by Zakes Mda
“That’s what you think, mister,” she said. “Mr. Quigley won’t let you mess our girl’s life no ways.”
“I haven’t seen Mahlon for a while,” I said. “How is he? And Obed? Actually I’ve come to find out about Obed. Do you know how I can get in touch with him?”
“She’s gonna be sorry, you know? Orpah is gonna be very sorry. She ain’t like Obed. Obed has turned out so good. He’s now a man of God.”
Obed a man of God?
Ruth gushes on about her Obed: he came here with Beth Eddy the other day. Beth Eddy was a nice girl and no one could hold it against her that she was Caucasian. In any event she was going to lighten her long-awaited grandchildren. But that was not the most important thing. The most important thing was that Obed was going to Bible School to be a pastor. He was going to take over Brother Michael’s church. It was high time the church was in the hands of a son of Kilvert, a son who had not been soiled by adultery, a son who would respect the culture of his people and would not dismiss the heritage they held dear as false and meaningless.
“So the hoofing he used to do as a kid has paid off,” I said laughing. I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing.
“It ain’t no laughing matter ’cause if you laugh you laughing at God.”
That, of course, stopped my foolish chuckles immediately. I don’t want to laugh at God.
Obed’s conversion did not end there. In August he went gleaning with a Bible study group to which he and Beth Eddy belonged. They joined the Appalachia Harvest gleaning group for a successful harvest of corn. They handpicked thousands of ears of sweet corn that were left on the field after harvest and would have otherwise gone to waste. The corn was then transported to local food pantries, including the Kilvert Community Center, for distribution to the poor and for community dinners. Late in August they gleaned tomatoes which the group processed into pasta sauce and salsa, also for distribution to food pantries. When he came here with Beth Eddy they brought some of the sauce and salsa with them.
To prove her point Ruth stood up and waddled to the kitchen. She brought back a bottle of pasta sauce which she said I could take to my sinful RV and taste what the hand of the Lord had brought. I was just happy to hear that my favorite scoundrel had changed so much. But how come I didn’t know anything about it?
“What about his casino? What about the Shawnee claim? Has he given up on his casino?” I asked.
“What part of he’s-a-man-of-God don’t you understand?”
“Do you have his number, Ruth?” I asked.
“What you want it for? So that you can take him away from the Lord?”
I told her about the Katrina concert. She became very agitated. Not about the concert. About Hurricane Katrina.
“We are Americans,” she said. “How can this happen to us?”
It was because of homosexuals, she declared. Pat Robertson said as much. According to this ayatollah—the same one who issued a fatwa for the death of the Venezuelan—the country had brought the catastrophe upon itself by being tolerant of homosexuals and lesbians to the extent that in some states they can even marry, which was against all the laws of nature and of God.
On returning to the RV I found Orpah lying naked on the Irish Wheel. We spent all our lives in the RV naked even when we had no intention of doing any naughty things. When I told her about Obed’s conversion she was not surprised at all. Obviously she knew all about it. She even knew that he had been in Kilvert with Beth Eddy. They came to the Center to see us, but we were not there. Nor was our RV. It was the day Orpah drove in our unwieldy vehicle to a parlor on Stimson Avenue to tattoo the tears on our cheeks.
“You knew and you didn’t tell me?”
“It’s all crazy stuff, baby, and it got nothing to do with us.”
I didn’t go to the Katrina concert. But I was told that Orpah was a resounding success. I cursed that concert. Not for the assistance it gave the victims of Katrina. Not for her success. But for the fact that after the bluegrass people dropped her at Ruth’s, she did not come to the RV that night. She did not come the following day either. On the third day I braved Ruth and went looking for her. I could hear the sitar. No, not the deadly one that left me confused and horny. Not the one we played at Niall Quigley’s grave either. But some fast-paced and dancey bluegrass number.
I knocked softly but she could not hear me. I banged at the door and it flung open.
“What’s up with you?” she asked. She seemed quite irritated.
“The question is, what’s up with you?”
“I won’t go with you no more,” she said. “I don’t wanna be no mourner. Not when Daddy and me are talking again. I can’t leave my daddy. He needs me for the memories.”
My eyes are searching for a monk in a brown robe. A wannabe saint with a hanging belly. But I can’t see the sciolist in the milling crowds. Perhaps this year he does not think the parade is worth his while. I would not be here either if Orpah had not insisted we attend the Halloween block party, as she calls it, before crossing the Ohio River.
“I think we have seen enough,” I say, as I follow her pushing her way through a bunch of Christian fundamentalists in civvies who are trying very hard to disrupt the very pagan circus of which they have become part, their leader hollering the Lord’s name above the din. “We have a long way to go.”
“Come on, baby,” she says. “Still early. You don’t have to worry about driving anyways.”
I want to go to the bathroom very badly. Orpah stops to talk to two women—one a fat witch in black and the other an overgrown fairy in pink and white. They went to the same high school at Amesville, she tells me. They giggle about our tattooed tears, which they think are part of the occasion. They ask me how I like Kilvert and what I think of the block party. Small talk is what makes the world go round. But for now I can’t contribute my share to either its rotation or revolution. I excuse myself and walk into a nearby restaurant to use the men’s room. It is filthy with feces and puddles of piss on the floor. I am not surprised. I have gotten used to dirty toilets in the fast food restaurants of this city. Of the state even. It is not just the result of the crowds. On a normal day I have been greeted by the filthiest of toilets ever at McDonalds, Burger King and even at the original Wendy’s in Columbus.
When I return to the sidewalk Orpah and the women are no longer there. I wait a bit hoping she will show up, but have to move when the area is overrun by the Christian zealots. They are proclaiming The Word and condemning everyone present to the eternal fires of hell. The ghosts and the nurses and the bleeding souls with broken limbs ignore The Word and go about their business of strolling, gamboling or prancing up and down.
“Hey, homey, I thought you was in Virginia by now.” The voice of Obed comes from a tall Darth Vader made of glowing orange plastic. He is with another action figure—a fluorescent yellow Young Anakin who asks me in the voice of Beth Eddy what I did with Orpah. I am happy to hear these familiar voices.
“According to Ruth’s wishes you should be thumping the Bible with those people,” I say to Darth Vader, pointing at the zealots.
“Those folks are loonies, my man,” says Darth Vader.
I tell them I was beginning to panic because Orpah got lost in the crowd.
“Uh-ah! You don’t think she changed her mind again?” asks Darth Vader.
I hope not. When she changed her mind about going with me I was crushed. I was prepared to abandon the RV at the Center and hit the road on my own. After she told me she couldn’t leave her daddy I didn’t see her for days. I supposed that time she was doing the memories with him. And she was painting the pictures. She didn’t bring them to me to translate into quilts or just to keep. I took it that our mourning relationship had come to a sad end. It was another loss in a life of losses.
“Somehow I don’t think so,” I tell Darth Vader. “I think she just got carried away meeting old friends. She’s somewhere in the crowds.”
Young Anakin says she hopes we find Or
pah since this is her last opportunity to meet her.
“It can’t be the last,” I say. “Orpah is not leaving forever. She’ll be back one day.”
“Only she?” asks Young Anakin. “What about you? Surely you’re not deserting us forever.”
She has always been such a sweet person.
“I’ll come back too,” I tell her. “Kilvert was my home for one year. I’ll come back to see Ruth. And of course her Mr. Quigley. And you, Beth. And my favorite scoundrel here. I am glad to see that today he has adopted a much safer identity than that of a ghost partial to girls’ breasts.”
She laughs. And then says that she is always grateful to the ghost of Nicodemus. And to the mediation that I suggested. Darth Vader says that he hopes the ghost of Nicodemus is resting in peace tonight.
“It was avenged,” I say. “Why can’t it sleep in peace like all decent ghosts that have been avenged?”
Darth Vader and Young Anakin walk me to the RV, which is parked on the parking lot of a closed down supermarket on Stimson Avenue. I realize that I do not have the keys. They are with Orpah, wherever she is. Young Anakin says they will keep me company until Orpah arrives.
“If she’ll arrive at all,” says a skeptical Darth Vader.
“She will arrive,” I say confidently. “But you don’t have to keep me company out here. I insist you go your way. Go back to the parade of creatures and have a good time, kids. I’ll be all right here.”
They laugh at my characterization of their Halloween block party as a parade of creatures.
“I’ll come check in the morning,” Darth Vader offers. “If Orpah’s gone back home I’ll help you drive the darn thing back to Kilvert.”
As they leave I call after Darth Vader: “Ruth tells me you’ve given up on your dream for a casino!”
“I don’t need no casino,” he calls back. “I’ve got Beth now. And I’ve got the church too.”
My wait is only an hour, although it seems like half the night because of anxiety and the chill. Orpah arrives and says she was looking for me all over the place. We can’t drive at this hour. I agree. We need some sleep. I take off my cape and top hat. We get under the Irish Wheel, fully clothed. She is a nun today. She is divine. And this makes her more appetizing. But I long ago learned the art of self-control and self-denial. No carnal pleasures tonight.
Her teardrops make her face look like that of a clown. I burst out laughing.
“What’re you laughing at?” she asks.
“Your tears are beautiful,” I say.
“Your tears are beautiful too,” she says.
We cuddle into each other’s arms and sleep. I pray that no one comes in the night and tows the RV away since I suspect it is illegally parked. My thoughts float back to Kilvert; to Ruth and Mahlon.
By the end of October Mahlon’s garden of gnomes had become smaller. Half of it was taken by flowers. Mahlon was becoming a flower man again. He just woke up one day and decided to plant something Ruth called “live-forever.” It would dry with the winter chill in a few weeks’ time, but would come back to life in spring. It would repeat that cycle over and over again till, according to Ruth, the end of time.
I saw this garden when I went looking for Orpah after I had not seen her for days since the Katrina concert. And when I went again the next day to plead with her.
“She’s come to her senses,” said Ruth as she fussed over Mahlon’s flowers.
Instead of talking about Orpah and what she meant exactly by her coming to her senses she was more excited about the flowers. They were daffodils, she said. Besides the bushes of roses. Her Mr. Quigley secretly planted the bulbs a month before, which was a wise time because daffodils liked to establish their roots before the ground froze. They needed the cold weather to form flower buds. I would see them in full bloom early in spring, perhaps in March, because as far as she knew I would still be here at that time since Orpah was not going anywhere.
“I want to hear that from her,” I said to Ruth.
But she would not see me. I decided at that time that she was a lost cause. I would stop chasing after her, pack my things and leave Kilvert once and for all. I would leave her the RV because it was useless to me without her.
The next time I went to Ruth’s the garden was still thriving, despite the drought that was devastating southeast Ohio. The summer had been dry and farmers were fearful that in winter their animals would have no feed. Some had started to use winter feed as early as August. The county was declared a disaster area by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, although the drought conditions were rather spotty. The bottom of the hills had some water while the hills were dry.
It did not seem like the drought was having any effect on Mahlon’s garden. It was getting greener by the day. Ruth’s garden of Swiss chard, parsley and cabbages was luxuriant too.
On the driveway Mahlon was feeding a cow with his hand. Orpah was holding a basin of cow feed. She was sobbing in convulsions. None of them paid any attention to me. I could see though that Mahlon was trying to comfort Orpah. I could hear something along the lines of “don’t worry, little girl, everything will be all right.” I decided not to stop.
There were changes at the porch as well. Ferns were hanging among the wind chimes. There was fuchsia hanging in a basket.
In the living room Ruth was at her workstation cutting some fabric with the rotary cutter. She did not try to hide it this time. Asian beetles were giving her a hard time though. It was the season once more. I remembered how I helped her stamp them out a year ago. Now they were getting into her coffee, and some had died in the mug while she was still enjoying her drink. Others were biting her arms since she was in a short-sleeved blouse. One was impertinent enough to fly into her cleavage, obviously attracted by warmth. She just froze there since she could not take it out in my presence.
She was all smiles, despite the pests. Her eyes were bloodshot.
“Something very bad has happened in my life,” she said softly. “But I don’t wanna talk about it. God says we forgive and forget. It’s hard to forget though.”
At this the smile disappeared and tears ran down her cheeks.
“What is it, Ruth? What happened?”
“I don’t wanna talk about it,” she said. And then forced a smile on her face again.
Instead she wanted to talk about her new fuchsia. Did I see it? It was going to bloom for the whole summer, she boasted. And did I see Mr. Quigley’s cow? Wasn’t it wonderful that Mr. Quigley was going back to keeping animals? The farmers on the hills were forced to sell some of their cattle cheaply because the pastures were parched. Mr. Quigley raised some money to buy himself a cow. The farmer was kind enough to accept a deposit. Mr. Quigley would pay the balance later. And did I know where the money for the deposit came from? From Obed. Her own Obed who had become a man at last.
“I want you to get me a book on Bible quilts,” she said. “I wanna learn me how to make them Bible quilts.”
Orpah entered and sat on one of the car seats. She was sniffling.
Ruth explained that with Bible quilts you appliqué figures from Bible stories on the quilt. She had already cut some of these figures. She pointed at one which she referred to as Moses and showed me on a quilt where the Red Sea would run and where the Moses figure would see a burning bush. With a rotary cutter, she said, she could cut human figures that were as accurate as if they walked out of the Bible itself. I observed that it was wonderful that she had now learned that she could preserve the ongoing tradition while expressing her own ideas.
“Ruth, I have come to say goodbye,” I said. “I am leaving tomorrow morning.”
“How you gonna drive that ugly thing of yours?” she asked.
“I’m coming too,” said Orpah, jumping up and charging to the workstation. “I’m leaving too, Ruth.”
“No, you’re not,” I said firmly.
“Oh yeah, she must go,” said Ruth. “She caused enough trouble already.”
Orpah burst out b
awling.
Between Orpah’s snivels and Ruth’s fulminations I learned that Ruth was on a mission to spring-clean and kill the Asian bugs when she came across Orpah’s new drawings in her room. Old habits die hard. She regretted it after she had already ripped them in two. She had not seen Orpah’s drawings for many months and would not have destroyed them if she’d thought about it first.
When Orpah found her precious work in pieces like that she ran out wailing as if someone was dead. At the clothesline she found one of the pre–Civil War quilts—yes, the one with the first Quigley’s image, Lord have mercy on him—and she ripped it with her bare hands. The material had almost pulverized and was going to fall apart on its own in any case, Orpah cried in her defense.
Recounting these events brought more tears to both of them. I was caught in the middle of a storm. I embraced Ruth with my left arm and Orpah with my right. I let them cry as much as they wanted, holding them very close to me.
I could not leave the next day. Not when things were like this. Instead I went to the Center for a dose of sanity. I helped the women package food for distribution. The drought did not help the hunger situation in the Appalachians. Food pantries and soup kitchens were busier than usual. Some soup kitchens in the county were closing down because they could not raise enough donations for food. Yet despite the decrease in donations, lines were becoming longer at soup kitchens. Families in places like Chauncey were uncertain where the next meal would come from. It was the same in Kilvert. Children were suffering from poverty-induced obesity.
“You can’t close your eyes when your neighbor is living in poverty,” said Irene.
“It is the American way to help,” said Barbara.
“It ain’t just the drought,” said another volunteer. “It’s always like this. It’s the story of our lives. We’ve been hungry for generations. From the time the mines closed.”
In other ways the droughts had made things better. It left a lot of the crops unmarketable and therefore the gleaners got more than in previous years. They got enough tomatoes, for instance, to make enough bottles of the fire-roasted pasta sauce that the food pantry at the Center was able to give each family at least one bottle.