Lucinda Washington told Lionel she had been born and raised in a Cleveland ghetto, but “I loved to study. And that was going to be my way out of the projects.” She said she fell in love with journalism, reporting, and writing. She graduated from journalism school and worked her way up finally to Global Weekly magazine.
She made good money, even more than her husband, Charles, who was a heavy-equipment operator. He was as proud of her as anyone, and secretly Lionel was proud of her too.
But Lionel had another secret, and it caused him no end of anxiety. Lionel knew something no one else in the family except André even suspected. Neither he nor André were really Christians, even though the whole family history revolved around church.
Church was something that had not changed when Charles and Lucinda Washington had moved to the suburbs. They had been able to somehow fit in to the strange white culture, though many people made it clear they were not happy about a black family’s moving in, wealthy or not. The Washingtons had quickly befriended those homeowners who had not moved out and convinced them they were good neighbors.
Finding a church they were comfortable in was another story. Lionel could not remember when he had not been attending church. Family legends said his mother took him to church when he was less than a week old, but is mother told him that was slightly exaggerated. “But you weren’t two weeks old,” she said, grinning. “You might as well have been born in the church and grown up there.”
Actually, he liked church a lot. Lionel was glad that his parents drove all the way back into the city to attend their old church. Some of the people who criticized them for “moving out and moving up” were glad to see they had not forgotten their roots. And even if they were jealous of the Washingtons’ ability to move out of a high-crime area, they were glad to see them come back every Sunday morning and evening and every Wednesday night.
Church was what the Washington family was about, but Lionel knew it went deeper than that. His mother not only loved church, she truly loved God. And Jesus. And the Holy Spirit. They had visited a few churches in the suburbs, including a couple that had both white and black members. Lionel had been a young boy then, but even he could see that these just were not the same as his home church in Chicago.
Those people didn’t seem to have any spirit. His mother assured him, “They are certainly true believers, and I don’t question their salvation for a second. But I need to go to a church where people don’t mind expressing themselves. If I was to jump and shout praises or sing at the top of my lungs, or sway to the music or even dance in the aisles, I wouldn’t want to worry about what someone thinks.”
Lionel knew what she was talking about. He loved to clap and sing and sway, and while he had not danced in the aisle, he enjoyed watching people who did. The services at his church were long and loud and enthusiastic. People were happy and joyful. He was as happy as anyone when his parents finally realized they would not find their kind of church in their new neighborhood.
So Lionel had the best of both worlds. He lived in a safe place, went to good schools, learned to work and earn and save but also had whatever he really needed, and he got to go back “home” for church twice a week. Every Sunday, his family stayed with relatives between the morning and evening services.
One week while staying with his grand-parents, Lionel got to spend a lot of time with Uncle André. Lionel rode along while André picked something up at the store. When André came out, Lionel was surprised to see him followed closely and quickly by two other men about André’s age. Obviously not noticing Lionel at first, one of them said to André, “You hear what I’m saying? You get us that money by Friday or you disappear.”
André immediately smiled and slapped hands with them, nervously introducing them to “my big sister’s little boy.” Lionel shook hands with them, but he was scared. He pretended not to have heard, but those guys had clearly just threatened Uncle André. As they drove back to the neighborhood, Lionel asked him about it.
“Them?” André said. “Oh, they’re just friends. They were havin’ fun with me.”
“It didn’t sound like it,” Lionel said. “I don’t like them. They scare me.”
André pulled to the curb, several blocks from his parents’ home. He took a deep breath and told Lionel, “You’re right. They’re bad guys. I borrowed some money from them for a deal that went bad, and I don’t know how I’m ever gonna pay them back. I’ll figure out somethin’, or I’ll just have to hide out for a while.”
“Aren’t you scared?” Lionel said.
“’Course I am. But that’s my life, Lionel. That’s why it’s good you’re a Christian and bein’ raised by my sister. She’ll keep you on the straight and narrow path.”
“Uh-huh,” Lionel said.
“What’s that mean?” Uncle André said. “You in trouble already?”
“No, but I was just wondering. I mean, you’re a Christian too, aren’t you?”
Uncle André looked surprised. “Me? Do I seem like a Christian to you?”
“When you’re not, um, I mean—”
“When I’m not gettin’ in trouble, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
André chuckled, but he looked sad. “You’ve seen me come back to the Lord lots of times, huh?”
Lionel nodded.
“I’m gonna tell you the truth about that, Nephew, but you can’t be tellin’ anyone, you hear?”
Lionel nodded again.
“I mean, I don’t even want you tellin’ your mama. Now listen, those people care about me, I know they do. And I need a place to crash and people to help me get back on my feet now and then. And when I get myself cleaned up and try to start over, I’m serious about it. But the truth is, I tell ’em whatever they want to hear so they’ll take me back. If they knew I was serious about surviving but not serious about God, I’d have nobody.”
Lionel sat stunned. “So, you’re not really a Christian then?”
André sighed as if he hated to admit it. “No, I’m not. Truth is, I don’t believe God would forgive somebody like me. I just keep messing up. And every time I go straight, I know I’m gonna mess up again.”
“But doesn’t God forgive you every time?”
“I don’t ever feel forgiven. My family forgives me, but that’s because they believe I’m either tryin’ or I’m sick.”
“But my mom says that’s how God forgives people. He uses the people who love them to show them his forgiveness.”
“Well, I can’t deny my family has done that. But the truth is, I’ve never been a true believer, a real Christian, and I really believe it’s too late for me.”
Lionel sat shaking his head. This was sad, but it was also scary.
“So, Lionel, tell me I’m wrong.”
“That’s the trouble,” Lionel said. “I don’t know, because I think I agree with you.”
“That’s not what I wanted to hear,” André said. “I was kind of hopin’ you were still young enough to believe.”
“Well, Mama says you’re never too young or too old, and you’re never too good or too bad to become a Christian.”
“I know she does. Remember, I grew up with her. But what’d you mean by sayin’ you agree with me?”
Lionel wasn’t sure how to say it without coming right out with it. “I’ve never really become a Christian either.”
André squinted at him and smiled. “So we’re the two secret heathens in the Washington family?”
Lionel did not find it funny. “It’s a secret all right. Everybody thinks you’re a Christian who has bad spells once in a while. They think I might become a preacher or a missionary someday.”
André pulled away from the curb. “You ought to talk with your mother about this,” he said. “I’d rather see you grow up like her than like me.”
“I can’t talk to her,” Lionel said. “It’d kill her. She thinks I’m one of the best young Christians she knows. You won’t say anything to her, will you?”
“Not if you don’t want me to. You could spill the beans about me too, so we’ll just keep each other’s secrets, OK?”
Lionel nodded, but he didn’t feel good about it. He wondered if André was as worried about Lionel’s not being a Christian as Lionel was about Andre. “Aren’t you afraid it might all be true?” Lionel said. “And that we might end up in hell?”
André parked in the alley behind his parents’ home. He threw back his head and cackled that crazy laugh of his. “Now that,” he said, “I do not believe. I may have once, but I’ve outgrown that. Some of these stories and legends about what’s goin’ to happen at the end of the world, I don’t know where the preachers get them. I can’t imagine they’re in the Bible.”
“My mom says they are.”
“Well, maybe someday she can show me, and then I’ll think about it. Meantime, I’m not goin’ to worry about fairy tales, and you shouldn’t either.”
But Lionel did worry. When they got back to the rest of the family, everyone was gathered around the piano and singing old hymns. Lionel liked that. He sang well and enjoyed blending harmonies. Uncle André sang right along with the rest of them, but once he winked at Lionel. Then he worked his way near him and whispered, “This stuff makes for good singing, but remember, half of it’s a good way to live and the other is just fairy tales.”
Lionel wondered if Uncle André really believed that. He was a cool guy and older and seemed wise in the ways of the world. If anybody should worry about what happened to him when he died or when the end of the world came, it should be André. But he didn’t seem worried. He had a plan, a scheme. He had convinced himself he could play the game well enough to keep his loving family around him.
Lionel would rather have been like his mother than like his uncle, but he knew he and André were pretty much the same. André did a lot worse things, but if what Lionel’s mother and the rest of the family believed was true, Lionel knew that he and André were in the same boat.
André began dancing to the music, and his relatives clapped and urged him on. Lionel couldn’t help but smile, seeing his joyous uncle entertaining everyone. Lionel’s mother put her arm around him as she watched André. She pulled Lionel to herself and said, “Isn’t the Lord wonderful? Don’t we have a good God?”
Lionel tried to ignore her, but she noticed. “Hm?” she said. “Aren’t you glad to serve a God who loves you so much?”
“Um-hm,” Lionel lied. “Sure, Mama. ’Course I am.”
He felt terrible. Like a hypocrite. Like the liar he was.
FOUR
Ryan—The Skeptic
“YOUR real name’s Rayford?” Ryan Daley squealed at his best friend. “We’ve known each other how long, and I never knew that!”
Raymie Steele smiled and shook his head. “Don’t make such a big deal about it. Otherwise I’ll tell everybody your middle name!”
The boys had grown up on the same street, one living on each end. They had begun kindergarten together, and now they were both twelve and in the sixth grade. They were as close as brothers. Ryan was an only child, and Raymie may as well have been. His only sister, Chloe, was eight years older and had been away at college two years already.
Ryan and Raymie had a lot in common. Each had a father who was too busy for him. These guys needed each other. Ryan was a little shorter and thicker than Raymie, who was slender and tall and dark like his father. Ryan was a blond and the better athlete of the two.
Like any close friends, they squabbled a lot. Once in a while they even said nasty things to each other and vowed never to talk to each other again. The next day one would call the other or just go to his house, and they would start in where they had left off, best friends. No apologies, no mention of the argument. Just friends again.
They had always gotten a kick out of how close their first names were. That was what had started the discussion of their real full names. Ryan said he had been named after three famous Chicagoans. “My first name comes from Dan Ryan. I don’t even know who he was, but there’s an expressway named after him. And my middle name, promise you’ll never tell a soul, comes from some old mayor from way back when who got assassinated.”
“What’s his name?”
“I don’t want to tell you. I don’t trust you.”
“If you can’t trust me—”
“OK, I trust you. But you gotta promise.”
“I promise.”
“And you’ve got to tell me a secret you don’t want anybody to know.”
“I will.”
“All right,” Ryan said. “The mayor’s name was Anton Cermak.”
Raymie Steele had doubled over laughing. Ryan couldn’t resist laughing too. “So,” Raymie said when he caught his breath, “is your middle name Anton or Cermak?”
“Cermak,” Ryan mumbled.
“No!”
“Yes! Isn’t that awful? And my last name’s the same as a former Chicago mayor too.”
“I know. How’d your middle-name guy get assassinated?”
“My mom made me look it up. For some reason he was in a parade in Florida with President Roosevelt when some guy tried to shoot the president, missed, and hit Cermak.”
“Which Roosevelt?”
“I don’t know. Was there more than one?”
“’Course,” Raymie said. “Teddy and Franklin.”
“Probably Teddy, I guess.”
“When was this?”
“In the 1930s, I think.”
“Then it had to be Franklin.”
“Whatever, Raymie. How do you know all that stuff?”
“I don’t know. I just like to study, and I remember a lot of it.”
“So it’s your turn to tell me something you don’t want anybody else to know.”
“All right, Ryan, as long as we’re talking about names, I’m actually a ‘junior.’”
“Your name is the same as your dad’s?”
“Yup.”
“So his name is Raymond? You’re actually Raymond Steele?”
“Nope. It’s Rayford.”
Now it was Ryan’s turn to laugh. They swore to each other that they would never tell anyone else. But when they were alone, they started calling each other Rayford and Cermak. It usually made them smile.
One of the reasons their friendship worked so well was that in spite of all their similarities, they also had individual strengths and weaknesses. Raymie was the student, the one who seemed to know everything and was usually right. It drove Ryan crazy that Raymie actually enjoyed school.
Ryan went to school mostly to play. He was the athlete of the two. You name the sport, he enjoyed it and was good at it and played with all his might. He was the fastest runner, the highest jumper, the best hitter and thrower and even the best basketball shot in his class. Raymie said he considered himself a klutz in sports but that he enjoyed watching Ryan and was proud to be his friend.
Ryan liked it when Raymie stayed overnight at his house or he stayed at Raymie’s. Secretly, Ryan believed Raymie had the best dad. Raymie’s dad was Rayford Steele Sr., an airline pilot. He always called it “driving” the planes, and the planes he drove were the big ones, the 747s.
Ryan had gotten to go into the cockpit of a 747 once when Mr. Steele had taken him and Raymie to O’Hare. They watched the planes take off and land, and Captain Steele gave them pilot caps, wing pins, and even old computer printouts of weather conditions and route logs.
Whenever Ryan stayed at Raymie’s, he hoped Captain Steele was home and would tell him airplane stories. Mr. Steele insisted that his job was actually quite routine and boring. “The important thing is that we do it right and do it safely,” he said. He had never crashed, which disappointed Ryan because he thought there would be a great story behind something like that.
The only thing Ryan didn’t like about being at Raymie’s house was that Mrs. Steele seemed so religious. She always made them pray before they ate, and she often talked about God and even told Bible stories. Ryan enjoyed some of t
hose, but it made him nervous when Mrs. Steele made Raymie say his prayers before going to sleep. Church and prayer and Bible stories had never been part of Ryan’s life.
His father was nothing quite as dramatic as an airline pilot. Ryan’s dad was a sales manager for a big plumbing fixture company. Ryan was proud that his dad was successful and seemed to make good money. His dad seemed a little upset that, as he said, “I probably don’t make as much as your friend’s dad, the pilot, but I’m not far behind.”
Ryan’s mother also worked, so he often came home alone after school. He wasn’t supposed to have anyone in the house when his parents weren’t there, but for many years he and Raymie cheated on that. They would play and eat and watch television, always keeping an eye out for Mrs. Daley. When she pulled into the driveway, Raymie would hurry to the front door and slip out as she came in the back. Once she was in the house, he knew it was safe to ring the doorbell as if he had just gotten there.
That kept Ryan out of trouble. But one day, a few months before, that had all changed. For a few days, Raymie had excuses for why he couldn’t come over after school. Finally Ryan asked him right out. “What’s the deal, Raymie?”
“Well, you’re not supposed to have anybody over without one of your parents there, right?”
“Hello!” Ryan said. “We’ve been breaking that rule for a long time. My mom has never even suspected.”
“That still doesn’t make it right.”
“We’ll never get caught, Raymie!”
“I’m not talking about getting caught. I’m talking about whether it’s right.”
“So, if she catches us, we’ll tell her it was the first and only time.”
The Vanishings Page 3