Where the Light Fell

by Philip Yancey

  When I show up for work the first day, I get a photo ID badge and am escorted to Dr. Cherry’s office. The security guard knocks on the door, hears “Come in,” and opens it. I nearly drop my pack of papers on the floor.

  Dr. Cherry is a Black man.

  In one second, something cracks inside me. I think back to the scene at camp when the visiting speaker did his imitation of waiters swiveling their hips around tables without spilling a drop. “Have you ever met a Negro who’s the president of a company?” Peter Ruckman asked. “Every race has its place, and they should accept it.”

  Day after day I work directly with Dr. Cherry, a wise and gentle mentor. He wears bifocals and has a receding hairline. He patiently answers my questions about staining bacteria and sorting mosquitoes, even though I know he has several hundred employees to supervise. Sometimes he tells me about his children, who are in high school like me.

  I wish I could somehow contact Peter Ruckman and introduce him to Dr. Cherry. My scientist employer is definitely not “serving in the tents of Shem,” the fate of his race according to the Curse of Ham theory. All summer a crisis of faith smolders inside me. The church has clearly lied to me about race. And about what else? Jesus? The Bible?

  I ride a city bus to my CDC internship, often the only white person on a bus transporting Black maids to the stately homes surrounding the Emory University campus. One day, a middle-aged, obese woman with sweat marks under her arms and stockings rolled down around her ankles climbs the steps, drops coins in the fare box, and lurches down the aisle with a three-year-old in tow. Just as they get to my row, the kid suddenly lets go of his mother, bends over, and vomits on the floor beside my seat. The woman curses, grabs his arm, and drags him to the back of the bus.

  Disgusted, I check my clothes for vomit splash, and look around for another seat—an instinctive response. Yet I am caught off guard by what I feel next. Can I imagine this woman’s life? No doubt she rides this bus because she owns no car. Every day she mops, dusts furniture, and cleans a house the likes of which she could never afford. She probably brought the child along because she has no one else to look after him.

  I step off the bus, feeling something short of compassion but more than pity.

  We are, I know not how, double in ourselves, so that what we believe, we disbelieve, and cannot rid ourselves of what we condemn.

  —Michel de Montaigne, Essays, “Of Glory”

  CHAPTER 15

  SPLIT

  At school, no one knows I live in a trailer by a fundamentalist church. The first week, after the bus dropped us off, I walked with a neighbor and classmate, Eugene Crowe, to his house. From there I hopped a low fence in the backyard and headed home across the church property. “Hey, would you mind if I took this scenic route?” I asked Eugene, and made it a habit. As long as I don’t invite anyone else over, which I never do, my secret doesn’t get out.

  The trailer is a perfect symbol of my world at home and church: narrow, rectangular, cloistered, metallic. Everything else—the CDC internship, city buses, school activities, books, politics, my love of science—exists in some parallel universe. Nothing in one universe reminds me of the other, and yet each seems real and true until I step across the fence.

  All through high school I navigate between the two worlds, home-and-church and the world beyond. Whenever I’m forced to bring them together, I feel a hot red rush of shame.

  My sophomore year, the English literature teacher announces a field trip to the premiere of Othello, starring Laurence Olivier and Maggie Smith. “I arranged permission for you to miss afternoon classes on Friday,” she says, and all the students cheer—except for me.

  After class, I sheepishly approach the teacher. “Miss Chastain, I’ve got a problem. You see, my church thinks it’s wrong to go to movies. They’re not allowed.”

  She looks at me for a moment, chewing on her lower lip, then responds kindly. “I understand, Philip. I’m just sorry you’ll miss the movie. Don’t worry, I’ll come up with another assignment for you.” When the other students find out, they treat me like a pariah. And on Friday, thrilled to be cutting classes, they board the bus for a matinee while I stay behind in the empty classroom and write a paper on Chaucer.

  Marshall, who’s going through one of his spiritual phases, pressures me to join a school club called Youth for Christ (YFC). “We need to stand out as Christians,” he lectures, responding to my eye roll. “You can be a silent witness in lots of ways.”

  As if to compound my shame, the YFC staff person encourages us to carry a big red Bible on top of our schoolbooks (“Why is it red? Because it ought to be read.”) and to wrap our textbooks with splashy Youth for Christ covers. In the school cafeteria, true believers bow their heads and say grace in a way that others notice. I can’t bring myself to do it, so I bow my head for a few seconds and scratch my eyebrows before opening my sack lunch.

  On Tuesday afternoons a large bus with Youth for Christ painted in red letters on the side pulls up in a driveway across from the school, and our faithful troupe climbs on board. There’s a beat-up piano bolted to the floor just behind the driver, and Marshall leads us in a few songs as the bus makes a circuit in front of the school before conveying us to someone’s home for a meeting. I usually manage to drop something so that I’m bending down to pick it up as we pass the school entrance, lest anyone recognize me through the window.

  On Saturday nights YFC holds a citywide rally in downtown Atlanta, in the plush auditorium of the High Museum of Art. Designed to keep godly teenagers from worldly activities, the rallies feature musical groups and speakers brought in to entertain and inspire us. Each week the director asks us to forgo the milkshakes and burgers we would normally enjoy after the rally. “Instead, I beg you to put your spending money in the offering buckets that our usherettes will now pass up and down the rows of seats.”

  Just like my church, YFC stresses the importance of talking to others about our faith. One speaker tells us: “Seventeen dedicated Communists conquered Russia. If every Christian in America converted just two people to Christ in a year, and each of those converts did the same thing, the church would grow exponentially. In a decade we’d have ten million new Christians, and in fifteen years one billion!”

  I accept the personal goal of two converts per year. Too embarrassed to approach my classmates, I try knocking on doors and witnessing to strangers. “Hi. Could I ask you a question? If you died tonight, would you be ready to go to Heaven?” It never works out. They either say they’re already going to Heaven or slam the door in my face.

  At least I can pass out gospel tracts. I study a selection of them at church. One has a crude drawing of sinners having a good time while flames of hellfire loom in the background. Another leaflet has no illustrations, just a question on the cover—“What do you have to do to go to Hell?”—with the inside page completely blank. That technique doesn’t work either: I can never figure out how to have a friendly conversation with someone when my main point is that they are going to Hell.

  I conclude I must be a phony, a hypocrite. I know how to act in church and in YFC meetings. I know what I’m supposed to say and not say, think and not think. Yet once I step into a new environment—the world beyond—blood surges to my head and my legs go wobbly. Guilt over my failures compounds my shame.

  My sophomore year, Marshall signs up for the YFC piano contest, and I sign up for the “preacher boy” competition. I work as hard on my sermon as on any term paper, memorize it, and practice it with gestures in front of the bathroom mirror. Sometimes I can’t hold back the tears, wholly believing what I’m preaching. At the last minute, I withdraw from the contest. A good performance may win me a free trip to the national convention in Indiana, but how can I say the words if I’m not sure I really mean them?

  * * *

  —

  Besides shame, there is fear. Not owning a televi
sion, we get our news from the shrill voices of Carl McIntire and Billy James Hargis, radio evangelists who spend more time talking about politics than religion. In their telling, every politician is a crook, every civil rights leader a closet Communist, every president a lily-livered coward. Roosevelt “sold us down the river” at Yalta. Now we are living under John F. Kennedy, who, McIntire insists, “will be the end of this country.” Mother loves listening to them, though it keeps her in a constant state of anxiety. Marshall makes fun of these two “fearmongers,” as he calls them, which always starts an argument with Mother.

  Mother claims that Bible prophecies are being fulfilled right before our eyes. European countries are joining together in a Common Market, and a computer in Belgium supposedly has all our names stored away in preparation for the Mark of the Beast. A rumor spreads one month that some Social Security checks mistakenly got mailed with the printed instruction “To be cashed only if number corresponds to number on forehead of cashee.” One of Mother’s books predicts that New Agers will acquire nuclear bombs and eliminate two billion people by the year 2000. Another warns that Catholics have stashes of guns hidden in their basements, with plans to take over the United States.

  Church reinforces the fear. At Brother Pyle’s summer camp, a Greek scholar speaks on “the guaranteed last sign before the Second Coming of Christ.” I sit spellbound in the pew, waiting to learn the final clue to the end of the world. He cites a verse in 2 Timothy about “perilous” times to come. “The Greek word literally means haywire or screwy times,” he says. “Can anyone seriously doubt that we’re living in screwy times?” I leave feeling cheated, hoping for something more precise.

  Khrushchev has threatened, “We will bury you!” and newsmagazines show maps of the red blot of communism spreading like spilled blood across the hemispheres. I’ve read that Communist invaders spare anyone who can speak their language. To make certain we have our bases covered, Marshall signs up for Russian classes and I study Chinese, so that one of us will survive an enemy assault from either direction. I’ve also read that Communists examine the hands of their conquered foes for calluses: smooth-skinned bourgeoisie they line up and shoot, while those with worker hands they set free. I rake leaves with a passion, spurning gloves in order to harden the resulting blisters into calluses. Already I am doubting that my handful of Chinese words and Marshall’s Russian vocabulary will save us.

  Fear mushrooms into near hysteria during the Cuban missile crisis. A television at school shows President Kennedy, grim and exhausted, announcing a naval blockade against the country determined to bury us. Gordon High holds a science fair every year, and now instead of inventing new chemical compounds or electronic gizmos, the winners compete to design the best fallout shelter.

  The Department of Defense distributes a pamphlet meant to reassure us: “If a person receives a large dose of radiation, he will die. But if he receives only a small or medium dose, his body will repair itself and he will get well.” But nothing can reassure those of us who live in Georgia, because we know Castro’s missiles will obliterate us. A cynical poster has it right: “In case of nuclear attack, lower yourself under your school desk, put your head between your knees, and kiss your butt goodbye.”

  I have mixed feelings about President Kennedy. Despite the warnings from my church, he doesn’t seem to be taking orders from the pope after all. I like the way he stands up to Khrushchev, and I can’t avoid being swept up in the Camelot mystique: touch football on the White House lawn, the “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech, his classy wife, Jackie, memorizing and reciting poetry for the president’s birthday.

  Then comes a day in November 1963 when I am sitting in Mrs. Pucciano’s chemistry class staring blankly at the periodic table of elements. Mrs. P. is one of the first Catholics I have ever known, and some of her ten kids attend Gordon High. We hear the sound of students running—running—through the halls in the middle of class time, and as Mrs. P. goes to investigate, one of them yells, “The president’s been shot!” She slams the door closed, hoping we haven’t heard. We have. Mrs. P. asks us to close our books, remain silent, and perhaps even pray—until we learn more.

  Within minutes the intercom clicks on with a voice we recognize as the principal’s. The year before, the eloquent Mr. Craig was replaced by Mr. Jenkins, a football coach who is anything but eloquent. “Hello, is it on? OK. This is your principal speaking.” He hits the microphone button a few times, causing bursts of static. There is a hush in the room. We are still, like deer on full alert.

  “Some of you have heard the disturbing reports from Dallas,” the principal begins. “The governor of Texas…”—with those words Mrs. Pucciano crosses herself and exhales a sigh of relief. Mr. Jenkins hits the button again and proceeds—“and the president, John Kennedy, have been shot.” A few students let out audible gasps. “President Kennedy’s wound is particularly serious in that it is in the head.” We wait for more, but the intercom clicks off.

  Mrs. Pucciano puts her head down on her desk, her shoulders shaking up and down. Some of the girls sob. And from down the hall we hear the muffled, ugly sound of students applauding and cheering. Of course we know why: over the last few years, President Kennedy has been sending federal marshals to enforce racial integration in the South.

  Gordon High dismisses early that day, and the entire country seems to stop moving. The event is so momentous that two days later, a Sunday, Mother lets me hike over to Eugene’s house after church in order to watch the news on his television. I walk in the door and Mrs. Crowe asks me if I’d like some iced tea. Before she even returns from the kitchen, I watch on live TV as Jack Ruby shoots Lee Harvey Oswald in the stomach.

  The Greek scholar from camp was right. Our nation is going haywire.

  * * *

  —

  Whatever goodwill I felt toward Kennedy does not carry over to his successor, Lyndon Johnson. Every time he opens his mouth, I cringe. “Mah felluh Amuricans,” he says, sounding like a hick from the hills of North Georgia. He behaves crudely, picking up dogs by their ears and discussing foreign policy while sitting on the toilet with the door open. The election year of 1964, my junior year, I join the Young Republicans for Goldwater committee and volunteer as the state secretary.

  On the Fourth of July that year, I attend a “Patriots’ Rally Against Tyranny” held at the Lakewood Speedway. The rally features such notables as Alabama’s governor, George Wallace, and Mississippi’s governor, Ross Barnett, as well as Atlanta’s own Lester Maddox. A crowd of eleven thousand Southerners wave miniature Rebel flags and cheer as the speakers take turns denouncing Washington for trampling states’ rights.

  I’m sitting on hot bleachers, fanning myself with the program, when the political rally veers toward race—and violence. A handful of Black men have attended, sitting together in one corner of the grandstands, in a conspicuous dark clump. When a speaker introduces Governor Wallace, three of them cup their hands around their mouths and loudly boo.

  I see no one give a signal, but shortly after a rousing rendition of “Dixie,” some Klansmen rise from their seats and make an ominous descent through the stands, surrounding the cluster of Black men. They begin beating them about the head and shoulders with their fists, and then with folded chairs. A half-dozen other whites join in, urged on by the crowd’s yells. “Hit ’em! Kill ’em!”

  The Black men huddle together, looking around in desperation for an escape route. At last, frantic, a few of them break free and start climbing a thirty-foot chain-link fence designed to protect spectators from the race cars. Their tormentors scramble to catch them.

  The speaker’s bullhorn falls silent, and we all turn to watch as the attackers pry loose the clinging bodies, as though removing prey from a trap. After a time, Georgia State Patrol officers wearing broadbrim hats and navy-and-gray uniforms saunter over and escort the bloodied Black men from the fairgrounds.

  When the rally
resumes, George Wallace takes the stage and delivers a speech written by Asa Carter, a KKK leader. He calls the Civil Rights Act of 1964 “the most monstrous piece of legislation ever enacted…a fraud, a sham and a hoax, this bill will live in infamy.” The civil rights movement comes straight out of The Communist Manifesto, he says. “We must revitalize a government founded in this nation on faith in God!” The crowd shouts, “George! George! George!” as he circles the stage with his arms raised in a V for Victory symbol.

  My mind still on the assault, I barely listen to the other speeches. A chill has settled over my skin, even in the July heat. I can’t enter into the crowd’s jubilation. The rally—indeed, politics itself—has lost its appeal, drowned out by the crowd’s throaty yells and the crunch of the Klansmen’s bare fists against flesh.

  The rest of the summer, memories of that scene linger in the air, like a bad smell that won’t go away.

  * * *

  —

  During my last two years in high school, I feel myself drifting away from family and church. School has opened up new frontiers. There, at last, I’m beginning to find success and acceptance.

  With some trepidation, I try out for the school play Inherit the Wind, which tells the story of the Scopes Monkey Trial. The play mocks the fundamentalist icon William Jennings Bryan, whom my church views as a hero. I audition for the part of Elijah, an illiterate mountain man who sells Bibles to the townspeople of Dayton, Tennessee, and preaches hellfire and brimstone to the crowd outside the courthouse. The drama coach is thrilled. “I’m so happy to discover new talent!” she says, unaware that I have listened to many preachers like Elijah.