by Lynn Pruett
Martin had learned to sieve his tea. Otherwise he’d have to fish out the debris and litter his saucer before sipping.
The leavings Stelle would study. He was relieved she never asked if he could read them. What would they portend, this pattern of flat flecks and sticks?
The demise of their marriage?
It had already fallen someplace dark beyond his grasp. If he pushed the tea remnants around they would not cling or reform. He did not believe in signs. He believed in God.
Or so he had before Stelle had moved into a new zone, painting, or standing up in church, her eyes glazed, her mouth silent, the hush of the congregation expectant, then pregnant, then stillborn as no sounds came forth from her mouth, no speaking in tongues.
He prayed but found only silence, and then his mind would wander.
It always went to the dark tunnel of Hell. Faster these days, automatically, as soon as he said, “Dear Father.” After these words, darkness, and then he’d burst into a heat so southern his insides burned. Sweat popped out on his forehead as he disconnected from his body and tasted cinnamon on his lips, on the lips of a woman full of flesh, ample, wide, pressed up against him, hot Hell, and then he’d go blank in his mind, and worse. When it was over, his hands, long unclasped from prayer, unclean.
And worse, the worst sin: he did not feel guilt.
In rational moments, on days he made his own tea and the leaves were clamped inside a tea ball, he’d wonder who that demon self was. On days when Stelle was back to normal, visiting parishioners, keeping the church books, he’d sigh and try, “Dear Father,” and pure true words would flow uninterrupted. Grace was granted him on those days.
He plumped his pillow and closed his eyes. In his mind he saw a sky of heavy clouds with sun streaming down from Heaven. Gert Geurin nude in a field of snow.
Screeech! The barn owl—thank God. Martin shuddered, thinking where his dream might have gone.
Stelle did not stir but her eyes were open in sleep, dark brown spoonfuls of medicine.
A sudden rage locked his jaw, and his breath shot loudly in and out of his nose. He lay tense. He did not touch her. I am a man of God but I am a man, he thought. He braced his hands against the bed. “Dear Father,” he whispered, and waited for the rush to the tunnel.
But it did not come. He gritted his teeth and went back to the heavy skies, soft lavender clouds with streaks of Heaven slanting down, a field of yellow hay stubble in the snow, and Gert Geurin, gray-haired and gargantuan, dancing nude. Her buttocks were so pink and broad he put his thumb in his mouth and bit it until it hurt. Her breasts swung to her navel, pink pendants tipped with heavy brown jewels. He imagined them swinging above his mouth. He felt her weight on him, making him sink and rise at the same time. Oh, to be smothered by such largesse!
Stelle sat up, straight as a board. “Who’s here?”
“Me,” Martin squeaked. “It’s just me.”
“No, there’s someone else in here with us.”
“Look, Stelle, look.” He flicked on the light and turned toward her. “No one else, unless you mean—” He pointed with his palm toward his erection.
“I am losing my mind,” said Stelle.
Martin reached over and switched off the light. His penis stood like a hopeful prairie dog.
“I wish this wasn’t happening,” said Stelle, “this awareness of spirit. It’s exhilarating but scary. I think I’m learning about Eve.”
“Eve who?” said Martin.
“Eve in Genesis.” Stelle drew the covers up. “She was very powerful. She told God where to get off.”
“She told God to get off?” The rage returned to Martin’s body. He was furious with her casual heresy. And mad at God, too. Mad that he was supposed to dictate doctrine when what he needed right now was to cleave. “I wish you’d help me get off,” he shouted, loud, as if he was shouting at God and not Stelle, who was lying right next to him.
She stiffened. “Martin, you are so thick sometimes.”
Martin rolled back to his side of the bed and made an odd sound. It sounded strange to him, not merely a sigh but a sigh infused with anger—a grunt. Disappointment became rejection and pain and then anger. How could Stelle be so in tune to his fantasies but so cold to his real touch? He prayed plainly and clearly for God’s help. Stelle needed an intervention. Often a lost soul suffered mightily and publicly before being brought back to the fold. They’d never suffered a crisis of faith, he and Stelle. They’d been rock solid.
GERT GEURIN
Jessamine had been stirring cayenne into the chili when I arrived at the truck stop kitchen the Tuesday morning that turned X-rated. Her blond hair hung like a suspended waterfall above the pot.
Because cigarette smoke was so fresh in my mouth, I said nothing until I’d donned my apron, affixed the hair net, and drunk half a cup of burnt coffee. “I hope you’re not using hair for protein this time.”
She ticked her head like a bird does until her hair righted itself. I fried up the eggs and hash browns, looked up from the grill, and caught sight of Richard Reynolds peering through the square window of the EMPLOYEES ONLY door. Blockhead, I thought, seeing his face planed off like a square. He had a strange twist to his lips, as if he was starved for what we offered in the kitchen.
I glanced at Jessamine, about to make a joke about my fine cooking, but she was returning the starved look, and her surrounded by mounds of food.
I waved the spatula to cut the invisible cord between them. His face disappeared. Jessamine remembered to chop tomatoes.
“If he wants cooking lessons, he can pay extra,” I said, “or he can ask his wife. This is not a peep show.”
The deep blush of vanity spread across her face. Youth, I thought. This too will pass. I opened the back door and was met by the lazy swell of April. The air moved in, slow and thick. Summer’s the most dangerous time of the year when it comes to desires of the flesh. Even if you are sitting still, the air rubs up and down your little hairs, like a cat in full purr. I stood upright in the doorway until the sheriff’s patrol car passed by, leaving exhaust trapped in the heat.
I thought when I got this kitchen job that my duty was to help Miz Hattie Bohannon, a widow with four daughters, raise those girls right. That’s how Reverend Peterson put it to me when he suggested I apply to be the day cook. But when the sheriff became a regular feature of the dining room, I sensed that Miz Bohannon herself needed surveillance. With summer coming, Miz Bohannon was moving toward the sheriff ignorant as a fish on a line. It thinks it’s got the worm, all the sweet eating and a whole lake to swim in, but it’s hooked. The sheriff was reeling her in and letting her out, making her think she wasn’t caught. She needed a little spiritual shock treatment.
I found her at her desk, smiling at the ledger as if it was a mirror, raising an eyebrow, then letting it slide back into place. Then she lifted the other eyebrow. I cleared my throat.
“Miz Bohannon, on behalf of our Savior, I ask you to attend our revival service next Friday night.”
Her eyebrows shot up like two mountain peaks. “Oh, Gert,” she said, “I’m afraid I have a date Friday night.”
“I see,” I said, and walked into the dim hallway. Afraid was right. She’d chosen the wrong path. Her refusal left me gloomy. I’d failed Reverend Peterson. I went to have a cigarette in the storeroom when the Lord stood up and slapped me in the face with Jessamine’s problems.
There she sat in a gold chair. Naked. Spouting about holiness. I dropped my pack of Marlboros and for once I felt like total liquid, a mess about to flood the floor. I was grateful a rickety chair leaned against the wall. Sometimes you need the slightest support, a little touch to get you going in the right direction again. That swiveling chair swung me around to Jessamine, bare as when she was born but grown up, sitting there like in a trance, and then I recognized the smell: spent man.
This was sin but I went on and tapped out a cigarette and proceeded to go down the wayward path myself by asking her to f
etch me the matches that had fallen under her chair, which she did, making sure I got an eyeful, as if she was something special. Once the smoke curled down my throat, I felt right again and yet I knew this was not right.
I offered her a cigarette and she took it and smoked it like a pro so I knew that this was a sign. One of us was here to redeem or corrupt the other. I waited and watched while she pranced around finding her undies flung in unlikely places. No shame at all.
“Your body is a temple,” I said.
“Making love makes God happy,” she said, flouncing into her clothes and tossing me a wicked smile as she left. I sat under its spell while I smoked three cigarettes.
I don’t judge but sometimes I am God’s mouthpiece.
Open up to the world your wholesome heart, is what I say. Close your legs. Clothe your behind. Your body is a temple.
I have built my body into a temple, solid and round like temples in the Holy Land. American churches are all steeple and points, nothing substantial. When I was a girl, one blew down all around me, though it was sturdy and over a hundred years old. I would not lose an ounce of me for anybody but God.
I smoke to keep from getting too big. I have to be an up-tempo temple, sharing the Lord’s word and exposing the little lies that tarnish otherwise sacred lives.
Ann Reynolds is cursed with a fallow womb. But that does not mean her husband can spread his seed in the willing soil of a young girl’s heart. I could see Jessamine was all heart about him. She said it’s holy but there’s no spirit in it if you aren’t free to give your whole self.
It was a burden I did not want to take. But I was shown knowledge, and when you are called forth by the Lord to tell the truth, you must. Because things happen for a reason. I puzzled on this reason for a while, thinking maybe I needed to quit smoking, and somehow one thing related to the other. But I do not like being a trumpet—a mouthpiece, yes, in small ways, but not one to blare a naked truth.
I started out in Arab, Alabama, so named because my mother’s people, who settled the town, resembled Arabs. Maybe we are Indians, or Spaniards’ bastards, the leftover trace of Hernando de Soto who passed through Alabama four hundred years ago, fighting Indians all the way. Tuscaloosa is named after a great Black Warrior who wasn’t an African at all. So maybe we come from his stock. My skin is light, diluted by generations of mountain Christians, though I have a large curved nose that caused me lots of agony when I was a kid. One girl, Patty Jordan, my best friend anyway, was the only kid besides my sister Herma who didn’t call me Honker.
Patty Jordan was pale with white hair and eyes touched with just enough blue to keep them from being white. She was thin, rickets probably, though she had clean new clothes and her father was the deacon of our church. In the sixth grade Patty and I were chosen to recite a Bible verse during Sunday service. Her father was displeased. Deacon Jordan didn’t think it right a girl should speak in church. I mean, I could, but he didn’t want his daughter to do anything unseemly, but he relented under pressure from our Sunday school teacher, Mrs. Killian.
We practiced our verses while I helped Patty execute her cheerleading routines. Even then, I was big and strong. I’d kneel and she’d step on my shoulders, our hands locked as I slowly rose, holding my breath until I was upright. She’d let go one hand at a time and balance until we were both standing straight up. Patty’d extend her arms, making us a human cross. We’d shout our verses as if they were cheers—“For God/ so loved/ the world/ that He gave/ His own/ lee Son,”—thrilled by any wobble that threatened to topple us. I’d lift my hands and she’d lower hers, grip, then dive head first into a flip, and I’d let go as she swung toward the ground.
The Sunday of our performance came, dimmed by October rain. Patty and I were dressed alike in white dresses and white tights. Her father had pinned a corsage to each of our bodices, mine a single pink rose that bobbed as I breathed. I could not look out at all those eager faces in the congregation. Instead I studied the poplar floor and Patty’s pale blue satin shoes. Mine were my usual saddle shoes, scuffed with mud from the parking lot.
We sat in the choir loft, just us two. I kept saying my words over in my head and reading the program, marking off the events before we spoke: Call to Worship, Hymn Number 257, Prayer, Litany. We were to speak right before the collection plate went around. Rain beat hard against the stained-glass window behind me. The wind howled like a locomotive bearing down. The organist pumped up the volume. Deacon Jordan nodded toward us. Patty stepped forward, and as she opened her mouth the roof blew open. Patty, thin little stick in white tights and pale blue shoes, flew up from beside me and into the power of the prevailing winds.
I grabbed the sturdy loft bench, closed my eyes, and said loud as I could, over and over, “This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.” I could not hear my words through the storm of wind, the gusts strong and swirling as rapids gone airborne. I heard the splintering scream of the roof as it was ripped off, the cries of people as it crashed and the walls twisted away, the voice of the organ, violent and discordant, when wind rushed through the pipes in the wrong direction.
When it was over, I opened my eyes. I was still standing, still hugging the curved arm of the choir bench. The church was gone but for the wall behind me and the brass pipes of the organ, plinking now like common gutters. I kept saying the words over and over. Groans came from where the sanctuary had been. The walls had fallen in. The sky was black and heavy with clouds but a strange red line appeared in the west, a band of yellow-tipped clouds floating below the darkness fiery as living coals.
Twenty-seven people from our congregation died because of the tornado. My sister Herma survived but was crushed by a stained-glass window that broke her ribs and splintered across her body. She had to lie still, barely breathing, while the medics suctioned the tiny shards of colored glass off her body. They didn’t want to cut her or press any slivers into her eyes. When the glass was removed, her body was green, blue, yellow, and red as if stained. She stayed in the hospital for weeks.
My mother had a broken leg. She said she could hear me through the storm, shouting over and over again, “This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it,” and that sustained her because she could not fathom so ugly a thing as destroying a church full of worshipers. My father, who didn’t often go to church, lost faith in his job, which was selling insurance. He saw that no amount of insurance money could compensate for disaster.
The sign to me was clear. God’s words had saved my life. Them and my bulk. Patty had been reciting too, but she had not made her body substantial, and she had blown away like a mustard seed fallen on a rock. I had rooted and stood tough. I understood then how the body and spirit were related, how it took both to live a full life in God. So I set about making my body substantial and my spirit as well. I have been guided by God’s words ever since and I understand my responsibility in this life. I am a mouthpiece. I was spared to share what is right, and so when I see a person living in error, I sigh and say, Yes, Lord, You have put her in my way and I understand it is my duty to set her right.
So I sighed when I caught Jessamine in the room with the smell of spent man. I’d seen the way Ann Reynolds’s husband had spied on her through the kitchen door that morning, so I knew it was him.
I tried to get out of it. Jessamine held my job in her hands. There aren’t many places to work in the county, none at the eye of the storm as often as the truck stop. Reverend Peterson had put a lot of faith in me and I did not want to fail. So I said, Lord, instead, I’ll give up smoking.
The first day it felt like a meat tenderizer was drilled into my skull. I could not work. I went to bed but the drill got sharper. I walked around my room, seeing nothing but the floor, then closing my eyes to ward off light. I smelled smoke in my clothes and sheets and curtains. I escaped but it was too hot outside. I vomited like a dog in the yard. Still the drill pounded. I went to the river and entered the water, in my clothes. I put my
wet shirt up to my eyes. The drill drove deep and hot to a place in my head I could not touch. Under the shade of a willow, I cocked my head backwards and found mild relief, less pain. I held myself up there for a while, but soon my body was exhausted and I had to head home or drown. The sun was so bright I could not bear to look at anything but my flowered tennis shoes. I concentrated on small things, the eyelets the strings passed through, the strangely sharp way I saw each blade of grass, the clovers my feet would cross before I got sick again.
I exhausted myself trying to find a way to hold my head so the pain would subside enough for me to tolerate it, for it to ease so I could lie down and rest. I saw the hand of the Lord in my pain. I wanted to ask for help but knew I could not, since this was of my own making. That night the headache got so bad I wanted to die.
In the darkest hour of Friday morning, I got out of bed, got down on my knees, and said, “I accept my mission.” I got back into bed and laid my head gingerly on the pillow but my mind raced as I thought of the pain I was about to cause Ann Reynolds, and I wondered how to tell her and not get Jessamine in trouble with her mother, and then I thought maybe I should tell Miz Bohannon, and then I remembered that Jessamine knew I smoked. Had smoked.
A lightness came through the buzz in my head. I hadn’t had a smoke in three days. I still could not function. My hands shook too much for me to trust myself around the grill but I was getting over cigarettes; the Lord was sending me a ray of hope, a blinding ray to let me know I was within reach of the kingdom. I just had to give up my bullheaded ways. So I lay still as I could and began relaxing each muscle starting with my toes and getting up to my neck before I fell into blessed sleep.
