by Paul Mendez
“And he had the cigarettes and marijuana already, your friend from work?” Brother Grimes’s eyes were narrow and implacable, but Jesse refused to acknowledge this as he looked into them. At this point he was telling the truth.
“ ’E bought the cigarettes at the shop,” Jesse said, recalling his surprise when Fraser asked for them, and his complete willingness to go along with anything Fraser did. He spoke against the memory of Fraser tipping the joint filter-end-down and tapping it twice on his thigh as they listened to the most emotionally raw rap song he’d ever heard. He remembered the smell of it, when he lit it, and the fact that he never thought to prepare himself to say no. He wanted that moment back. The fire was warm, but he wanted to be cold, sharing time and breath with Fraser. “He must’ve already pre-rolled the spliffs because he just took ’em out his pocket.”
“Had you ever smoked marijuana before?” Brother Grimes asked, burning his eyes into Jesse’s.
“No.” He had, once, had a drag of someone’s spliff out the back of McDonald’s, just out of curiosity. It was a hash joint, and a hot rock dropped out of it and burnt a hole in his work tie.
“So you both work at McDonald’s? How long have you worked together?”
“About two years, now.”
“And what sorts of problems is he facing?”
“A violent father, his girlfriend’s pregnant, his brother’s in prison.” These were all true things about Craig.
“Sounds unfortunate. What guidance were you able to give him?”
“I didn’t have my Bible with me, so we just talked as friends. I tried to give advice where I could, just in terms of what I know from the Bible, as a friend.” He shook his head as he said this, to suggest anyone else would do the same, and that Witnesses always do this sort of thing, apart from the smoking bit, which he was waiting for the opportunity to apologise for. “I told him it’d be best if he refrained from drinking and smoking cos they’re just a waste of time and money and damaging, both to himself, to his girlfriend and their unborn baby. I told him their baby doesn’t deserve to have its life compromised before it’s even born.”
Jesse compulsively flashed a look here at his mother, who was staring at her own ashy feet, her lips scrunched as if she was poised to jump up and punch him in the face.
“But he must have thought you a hypocrite if he saw you doing the same as him,” said Brother Woodall, who, even in this situation, spoke to Jesse in his usual cossetting, fatherly tone. Jesse conceded this and nodded.
Brother Frank Grimes continued: “How much did you both have to drink?”
“Three cans of Foster’s each.”
“And how much did you smoke?”
“A couple of spliffs, a couple of cigarettes.”
“So you went toe-to-toe?”
“I suppose I did.”
“Over what kind of time period?”
“We met at seven, so a couple of hours.”
“And that’s when Sister Winstanley and Sister Marriott picked you up in their car.”
“Yeh.”
“How was he, when you left him? What’s his name? Shall we give him a name?”
“Craig. He seemed more positive. He was a bit drunk, and a bit stoned obviously, but that’s the way he always is. He usually smokes a big fat spliff before work. It’s the only way he can get through.”
A strange, cynical grin broke onto Brother Grimes’s face that Jesse had seen before; the photograph was probably still among those folders in the sideboard cupboard right next to Brother Grimes, aka Uncle Frank, who led a black-and-white minstrel troupe as the surprise entertainment at Jesse’s parents’ wedding reception, in full blackface, tails, top hats, Afro wigs, white gloves and canes. Jesse, aged four, was dressed as a Negro page in a cream satin suit, pop socks and buckled shoes. He found the minstrels terrifying and screamed throughout their performance. Fresh off the stage, Brother Grimes had tried to console Jesse, grabbing him to pose for the photo, pulling his sinister, white-lipped minstrel grin while Jesse squirmed, trying to escape. The bride was in the background watching on, with a facial expression as if to say watch ya doe get shoe polish on his outfit!
“Does he have ginger hair?”
It took Jesse’s breath away. That feeling, again, of having been caught stealing. All moisture seemed to evacuate his mouth and dampen the palms of his hands. The back of his neck froze. The longer he delayed his answer, the more obvious it was that he was lying. His parents both shuffled in their seats. It wasn’t possible for Brother Grimes to know Craig Tillman.
“Answer the question, Jesse,” Brother Grimes said, looking at his notes, like a lawyer would, rather than at Jesse, and searching in the inside pocket of his suit jacket for a pen—a Parker Jotter, obviously—clicked it on and wrote down the name, Jesse supposed, Craig.
“Yeh.”
“That’s funny,” Brother Grimes continued, “because I went through that McDonald’s drive-thru with my youngest on Sunday night at about eight, I think it was, and was served at the first window by someone with ginger hair with Craig on his name badge. Has he got four stars? Working hard for a fifth? Jesse?”
Jesse clenched his jaw and stared at the flickering orange and blue flames.
“It’s extraordinary that he was in two places at once. Or do you work with two people named Craig with ginger hair? Or does he have a twin and forgot to take his own name badge to work and posed as his brother? My two eldest are identical, as you know, and so could probably stand in for each other all the time if they wanted to, if they were liars.
“Who were you really with, Jesse?” asked Brother Grimes, with a tone in his voice as if to warn him to tell the truth.
“Just. You don’t need to know.” Was this a genuine shock to them, or were they discovering him to be the unreachable black teenage boy they’d suspected him to be all along?
“Well, actually, really, we do, because if you’re lying about something, and you’re implicating others in your lie, that is really quite a serious accusation.”
“Who were you with, Jesse? Just tell us the truth,” said Brother Woodall, pleadingly.
Jesse breathed in, as if he was going to talk, then breathed out, and didn’t.
“If you’re not going to answer us, or you’ve forgotten, then perhaps we can fill you in. Sister Winstanley and Sister Marriott, after they dropped you off, drove back towards where they both live in Tipton, and said they saw Fraser Hammond crossing the road, walking slowly and looking deep in thought. They stopped him, just to say hello, and asked him where he’d been. He said he’d just been having a drink with a friend. They thought, oh, that sounds familiar, so when they asked who that friend was, he said, Jesse…McCarthy! When they said they’d just dropped him off at home, and he’d said he’d been out for a drink with someone who wasn’t in the truth, he said, they quote, he’s probably right about that, wished them good night and walked away. So this is why Sister Winstanley rang your mother on Monday, Jesse, to see if you and he were both alright, because both she and your mother care about your spiritual well-being.”
“My so-called mother doesn’t care about my well-being at all,” Jesse said, under his breath but loud enough.
“Oh Frank, I can’t cope! It’s slowly killing me, I know it, I’m so depressed! I cor do nothin right! He meks me feel like I’m worthless! I know he’s always comparing us to other people like you who’ve got more money! I’ve had enough! I can’t live like this! He meks us feel like nothin’s ever good enough for him! All we’ve ever done, all we’ve ever done is do our best, and it just could never” (his mother stabbed her finger into the arm of the sofa) “be enough for him” (she stabbed the same finger at Jesse) “because he’s so high and mighty!” (she rocked her neck; she was shouting at the top of her voice). “He makes me feel stupid. Do you know what it’s like to be made to feel stupid, old, f
at, ugly and worthless and not good enough by your own child? No, you wunt know, because you int got kids like him! I’ve seen the way both your kids are and them golden! Why have I got him?”
“Val,” Graham said, as if to calm her, but he put his hand on her thigh. Tears were streaming down her face and white scum had formed at the corners of her mouth. The smell of her breath thickened in the warm room.
“I cor deal with it no more. We’ve tried our best to give him everything we could. We’ve tried our best, to provide for him so that he can go on the ministry. We’ve shown him nothin but support, and what’s he do? He throws it back in our faces! I’ve never been treated so badly by anybody! Me own son! He’s disrespectful, a liar, a cheat and a thief, and I cor live with him, but I cor throw him out either cos I just doe know what the world’d do to him, me own son! He’ll learn his lesson. He’ll gerris comeuppance! He’ll be crushed out there! Go and look in his room! If you need any proof about what I’m saying, go and look in his room! Exemplary to the youth of the congregation? Go and look in his room! That’s the real Jesse! He lives in a dungeon! I’ve told him, and told him, and told him, burr’e refuses to listen! We’ve tried beating sense into him, we int spared the rod, but that dunt work either! It’s almost like he enjoys it, and he does things to spite Graham so he’ll be disciplined! He’s mental! You think you know im, but you doe, and now the real truth’s coming out! You have to gerrim away from me!”
She turned her head into Graham’s chest and he cradled her as she cried. She had swallowed the room. They were all thrashing about in her stomach, her acid burning their flesh away. There was no air to breathe. Brother Grimes called out, Oh, oh! He tried to calm her down. He told her it was okay, to go in the kitchen, make herself a cup of tea and calm herself down, that they would sort it. Brother Woodall looked disturbed, as if he wanted to put his hand over his nose but knew it would appear rude. Jesse worried that those new frown lines would become scars and never disappear from his handsome face. Jesse’s mother got up, whimpering, left the room and closed the door behind her. A sister, probably Ruth, the favourite, crept down to ask her if she was alright. “I’m alright, I’m okay, just go back upstairs and leave me alone for a bit. Look wharre’s done to me!” Jesse watched her as she opened the door, and thought he could detect a sneer on her top lip where she could have burst out laughing at her own triumph. She had exposed him, so that everyone could now see what a walking lie her son was, and it was obvious to the elders the depth of depression living with such a person had brought on her. Graham sat staring at his feet.
“Shall we do this quickly, and truthfully?” Brother Grimes, after a moment to let the air clear, said.
“What happened with Fraser?” Brother Woodall said.
“Nothing. The same as I said happened with Craig, we just talked about different things.”
“Such as?” said Brother Grimes.
Jesse shrugged his shoulders. “You’ll have to ask him that. I believe that whatever conversation two adults have should stay between those two adults.”
“Well, we did ask Fraser,” said Brother Grimes, “and he said that he left because you made homosexual overtures towards him.”
“What? No I didn’t!” The walls of Jericho are coming down. He is buried in the rubble.
“He said, quote, that you leaned into him, and told him that you could be like his girlfriend, and that you would look after him. Is this true?” Babylon the Great is slain riding on the back of the many-headed monster.
Would he dob Fraser in, over his girlfriend? Was it worth it? He had nothing to lose if Fraser didn’t want to be in the truth any more. He remembered the Hammond brothers’ hands all over him, feeling to see how big his dick was, how tight his arse was. The stray hand left on his arse at the Kingdom Hall. The way Fraser stood in front of him with a hard-on, smoking his weed, and looking past Jesse into the empty derelict rooms as if Jesse could do whatever he wanted and it would’ve been nothing to do with him. Fraser had probably ratted on him because he didn’t get a blowjob. I’m not baptised, so they can’t say anything to me. Jesse said nothing. He couldn’t bring himself to be disloyal.
“Turn to 2 Timothy 3:15–17,” Brother Grimes said. “Graham, please will you read it out?”
Their pages rustled. Graham, with a voice lacking in any modulation or colour, read: “And that from infancy you have known the holy writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through the faith in connection with Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for setting things straight, for disciplining in righteousness, that the man of God may be fully competent, completely equipped for every good work.”
“Thank you, Graham. Now let’s turn to Titus 1:15–16,” Brother Grimes said. “You’ll know from your extensive studies, of course, that it’s on the facing page! Will you read it out?”
Jesse looked up to see that Brother Grimes was talking to him, with undisguised contempt. With a barely open throat, he read, “All things are clean to clean persons.”
“Nice and clear and loud like you do from the platform,” Brother Grimes said.
Jesse, startled, obeyed. “But to persons defiled and faithless nothing is clean, but both their minds and consequences are defiled. They publicly declare they know God, but they disown him by their works, because they are detestable and disobedient and not approved for good work of any sort.”
“This is why you have to be disfellowshipped,” Brother Grimes said, shutting his Bible with a thud.
* * *
—
The words this announcement is to inform the congregation that Jesse McCarthy has been disfellowshipped would’ve entered the Kingdom Hall like a shooter.
Jesse McCarthy. Not Brother Jesse McCarthy. Not even Young Brother Jesse McCarthy. Just Jesse McCarthy. Jesse, as named after the outlaw Jesse James, rather than King Jesse, the sinless father of David, or even Jesse Owens, the laughing disarranger of white supremacy. Inform the congregation. Nobody was allowed to know why he had been disfellowshipped. He could have been an unrepentant thief, a sex offender, a fraudster, a drug addict; he might’ve been in an accident, or diagnosed with a terrible illness, and chosen to accept a blood transfusion.
Disfellowshipped. Witnesses avoided people who’d been disfellowshipped as if they had leprosy or AIDS. There would have been gasps. More than one middle-aged Sister would have slapped a hand against her own chest, as if to stop her heart bursting out. The elderly would have asked for repeats, questioning their hearing. Sister Doreen Charles might have wailed in grief. Multiple heads would have spun to see if he was sitting at the back, next to the door, then their gaze would have turned to his family, particularly his mother. All of a sudden, she was the pitiable mother of an unreachable, now lost, black teenage boy. It would be clear to them what was the source of his long-suffering mother’s depressions. There was nothing that could be done about unreachable black teenage boys, except deliver them the punishment unreachable black teenage boys get. He’d never considered himself to be an unreachable black teenage boy before. Perhaps that was the problem. He was no longer allowed to communicate with or attempt in any way to engage anyone from his loving congregation.
Fraser texted him Sorry, but Jesse didn’t reply, and deleted his number from his phone. In fact, he threw his phone smashing against a wall in the bins area at McDonald’s and had to get a new one. He went full-time. He gave no reason to the manager, after he’d spent two years refusing to work Tuesday evenings, Thursday evenings or Sundays because of his meeting commitments. His teammates circled him, challenging him to become harder, more aggressive, their idea of black. They were his only friends now. He smoked their weed, went out clubbing with them, listened to rap albums on his Discman, tested swear words in his mouth. They were mostly white and Asian boys who acted like black boys. He tried to change his accent so that he sounded more black.
One of his colleagues joked that Jesse was like a black boy trying to be a white boy trying to be a black boy. Craig remained ignorant of his pivotal role in changing Jesse’s life.
At home, he confined himself to his tiny room. He took his clothes to the launderette on Hill Top and mainly ate at work. One day, traipsing home up Carlton Street after working a breakfast shift, a car stopped next to him. It was Brother Thomas Woodall in his painting and decorating clothes. He was often to be seen, driving up and down as he worked on several projects at once, from a shopfront in Great Bridge to the home of a Brother and Sister in a neighbouring territory. Brother Woodall silently reached over to the passenger door of his minivan and with his neck, beckoned Jesse in. Jesse obeyed, got in the car and shut the door, even though he was only five minutes’ walk from his house. The Escort van was filthy inside, incommensurate with Brother Woodall’s usually impeccable presentation as presiding overseer of the congregation, but of course, being a white man, Brother Woodall’s filth was cleaner than Jesse’s squeaky-clean black. He drove up almost to the top of Burton Lane, just to take a longer route to drop Jesse off at home. They didn’t say a word to each other; and when Jesse, fighting back tears, tried to say thank you, Brother Woodall turned his head away. Jesse got out of the car and stood grieving on the pavement as Brother Woodall drove away.
Christmas, he stayed in his room with crisps and snacks, craving a spliff, even a cigarette. His parents and the children watched TV downstairs all day. He was not invited to eat with them. He’d bought Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin, finally, which his GCSE English teacher had encouraged him to read. It dawned on him that the novel depicted a gay relationship; he panicked to think she might have recommended it to him because he was a black gay like Baldwin. Still, he managed it, in one day, from cover to cover. He thought it striking that a black man could, in the first paragraph, have his main character look himself in the mirror and see a tall, blond white man standing there in his dressing-gown holding a tumbler of whisky—and it brought a tear to his eye, because he recognised that if he was a tall, blond white boy, everything would have been different.
