by Neta Jackson
My whole body went numb. I stared at the books. The titles mocked me with horrified fascination, like traffic slowing down to gawk at a mangled car wreck. A sick feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. Where did Josh—? Why?
It didn’t matter. I whirled on my son. “Get those books out of this house this instant, Joshua Baxter,” I hissed. “Now!”
15
I started to snatch up one of the books and then recoiled. “You do it. Get rid of them!” My voice came out a harsh whisper, though inside my head I was yelling.
“Hey, Mom, hold on a minute. Dad said I could—”
“He what?” Now heat flooded my face.
“Mom.” Josh said it patiently. “Slow down a minute and listen to me, OK?”
I folded my arms, pulled them tight against my body, and pressed my lips into a thin line. I’d listen, but I wasn’t going to like it.
“OK.” Josh sat down in his desk chair. I stayed on my feet. “Already told you I want to do something about hate groups for my senior debate team project. But if I’m going to debate it, I need to know what I’m talking about! I’ve gotta do research, and Dad said I could—”
“Why didn’t you just go the library? Or read the stuff online? At least you can turn it off. But this!” I grabbed the brown paper wrapping—and stopped, staring at the address. Josh Baxter . . . Lunt Avenue . . . “Ohmigosh, Josh. You ordered these books directly from this group! Now they have your name and address! They’ll put you on a mailing list and send you all sorts of . . . of evil literature.” The heat drained from my face, and I could hardly push the words out. “They know where you live.”
My debate team superstar looked at me for a moment, speechless. Then he squirmed. “Didn’t think about that. I went over to the Reillys’ last Saturday to use their computer, ’cause, you know, you didn’t want me calling up that stuff when Amanda was around, and—”
“Amanda was babysitting Saturday night.” I tapped my foot.
“Yeah, I know. But, face it, Mom, you’re the one who’s all upset. So I asked Mr. Reilly if I could do my research over there—after the twins were in bed, natch. Dad said it was OK if the Reillys didn’t mind.”
Rick Reilly and his wife not only were raising ten-year-old twins and provided the backbone of Uptown’s praise team, but they somehow had energy left over to ride herd on Uptown’s youth. I unfolded my arms. “You were there all evening? Like, until you came home?”
Josh nodded.
“So you weren’t drinking Saturday night?”
“What? Mom! What made you think—”
“I heard you come in.” I made a face. “Heard you hit the trash can.”
Josh rolled his eyes. “I know I hit the trash can. Wind or something had tipped it over. Couldn’t see it in the dark. Really, Mom! Why didn’t you just ask me?”
I nodded sheepishly. “I know. So I’m asking now. Have you—”
Josh threw his hands up in front of his face. “Uh-uh. No fair digging, Mom.”
I hesitated. “OK. But you do know it’s illegal under twenty-one, and—”
“Yes, Mom, I know. And I’m not going to drink and drive. Never, Mom. That’s a promise.”
The promise hung in the air for a moment. “Good,” I said. “I’m glad.” I still didn’t budge. “About the books . . .” I didn’t know what to say next. I did not want them in the house. What if one of my Yada Yada sisters saw one of those lying around? Did we really have to immerse our minds in muck in order to fight it? And they’d been mailed to this address. Our address.
Oh God, help me here. I don’t know what to do!
I wanted an Elijah-style answer, God’s voice like a thunder crack. Maybe a bolt of lightning, too, consuming those books—and nothing else, of course—like Elijah’s wet sacrifice on the altar. But . . . nothing. I turned on my heel and left the room.
I JUMPED ALL OVER DENNY for saying, “Sure, Josh, go ahead, order those white supremacist books, put ’em on my credit card, send ’em to the house, tell ’em where we live.” Well, whatever he said, same thing. We ended up sleeping two feet apart in the bed, backs turned like a Hatfield married to a McCoy.
The next morning I was so upset I didn’t even take time for prayer on the fly, much less reading my Bible. Denny drove both kids to Lane Tech before heading for Rogers Park High; I dumped the breakfast dishes in the sink and left early for school, hoping to catch Avis in her office before the bell rang. Not that I wanted to tell her the titles of those books—ack! That would feel like slapping her in the face! But I did need some prayer, some way to focus so I could get through the day.
The day was gorgeous—if I’d bothered to pay attention. The TV weather guy was predicting a beautiful Memorial Day weekend. Might even make it to seventy degrees. But all I could think about as I navigated the uneven sidewalks to Bethune Elementary was my conversation with Josh last evening. Sure, I was relieved he’d been at his youth leader’s house last Saturday and not out drinking with a bunch of buddies. He even made a promise never to drink and drive. So. Did that mean I could breathe a sigh of relief? Relax?
Probably not. There was always the problem of other drunk drivers, other teens who drank irresponsibly . . .
Don’t go there, Jodi. At some point you have to trust God!
Right. But then why did Stu assume the worst and get me all worked up?
Bethune Elementary loomed up ahead. The playground was still empty. Good. I was early. Good thing my feet were on automatic, because my mind was definitely not paying attention to where I was going. I kept seeing those paperback books spread out on Josh’s bed. And every time my mind alighted on the books, a flicker of fear licked at my spirit, like a tiny campfire flame feeding on kindling, searching for a good, solid log of fuel to make a roaring fire.
Why? What was I afraid of? Was the group violent? I didn’t know that for sure. There were tons of violent video games out there—some just as nauseating as what Josh had found on that White Pride Web site. We just avoided them. Didn’t buy them for our kids; didn’t let our kids play them. And we ordered other stuff on the Web and didn’t worry about people having our address . . .
I pulled open the door of Bethune Elementary and headed straight to the office. Ms. Ivy and the other secretaries weren’t in yet. But the light was on in Avis’s office, and her door was open a crack. I marched in.
“Jodi!” Avis looked up, slightly surprised.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” I blurted. “I need some prayer.” I didn’t wait for confirmation, just flopped into the chair on my side of the desk and rambled on for five minutes. She had to back me up a few times—she didn’t know about Nony finding the pamphlet stuck in her ivy—but I finally got it out, about Josh actually ordering books from this hate group that were now sitting in my house. I stopped short of mentioning the titles.
Avis was silent for several moments after I stopped. Then she stood up and came around to the front of her desk, leaning back against it. “I agree with you,” she said finally. “I don’t think it was wise of Josh to order those books directly from that White Pride group, using your address. Maybe nothing will come of it. But I do understand your concern.” She reached out and took both of my hands. “It’s also true that fear is one of Satan’s greatest weapons. The spirit of fear can be contagious, Jodi. It feeds on itself, until we feel paralyzed and powerless—or we go overboard protecting ourselves from whatever we’re afraid of.”
Well, she hit the nail on the head there. I gripped her hands.
“Lord, again and again You told Your disciples, ‘Do not be afraid.’ And Your Word tells us that fear is not of God . . .”
It took a moment for me to realize that Avis had started to pray. I did not close my eyes—just stared at our two hands, fingers entwined, brown and beige, manicured nails and nails badly in need of an emery board, her new wedding ring set and my old one, as she continued praying against fear. Finally, she squeezed my hands and returned to her seat behind the desk.
“Do you have a Bible here at school?” she asked. I nodded. “Read Psalm Fifty-Six.” She glanced at the clock on the wall and smiled. “You have ten minutes before the bell.”
I MANAGED TO READ THE PSALM before my third graders, giddy with spring fever and a long holiday weekend ahead, pushed and shoved their way into the classroom. But I knew right away why Avis had suggested I read it. King David, who seemed to attract enemies and slander like flypaper attracts flies, kept repeating himself: “When I am afraid, I put my trust in You. . . . I trust in God, so why should I be afraid?”
By the time I got home from school that Friday, that refrain was going around and around in my head like a mantra.
The message light was flashing on the answering machine. “Jodi? It’s Avis. After we talked this morning, I had one more thought. This stuff is spiritual warfare. So do battle, sister. Pray over those books. Ask God to send His angels of protection on your family and on your house. Rebuke Satan and all his lies contained in those books. Then fill your house with praise. Satan can’t do his dirty work in an atmosphere of praise to God.”
Whoa. That sounded like heavy-duty stuff. I was supposed to do this by myself? I listened to her message again. Hm. Maybe Denny would pray with me when the kids weren’t around.
I checked the kitchen calendar. Denny had a game after school today, followed by a sports awards banquet. Rats. He probably wouldn’t be home until nine or so. With the sophomore dance still a week away, Amanda had invited José to come up and “hang out” Friday evening—though when José actually arrived, they talked Josh into going with them to see a movie at the local discount theater.
Which left me alone with Willie Wonka. And those books.
I was sorely tempted to gather them all up and take them to the trash can—maybe even dump them in somebody else’s trash can. “Sorely tempted,” I told Wonka as I loaded the dishwasher. But footsteps moving back and forth overhead gave me an idea. Stu. Maybe she’d come down and pray over those books with me. She wasn’t exactly a prayer warrior like Avis or Nony or Florida, but hey, the Bible said, “Where two or three are gathered in My name . . .”
I gave a last swipe to the kitchen counters, headed up the back stairs in the soft twilight, and rapped loudly on the window in Stu’s back door. I could hear the TV and voices inside. I rapped again. “Stu!” I yelled.
But it was Becky who came to the door. “Oh, hey, Jodi.” She just stood in the doorway.
Somebody yelled from the living room, “Beck! Where’s the f— remote?” A male voice.
I found my own voice. “Is Stu here?”
Becky shook her head. “Nah. She pulled a hard case today—runaway foster kid or somethin’.”
“Oh.” My mind was racing. Did Stu know Becky had company while she was gone? Had she anticipated this? And who was it? Should I ask? Was it any of my business? “Sorry to bother you,” I said. “Didn’t know you had company.”
“Yeah.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “Old friend of mine dropped by.”
I definitely wasn’t being invited in to meet Mr. Old Friend. “Oh. Well, if Stu comes home soon, tell her to give me a ring, OK?”
“Sure. No problem.” The door closed once more. The bolt moved in the lock, and the kitchen went dark.
“Old friend?” I muttered to myself as I scurried back down the outside stairs and in our back door. I made sure it was locked. “As in, from her old life?” A life that had involved drugs, alcohol, and armed robbery—a fact I knew all too well.
I flipped on all the lights in the house—even the lights in the kids’ bedrooms—and put on the loudest praise music I could find. If Satan couldn’t do his dirty work in an atmosphere of praise, well, Willie Wonka and I were going to raise the roof!
16
I was on my third run-through of an Israel Houghton CD—after cranking up the volume so I could hear it while enjoying a long soak in the tub—when the music suddenly went dead. In the silence I heard, “Jodi?” Denny’s voice. Loud. “Where are you?”
“Tub!” I shouted back. “Be out in a sec.” I toweled off, pulled on a big T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, and came out to find Denny rummaging in the refrigerator. “How was the awards banquet? Didn’t they feed you?”
“Sure. Hours ago.” He gave up on the refrigerator and threw a packet of microwave popcorn into the microwave. He lifted an eyebrow at me. “What’s with the earsplitting music? Could hear it a block away.”
“Driving out demons.” I said it lightly.
“And husbands,” he muttered under his breath.
“Sorry.” I got out a bowl for the popcorn and then touched his arm. “Actually, I am sorry for jumping all over you last night. Forgive me?”
He looked at me sideways. “Only if you jump all over me tonight.”
“Denny!” I swatted his shoulder. “I’m making a serious apology here! And I need to talk to you about something.”
The microwave beeped. Denny pulled out the puffed-up bag, opened it gingerly, and dumped the hot popcorn into the bowl. “Apology accepted. Want some of this? Where are the kids?”
I trailed Denny to the living room and flopped beside him on the couch. “Movie. They took the el, but Josh went with them, so they should be OK. Amanda and José, I mean. But I wanted to talk to you before they got back . . .”
Dipping into the popcorn bowl, I told Denny about my talk with Avis, what she’d said about spiritual warfare, and about the message she’d left on the answering machine. “You weren’t here to pray about those books, so I went upstairs to see if Stu was home. She wasn’t, but Becky had a friend over. An old friend. Male. Made me nervous. I mean, what sort of people did she hang out with before she went to prison? So, OK, she’s been clean for eight or nine months now, and she got baptized spur of the moment, John the Baptist–style. But I don’t know how long her new life will last if all her old buddies suddenly show up.”
Denny crunched popcorn and nodded thoughtfully. “Don’t think Stu is home yet—at least her car wasn’t in the garage when I came in. Should I go upstairs and meet this ‘old friend’? You know, let him know another guy is in the house?” He snorted. “If you didn’t drive him out already with that deafening music.”
“Ha. Maybe I did.” But I shook my head. “No, don’t go up. Maybe this sounds weird, but I would like to pray, you know, like Avis suggested. Pray against any evil that could come into this house through those books, pray for protection on this house, protection for our family. Protection for Stu and Becky too.”
He sat silently for a moment, as if wrapping his mind around the idea. Then he nodded. “Sure. Why not? Guess it’s up to us to pray, and up to God to sort it out.”
THE KIDS GOT HOME ABOUT ELEVEN—José had already headed home on the el—but by then Denny and I had walked hand in hand around our house, praying in each room, praying for protection from the Evil One. We lingered in Josh’s room, praying especially that God would protect his mind and his heart as he grappled with the ugly things written in those books. We ended by praying for Nony and Mark Sisulu-Smith and their children, for the students on Northwestern’s campus, that the upcoming “free speech” rally would be peaceful, and that the hateful ideas of this White Pride group would fizzle out.
Both kids home. House saturated with prayer. I slept like a baby.
Guess Stu didn’t, though. The next morning, she stormed into our kitchen about eight o’clock and started venting. “I am so mad, Jodi! Do you know what happened last night?” She plopped down on our kitchen stool, no makeup, wisps of hair falling from a hasty twist. “I got home late, maybe ten-thirty, after a killer day. Had to follow up on a runaway foster kid—turns out he had a good reason to run away. Ended up having to call the police and file a complaint against the foster mother’s boyfriend, who’d been . . . never mind.” She rubbed her temples. “Anyway, got home, dying for a hot bath, some hot milk and honey, and some peace and quiet so I could curl up with a good book—and there was Becky w
ith some . . . some strange guy in my house, a man I didn’t even know. Laughing, watching a dumb car-chase video he’d brought, eating my food. Dirty dishes everywhere. Worse, they drank all the milk. Every drop!”
She left the stool and started pacing from one end of the kitchen to the other, but I knew she wasn’t done, so I poured another cup of coffee and waited. She stopped abruptly and wagged a finger in my direction. “But you know what makes me really angry? I don’t know if I have any right to be angry! I mean, Becky lives here—I invited her myself, didn’t I? And she’s stuck in this house, day after day, can’t go out as long as she’s wearing that electronic monitor. So of course she wants to have friends come over.” Rolling her eyes, she plopped down on the stool again. “I just . . . I don’t know, Jodi.”
I sure didn’t know either. Seemed like we were stuck with Becky—or she was stuck with us. But did any of us know what we were getting ourselves into? An “old friend” comes over to watch TV one day—but what next? I didn’t want to mention my own fears. A parade of “old friends”? Druggies? Street people? A lover?
Oh God. Help.
“We’ve got to get Becky some new friends,” I blurted. “And get her that Bible we promised her.”
I WAS SO GLAD YADA YADA WAS GOING TO MEET this weekend that I made chocolate-chip cookies from scratch to take to Adele’s. Had to slap a few greedy hands or the cookies would’ve disappeared by the time Sunday evening rolled around. I almost called the sisters to ask if we could meet at my house and do some of that “praying for protection over the house” as a group. But it wouldn’t have worked. Uptown’s youth group had been cancelled because of the holiday weekend, so Josh was holed up in his room reading up on White Pride, and Amanda and her dad were cranking out some serious homemade ice cream in the backyard.
“Maybe we should invite Becky down to help crank the ice cream, give her something to do while you women ‘yada yada,’ ” Denny said. There was no humor in his eyes. “Did you Yadas think about meeting here so Becky could attend?”