by Lisa Samson
I must have fallen asleep, or Jesus himself ushered me to a state of unconsciousness, because I awakened around eleven p.m. and headed back to the Brays’ with my chair tucked under my arm and Jesus tucked even more firmly in my heart than before. A light glowed in the window and a note on the dining room table said, “Feel free to warm up some milk. We’re glad you’re here.”
The next morning Mr. Cinquefoil (the father of Shrubby—the man whose boat I used to spirit Gerald out to the lighthouse) said upon my request, “Well, now, Mary, I don’t have time to be takin’ you out to the lighthouse today. I got oysters to catch.” He pronounced it ersters.
“Please! I’ll pay you.”
I thought about all I had in the world. Fifty dollars.
“I don’t need yer money. I just don’t have much time.” Mr. Cinquefoil’s wiry hair stood up on end and blew in the island breeze like sea grass. His hands were as calloused as the shells of the oysters from which he made his living. He was a loner, but would say hello if you spoke first. In the evenings, he sat on his porch and smoked a pipe while his wife chatted inside on her telephone.
“How about if you take me out on your way to the oyster beds?”
I pulled my sweater around me. Five a.m. in May can still be a little cool on the Chesapeake.
He ran a hand over his head. “I can’t pick you back up until I’m on my way back in.”
“I’ll just have Gerald bring me back.”
“All right. Hop aboard. Hattie know you’re comin’?”
“No, unfortunately.”
I looked at the light swinging round and round in the darkness and wondered if I was doing the wrong thing.
No. I just had to get it over with.
“It’s a mite early to be visiting folk, ain’t it?”
“A little.”
“Well, it’s your funeral.”
If I could be so lucky.
Of course Gerald heard the burbling putter of Mr. Cinquefoil’s engine as he pulled up near the lighthouse. He hurried onto the deck in his robe and slippers. “Who’s that?!” he shouted and I saw the silhouette of his shotgun in the porch light.
“Put that peashooter down, Gerald!” Mr. Cinquefoil shouted back. “It’s me. Randy. And I got Mary-Margaret here. She wants to see you folks so bad she practically commandeered my boat!”
I stifled a laugh.
Gerald shielded his eyes, trying to peer into the darkness, his form a fuzzy silhouette in front of the white siding of the lighthouse. “MM? What’s the matter?”
“I’ve come to see Jude. This was the only ride I could get. I wish you all had a phone.”
“He’s real sick.”
“That’s why I’ve come.”
“Well, suit yourself. Although I don’t know how you found out about it.” He leaned the shotgun against the house. “Want me to row out and get you?”
“I’d be thankful if you did,” said Mr. Cinquefoil. “I wasn’t much keen on losing my lifeboat today. I mean, you just never know with this bay.”
“Give me five minutes.”
Mr. Cinquefoil’s boat was much too big to pull up to the dock beneath the lighthouse, so I waited while Gerald dressed, then climbed into his small boat, pulled on the starting cord of the outboard motor, and came to collect me. With each minute, my nervousness seemed to increase exponentially until I hoped and prayed I’d be able to make it from the fishing boat down into the motorboat.
What a dope! I thought. People disobeyed God all the time and God was merciful despite it. In fact, they were the ones who ended up with the best stories. Wouldn’t he be merciful to me as well?
Gerald’s face lit up in the lights of Mr. Cinquefoil’s boat and it brightened further with a smile.
Oh, but I wanted the good stuff from God. Not the second best or the mercy despite the disobedience. I wanted fresh-picked grace from the top of the heap, ripe and burgeoning with refreshment. I had to believe that obedience right away made a difference; that those who honored God without wandering received something special, that it mattered. If I didn’t believe that, my sisters, I would have told Mr. Cinquefoil to turn that boat around and take me back to the Brays’. The next morning I would have returned to Baltimore and the mother-house and I would have dedicated my life to God through my order and the holy Catholic Church.
And I would have been turning my back on the wild, seemingly insane plan that Jesus cooked up for me that made about as much sense as high-heeled tennis shoes.
By eight thirty I’d yet to see Jude. After I’d dozed some on the couch, ate a breakfast of Hattie’s biscuits, fried ham, and scrambled eggs, and read a searing chapter from one of Hattie’s dime-store romances—well, as searing as they got back then, anyway—Gerald took me into the kitchen and sat me at the table over which Hattie had laid a yellow cloth covered in embroidered daisies. Over that—a sheet of clear vinyl, corners of which could draw blood on your thigh if you weren’t careful.
Gerald occupied the chair catty-corner from me, folded his hands, then smoothed back his hair, which, I’d noticed, was going quite gray at the temples. He was a looker too, like his brother. Just more contained.
“You look weary, Gerald.”
“I’m more than weary, MM. I feel like punching Jude right now.” He had rolled up the sleeves on his blue shirt and began applying some sort of creamy ointment to his arms. Poor Gerald had eczema so badly on his appendages and his job didn’t help the matter. “He said he won’t see you.”
“Really?” The response sat on my tongue like a stamp I’d moistened but forgotten to remove. My chest tried to support the weight of his words, but it couldn’t. I sank into myself. “I didn’t expect this. At the very least—”
“Neither of us did.” He shook his head. “Darn it, MM! I don’t know what’s gotten into him. He asked if we’d take care of him while he recuperated, but he’s been laying in there for a week now and he doesn’t seem to be getting any better.”
“Has he taken any penicillin?”
“For the flu?”
Oh dear.
“Hattie can’t even convince him?”
“She’s trying.” He stood up. “I’m hungry. I know. I know we just ate breakfast, but I always eat when I’m nervous.” Opening the fridge door, he peered inside and grabbed a plate of sliced salami and something wrapped in brown paper.
He set them on the counter, unwrapped the paper to reveal several slices of Swiss cheese.
“Can I have a slice to nibble on?” I asked.
“Yep. Here you go.” He peeled off a slice and handed it to me.
I don’t really like Swiss cheese all by itself, but I’m with Gerald when it comes to nervous eating. You hope the momentum of feeding your mouth will continue out into the universe and bring about resolution regarding whatever’s eating at you.
I bit into the musty slice, the fumes gently filling my nostrils, the tang spreading from my tongue into the back of my jaw.
Gerald spread some yellow mustard on a piece of rye bread. “He said he’d see you until I told him you came out here at five thirty in the morning. Then he got suspicious. How did you know he was here?”
I told him about my visit to Rosalie LaBella. Minus the syphilis information, of course. Jude’s shame was his own to deliver to others, not mine.
Hattie entered the kitchen and picked up a piece of salami. She rolled it up and bit it in half. Anyone could have told you she was a nervous eater. “I don’t understand it. It’s a mystery why he doesn’t want to see you.”
“How does he look?” I ask.
“Not well. He’s lost a lot of weight since I’ve last seen him.” She popped the other half into her mouth, leaned against the counter, and chewed, crossing her arms across her bosom. “The saddest thing, which leads me to believe it might be more than the flu, is that his hair—”
“His hair?” I leaned forward.
“There are some patches where it’s gone. And so much thinner. He looks—”
“Like a Halloween skeleton,” Gerald said, still disgusted. “But with a rash.”
“What kind of rash?”
Hattie grabbed another piece of lunchmeat. “All over his abdomen. And the bottoms of his hands and feet.”
I had to get to the library and research the disease.
She rolled up the salami like before. “I think he’s sick from going down in the water like he did. It’s still cold enough to take your breath away.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“He rowed out here and the boat—I think he stole it from one of the older folks’s homes. You know how there always seems to be a boat rotting somewheres on people’s properties.”
“Indeed.”
“So it sprung a leak and he had to swim the last hundred yards or so, sick as he was. I told him when I pulled him out of the water, ‘That was a baptism of stupidity, Jude Keller.’”
“What’d he say?”
“Laughed and said, ‘Well, I had to be dunked sometime. Might as well be now.’”
“Maybe you can talk him into seeing me tomorrow.”
“You got binoculars?” Hattie asked.
“Yes.” You don’t grow up on the bay without a pair.
“I’ll hang a sheet over the railing when he says it’s okay for you to come out. No sense in making poor Randy bring you out every day like that. Not that he wouldn’t do it.”
“All right. Gerald, would you mind taking me back to the island then?”
“Not at all, MM.”
Hattie said, “Let me see if Jude wants you to pick up anything while you’re there.”
Gerald rolled his eyes as his wife disappeared from the kitchen. “She’s spoiling him! I’m telling you. The good Lord didn’t give us a child, so I think she’s figuring he gave us Jude instead. Which, to my mind, isn’t a very equitable trade.”
I laughed and finished my piece of cheese.
Hattie returned a few minutes later. “He wouldn’t budge. But here’s the thing, Mary-Margaret. If he doesn’t agree to it, what’s he going to do if you go in anyway? Throw you off the lighthouse?” She winced and laid a hand on Gerald’s arm. “Oh, baby-doll, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Hattie. That was all a long time ago. Don’t worry about it.” He looked at me. “Ready to head back to shore?”
I nodded.
Time to go learn about venereal disease.
I find myself doing the oddest things sometimes.
What did Jude think when I left that day? I never asked him, but I think something inside him softened a bit, maybe broke in two, or just twisted a little. It might have been the start of the next leg of his journey or the ending of his present track. Sometimes they’re one and the same.
Even so, I spent two days in the library reading all I could about syphilis and looking at pictures in medical journals. Thank goodness a heavy dose of penicillin would clear things up. Most likely Jude had already received the treatment at the doctor’s office and he was waiting for it to take effect. Gone were the days of having to die from the disease, going blind when it attacked your eyes, or demented when it attacked your brain. And, indeed, let’s not discuss the liver. Syphilis progresses to the tertiary stage in about one-third of those who contract the virus. Perhaps Jude would escape it altogether.
Here are the stages:
Primary stage: lasts four to eight weeks after infection
Secondary stage: one to two years
Latent stage: one to twenty-five years
Tertiary stage: until patient receives treatment or dies
The primary stage begins with a chancre, a disklike sore, normally painless, and sometimes hidden. It can be on the penis, near the anus, the mouth, or any place the virus entered the body. I saw one picture of a woman with one on her thumb.
I know. I know. As a former religious sister, I was dealing with sex in a way I’d never dealt with before. These are simply the medical facts, sisters. I’m not trying to shock you purposely, or make you feel sick; I just want you to understand even a little bit what I was facing. Quite honestly, this information wasn’t making me at all excited about marrying Jude.
With syphilis, Jesus? Really? Did you know about that when you told me?
Of course he did. I just felt miffed sitting there in the library. Now, I loved that small library down Talbot Street, tucked between the hardware store and the print shop. I spent many hours there as a child, looking at picture books in the U where two parallel shelves met the wall. The same display case of birds, stuffed by a local man who dabbled in taxidermy, still sat near the restrooms. The water fountain still tried to clean out your nose before its stream got to your mouth. The same tables rested around the place, chunky wooden legs and tops polished yet bearing the gouged-out names of people I never met and people I still knew. Of course, on the first table, right smack in the middle of a pool of sunlight for a good portion of the day, Jude had emblazoned his name. Mine, on the other hand, was carved on the underside of the very back corner table, the table near the auto mechanic manuals.
It was at that table I sat, pictures of private parts with sores and lesions staring up at me, affirming the decision I made years ago to remain chaste. Who would take a chance if this might be the outcome? I simply didn’t have the psychological makeup to understand it. It couldn’t have simply been people are stupid. I’ve known smart people who can’t control themselves sexually. I could only assume it filled a place I didn’t possess. Lord have mercy, I wanted to throw up.
You probably think I have a problem with nausea. But here’s the thing, I rarely actually regurgitate. I get that sick feeling in my stomach and so I yearn for a slice of Aunt Elfi’s homemade bread and a glass of cold Coca-Cola. That always made me feel better.
The photos were glorious indeed. I wondered where Jude’s chancre had been deposited on his body by whoever passed it on. Any spot was bad and all for different reasons. And the people I pictured who might have given the disease to Jude! Oh dear! For the sake of myself and all who will read this, and I may just decide to burn it after all is said and done, I’ll just leave that to your imagination. Some things I’d rather not relive, thank you very much.
I realized I’d have to find a way to put his past behind him entirely, and I hoped and I prayed he’d do the same. If he kept bringing it up, over and over again, after I’ve said it’s all gone as far as I’m concerned, it was going to be a very sad state of affairs indeed.
If I could convince him to marry me at all.
Marry me?
Seeing me at all would be a good first start.
I kept on reading. Yes, he was obviously in the secondary stage. Rash all over his torso, the soles of his hands and feet, and there could be another kind of rash, a grayish, raised area around the delicate parts. And oh my! This was too much!
Jesus! My heart cried out. Please tell me this is too much! Do you hear me sitting here at the library? Do you smell this musty journal? Do you see these pictures? Can you possibly understand how I feel right now?
Other symptoms of secondary syphilis include sore throat, swollen joints, fever, aching muscles, and hair loss. Other than the hair loss, is it any wonder he thought he had some sort of flu? LaBella, being the conscientious mother she is, went to a medical book for kids and saw strep right away. I remember having it myself once when I was six, that little pinprickly rash all over my chest and belly and, oh, my poor throat, barely able to swallow anything but cracked ice and cold soda. I sat on either Grandmom’s or Aunt Elfi’s lap for three days. It wouldn’t be hard to guess who it was that let me have as much soda as I wanted.
The next morning would tell me whether or not he wanted me to come out. I knew Jude. He was smart. He would have read up, at least a little, on what was going on. And he would have seen that the symptoms come and go and then bury into latency in some people. Maybe he was waiting until it seemed like he was better. I decided I’d give him that out.
Each day for the next two weeks,
standing on Bethlehem Point, the summer warming up but good, I raised my binoculars at least three times a day. But no sheet waved over the railing of the lighthouse.
Mr. Bray taught me how to sew some simple garments. A straight skirt with a zipper, some easy, belted dresses for day wear. I asked Mrs. Bray if she’d pick out the fabric. She chose soft floral patterns, and silky, feminine greens and yellows and pinks. For my birthday, they bought me a pair of buff-colored pumps with a bit of a heel. Very pretty shoes.
I figured by the time Hattie hung the sheet, I might even have an entire wardrobe ready for married life.
What to do about a wedding gown was yet another matter. That could wait until the future looked a bit less foggy.
Jesus, if Jude doesn’t fall in line with your plan, does that mean I failed?
He didn’t answer. I didn’t think he would. A part of me wanted Jude to be obstinately opposed to a life with me—a large part, in fact. But I couldn’t pray for it. That would have been like praying for a Mercedes when you know children are starving not only in Africa or China or where have you, but in your own hometown.
I tried to remember all of Jude’s sterling qualities during those days of waiting. He was honest, handsome, hardworking (yes, that takes on a different slant depending on the line of work, but he worked the crab boat for years), loyal (in an odd way), and consistent. Certainly I could have forced the issue and had Mr. Cinquefoil take me back out to the lighthouse, but it wasn’t as if I wanted to hasten the whole affair. If we needed a white sheet to proceed, by golly, a white sheet would have to be hung! The surrender aspect to it seemed like a tidy metaphor as well.
I had as much time as it would take, and as far as I was concerned, the longer the better.
The Brays procured me the job at the Consolidated School for Negro Children. I’d be teaching English to all the grades and art to the seventh and eight graders. The salary come September would be pitifully small. However, Regina Bray’s cousin offered to let me, and someday Jude, stay in the apartment above the tackle shop rent free, utility free, and I doubted we’d need a phone, so that bill wouldn’t need to be paid.
