a sip of soda, "the Lord put all them shells in the ground just to trick us."

  "Trick us?"

  "Folks that don't believe in the Bible think the world's older than six thousand years. It's the Lord's test."

  But if Mama's right, the Lord had to mix up a whole lot of dirt all different colors and drop them shells in like nuts in cookie batter. And why would he want to do that? Why would the Lord that loves us want to play tricks?

  So I ask Miss Sizemore next day before school, "Do you think the Lord put all them shells in the rocks just to make us think the world's old?" I feel a little silly asking, because it makes the Lord sound like a cardsharp.

  "The world is old," says Miss Sizemore. "What you see on the chart is only the life of the earth. The universe goes back billions of years."

  A loud whoosh goes through my head when I hear the word billions. "How do they know?" I ask.

  "By measuring the light from the stars. Scientists have determined that the stars are moving away from us."

  "But how do they know that?"

  "They measure something called a red shift. Even on earth, light moving away from us creates a red shift. Measuring this, they can calculate speed and count backwards."

  "How far back?" I say.

  "Fifteen billion years."

  I gulp. "But what was the beginning? What was it like at the beginning?"

  "One particle. That's what scientists believe. That it exploded, and just kept expanding."

  "Sort of like something from nothing?"

  "That's right," says Miss Sizemore.

  Sounds like Creation to me. I walk over to my seat. One minute I picture the Lord popping out of that particle like a genie. The next minute I picture him holding the particle.

  ***

  I tell Granny about the world being billions and billions of years old. "So how come the Bible says Creation took six days?" I say.

  "Maybe days was longer back then," she says. "Maybe a day was billions of years."

  "But I'm a-wondering when Noah's ark was," I say.

  "Don't seem to me it matters," says Granny. "Time ain't something we can pin down that good."

  ***

  Me and Herschel go out one more day after school. It's the last chance we got, since they's coming back to do the foundation. I find some brachiopods and a spiny snail.

  "Think you could come with me and hunt for fossils next Saturday?" says Herschel.

  "I don't think so," I say. "I ain't even supposed to be here."

  "Why not?"

  "Mama thinks digging's bad. She wants me to get other assignments."

  "You mean like Shirley Whirly?"

  I nod. "Says if I don't, she's taking me out of school." />
  ***

  Later I'm setting in my room at my dressing table studying my collection, got my fossils lined up in front of Mrs. Noah. I'm a-cleaning them up with a toothbrush and don't hear Mama come up the stairs.

  "Mary Mae, you can't have rocks up here."

  "These ain't rocks," I tell her.

  "What are they?" She picks up a coral, turns it around.

  I'm thinking of making something up, but instead I just come out with it. "Fossils."

  "Fossils? Well you get them things out of here. I'm warning you you're headed for homeschooling." Mama drops the coral into my cigar box. "You get them things out to the trash."

  I put the other fossils back in my cigar box. I start to follow Mama downstairs, but instead I open up the arms to my dressing table and hide my cigar box in the back of my drawer.

  8. Report

  Miss Sizemore says she wants us to write a report—two pages on one of the fossils we've been studying. We're skipping dinosaurs, she says, since southern Ohio don't have no dinosaur fossils. They come after the Ordovician age, and all them layers was wore off.

  Shirley Whirly raises her hand and reminds Miss Sizemore she ain't allowed to write on fossils. Miss Sizemore says she can write on Ohio Valley weather instead. "Is there anyone else whose parents do not want them to report on fossils?" she asks.

  Herschel looks at me. I don't raise my hand. I want to learn as much about trilobites as I can. I ask Miss Sizemore if I can do a report on them like an interview. Good idea, she says. So I do some reading, and this is what I write:

  MM: Tell us how you spend your day, Mr. Trilobite.

  T: Well, I mostly nose around in the bottom and eat.

  MM: What do you eat?

  T: I have worms sometimes. I walk along until I find a worm trail. Then I just wait for them.

  MM: Then what do you do?

  T: I sit around in the mud some more. Then I do some swimming. Sometimes I molt.

  MM: What does that mean, Mr. Trilobite?

  T: Means my shell comes off and I go around unprotected until I grow a new one. That's how I get bigger. I bust out of my old suit and grow me a new one.

  MM: How big can you get?