Holy Ghost Girl

by Donna M. Johnson

  I locked my knees and held my arms away from me. She cupped my chin and studied my face. “You are just as pretty as Pam Terrell. In fact, you’re pretty as Marilyn Monroe.”

  “Who?”

  “Marilyn Monroe. Go ask the ministers if you aren’t just as pretty as Marilyn Monroe.”

  I skipped into the living room, ready to show myself off. Brother Terrell and Brother Cotton sat on the edge of the couch, deep in conversation. Children did not interrupt adults, especially preachers. My face burned and my heart pounded. I stood in front of the men and without explanation pitched myself up on my toes and began to whirl.

  I heard the soft tapping of my patent leather shoes on the floor. One more twirl. Faster. My dress and petticoat flew up; a show of lacy panties. I came to a stop in front of Brother Cotton and looked him in the eye.

  “Do you think I’m pretty?

  He pursed his lips and whistled. “Very pretty.”

  I lowered my eyes and smoothed the skirt of my dress. “Pretty as Marilyn Monroe?”

  His big hands encircled my waist. He looked me up and down and turned me around. “Honey, you are prettier, much prettier than Marilyn Monroe. Don’t forget it.”

  “Thank you, Brother Cotton. I won’t forget. But who is Marilyn Monroe?”

  “Nobody you need to know. Now, go play.”

  “Tell me, please.”

  Brother Terrell cut me off. “We got business to discuss. Now go on back to your mama.”

  Brother Cotton slapped my bottom, end of discussion. I flounced from the room. Maybe I did look pretty. I ran to the bathroom, climbed on the side of the tub, balanced on the sink, and stretched to see my reflection in the mirror. Bangs lay pasted on my forehead in thin, sweaty strands. The rest of my hair was separated into ugly little dishwater-blond sausages. All that primping and I looked worse. I walked outside and kicked at a tree.

  Chapter Nine

  EVERY DAY THERE WAS A LITTLE LESS OF BROTHER TERRELL. CHEEKBONES rose like canyon rims from the planes of his face. His Adam’s apple bobbed exposed and lurid above the pit at the base of his throat. A glimpse of him ambling to the bathroom in his T-shirt and pajama bottoms featured a clavicle that ran like a rail over the sinkhole of his chest. A boneyard of a man. What once were muscles had thinned to curtains of skin that hung from the sticks of his arms. I passed him in the hallway and shifted my eyes as he slunk by, his shoulder pressed against the paneled wall for support. I could not bear to look at him directly. His frailty encompassed a growing desperation that embarrassed me. He was naked in his need, and it was terrible to witness. He said he was fasting to hear from God, but it was the world after which he seemed to hunger. His eyes, round and swollen, slipped over every person, every object in the room, searching, searching, searching. It was as if he found himself locked outside life and looked for a way back in. On occasion he gathered the four of us kids close, Pam and Randall nestled under each arm, Gary crowding in. I pulled away, unable to laugh and snuggle and hold my hand out for the silver dollar he offered, terrified by his vulnerability.

  The house we had rented in Birmingham, Alabama, was still and quiet. Without the perpetual hum of Brother Terrell in motion, everything slowed down. The adults talked in worried, hushed voices, always about Brother Terrell. Had he eaten? Had he tried? Oh my God, what if he dies? The women made soups: vegetable, chicken noodle, beef stew.

  Betty Ann nagged. “You’ve got to eat something. You’re gonna kill yourself. It’s hard on the kids. Please. Eat. Just try.”

  At the beginning of the fast he joked and told her to get thee behind me, Satan, but three months later the pleas for him to eat came from every direction, and he gave in and took a few spoonfuls of soup. His stomach rejected it. He drank broth, but that, too, came back up. He drank water and Sprite through a straw to keep from drinking too much at once and throwing it back up. His eyes bounced like pinballs. He was afraid. He wanted to eat, but couldn’t, and the more he wanted to eat, the more he tried to eat, the harder it became for the rest of us to put food in our mouths.

  Late one afternoon, Pam, Randall, Gary, and I sat in the white painted kitchen around a square table covered in pink, blue, and red flowered oilcloth, about to dig in to plates of hamburger meat and tomato sauce ladled over piles of macaroni. Goulash, we called it, and it was my favorite. I loaded the first bite into my mouth just as Brother Terrell shuffled around the corner into the kitchen, his twenty-eightyear-old body frail and stooped as an old man’s. The meat frying and the sweet tang of the tomato sauce had lured him from the back bedroom where he lay resting before the evening service.

  He leaned into the counter and gripped its edge. “Hey. Y’all eating?” His voice was soft and whispery, and he sniffed the air as he spoke. He parted his lips and pulled them away from his teeth, an attempt at a smile that made his face appear more skeletal. Pam yelped and ran from the room.

  “Pam. Honey, what is it? Come back.” He turned to follow her but lost his footing and slipped. My mother leapt toward him and kept him from hitting the floor. He clutched her arm and rested his head on her shoulder. She looked down at him for what seemed a long time, fear and tenderness passing like clouds across her face. He searched her eyes. “I’m dying.”

  “You are not dying.” She called for help. “Brother Cotton! Come here!”

  Brother Cotton’s dark curls and big red face appeared above Mama and Brother Terrell. Betty Ann and Laverne trailed behind.

  “I’ll take him, Carolyn.” Brother Cotton slid one arm around Brother Terrell’s waist and the other arm under his knees, and carried him like a small child back into the bedroom. Laverne followed, but Betty Ann lingered in the kitchen, circling Mama.

  “You’re always there, aren’t you, Carolyn?”

  “I’m trying to help.”

  “Keep your help to yourself.”

  Mama thrust her face close to Betty Ann’s. But instead of saying anything she just shook her head, threw the dish towel, and walked out of the kitchen, through the living room, and out the front door. Betty Ann stared after her, as if the air my mother moved through held a clue about what to do next. She glanced at Randall, Gary, and me as she left the room. “Y’all eat. Before it gets cold.”

  The grease had separated and congealed around the edges of my plate, and the bite of goulash I took before Brother Terrell came into the kitchen lay in my mouth like a dead thing. I gagged and ran to the trash can to spit it out, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, and walked back to the table. Randall dropped his head into his hands. The nurses in the hospital had warned that Randall shouldn’t get upset, that it could aggravate his bleeding condition. Gary took his thumb out of his mouth and patted his arm. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” Randall jerked his arm away, pushed back from the table, and walked out the back door. Through the window I watched him pick up an old baseball bat and beat it against the skinny trunk of a tree. His belly swayed with each swing. It seemed to get bigger every day, a sure sign that the blood was backing up in his stomach again. We had not taken him to the hospital because Brother Terrell said we had to hold on to the promise that God had healed Randall and not let the devil steal our faith. The Bible was filled with stories of people who, as Brother Terrell often reminded us, paid the price for their faith. How much would we have to pay? I slid my fork tines through hollow tubes of macaroni. The bare scraggly branches of the tree trembled each time Randall cracked the bat against its trunk. Everything seemed harder in winter. Bark flew off, exposing the soft white flesh beneath.

  “I wish he’d stop.”

  Gary looked up at me. “What?”

  “Nothing. Just eat.”

  Brother Terrell eased himself down on the edge of the platform, resting his feet on the prayer ramp below. “Somebody bring me my guitar.” He slipped out of his suit coat and held it up. Brother Cotton exchanged the guitar for the coat. “Can I have a little water too?” Three men jumped up to get the water.

  “Fasting leaves a funny taste
in your mouth. Y’all ever notice that?”

  Yes, amen, they had noticed.

  He strummed the opening chords of “They That Wait Upon the Lord.” “It’s hard to wait on God, but if you’re a man of God, there ain’t nothin’ else to do.”

  He closed his eyes, strummed his guitar, and began to sing.

  They that wait upon the Lord

  Shall renew their strength

  They shall mount up with wings of an eagle . . .

  The lyrics are an affirmation of faith, but the tune is slow and melancholy. That night Brother Terrell’s bare-bones guitar playing and his ragged voice turned the song into a lament. Mothers stopped shushing their children. Teenage girls held on to the notes they were supposed to pass. The tattooed young men who were dragged to the revival or bribed by their mothers to come stopped elbowing one another and listened.

  Brother Terrell had started over again on the first verse when a high, reedy laugh made its way up from the audience. Goose bumps popped up on my arms. The spirit sometimes moved people to wail when Brother Terrell sang a sad song, but never to laugh. Up on the platform, my mother half-stood at the organ bench looking for the source of the laughter. She gave Brother Cotton a look that meant someone ought to do something. He nodded and left the platform. The laughter stopped as suddenly as it had started and was replaced by a low burble of words and sounds. I scrambled up in my chair and scanned the back of the tent for a better look. Laverne pulled at my hand, but I ignored her. The women in front of us inched to the edge of their seats and craned their necks to see. Others turned in their seats and looked around. Brother Terrell continued to sing and sway, eyes closed.

  They shall walk, but not be weary

  They shall stumble

  But not fail . . .

  Brother Cotton hurried toward a group of people, mostly men, who stood in a little clutch in the middle section of the crowd. Someone, a girl, broke free of the group and ran up the aisle toward the platform. She passed so close to where we sat I could have reached out and touched her pale, puffy arms or felt the strands of her long blond hair whip against my fingers. She was barefoot and wore a sleeveless flowered shift that rode up her thighs as she ran. She flung herself against the sides of the prayer ramp below where Brother Terrell sat. She reached up and grabbed the railing that ran along the outside edge of the ramp and shook it. She whinnied, “David Ter-rell, David Terrell,” in the same high, eerie voice that had laughed aloud. Perched on the edge of the stage above her, Brother Terrell sang on, his black shoe tapping out the time.

  Brother Cotton, Dockery, and Red converged on the girl, pulling at her from behind. Dockery pried one of her hands off the ramp and pinned her arm behind her. She twisted away from him and ran back toward the congregation. Brother Cotton and Red grabbed her around the waist, but she flipped like a fish from their hands. The congregation stood and prayed aloud, “Blood of Jesus, blood of Jesus, blood of Jesus.”

  Men and women left their seats and walked toward the girl with their arms outstretched in her direction. Someone ululated, “Lelelelelelelelelelele.”

  Voices layered one over the other as people began to speak in tongues. “Ma ma so mako. Shondiddy-i. Shondiddy-i. Nenen la ma hi.”

  The girl turned, holding her arms out and away from her as if for balance. The two tent men and Brother Cotton circled her like a gyre. The audience threw a wall, two to three people deep, around the four of them. “Blood of Jesus. Blood of Jesus. Blood of Jesus.” I looked up at Mama. She had stepped away from the organ bench and had both hands outstretched toward the girl, her lips moving.

  An older woman pushed through the crowd, calling, “Doreen, Doreen.” The girl turned her head and when she did, Brother Cotton tackled her and took her down. Sawdust flew, and the crowd that gathered around them fell back a bit. He straddled her waist, his hands catching and pulling her arms back. She flailed her legs until Dockery caught and held her ankles. Red knelt down and tried to talk to her as she banged her head against the ground. Finally, he gave up and held her head still.

  After a few minutes, the praying, ululation, and tongue-talking died away. Calls for the blood of Jesus grew less frequent and the crowd shuffled and looked at one another as if to say, “What now?” Brother Cotton looked over his shoulder at Dockery and shrugged. The ministers on the platform stood and whispered at one another. My mother stood. No one knew what to do.

  “I came here for you, David Terrell.” The voice, now low and full as a promise, came from the ground.

  Brother Terrell kept singing. One of the preachers on the platform started toward him as if to alert him to the situation, but someone caught his shoulder and pulled him back. The Lord and Brother Terrell had their own way of handling things.

  The voice rose from the sawdust in a singsong pattern. “Da-vid Ter-rell . . . Da-vid Ter-rell . . . Oh, Da-vid Ter-rell . . .”

  Brother Terrell finished the song and opened his eyes. He looked down at the girl, the tent men, and the crowd that stood around them. Without saying anything, he unhooked his guitar strap, pushed himself up, walked across the stage, and slipped the guitar, body first, then neck, back into its case. He walked down the prayer ramp and leaned on the rail for support. “Y’all can return to your seats now. Everything’s okay.”

  The crowd fell back but continued to stand.

  “The Bible says some demons come out only with much prayer and fasting, amen?”

  “Amen, yes it does.”

  “The Lord has been readying us for this. Is someone here with this girl?”

  The short, square-shaped woman who had called Doreen by name stepped forward. Her gray hair was slicked back in a bun, and she wore a brown sack of a dress, its plainness broken by a thin black belt. She looked like hundreds of women who came to the revivals, the ones who seemed rooted wherever they happened to be standing, feet planted apart, hands hanging in fists at their sides. They may not have been able to control what came at them, and plenty did, but bless God they were not going to let the devil or anything else mow them down. Brother Terrell put his arm around the woman’s shoulders and inclined his head toward her as she spoke into his ear.

  He nodded and picked up the microphone that hung around his neck. “She says this girl’s been this way since she was sixteen.”

  He turned back to the woman. “How old is she now?”

  He unclipped the microphone from his neck and held it in front of the woman.

  “Doreen’s nineteen years old, Brother Terrell.”

  “You her mama?”

  She nodded yes.

  Doreen howled and tried to roll on the ground. Her shift rode up and an expanse of thigh came into view. Dockery took one hand off the girl’s ankles to tug at her shift and was rewarded with a foot to his chin.

  Brother Terrell addressed the audience. “Can someone help cover this girl up?” A woman ran up and draped a sweater across the girl’s thighs.

  Brother Terrell turned back to Doreen’s mother. “Go ahead, sister.”

  “She was sneaking off with older boys at night, hanging out at pool halls. I took her to a revival in Chickasaw, but she sat in the back and made fun. That night on the way home, she grabbed the wheel of the truck and tried to kill us all. She been that way ever since. She tried to set the house on fire with us in it. She came at her daddy with an ax, liked to kilt him. She tries to eat raw meat.”

  “Blood of Jesus. Blood of Jesus. Blood of Jesus.”

  “What do the doctors say?”

  “We can’t afford no doctor. I took her to every preacher I could, but not one done anything for her. Her daddy and me pretty much give up. Then two days ago she asked me could she come see you.”

  “Oh, Bro-ther Ter-rell.” Doreen called his name in that soft voice. “Brother David Ter-rell.”

  Her mother moved toward her. “Hush, Doreen.”

  “It’s okay, sister.” Brother Terrell steadied himself against the railing of the prayer ramp. “That’s not your daughter talking
, that’s the demon inside her.”

  The word “demon” ran through the crowd. People picked it up and whispered it back and forth to one another, nodding. Demon possession wasn’t exactly common, even in our circles. Two or three times a year some poor soul interrupted the service spewing obscenities or a relative brought them through the prayer line bucking and frothing at the mouth. Exorcism, or the casting out of devils as we called it, was a terrifying and thrilling experience. The possessed were preternaturally strong and on occasion had broken free from the men who restrained them and had to be pulled off of some audience member. Worse was our belief that demons could fly out of one person and into another. I didn’t want to end up like these people with their wild eyes, strange habits, and damned souls.

  Brother Terrell told the men to let the girl up. They looked at him as if he were nuts. “Really, Dockery. Y’all go on and let her up.” The men tried to pull her to her feet but she buckled at the knees. Red grabbed her under one arm and Dockery held the other. Brother Terrell put his hand on her forehead. Her body stiffened.

  “Neeee neee naaaah lo si me lay lo. We speak in tongues, too, Brother Terrell.” As the girl spoke, small red marks appeared on her face and arms, a field of ripe strawberries.

  “Blood of Jesus. Blood of Jesus. Blood of Jesus.”

  Brother Terrell dropped his hand from Doreen’s head and faced the congregation. “I need every one of you to keep your eyes closed and your hearts and minds on the Lord. Don’t let fear get a hold of you and don’t open your eyes, or next thing you know, the demon will be in you.”

  Laverne closed her eyes and covered Gary’s eyes with her hand. I squeezed my eyes shut, but they wouldn’t stay closed. Brother Terrell put his hands on the girl’s head. His face turned red and purple, just like when he was mad at one of us kids.

  “You foul spirit of death! Come out of this girl. In the name of Je-sus. Depart! I command you. Go!” His voice sounded stronger than it had in weeks.