by E. N. Joy
“I say we convince pastor to kick her tail right on out of this church,” Tamarra stood up and said. Thirty-six-year-old Tamarra had been saved for eleven years, New Day Temple of Faith being her only place of worship. Now divorced for one year after a fifteen-year marriage, during which Tamarra had learned her husband had had a child outside of their marriage, it was safe to say that at this moment, she was quite the bitter and unforgiving soul.
“Calm down, Sister Tamarra,” Doreen requested as she stood behind the podium in the church classroom. She was born Doreen Nelly Mae Hamilton, then traded in her last name for that of her now deceased husband, Willie Tucker, but members of New Day lovingly referred to her as Mother Doreen. Known as a voice of reason and never one to be in drama or the subject of a drama, this sixty-something treasure chest of wisdom appeared to be nothing short of the perfect Christian.
With the pastor’s permission, Mother Doreen, as the founder and leader of the New Day Singles Ministry, had called a special meeting for the ministry. She wanted to discuss a matter concerning one of the newer female members of the church, the woman they referred to as Sister Helen. Helen had joined the church between four and six months ago, and yet she’d already managed to stir up a decade’s worth of trouble.
“I really believe something is going on with her,” Mother Doreen said, the wheels of concern rotating in her brain and in her heart. “Nobody in their right mind would post pictures of church members in what appear to be compromising positions on the church Web site. So there has to be something going on with her.”
“I really believe she’s just crazy,” Tamarra replied. “No disrespect intended, Mother Doreen, but if those pictures on the church Web site had been of you instead of me, then I’m almost one hundred percent certain you’d feel the same way I do.”
Mother Doreen had to admit that Tamarra had a point. Those pictures of Tamarra and the man she was seeing, Maeyl, that had turned up on New Day’s Web site didn’t put the couple in such a holy light. Of course, as it turned out, the photos hadn’t been what they appeared to be. The photos had shown Tamarra and Maeyl getting pretty close out in the church parking lot. They came to find, after all was said, done, and found out, that the twosome had merely prayed, then given one another a godly hug afterward.
If it hadn’t been for Helen fortuitously revealing the photos to a fellow church member, Deborah, no one might have ever found out the truth. But the truth was out, indeed, and it wasn’t setting Tamarra free. It was hardly keeping her free, as she wouldn’t have minded doing three to five years in a jail cell for going upside Helen’s head.
The photos had been removed from the Web site and the culprit had been found out, but as far as Tamarra was concerned, the damage had been done and Helen needed to pay for such an outright mean and hurtful act.
“I’m with Tamarra,” said Paige, Tamarra’s closest friend inside and outside of New Day. “Sister Helen is a loose cannon, and we need to shoot her too-much-makeup-wearing, too-much-cleavage-always-showing, skirts-too-short, jezebel-looking behind up on out of here.”
“Paige, now you just cosigning for your best friend,” Deborah noted, stepping in. “We really don’t know what’s going on with her.” Deborah stared off into the distance. “There could be something deeply rooted in her past that is just eating her up inside, something that’s got her hurting so bad, she doesn’t know where to direct the pain but at other people.” Deborah sounded as if she was speaking from experience.
“Whatever,” Paige said, sucking her teeth and rolling her eyes. “We all done been through something. And I know I ain’t been saved but a minute, but I know enough to know that we all are going to keep going through things. That doesn’t give us the right to take a needle, fill it with all our hurt, pain, and misery, and then inject it into other people’s lives. And on that note, I’m still with Tamarra. I say we put her out on that tail of hers, which she’s always trying to show everybody with them little bitty ole skirts.”
“And then be having the nerve to fall out at the altar in ’em,” added Unique, a younger member of the Singles Ministry.
In agreement, Paige high-fived Unique.
“I just can’t see ever putting folk out of the church.” Mother Doreen closed her eyes and shook her head. She then opened her eyes. “Let’s say the child is already hurting, which I’m willing to bet my last bingo chip in a close game that she is. Church hurt is the worst hurt, so imagine what that could do to her. We could be her only hope. The child ain’t but what? Twenty-five, twenty-six? She ain’t even lived half her life yet. Imagine her having to go through all those years with church hurt.” Mother Doreen shook her head again and adamantly stood by her beliefs. “The church ain’t where you throw sick people out. It’s where a sick person should always be able to come to get healed.”
“Amen,” Deborah agreed. “Jesus saves.”
“Yeah, but that Sister Helen is beyond being saved,” Paige chimed in.
“And we can’t save nobody who doesn’t want to be saved,” Tamarra added.
“And just who are you to determine that Sister Helen doesn’t want to be saved?” Deborah asked Tamarra with her hands on hips. “You’re a caterer, not some psychoanalyst. We have no idea what is in her mind or what she’s been through.” Deborah couldn’t believe this was her talking, seeing that Helen had been her nemesis, a thorn in her side, ever since Helen had joined New Day. But Deborah knew something about past hurt and pain herself. Her life hadn’t been a bed of roses, but a cot of dandelions instead.
“And that’s why we should let the doorknob hit her where the good Lord split her,” Paige said. “We know absolutely nothing about her.” Paige looked around the room and pointed at all the women. “Each of us, we pretty much know some of each other’s stories—enough to help and enough to know what to pray about. But Sister Helen, we don’t even know the first sentence of her story.”
“So you want to know my story?”
A hush fell over the room when all the ladies looked at the doorway and saw Sister Helen Lannden herself standing there, posing her question.
“Is that it? Is that why the women of New Day always walk around here like divas with their noses in the air, looking down on me like I’m trash?” Helen asked. “Because you don’t know my story? Y’all think y’all are so perfect, huh? Well, isn’t there a saying that people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones?” Her eyes x-rayed the room. “Which is why I keep all mine in my pocket.”
All the women became a little nervous and somewhat discomfited that Helen had been served an unintended and undetermined portion of their conversation.
“Sister Helen, we were j-just t-talking about you,” Deborah stammered, standing up.
“You don’t say,” Helen replied, shaking her head. “So y’all want to know my story, huh?” Helen looked around the room, but no one replied. “That wasn’t a rhetorical question. I really want to know if you ladies want to know my story.”
“Not me,” Deborah was quick to say. She knew from experience that once one person got to testifying, a whole clan of others would be in line next. She was not about to entertain it. “I have to go.” She gathered her things and walked toward the doorway where Helen stood. She momentarily looked into Helen’s eyes, then cast her own eyes down and exited. Looking at Helen at that moment was like looking into a mirror. Deborah could not stand or face the pain.
Mother Doreen cleared her throat while wiping beads of sweat from her forehead, a trait of hers that revealed itself whenever there was tension that needed to be sliced through like a week-old pound cake. She then lifted her head and with confidence replied, “As a matter of fact, Sister Helen, we would. Us women would like to hear your story.” She looked at the other women, silently beseeching them to have her back. Several nodded to show their support. “I mean, we’re not trying to get into your business or pull anything out of you that you don’t want to share. We just need to know what to pray about concerning you. Because whether you believe
it or not, we love you, Sister, and we want to help you. We want to meet you right where you are in life.”
Helen stared into Mother Doreen’s eyes momentarily before letting out a chuckle. “Okay, old lady,” Helen spat as she sashayed over toward the podium.
Mother Doreen backed away, not really knowing what to expect of Helen. She’d watched enough reality shows to know that a grown woman could snap and get physical in a minute.
“Y’all want to know my story? Well, I’m about to give it to you, all of it. Believe me when I say I’m leaving no stone unturned.” Helen stared down the women in the room one by one as she prepared to tell them her story, but not before saying, “But trust me when I say that after hearing about my life, it’s gon’ take more than y’all’s prayers to meet me where I’m at.”
Stone Number Two
“Why you so black? Where you from? Africa?” some fifth grade boy said as he walked by. I was playing four square outside on the school playground with three of my fourth grade classmates.
I could tell he was just trying to get a laugh from his friends tagging along with him, which he did. But why did it have to be at my expense? I was just minding my own business, having a good ole time at recess, and then here he came along.
“Did you hear what that boy said? He must be talking to you, Helen,” said one of my classmates who was occupying one of the squares. “Because we ain’t that black—not as black as you.”
Suddenly no one was focusing on the ball anymore. Instead, all the other kids in the squares were laughing.
If I had wanted to, I was sure I could have searched for one of the instigator’s flaws to point out and make fun of. My nana, my mother’s mother, had once told me that it took at least two people to argue and fight. I didn’t want to argue and fight, though. This kid was a fifth grader, and he was a boy. I knew how to pick my battles.
“Y’all so stupid,” I said, waving my hand as if I was brushing all the laughter off. “I am black, though.” I laughed. They laughed harder. Ever heard of the saying “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em?” Well, over the years of being teased and taunted about how dark I was, that was what I learned to do. I learned to join in with the laughter, even though I was crying inside . . . even though I was dying inside.
There were plenty of days I’d go home from school, go to my room, and cry my eyes out.
“Helen, what’s wrong?” my sister, Lynn, who was almost three years my senior, asked one day.
“I’m ugly, That’s what’s wrong.”
“Girl, you being stupid.”
“I’m not being stupid. I’m being serious,” I cried. “You don’t understand, because you’re all pretty and yellow,” I told Lynn, who was several shades lighter than I was. Both my parents had the complexion of a vanilla wafer. Heck, everybody on both sides of the family had pretty much the same complexion. I was the Hershey’s Kiss in the center of the peanut butter cookie.
“You are not ugly,” Lynn replied, consoling me. “Besides, you know Nana says God don’t like ugly.”
I’d heard Nana say that before. And perhaps it was true; maybe God didn’t like ugly. But obviously, when it came to me, that certainly didn’t stop Him from making ugly.
I stood out in my family, not in a good way and not in a bad way. I stood out in an odd way. It gnawed at me to the point where I started asking grown-ups in the family questions.
“Why am I the only dark one?” I’d question.
“I wish I could be as dark as you,” my grandpa on my father’s side would say with a smile, pinching my cheek.
“The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice,” my favorite aunt, Lisa, one of my father’s sisters, would say.
I never got a straight answer from anybody I posed the question to. Therefore, I could never give a straight answer when the question was posed to me.
It didn’t take me long to realize that I was at a disadvantage, not just by being black, but by being the blackest of the black. Not because of how white people treated blacks, either. Other black people were color struck, separating and judging the light from the dark. Not all, but plenty that I encountered. I knew it was 1980, but I used to wake up wondering if that day was going to be the day I’d go to school and see two water fountains, each with a sign hanging above it. One sign would read LIGHT-SKINNED ONLY, and the other would read DARK-SKINNED ONLY.
One time my mother, Genie, took Lynn and me skating. It was always memorable when either our mother or our dad took us places, because it was rare. Although they were married, it never really felt like it. We never did much as a family unit. Usually, one of them was off somewhere, getting high, or our mother was working crazy hours in the strip club so that she could feed their habit. A couple of times when Lynn was at our dad’s parents’ house and my mom didn’t have a babysitter for me, she took me to work with her. Trust me when I say I’d much rather have spent time at the skating rink with my mother than at the strip club with her.
One particular outing at the skating rink was so memorable for me for another reason. Lynn and I were holding hands, gliding around the rink like pros.
“Slow down. You’re going too fast,” I shouted to Lynn. She was about a foot in front of me, dragging me behind her.
“Come on, girl. Speed up. This is my song,” Lynn shouted over the music.
I struggled to both balance myself and speed up at the same time. I eventually managed to be side by side with Lynn. That was when my wheel bumped hers and we went hurling to the ground.
“Helen!” Lynn shouted, giggling after landing on her butt.
“That’s what you get for making me speed up next to you,” I said back to her as we both struggled to get up. We were holding onto each other, trying to pull each other up, but we kept making each other fall back down.
Finally, some black guy rolled up and stopped. “Let me help you up,” he said, staring directly at Lynn.
“Thank you,” she replied, extending her hand, and the kind young man helped her balance and rise to her feet.
“No problem,” he said.
I lifted my hand, just assuming he’d help me up next.
“You be careful out here,” he said to Lynn before rolling away.
I just sat there with my hand extended, unable to amply communicate the feeling that permeated my being. Lightning had struck. Had knocked me out of my skates and had thrown me fifty feet.
“Come on. Let’s go get something to drink,” Lynn said, grabbing my hand and pulling me up, none the wiser that she was leaving a piece of me there on the floor.
The part of me that Lynn hauled away was this new angry person. This new hurt person with microscopic self-esteem. I was filled with so much pain that in order to feel normal, I needed everyone else around me to hurt too. Hurting, pain . . . it was my normal.
My anger and pain were only nurtured the day my favorite cousin and I were over at my grandparents’ house, outside on the steps, playing.
“You know, Rakeem isn’t really your father,” was what my little cousin said nonchalantly as we played with our Barbies. “So Granny and Grandpa aren’t really your Granny and Grandpa, either.” Again, there was no spite in her tone. She was simply repeating what she’d heard the grown-ups saying.
Although my cousin was clueless as to the force of her words, they punctured me like a jagged, corroded blade in an unhealed and infected wound. I dropped my dolls, and they plummeted to the ground, sharing salutations with my heart, which had landed only moments prior. My grandpa was the first one I saw, sitting at the kitchen nook in his favorite chair.
I went straight to him and asked, “Grandpa, is it true?” He would tell me the truth. Grandpas always told the truth. “Is my daddy really my father?”
There was a brief pause, nothing to make me think he was conjuring an untruth. Then my grandpa leaned down and looked me dead in my eyes. “You are my grandbaby, and I love you. And don’t you ever forget it.”
In my nine-year-old mind, since he was c
onfirming that he was my grandpa, then that had to mean that his son, Rakeem, was really my father. Right?
Grandpa’s response was an impermanent dose of reassurance. I started mentally scrutinizing things that I hadn’t before, like why I was the only one in the family with a different last name. My mom, my dad, and my sister had the same last name. Mine was different. Then, of course, there’d always been the matter of my complexion.
Ultimately, I believed my cousin’s words, in spite of how my grandpa had responded to my inquiry. And that day, the day I found out that the man who had raised me as his very own wasn’t really my biological father, was the day anger matured into a force to be reckoned with. I think what devastated me the most was that in school I’d always been the butt of jokes. To learn that for all the years of my life I’d been the butt of the joke to my entire family was the ultimate of hurt. I had been practically the only one in my family who wasn’t in on the joke, both Lynn and I, that is.
The man who I had thought was my father was really just Lynn’s biological father. I didn’t find this out by either of my parents being man or woman enough to tell me themselves. I had to find out through my little cousin, who overheard my dad’s sisters, one of them being her mother, my aunt Lisa, having a conversation about it. Once word got around that my cousin had let the cat out of the bag, there was a lot of whispering and talking going on. It was one of those things that whenever I walked into the room, all the chatting stopped and I got sideward glances.
“I got in trouble for telling you that Rakeem isn’t really your daddy,” my cousin said sadly later on. “My mom said it wasn’t my place and was none of my business. She said that now that I do know, I shouldn’t treat you any differently.”
Neither my mother nor Rakeem had the guts to sit me down and tell me the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but. We all just lived the lie silently, and I had to pretend like it didn’t matter, like it didn’t make a difference, but it did.
I used to wait for the day when my parents would sit me down together and tell me the truth. What had led up to them living this lie? No one ever coming forth to give me answers gave me an inquiring mind that became consumed with trying to figure things out on my own. This was all well and good, anyway, because I figured that since they’d lied all this time, there was no way I’d get the truth if I went to them now. So I opted not to.
