by Billy Coffey
Anyone who might have been filling up their car at the opposite pump probably would have taken that to sound a tad racist. I didn’t. Friends get away with saying things to one another that would maybe get them in trouble if said to someone else, and I was Jackie’s friend.
I stuck the money in my shirt pocket and said, “Sure we can sing. We do it every Sunday.”
“Didn’t say that. I said you can’t sing right. Now don’t get me wrong, you can sing sure enough. Sing pretty, too. But there’s a difference between singing and singing.”
“There is?”
Jackie shook her head and wiped the sweat from her neck with a handkerchief she pulled from her bra. Thirty years of marriage and eight children had left her with bad knees and a worse back (which either had caused or been caused by a hefty frame she inherited from her mother, Thelma). Her ever-present Bible sat in the front seat beside her, creased and filled to the gills with a year’s worth of church bulletins and prayer lists. To many people—even people in Mattingly—a Bible was something to get out on Sunday mornings and put away Sunday afternoon. Jackie’s was a combination of purse, schedule keeper, and road map to lands inward. “You gotta be the whitest white boy in the world, you know that? Of course there’s a difference.”
“What’s the difference?” I asked her.
Jackie reached through the window and patted my arm. “You come by the church Sunday night. You’ll see.”
“Come on, Jackie,” I said. “You’ve been trying to get me out there for the last six years. I’d stick out like a sore thumb.”
“Don’t matter what color we are on the outside, honey. We all dirty on the inside. Right?”
“Gotta give you that one,” I said. “You say hi to Harry and Mother Thelma.”
“I’ll look for you Sunday night,” Jackie said. She gave me a conspiratorial smile, rolled up her window, and pulled away.
I walked back into the gas station and rang up the sale. Jackie’s tip of fifty cents went into the cigar box I kept on the shelf. The Old Man was sitting on top of the counter, staring out into the parking lot.
“So you’re going, right?” he said. He clapped his hands together and then rubbed them, convinced that some unknown adventure was about to begin.
“Where’m I going?”
“To Jackie’s church, of course.”
I shut the cash register drawer and looked at him. “Nah,” I said. “I got stuff to do.”
“Stuff to do?” he asked. The ensuing snort doubled him over into a fit of laughter so intense it has no sound. When he finally settled himself, he said, “You have nothing to do.”
The thing about having an angel around was there wasn’t much you could keep private. The act of making up excuses to get out of something you really should probably get into is a time-honored human tradition. Unfortunately, it was one I could never use with the Old Man. He knew me better than I did.
“Look,” I told him, “everybody gets along in Mattingly. We’re all friendly. Don’t matter who you are.”
“Mostly,” he said.
I cut him off before he could say more and ruin the point I was trying to make. “Okay, mostly. But as far as race goes, there’s no problem around here at all. Black people can go wherever they want, and white folk can go wherever they want. But when it comes to worship, we kinda stick to our own. You know?”
“Yes,” he said, nodding, “but no,” he said, shaking his head.
“I know, it’s confusing to me, too. But that’s just the way it’s always been.”
“I think you should go,” he said. “You know Jackie’ll bug you forever if you don’t.”
He had a point.
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
“Don’t think, just do it. Trust me.”
*
The congregation of the Mattingly United Church of the Risen Christ met on the outer edges of town in a one-room building that was much smaller than the name. Lights were provided by a lone electrical line that ran like an IV from the pole in the middle of the graveyard to the left side of the church. There was no furnace, just an old woodstove that sat near a makeshift pulpit. The church seemed comfortable and welcoming, as was the young man who greeted me at the door.
“Evenin’ to you,” he said, as he handed me a bulletin. “Praise the Lord.”
“Back at’cha,” I said, which brought a chuckle and a solid thump to my back.
I took a seat about halfway on the left side and spent the next ten minutes standing up and sitting down with all the folks walking over to welcome me, including Harry, Jackie’s husband, and Mother Thelma. A few yes sir s and thank you ma’ams later, and in walked Jackie with the rest of the choir.
Sixteen souls by my count, ranging in age from high school to retirement home. Evenly divided between men and women. Not much different than the choir at my own church, really. The only exception was that Jackie’s choir held no sheet music.
“Nice to see you, Andy,” she whispered as she passed. She continued on to the front, already swaying to music I couldn’t hear.
The choir director floated behind the pulpit and led us in the opening prayer, a rousing and passionate entreaty that lasted about five minutes and resembled more a conversation with an old friend than the airing of pleas. His “Amen!” signaled the end of one thing and the beginning of another.
The pianist began to play and the director turned to face the chorus, which had begun a uniform sway from right to left to right again. He then raised his hands as a signal for the choir’s entrance.
Jackie smiled at me and winked a warning to get ready. I would have done so if I knew what I was supposed to get ready for.
More piano as the director’s hands raised further, picking him up onto his tiptoes. Slowly, slowly…then…down.
“PRAISE!!” they sang.
The sound created a wind that whooshed from the front of the church and very nearly knocked me backward. I literally had to grab hold of the pew in front of me to balance myself. The church exploded into a song I had never before heard. Some in the congregation shot their hands into the air. Whether they were reaching for the words or for heaven itself I did not know, but at the moment I believed the one may well have been the other. Others clapped along with the melody. A few pointed their faces toward the ceiling. The Old Man stood in the middle of the choir in his own gown, dancing with hands raised. Our eyes met for a brief second. Told ya, he mouthed, then lifted his head to the ceiling and sang.
Tears welled in my eyes. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t clap, couldn’t raise my hands, couldn’t breathe. Jackie looked at me and smiled. Whitest white boy in the world indeed.
This wasn’t singing. I knew that then. No, this was singing.
An hour later the choir finally showed me mercy and sang their last note. One last prayer by the choir director and the benediction by the pastor, and the service was over. I sat in my pew exhausted but smiling as Jackie and her family gathered around me.
“See what I mean?” she asked.
“Lesson learned,” I told her. “That was incredible.”
“Nothing incredible about it,” Mother Thelma said. Her eighty-seven-year-old bones still swayed with the last waves of music that still reverberated inside them. “Just different’s all.”
I smiled. “I see that. Still don’t understand it, though.”
“It’s different because we’re different, Brother Andy,” Harry said. “Not much you can do about that. And I know I ain’t supposed to say it, but it’s true.”
Forty-five years old and eight years Jackie’s elder, Harry was an assistant pastor of the church and king of the family, though he’d be the first to say both came by his wife’s permission. There were plenty of folks in town—black and white—who thought he’d make a fine mayor if he ever got the gumption to run for election.
“Look,” Jackie said, “this here’s my country. Not somewhere in Africa like where my ancestors come from. Here. Mattingly’s our home. We
got that in common. But my kin were slaves.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just…”
Jackie shooed me away and said, “Now I know you ain’t had a hand in that, but it needs saying. That’s how we’re different. We have the same faith, Andy, but we worship different.”
Mother Thelma had been quiet and listening, nodding her approval at the words her daughter and son-in-law spoke. But now was her turn. “The faith you got from your grandparents was come by the easy way,” she said. “That’s nothing against them now, Andy. And that’s not sayin’ their faith is less than our own, because that ain’t true. But the faith we were taught was born in the cotton fields and tobacco farms. It was hardened through the whippings and stretched when a mama had her child sold out from under her or a husband watched his wife get raped. They hurt, you see. That’s why we can sing.”
“I think I’d rather not hurt and not sing,” I said.
The three of them smiled and offered a mix of laughter and hisses. Then Jackie’s mother pulled a small wooden cross from her purse and showed it to me.
“See this here?” Thelma asked. “My great-grandmother carried this cross. She’d wrap it up in the folds of her dress while she cleaned this big plantation house in Carolina. My grandma said her mother didn’t have it as bad as some. But it was still bad. Still lots of fearful times and humiliation. When things got bad, she’d take this cross out and rub it while she prayed.”
She held the cross up to the lights. All of our eyes followed it. Including the Old Man’s, who appeared beside me.
He bent close to my ear and whispered, “Rubbed it smooth, didn’t she?” It was a curious act on his part. I’d never known the Old Man to whisper anything, and why would he? I was the only one who could hear him. But then I understood. His whisper was a shout with an exclamation point at the end. It was a warning to pay attention.
“See how it looks?” Mother Thelma asked. “Shiny and beautiful? Happiness didn’t do that, sadness did. And it rubs our souls the same way.”
“That’s amazing,” I said.
“Here then,” she said, reaching into her purse. “I always keep some of these to give away. This one’s for you.”
Jackie’s mother pulled out another small cross and placed it into my hand. It was rough, almost sharp around the edges. The grain glowed a bright brown.
“You hang on to this,” she said. “Use it right. If you’re lucky, maybe one day it’ll look like the one I have.”
“It won’t look like hers,” he whispered into my ear again. “Know why?”
I did. Coming to hear Jackie sing hadn’t been the Old Man’s way to steer me to something else to put into my box, but that had been a major factor. One I was unaware of until just then. I took the cross Mother Thelma offered and thanked her for it, knowing what a special gift it was. I’d been wished happiness before. And love and faith and good fortune. Never a dose of pain and hardship, though. But in that moment I knew she meant it as the blessing it should be. Jackie was right. We could all sing and we all should, but it was only the wounded who could sing truly. Only the maimed and the hurt and the broken. Because the best voices were those who had learned to praise God, and thank Him too in the midst of suffering.
13
The Difference between Singing and SINGING
The smell of coffee wafted through the room, a sure sign today had turned into tomorrow. Elizabeth held the cross in her hand and smiled down at it, running her fingers down and across the holy lowercase t. She gave the cross a kiss and then placed it not in the box, but in my hand. As she did I heard more coughing and Kim quietly making her rounds in and out of the rooms surrounding me. The coughs ceased.
Kim saved me for last, knocking on the door and pushing it open all the way. She spied the box open on my lap. I closed it as quickly as I could without appearing to be hiding something. “How’s it going in here?” she asked.
“As good as it can be,” I said. I offered a wry smile in Elizabeth’s direction. She returned it and settled back into her chair. “How’s it going out there?”
“Oh, just another night in paradise. Nice and quiet so far, though.”
“Didn’t seem too quiet a little while ago.” I turned the thumb and pinky of my good hand into a telephone and held it up to my ear. “Saw you on the phone. Didn’t look like that was a very good conversation.”
“Oh, yeah.” Kim’s dark cheeks turned a weak shade of pink before she added, “I’m really sorry if that disturbed you.”
“It didn’t, and I’m sorry for prodding.”
Kim moved herself between Elizabeth and me to check my monitors and IV. “Owen and me, we’re in sort of a rough patch.”
“Happens from time to time,” I said. “I’m sure you’ll get through it.”
“We’ll see,” she said. “You’re looking just fine, Andy. I’m a little worried about your meds. I don’t want to be giving you so much that you can’t sleep. Holler if you start feeling strange or if you need me, okay? For anything.”
“Yes’m.”
Kim made her way back between us and left the door open a bit more than she found it. Elizabeth and I watched as she settled back behind her desk and looked at us.
“I don’t think Kim’s a fan of you,” I said.
Elizabeth ignored me just as Kim had ignored her. “Your cross isn’t smooth yet, Andy.”
I looked down at the wooden t in my hand. “Well,” I answered, “it’s been in the box since that night. I like to think I’m a little smooth and shiny, though. Least on the inside.”
I moved to place the cross back into the box, but Elizabeth stopped me. “No. I don’t think you should put that back, Andy. I think now’s the time to keep it out. I think you should do what Mother Thelma intended for you to do. I think you should carry it and work on those sharp edges. Let it be a reminder.”
“Of what?”
“Of this time for you. Of what God is doing. He’s helping you grow, Andy. He’s molding you for something greater.”
“Oh,” I said. “He is, is He? Well isn’t that special? Isn’t that just truly…wonderful?” I paused to let those words sink into Elizabeth, to make sure she caught the sarcasm. The look on her face said she did. “I think I’d rather keep the smooth edges on my life than have them on this cross.”
I moved the cross toward my box again, but again Elizabeth stopped me. “I know,” she said. “I know this hurts. It doesn’t seem right that God would allow people to suffer. If He’s so loving, then He would do more to prevent the bad things in this world. People use that argument all the time to show He’s really not there.”
“But I know He’s there,” I said. “That’s what makes it worse for me. People think believing in God makes everything better, but let me tell you something—sometimes it makes it worse. When suffering happens to someone who doesn’t believe, they just chalk it up to the way life works. But when it happens to someone who does believe, they’re left with the fact that either God doesn’t care or that you don’t matter.”
“He does care,” Elizabeth said. “And you do matter.” She closed my hand around the cross. “God does not care as much about our comfort as He does about us. He doesn’t want our happiness, Andy. You know yourself that happiness can be fleeting in this world. It’s here one day and gone the next. It’s like a cool breeze on a hot day. You can’t grab it; you just have to enjoy it while it settles on you and then let it go on by. It’s trust that God wants. Trust that He knows what’s best, what’s right. Trust is what allows Him to move through your life. It’s what makes the impossible become the easy. Smooth edges around your life do not make smooth edges around your soul. In the end, it’s the soul that matters. Your life doesn’t last. Your soul does.”
I opened my hand and looked at the cross inside—rough and unused, much like me. Maybe Elizabeth was right. Maybe I’d had it all wrong.
Maybe God was not casting me aside. Maybe He was lifting me up closer to Himself.
; I closed my hand around the cross. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll keep it out. Still like to think I’m smooth and shiny, though. At least a little.”
“I like to agree with you.” She pointed to the angel box and said, “May I?”
I didn’t see the harm; Elizabeth had already seen the contents. I slid the box over to her and watched as she went through the contents of the box, passing over the ones we’d already covered. Her fingers danced and weaved yet disturbed nothing. Elizabeth was careful, careful with my stories and my secret and me, and that care contained its own medicine. I didn’t know what was wrong that she deemed in need of fixing, but I knew she was fixing it. Slowly, surely, she was mending my broken places.
And then she found the key chain.
“This looks interesting,” she said, holding it up for me to see. The silver hoop hung around her finger and the chain dangled beneath. She swayed the pewter angel at the end back and forth. I felt as if she were trying to hypnotize me into telling her the truth.
The chain. Eric’s—
“I don’t want to talk about that,” I said.
Elizabeth’s playful demeanor turned businesslike. She hid the angel by wrapping her hand around it.
“What’s wrong, Andy?” she asked me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“Just put that back, okay? Please? That one…no. Just leave that one alone. Don’t touch it.”
Outside the door, Kim started to rise from her chair. I waved her off with my bandaged hand. She sat, though unwillingly.
Elizabeth nestled the key chain in a corner of the box and said nothing else. I supposed the time would come when she would press me to talk about it. I also supposed I wouldn’t. We had traveled a long way in a short time, and I had done so as willingly as I could. But there were things we had to carry alone in life, no matter who offered to help.
“More?” I asked her.
“Why not?”
“Because if you’re looking at the clock it must be getting late. Pretty sure hospital counselors don’t work all night.”