by Neta Jackson
She’d be proud.
We arrived at the Howard Street shopping center at nine forty-five Sunday morning—fifteen minutes before the new starting time of ten o’clock. OK. So we were on New Morning time. Couldn’t help wondering just how many things would happen New Morning’s way just because we were joining them in their building.
“Does New Morning know we’re going to donate the proceeds from the sale of our building to help buy this building or help pay for the renovation? ” I murmured to Denny out of earshot of the kids.
Denny shrugged. “Probably. We voted on it. I’m sure Pastor Clark has told Pastor Cobb by now.”
Yeah, I thought. But do the folks in the pews—er, chairs—know?
Josh had already disappeared inside the large storefront, but Amanda hung back and walked with us. “You OK, sweetie? ” Denny asked, putting an arm around her.
“Guess.” She leaned into him, her loose butterscotch hair catch ing highlights from the bright October sun. It was one of those days. Bright blue sky. A nip in the air. But enough sunshine to beckon one outside with promises of a lingering Indian summer. “Just feel kinda funny, not ever going back to Uptown Community anymore.”
“I know, honey,” I heard Denny say. “Guess we have to keep reminding ourselves that the ‘real’ Uptown—the people—came along with us.We just left behind the building.”
Most of them, I thought, trailing behind my husband and daughter, my hands full with the two plastic cookie containers. But not all. My heart squeezed. Oh Lord, why does this merger feel good and sad at the same time?
But the moment I walked into the large storefront sanctuary, sadness evaporated. Someone had made a large banner in various shades of blues and sea green, which hung at the front of the worship space facing a long sidewall. Inside a large circle on the banner, hands in all shades of brown, tan, beige, and peach clasped wrists in the middle. Felt words arching at the top said, PRAISE GOD FOR HIS BODY, and a similar semicircle at the bottom said,UPTOWN& NEWMORNING.
My eyes got wet. I felt . . . welcome.
The Sisulu-Smiths were already there, dad and sons wearing their South African dashikis and Nony wearing my favorite blueandgold caftan. Denny immediately attached himself to Mark, who was sitting at the end of a row. Denny chatted, one hand resting on Mark’s shoulder; Mark nodded, a half smile on his face. Mark looked . . . good. Basically. He was still wearing a patch over his left eye. But he didn’t seem like the same Mark who had stood up in the middle of the plaza at Northwestern University and dissected the bogus invective of the White Pride group. Coming out of the coma had been a miracle! But maybe he’d never be the same after that vicious—
Wait a minute. The Voice in my spirit stopped me in my mental tracks. Are you still praying for Mark’s healing? Praying like you did when he was in the coma? Didn’t I answer your prayers? Where are those prayers now? Have you given up?
I was so stunned that I had to sit down.Didn’t even notice it was one of Uptown’s torture chairs. Oh God, forgive me for my faithlessness. Yes, yes, I want to still pray—
Small, cool hands covered my eyes at that moment. “Boo!” I turned to see Carla,Dia, and Cheree giggling like carbonated bubbles, while Chanda’s Thomas and Florida’s Cedric made a beeline for Marcus and Michael Smith. I waved at Florida and Carl, who were talking with some of the New Morning folks. Even Chris Hickman was hanging out on the edges of a clump of teenagers.
And there was Becky with Little Andy strangling her neck . . . Avis and Peter acting as greeters . . . Stu talking to Hoshi.This was amazing! Half my Yada Yada sisters and their families were ending up in the same melded church. Nothing we had planned. Nothing we’d even imagined when we met at that women’s conference the first time.
New Morning’s pastor, Joseph Cobbs, and Uptown’s Pastor Clark walked to the front of the restive congregation—a study in contrasts, if ever there was one. Short and tall. Brown and white. Married and widowed. Snappy dresser and cardigan sweater. Vigorous and sedate. Mutt and Jeff.
“This is the day that the Lord has made!” Pastor Cobbs boomed.
“Let us rejoice and be glad in it!” Pastor Clark croaked in response.
Immediately the praise band launched into an ear-splitting rendition of “These Are the Days of Elijah.” The saxophonist seemed to make the words leap right off the coral-colored wall where the overhead displayed them, as New Morning and Uptown voices melded in our first song of praise as “one body.”
. . . though these are days of great trial,
Of famine and darkness and sword . . .
“Help us, Jesus!” shouted a familiar voice. Florida.
Still, we are the voice in the desert crying,
“Prepare ye the way of the Lord!”
Next to Florida, I saw Carla Hickman and Dia George giggling and pointing toward the broad expanse of windows running alongside the double-glass doors. Sunday morning shoppers heading for Dominick’s super-size grocery store and kids hanging out at the mall were stopping along the sidewalk and peering in the windows. I grinned. “Prepare ye the way of the Lord” indeed!
And then the band and praise team, a delightful mix of Uptown and New Morning faces, served up the chorus:
. . . Lift your voice! It’s the year of jubilee!
And out of Zion’s hill salvation comes.
All over the room, voices shouted “Hallelujah!” and hands lifted into the air—brown and white in all shades, sending praise to God. Even Denny had one arm lifted! I raised my own hands upward. It was as if I couldn’t help it! All things seemed to fade away as the electric basses thrummed, taking our praise upward . . .
There’s no God like Jehovah.
There’s no God like Jehovah! . . .
Again and again, like ancient drummers sending messages from hilltop to hilltop: “There’s no God like Jehovah . . .”
I FELT WEAK-KNEED AFTER THE SERVICE. How many prayers, how many tears, how many sacrifices had been offered to see this day come about? Mark Smith, for one. The vicious beating he’d barely survived had been the catalyst that had made both congregations ask, Will prejudice and hatred drive us apart into our own safe little worlds? Or bring us together?
I looked around for Nony, remembering what she’d said when Mark first came to worship after that scary coma: “Take that, devil!” But I didn’t see her; the Sisulu-Smiths must have slipped out and gone home. Maybe Mark had tired out.
Most folks headed for the long table loaded down with every-thing from chocolate-chip cookies to sweet potato pie. Maybe it was easier to meet and greet with coffee in one hand and pie in the other. Like weather and baseball, you could always talk about the food. “Isn’t this good? ” “Oh, child! My grandmother used to—” But the long service was too much for my bladder, and I made a beeline for the women’s restroom.
Three stalls! That was luxury. I stepped into the handicapped one—always larger—dumped my Sunday tote bag, and started to pull out a paper seat cover. Just then, the door opened and two voices using stage whispers filled up the room.
“—that awful sweater.What’s with that ? Doesn’t the man have a suit? ”
I froze. Did they know someone was in here?
“Girl, I know what you mean. Didn’t seem respectful, know what I’m sayin’? And that tall kid with the short, shaggy hair—did you see his raggy jeans? Now I know his parents can afford better’n that.”
What? Tall kid, shaggy hair . . . were they talking about Josh?
I was sorely tempted to come out of the stall, pin their loose lips to the wall with a stony glare, and tell these backbiters where to stuff it. Or wait until they were gone, tuck my tail between my legs, and slink out of there, never to return.
Old Jodi responses.
But I knew better now. Knew Satan would like nothing better than to derail God’s people getting together, using careless talk to hurt our feelings and trip us up before we’d even left the starting line.
And if I was honest . . . I’d
thought the very same thing about Pastor Clark wearing that awful sweater—on this Sunday, of all Sundays! And I’d had to stitch my own lips shut that very morning when Josh showed up at the breakfast table in those raggy jeans. Had reminded myself to be glad he was going to church.
I decided to do what I came in here to do.Didn’t normally make that much noise pulling out the paper seat cover and arranging it artfully on the toilet seat, hanging on lest the automatic flush pulled it into the abyss before I had a chance to sit down. But a moment later the bathroom door closed with a whisper, and I was once more alone.
And then the tears crowded to the surface.
Oh God! This merger is going to be harder than I thought!
35
Florida hijacked Josh-of-the-raggy-jeans to take Chanda’s kids home after the service, but I made a separate trip later that afternoon with my pan of lasagna, foil-wrapped garlic bread, a salad—did Chanda eat salad? —and a few chocolate-chip cookies I’d left at home on purpose. When I arrived at the Georges’ new home in the quiet neighborhood straddling the Skokie-Evanston border, the steel gray Lexus was parked out front, a parking ticket decorating the ndshield.
A short woman with straight black hair pulled back from a pale, round face opened the door after I pushed the doorbell. “Uh—” I glanced at the house number. This was the house Chanda had moved into,wasn’t it? But just then Cheree poked her braided head around the strange woman and yelled, “Mama! It’s Ms. Baxter!”
The woman smiled, took the food from me, and disappeared.
Chanda was propped up like a queen in the living room, surrounded by pillows, a puffy comforter, and empty glasses with straws, watching TV sitcom reruns. She turned the volume down with the remote and fanned herself with the TV guide. “Oh, t’ank you, Sista Jodee. Hope all dat cheese don’t give mi gas.What’s dat? ” She pointed at the parking ticket I’d brought in. “Oh! Dat make mi so mad! Dis neighborhood don’ want dem ‘outsiders’ parking here, so all up and down dis street, all de cars need a special resident permit. But does dis lady look like she can run down to city hall an’ get dat permit? Humph!” Chanda fanned faster.
I pulled up an ottoman, trying to ignore the annoying drone of the TV. “Why don’t you just put the car in the garage, Chanda? ”
“Oh, dat. Dat be full of boxes still.”
The woman at the door turned out to be a nanny-housekeeper Chanda had hired for a week—a sweet Romanian woman named Yohanna who barely spoke English, which I thought was hilarious, since it was sometimes hard to understand Chanda’s mix of Jamaican patois and black English. I could just imagine them trying to communicate by pointing, nodding, and inflection. But when I used the half bath off the kitchen fifteen minutes later, Yohanna had the girls setting the table and Thomas was doing his homework at the bar counter.
Talk about serendipity. Chanda the housecleaner now had her own household help! I had an idea Yohanna wouldn’t be going any-where at the end of the week.
Chanda was perfectly willing to give me a blow-by-blow complaint about her hospital stay—soggy food, bossy nurses, medication at midnight—but seemed to be avoiding the obvious. “Chanda,” I finally interrupted. “What is the doctor saying about the cancer? ”
Her face fell, like a glob of silly putty that suddenly lost its shape. Her eyes puddled, and I handed her a couple tissues. “Oh, Sista Jodee.Why God be mad at me? Dey saying mi got to have dat radiation. Is all mi hair going to fall out? Mi tought all dat lottery money make ever’ting work out good for we.” She wagged her head, trying to stifle the wail I could see building up. “What mi do wrong, Jodee? Eh? Eh”
Wrong? I had my own opinion about the statewide lottery, preying mostly on the people who could least afford to sink hundreds of dollars into those weekly get-rich-quick tickets. Except that, whoopsy-daisy, Chanda actually won. What was that all about, God? But who could argue with Chanda being able to take her kids to Disney World or buying her own home for the first time in her life? Things other people, lots of white people, did all the time without batting an eye.
I licked my lips and chose my words carefully. “I don’t know if you did anything wrong, Chanda.That’s not for me to say, anyway.” OK, OK, so I was thinking it.New Jodi responses took time. “But if you think this cancer is about God punishing you for something—nope. Don’t believe it.” I reached out and took her plump, manicured hand. “God never wants somebody to have cancer. He’s not like that. Ever. But God will use things like this. To get our attention, maybe. To teach us something. To cut through our headlong dash through life. Maybe give us a course correction.” Definitely how God had used that car accident on me. “Want me to pray? Let’s pray that you’ll hear God’s still, small voice speaking to you during this time.”
“Yes, yes,” she sniffled. “Dat be a good prayer. You pray, Sista Jodee.”
“Sure. Wait a sec.” I grabbed the remote and turned off the TV. How could anyone hear God’s still, small voice with all that racket on?
MONDAY I HAD A NOTE in my office mailbox that two of my students—Jessica Cohen and Caleb Levy—would be absent that day for “religious reasons.” I checked the school calendar. October 6. Yom Kippur.
Huh. Last year Ruth had invited Yada Yada to attend one of the Jewish high holy days that Beth Yehudah—the Messianic congregation she attended—celebrated in the fall. I had dragged Denny to a Rosh Hashanah service last year, choosing the festive Jewish New Year over Yom Kippur, the more somber Day of Atonement.
But Ruth hadn’t said anything about inviting us this time. Didn’t I tell her last year that this year I would attend Yom Kippur with her, find out what it was all about?
Guess she had other things on her mind.
So did I, frankly. The conversation I’d overheard in the bathroom Sunday morning niggled at me. The nerve! Talking like that in the bathroom like a couple of teenagers,when anyone could have overheard them.
Oh, I realized, as I went out on the playground and brought my third-grade class inside at the morning bell. Maybe they were just a couple of teenagers.
Grace, Jodi.Grace,whispered the Voice in my spirit. Love covers a multitude of sins.
Well, yeah. And to tell the truth, maybe I needed to talk to Josh about those raggy jeans on Sunday morning. If New Morning thought dressing up a bit more on Sunday morning was a sign of respect, weren’t we supposed to be culturally sensi—
“Ow! Ow! My eye!” The screech of pain was so high-pitched I was startled to see Bowie Garcia, a toughie if there ever was one, holding his eye and hopping up and down by his desk. Standing two feet away, a braided and beaded Carla Hickman clutched a pencil in her fist, glaring at the boy jerking like a puppet in front of her.
“She stabbed me! Ow! Ow!” Bowie howled.
“It’s my pencil, an’ he tried to grab it from me.”
Oh Lord.Help me here! I told Carla to sit and don’t move, while I tried to assess the damage. “Bowie! Stand still. Let me see your eye.” I peered closely. A small graphite dot, like a stray black freckle, decorated Bowie’s eyebone below his eyebrow, just millimeters from his eyeball. I blew out a sigh of relief. No real harm done.
But it might have been.
I told my class to sit at their desks and be quiet or there would be two extra math pages for everyone if I heard even a squeak. Alerting the teacher next door that I had to leave my classroom, I marched Carla to the office. “He started it,” she pouted, pulling back on my hand until I was practically dragging her. “Why only me in trouble”
“I will deal with Bowie later,” I said, sitting her down in the time-out chair in the school office. “Grabbing is one thing. But poking someone’s eye with anything is very, very dangerous.”
Carla folded her arms across her tiny chest and stuck out her bottom lip. No penitence there. I wanted to shake the stubborn snippet. But I simply left the office, then leaned against the wall in the hallway. To tell the truth, I could use a time-out myself, give myself time to think. Lord, how do I handl
e this? Teachers were supposed to report to parents any hitting or violent behavior and ask for a parent-teacher meeting.
Not exactly a call I wanted to make to Florida. Last time she practically laughed when I told her Carla had given that kid a bloody nose.
But I tried to call her from the office before I left school for the day; only got Cedric. “Nah, Miz Baxter, Mama’s not home. She workin’ double shift now.”
“Oh.” Double shifts? What was that about? “Who’s taking care of Carla”
“Me an’ Chris—till Daddy gets home anyway.”
I called the Hickmans later that evening, got Carl this time, who said Florida wouldn’t get off until eleven. “You say the boy’s OK? He sounds like a bully to me, but . . . Can’t you just handle it, Jodi? Do what you need to do . . . I know Flo don’t got time for a parent-teacher meeting, not till we get this bill from the city paid off.”
If I’d been talking to Florida, I would’ve asked, “What bill from the city? ” But I just said, “Sure. I’ll handle it, Carl. Don’t worry about it,” and hung up. Only later that evening,while waiting at the back door for Willie Wonka to finish hs final “business” of the day, did it hit me.
Bill from the city.Of course. For the cost of cleaning off that alley wall Chris had tagged.
I DIDN’T WANT TO ASK FLO how much the city was charging them for the alley cleanup, but it worried me all week. Hundreds? Thousands? How did the city expect a kid like Chris to pay that off? It got dumped in the parents’ lap, that’s what, which made sense theoretically—but it killed me to think of Florida working from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. five or six days a week. Might kill her was more like it.
Seemed like the rest of us should help somehow. I wasn’t sure where an extra hundred bucks would come from, but Denny did get a raise with the AD position this fall.Would a hundred dollars even make a dent? We’d need to multiply that somehow, but I wasn’t sure Florida would want me calling around, drumming up money. The Hickmans had their pride. Especially Carl.