The Sacred Place

by Daniel Black

  “To everything there is a season,” Jeremiah muttered from Ecclesiastes chapter 3. “And a time to every purpose under the heavens. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted. A time to kill”—he sighed—“and a time to heal. A time to break down, and a time to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh.” His voice dwindled with each verse until his lips moved inaudibly. At the close of the chapter, he set his Bible on the stand next to the aging, dusty brown sofa. Old Man Chapman had given the family that trash, as Miss Mary called it, as a wedding present when his wife’s order of custom Italian furniture arrived. Its countless holes didn’t bar him from believing he was doing the Johnsons an unprecedented favor. Pride colored his demeanor when he ordered his boys to haul the sofa—and its trail of cotton—into the Johnsons’ living room.

  “Don’t worry, it wunnit no trouble,” he repeated, waving his hands frantically. “Y’all oughta git twenty more years outta this here couch. It’s really for the children. My wife thinks the world of ’em.”

  Chapman left before Jeremiah or Miss Mary, against their hearts’ true sentiment, could properly thank him. From that day, Miss Mary determined never to sit on the sofa as long as she lived.

  Enoch retreated to the edge of the porch, swinging his feet like he, Possum, and Jerry used to do on hot summer nights. Picking his teeth with a broom straw and spitting the contents into oblivion, Enoch searched desperately for the optimism that had governed his thoughts earlier in the cotton field. Somehow, though, every scenario he imagined fed his fear that Clement’s disobedience would cost his family dearly. “Why couldn’t the boy just hand the woman the money?” he asked the wind, rolling one cigarette after the other. Then he remembered Possum’s proud recalcitrance and forgave Clement in his heart.

  Miss Mary strolled onto the porch quietly, and said, “Look like we ain’t gon git no rain, is we?”

  “Naw, guess we ain’t,” Enoch murmured without turning.

  “De Good Lawd gon handle it,” she offered. “He got de whole world in His hands.”

  Miss Mary’s tone made Enoch wonder if she really believed what she was saying. The confidence with which she usually spoke was now only a shivering whisper. He turned and saw his mother staring into the cloudless black sky and guessed that she, like he, was reliving the horror of Jerry and Billie Faye in The Sacred Place, and praying that they’d not have to lay another family member to rest. Miss Mary found her hum, finally, and swayed like a young cypress tree in a windstorm as she rubbed her folded arms. Occasionally, her head fell back, shaking from side to side, and her good right foot kept a rhythm both cacophonous and soothing. Enoch wanted to ask his mother if she were all right, but he could tell she did not want to be disturbed. She was negotiating something, it seemed, in a spiritual place he had never gone, and the intensity of her melody suggested that the talks were not going very well. Her persistent tune justified why she had been characterized as the family gatekeeper, the stronghold, the fortress, and Enoch now nurtured a new respect for a mother who must have fought God on his behalf without ever having consulted him.

  At her hum’s crescendo, Enoch looked heavenward and marveled at the night’s resplendent display of stars and moon. This time, he allowed himself to be subsumed in the moment instead of, like usual, trying mightily to avoid it. The light summer breeze, which had been his evening companion, disappeared suddenly when his mother’s guttural moaning began, leaving streams of sweat and tears intermingling down her mountainous cheeks. The tears weaved their way to the edge of her chin, then, one by one, leapt into the abyss of the Mississippi night. Enoch noticed a deer standing in the distance, staring at Miss Mary as though recognizing in her hum the bars of a favorite melody. Once, or maybe twice, the animal moved uneasily but never shifted its gaze. Maybe beasts have souls, Enoch entertained, and maybe they, too, would be in eternity.

  The exact origin of his tears he couldn’t identify, but this time he welcomed them. With a heart far too heavy to carry into another day, Enoch gave thanks for the unannounced cleansing by lifting his arms to the sky and pacing across the loose dirt yard, repeating “Hallelujah!” with each step, until, much to his surprise, his legs took a mind to dance. It was an awkward shuffle at first, primarily because Enoch had never danced in the spirit, but now he had no choice. His feet simply would not be restrained. “Let de Lawd have His way, son!” he heard his mother say, so Enoch submitted to a power greater than himself. His arms joined his feet in uncontrolled movements, swinging wildly like one fighting a swarm of bees. He didn’t fully understand what was happening to him, but he lacked the power and the desire to stop it. “Let Him use you!” Miss Mary cried. A cloud of dust rose at his feet and slowly enshrouded his form as he danced circles around the little sycamore tree. “Yes, Lord!” Miss Mary declared. “Yes, yes, yes!” Had he paid attention in church, Enoch would have known that the Holy Ghost always comes in the midst of trouble, but Miss Mary couldn’t explain that now. All she could do was beg the Lord to use him. As a child, he had sworn he didn’t even believe in the Holy Ghost and, in fact, had mocked those whose unexplainable antics became the punch line of his jokes. But now he believed. At least he believed in something. Maybe it was Miss Mary he believed in. Maybe she was the Holy Ghost, he pondered, for never, ever, had he been so spiritually overwhelmed that his body assumed a life all its own and declared the beauty thereof before the naked universe. He wondered why he wasn’t embarrassed. Maybe somewhere in the power of the dance, in the belly of the Holy Ghost, he found a Self he had not known. Maybe the collective unity of tears, movement, freedom, intelligence, and emotion introduced him to the sustaining power of his people and made him proud to be a descendant of the Black ones the world rejected. Or maybe God was getting him ready for something. He wasn’t sure. His only regret was that all his life, he had embraced a worldview that left him wanton, barren, and longing for holism. But now he knew why Black women shouted weekly, and he wondered why Black men didn’t. Had he been among his ancestors years ago, they would have celebrated the trance, and everyone—including the men—would have joined in. Miss Mary wanted to tell Enoch that his ecstasy was simply the desire of the cosmos to teach him who he was and to assure he knew the source of his strength. She also wanted to tell him that, in the dance, his spirit was pleading with God to protect the Johnson family from a tragedy that might destroy them this time. She smiled as she watched her son evolve into an elder, a keeper of his people, a temporary resident in a spiritual realm to which he would certainly have to return. Her final prayer was that God wouldn’t ever let him forget that he had been there.

  When Enoch recovered, he was standing in front of the house, panting.

  “What jes happened to me, Momma?” he asked bewildered.

  “Dat’s between you and de Good Lawd,” Miss Mary returned joyfully.

  “But I don’t do this kinda stuff. I mean, I believe in God and all, but—” He was trembling.

  “It ain’t got nothin’ to do wit you believin’, boy. God is real whether you believe or you don’t. It jes helps if you do.” She sat on the edge of the porch with her feet on the steps.

  Enoch shuffled his tired legs and sat next to her. He was glad no one else in the family had seen him.

  “I ain’t mad ’bout what jes happened, Momma. It jes seem lak, after somethin’ like dis, God would do whatever I ask him to. But I guess it don’t work like dat, huh?”

  “No, it don’t, son. God ain’t in de pleasin’ business,” Miss Mary answered. “He don’t think like folks do. He gotta plan don’t none o’ us know nothin’ ’bout, and he ain’t gon change it jes ’cause we ask him to.”

  “Then why pray?”

  Miss Mary’s reticent response came slowly. “’Cause we spose to,” she said. “God know what you gon pray befo’ you even say it.”

  Enoch’s frustration inflamed. “Then why say it?”

  Miss Mary approached the edge of her understanding. “List
en, son. Jes walk wit God. Dat’s all I know fu sho. You gotta walk wit God so you know where to git yo strength from. All dem otha thangs you askin’ me, I don’t know. Yo own mind can be yo worse enemy.” She waved away mosquitoes swarming around her partially exposed lower legs.

  Enoch still didn’t understand what had just happened to him. Self-control was always a virtue he boasted, and for something to overpower him made him wonder what invisible beings lurked around the world waiting to teach humans their limitations. Now he wanted the feeling to return, for there was freedom in that moment he had never experienced. Everything he thought he believed proved, not wrong, but irrelevant as something within him granted him the right to be everything simultaneously. No one would believe him, he knew, but he felt the energy of the deer he had seen earlier. It was not afraid. It loved him, he felt, because, like itself, he was included among God’s untainted ones. The stars also bore their nakedness before him proudly, and the mosquitoes swirled about even in the midst of his disruption. How had he missed the beauty of the universe before, he wondered.

  “We bes be gittin’ some sleep, young man. Mr. Sun be comin’ up afta while,” Miss Mary said, and entered the house.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Enoch called behind her. “I’ll be jes anotha minute.”

  Enoch turned, finally, and reexamined the still, purple night. The old peach tree standing to the left of the house appeared lonely most times, but now it stood noble as though clear it was exactly where it was supposed to be. He smiled, and said, “God, I ain’t neva been so scared in all my life. I know dem white folks ain’t gon let Clement git by wit bein’ disobedient, but I’m thinkin’ that maybe You can make ’em forgive him. You know he didn’t mean no harm, Lawd.” Enoch searched the heavens for a sign God was listening. “He was jes bein a chile, that’s all.” He stood on the second level of the front steps. “I ain’t neva been one to pray much, and I know dat, but I’m askin You, Lawd, to please ease dis situation. Jerry”—Enoch’s voice cracked—“was enough to lose. Why colored peoples always de ones losin’?” he posed indignantly. “Every time somethin’ happens, why colored people’s always de ones goin’ to de cemetery? Lawd, You likes colored peoples, don’t chu? Momma swear by You. She say anythang somebody ask in Yo name, You’ll do it. Well, I’m askin’, Lawd, please don’t let hurt, harm, or danger come to my nephew. Or dis family. We done suffered enough.”

  A shooting star leapt across the sky, and Enoch nodded his appreciation for the sign. “Momma said Daddy named me Enoch after a man in de Bible who walked so close to You dat he didn’t have to die. Well, I know me and You ain’t dat close, but Lawd, if I had one wish, I would ask for safety for dis hyeah family. At least do it for Momma. She de one who really believe.” He was talking louder now, having gathered confidence from somewhere in the night. Yet realizing that God wasn’t going to respond verbally, Enoch took a deep breath, and said, “It’s all in Yo hands, Lawd. Yo will be done.”

  He entered the house, blew out the last coal oil lamp burning on the kitchen table and, reluctantly, went to bed.

  By 10:00 P.M., everyone was asleep except Sarah Jane. She lay on the battered brown sofa, thinking of her mother the night Jerry “left.” That’s how Miss Mary had described it. She told relatives and friends that Jerry didn’t kill himself; rather, he was simply going home to handle his Father’s business. Sarah Jane didn’t understand then. The pride with which her grandmother made the assertion, however, comforted her otherwise troubled heart. She remembered Billie Faye in the rocking chair, staring into space, oblivious to the world in which the rest of them lived, and she wanted nothing more earnestly than to escort her mother back into the land of the living. Words, though, had proven ineffectual in reaching Billie Faye. The silhouette of the rocker often frightened Sarah Jane at night, for she swore, on several occasions, she saw her mother sitting there smiling at her. After the first time, she began to look for her. Folks said she was crazy. Even Chop, who believed almost anything, didn’t believe her. But Sarah Jane peered hard every night through the pitch-black space between herself and the chair until her mother arrived, extending a warm smile that always made her feel better. Sometimes she didn’t come, but most times she did. Once, Billie Faye even reached her hands toward Sarah Jane, who closed her eyes and relaxed in the comfort of her mother’s touch. Goose bumps stood at attention all over her body as Billie Faye rubbed her soothingly, leaving Sarah Jane doubtless that this was indeed her mother.

  “Girl, you crazy,” the boys told her. “Dead people don’t visit the living.

  “Yes they do!” Sarah Jane insisted. “Grandma said so. Momma comes to see me at night, and sometimes she rubs my back just like she used to when I was little.”

  “Dead people can’t do that,” Ray Ray admonished.

  “Yes they can!” she proclaimed. “They can do whatever they want to. Plus, I know it was Momma ’cause she was wearing the wedding ring Daddy gave her.”

  Ray Ray gasped. The night Jerry died, Ray Ray found the ring Jerry had given Billie Faye on their wedding day. She must have taken it off for fear of losing it or something because there it was on the floor next to their bed. Its sparkle caught Ray Ray’s eye as he swept, and he picked it up with the intention of returning it to the couple when they came home. However, when he found out about Jerry, he forgot about the ring. When Billie Faye died, he remembered it and, at the wake, slid it on the third finger of her right hand. It was a secret he had prepared to take to his grave.

  “Which finger was it on?” Ray Ray inquired suddenly, hoping she couldn’t remember.

  Sarah Jane pondered. “Um … the third one, I think.”

  “Oh my God,” he mumbled.

  “What?”

  “Nothin’.”

  He wondered if his aunt would come to him, too, but then, on second thought, he hoped she wouldn’t. Stories of haints and ghosts always disturbed his peace, leaving him wide-awake while others slept. No, he didn’t want to see Aunt Billie, at least not until he was a spirit, too. He couldn’t imagine what he’d say to her anyway.

  Sarah Jane waited for her mother that night. Fatigue crept upon her, but she tried hard not to surrender her eyelids for fear that Billie Faye might come and she would miss her. Yet, at some point, she fell asleep, for she was awakened by loud banging on the front door.

  “Where dat nigger boy?” the redneck voice bellowed.

  Before Sarah Jane could collect herself, Jeremiah was standing in the living room pointing a shotgun at the door. “Get in de back room, girl! Hurry!” he yelled.

  “We come afta dat smart nigga, Jeremiah. It ain’t got to be no trouble. We jes wanna talk to him,” the same voice declared.

  “I don’t know who you talkin’ ’bout,” Jeremiah lied loudly. “All my chillen sleep and ain’t none o’ ’em done nothin’, so I speck you betta be goin’ on home.” Enoch was standing slightly behind his father now, hiding another loaded rifle. Miss Mary and Ella Mae held one another tightly, a few feet behind their men, as they prayed the intruders would go away. At the back door, the children waited for directions from their elders, prepared to run if they needed to.

  “Jeremiah, don’t make this ugly, boy!” one of the men proclaimed as he kicked the door forcefully.

  “Go on ’way from hyeah! We don’t want no trouble! We’s Christian people what don’t b’lieve in killin’, but if you make me, I’ll blow yo goddamn head off!” Jeremiah cocked the shotgun and motioned for his son to do likewise. The women covered their mouths and quivered.

  “I’m gon ask you one mo time, boy! Give us dat smart nigga who don’t know how to treat a white lady. We jes wanna ask him a few questions.” They were banging on the door with the butts of their guns. Any minute now, that old door was going to fall, Jeremiah knew, but what he didn’t know was exactly what he’d do then.

  “I’ll come out an’ talk to you myself,” Jeremiah volunteered. “Whatever any o’ my kids know, I already know, so you can talk to me.” His shimmering voic
e frightened the entire family.

  “No, Daddy!” Enoch urged through clinched teeth. “I’ll go,” and he took a bold step forward.

  Jeremiah grabbed Enoch’s arm. “Git back behind me, boy! I done buried one son, and I’ll be goddamn if I’m ’bout to bury de otha one. Not today!”

  “We don’t want you, old man, we want de boy! We promise not to hurt him. Now send him out to us, or we comin’ in after him!”

  There had to be at least four or five of them, Jeremiah estimated, from the chorus of their multiple voices.

  “What we gon do, Daddy?” Enoch whimpered.

  Fear cloaked the old man like a tailored suit, but he refused to let the men prove him a coward.

  “Don’t come in here!” he exclaimed. “I don’t wanna hurt nobody, but I sho will.”

  With another brutal kick, the front door relinquished its hinges and fell helplessly. The lanterns, which two of the men carried, exposed the familiar faces of four young white men, eager to avenge Catherine Cuthbert’s virtue.

  Jeremiah shot first, wounding one of them in the arm. Gunshot sounds transformed the Johnson living room into a virtual battlefield. Miss Mary cried, “Run, children, run!” when she saw her husband crumble in agony. The bullet lodged in Enoch’s right shoulder didn’t keep him from killing the other three while the wounded one escaped. He felt honored to complete what his father had begun.