Holy Ghost Girl

by Donna M. Johnson

  Gary fell asleep in the backseat. My shoulders worked their way up to my ears. The longer we drove, the more the boy talked. About the revivals, the miracles he had seen since he began to travel with Brother Terrell. Goiters, cancers, blindness, cripples, you name it. He smacked his gum and went on about how the Lord and Brother Terrell had changed his life. A familiar monologue. The headlights from oncoming cars played across his long, broad fingers curled around the steering wheel. I liked the way he kept both hands on the wheel and the way he slowed the car around curves. My shoulders began to relax. My eyes closed. He wasn’t going to kidnap us or kill us. We would see Mama again after all.

  Chapter Fifteen

  NO ONE KNOWS HOW WE CAME TO LIVE WITH THE SMITHS. WHEN I ASK my mother, I get her stock reply:

  “Honey, there was so much going on at the time, I’m lucky to remember my own name.”

  I always want to say amen, but I never do.

  I paw through odds and ends of memory, looking for some way to explain how we came to reside in that ramshackle Victorian house where everything strained and leaned and pulled away from everything else. I see my brother and me on our backs, staring up into the stars. The wooden bars of a folding chair push into my spine. We are lying down in chairs. A long face with ears the size of small boats floats above us. Skillet-size hands reach from white cuffs to pull us up. The scent of Noxzema signals my mother is nearby.

  The scene stretches into a story, a story I had forgotten but remember hearing and telling while growing up. We were in yet another revival in Columbia, South Carolina. It had to be Columbia because that’s where the Smiths lived. Pam and Randall were there and we spent the evening running in and out of the tent until our mother grabbed Gary and me and planted us in two wooden folding chairs a few feet away from where she sat on the platform.

  “I’ll be watching, so don’t you dare move, either of you.”

  And we didn’t. Not even when the music took off and the spirit fell and a tall, gangly man in a white shirt and black slacks whipsawed toward us in double time, arms churning and flapping. Desperate to escape the human windmill headed our way, I waved at my mother. Her hands popped up high above the keyboard and her body bounced to the beat. Her gaze focused straight ahead on Brother Terrell. Just as he put his hand on his hip and began to move his feet in the shuffle step he was known for, the white shirt crashed into Gary and me. We flipped through the tent canvas onto the ground outside, where we lay for an instant, staring up into the heavens. The lower halves of our bodies remained under the tent, bottoms firmly planted in the chairs, legs sticking straight up like disjointed doll limbs. We were stunned but not afraid. The tall man in the white shirt stood over us now, but we didn’t move until our mother gathered us close and pulled us back under the tent.

  We blinked against the glare of the floodlights. Adults stumbled around us, drunk on the spirit, hands waving slowly, lips moving without uttering a word. Since Mama was with us, there was no music, but people continued to dance, some in marionettelike jerks, others in neat toe-tapping shuffle-slide steps.

  The white-shirted man looked down at us. “You kids all right?”

  Gary and I nodded. Mama said we were fine.

  “When I start shoutin’ I don’t see nothing or nobody.”

  The next thing I knew, Mama was on her way to Barbados with the revival team and Gary and I were dodging Brother Smith’s holy delirium on a regular basis. During the months we lived with the Smiths, two of the stained-glass windows in the church the family attended were boarded up, testaments to Brother Smith’s spiritual abandon.

  Put the head and face of Lyndon Johnson atop the body of Ichabod Crane and you’ve got the spitting image of Brother Smith. He was all knees, ears, elbows, and beaky nose, and he towered over most grown-ups, including Sister Smith. A small, wiry woman with brittle black hair and stooped shoulders, Sister Smith announced her entry into every room with an exhalation that spoke of her profound disapproval and bitter disappointment. The woman was a potent breather. While living with the Smiths, I officially developed a “weak stomach,” a condition that was to a six-year-old what fainting was to a certain breed of Southern ladies in bygone eras. Anytime I found myself anxious or upset, I threw up. Our living conditions being what they were, I was sick on a regular basis. I didn’t will it or fake it, but it did come in handy. Nausea excused me from countless long-winded sermons, and sometimes, if I threw up enough, I didn’t have to go to church at all.

  Wanda, the eldest of the three Smith teenagers, often accompanied me to the bathroom or the bushes or the side of the road, depending on where the urge struck, and smoothed my hair back from my face while I heaved. Afterward, she held my head in her lap, and if the situation allowed, placed a drippy washcloth on my forehead. She rocked and sang just under her breath a song about a girl dying in a car accident and how her boyfriend wanted to be good so he could see her in heaven. The lyrics made me tense, but I knew from the rapt, solemn expression on Wanda’s long, pale face that the song was important to her, so I kept quiet.

  “Don’t tell anyone I sang this worldly song. Okay?”

  I nodded.

  Anything not related directly to God was a sin in the Smith household. Telling jokes. Smiling. Playing. Exhausted from doing too much of nothing, I tiptoed up the stairs once to the forbidden second story. Stacks of boxes lined the hallway. A splash of red and yellow peeked out of the corner of one box: a tic-tac-toe game, and below it books with drawings of kids and mice and rabbits in blue coats. I pulled out one of the books and ran my hand over it. I wondered whether Wanda or one of the twins would let me borrow the book or the game. Sister Smith’s pinched, dour face came to mind. Not in this life. I pushed through the first door. More boxes; some neatly stacked and pushed against the wall, others scattered across the room and half-filled with old pictures, chipped whatnots, petticoats flung on top. A single bed, sheets and blanket smoothed and tucked into the sides, was shoved against the wall. A nightstand stood watch in the middle of the room, its crooked-neck lamp illuminating nothing. Faded wallpaper peeled away from the walls.

  I wandered through an endless succession of rooms, all minimally furnished and filled with boxes. It was as if the Smiths had packed up their lives and were getting ready to move. But where? Maybe they were waiting for the rapture. Brother Terrell always said the time was short. I walked into the last room and noticed Betty’s white sweater hanging from it. So this was her room. Betty was Wanda’s younger sister and the twin of Eddy, the Smiths’ only son. With their dark hair, big eyes, and petite frames, the fifteen-year-old twins exerted a powerful pull on my imagination. I gravitated toward them, but they did not gravitate back. I tripped on the corner of a box and a shoebox filled with letters tumbled off. Maybe love letters. I grabbed a handful of envelopes, stuffed them in the shoebox, and set it back. I had to get out of there before someone discovered me. But if the rapture came and I was left behind, I’d head to Betty’s room and grab the shoebox. Never mind that I didn’t know how to read. Miracles happened every day. When the rapture came, I would read those letters.

  The Smiths were bona fide religious nuts, a distinction hard to achieve in our circles. The grown-ups who traveled with the tent fasted and prayed and used their hotline to heaven on a regular basis, but they also made jokes, enjoyed good meals, and listened to country music occasionally on the radio, if only to keep them awake during the long drives between revivals. Brother and Sister Smith honed piety to a sharper, more austere edge. Hunger was next to godliness and the family fasted several days a week. They also insisted my brother and I fast, though in deference to our ages they allowed us to eat one meal in the evening. The Smiths wanted to crucify the flesh, to rid their bodies and ours of earthly needs and cravings, so that we could all become more closely attuned to the world of the spirit. All that fasting must have worked because the Holy Ghost dropped in regularly. We might be washing dishes or sitting down for a rare family meal, when Brother or Sister Smith
would begin praying aloud and speaking in tongues.

  “Hallelujah. Praise God. Pass the sweet potatoes.”

  “Glory be to God, this meat loaf’s good.”

  “Amen, Sister Smith. Shondalie. Condalie.”

  “Efna say ho li. Where’s the gravy?”

  We thought of the Holy Ghost as a direct experience of God. But it was a bit like the chicken pox, in that it was something you could “get,” and people got it in almost every church service and revival. Everyone said the Holy Ghost changed everything, and that was certainly my experience. Despite the rift between Brother Terrell and the organized church world, the Smiths attended an Assemblies of God church located conveniently across the street from their house. Unless I was sick, I was in the pews every night. The services usually ended with an altar call. On this particular night, the preacher said he had a burden for young people and announced a special altar call for the youth.

  “The Bible says God will pour out his spirit on all who seek him. And for many of you young people, tonight is the night. God wants to fill you with his spirit. Don’t leave this church without saying yes to God.”

  Teenagers trickled up to the front. First came the greasy-haired boys who slipped outside to smoke when the spirit overtook their parents. Next came the girls with tight blouses and too much powder, girls who often followed the boys into the darkened corners that lay just beyond the church doors. Then the altar call regulars, kids whose consciences pushed them forward with a litany of offenses real and imagined. I often fell into this third group, but that night I had something else on my mind: a pressing need to visit the ladies’ room. I tried to tell Wanda, but a stern look from her shut me up. Up front, two to three adults gathered around each of the twenty or so kids kneeling at the altar and laid hands on them.

  “Forgive her, Father. Wash away every sin. Let the power of your holy spirit flow through her, Lord. Now, Lord. Right now. Bless her, Jesus.”

  Prayers for forgiveness gave way to the earnest solicitation of the Holy Ghost. Adults held up the arms of penitents and new converts. Cries of “Bless her, Lord” and “Praise him” and “Fill him Lord, fill him” rang out over the moans of twenty souls. The prayers of a hundred people, some in English and some in those unknown tongues, echoed through the church.

  Wanda jabbed me with her elbow.

  “Go on. Get up there.”

  I made my way up the aisle and knelt below one of the stained-glass windows that had been raised to let in the soupy South Carolina air. I bowed my head to pray for the safe return of my mother and the Terrells. The smell of gasoline, motor oil, and exhaust fumes drifted up from the gas station next door and filled me with a strange longing for my dad: a man I had not seen since infancy and whose face I could not recall. I had often conjured the thought of my father when I needed to feel the spirit, but this was different. It was as if I had just lost him. I covered my face with my hands.

  Brother Smith drawled in my ear, “Just pour your heart out to Jesus, honey. That’s it. That’s it. Do you know why you’re crying?”

  I said, “I feel the spirit for my daddy.”

  Brother Smith heard, “I feel the spirit, Daddy.” This child he had taken in was feeling the movement of the Holy Ghost, and she had called him Daddy. He wrapped one of his long arms around my back. His big left hand cupped my shoulder. With his right hand he lifted one of my arms into the air.

  “Just give yourself to the spirit, honey. Let him take over.”

  Someone raised my other arm and began to coach me in a stage whisper, “That’s it. That’s it. Now say, ‘Shondi shondi shondi’ over and over again.”

  I repeated the syllables.

  “That’s it. Now faster.”

  “Shondishondishnondi.” My tongue tripped. “Shondiki . . .”

  “That’s it, baby. Let the Lord do the talking.”

  Brother Smith clapped me on the back. I stuttered again.

  “Glory be to God, the Holy Ghost has got a holt of this child.”

  Shouts of “Hallelujah, thank you, Jesus” reverberated. A hand hit my forehead and I reeled back under the blow. I fluttered my eyelids and saw a clutch of adults gathered around me, determined to help me pray through to the Holy Ghost.

  Getting the Holy Ghost Assemblies of God style could take hours. The petitioner pled with God to fill her with his spirit and practiced different combinations of consonants and vowel sounds to loosen the tongue. Believers mopped sweat off the brow and offered sips of water to keep the throat moist and the tongue moving. I’ve seen women and men turn pale after a few hours and look as though they were ready to faint. Just when the person reached exhaustion, the tongues came. If they didn’t, the supplicant continued pleading and babbling.

  I didn’t have hours. What I had was an urgent need to pee. I opened my eyes.

  “Don’t fight him, honey. Let him take over.”

  I closed my eyes.

  “That’s right. Let God have his way with you. Begin to thank him for giving you the Holy Ghost.”

  “Say, ‘Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you.’ ” Another hand hit my head and shook it.

  “Thankyouthankyouthankyou . . .”

  The syllables rattled round in my mouth, flowed together, and began to sound like something altogether different.

  “Thanuthanuthathanunu.”

  The adults howled hallelujahs.

  I ran my “thanu thanu”s up against the “shondi shondi”s. “Thanuthanushondishondithanu . . .”

  The band of bodies around me broke as the adults began to shout and speak in tongues. The tall stained-glass windows beside me rattled as the breeze blew harder.

  The preacher’s voice shaped and narrated what was happening. “The Bible says the Holy Ghost blew upon them like a mighty wind. He’s blowing through here tonight. Lift your hands, everybody.”

  I kept my tongue moving. “Thanu shondi condi thanu tha nu tha than u nu nu ah.”

  I opened my eyes and surveyed the situation. Everyone in the church was dancing. I closed my eyes and joined them. I longed to abandon myself to God, but something stopped me. Something always did. Usually it was my inability to escape my sense of selfconsciousness, but on that night it was more basic. I had to go and soon. I crumpled to the ground as though slain in the spirit and lay there for a respectable length of time, then rose stumbling as I had seen grown-ups do and made my way down the aisle to the door marked LADIES. By the time I poked my head out of the lavatory, church was over. I walked out into the evening, where believers stood in small clutches discussing how the Holy Ghost had fallen on the young people and how different their lives would be from now on and how the Bible had foretold a great outpouring of the spirit in the last days and surely these were the last days.

  Everywhere I turned, I faced the backs of people. I missed the spotlight that had so recently shone on me, so I closed my eyes and began to jerk and speak in tongues again. I felt a hand on each elbow. I fluttered my eyelids and saw a young man on one side and Betty on the other.

  “Isn’t it wonderful how God is blessing this child?”

  “It is, and he’s gonna bless her some more when we get home.” She knew. I stopped jerking.

  A permanent uneasiness took up residence in me that night. I couldn’t decide if my initial experience with the Holy Ghost was real or faked. If it was real, why didn’t I feel different? If it was faked, I had blasphemed and that was the point of no return that preachers had always warned against.

  “There is one sin for which there is no forgiveness, and once you cross that line there is no way back. God will turn you over to a reprobate mind. Even if you want to find your way back to God, you won’t be able to.”

  Did I have a reprobate mind? What exactly was a reprobate mind? Had God turned his back on me? These questions weighed on me for the rest of my childhood. Whenever I committed some wrong—watching The Monkees on TV, attending movies or high-school football games, making out with a boy, or God forbid
, wearing slacks—they always resurfaced. I was never sure where God and I stood after that night, but I was pretty sure there was a vast amount of space between us.

  One night after evening worship, the Smiths gathered around their small kitchen table with other church people. I walked in just as Brother Smith pounded the table to make his point. “The Assemblies of God is the only church today that stands by the truth. Everybody knows they only kicked David Terrell out because he had two wives.”

  His back was to the door that led from the living room to the kitchen, so he did not see me enter the room. Sister Smith shushed him, and he and the others turned to look at me. My face grew hot, and I felt as if the floor had given way, as if I was standing there with nothing to support me, nothing to save me. Brother Terrell’s visits to our house in Houston, the gifts, the empty couch in my mother’s living room all came together in that instant, and I knew that my mother was one of those two wives and that it was an awful, shameful thing and that her shame was my shame. I knew, and from that moment on there was no way to not know.

  Gary and I passed our days swinging on the rickety wraparound front porch. We pumped our legs out as we arced up toward the peeling blue of the ceiling and snapped them at the knees as we swept back toward the edge of the porch. I looked over my shoulder as the swing rocked to and fro. Roses, ramshackle sheds, scuppernong vines, and patches of bare earth slick and shiny as Brother Smith’s bald head jammed against the heavens and were gone. The world in all its misbegotten beauty rushed through me; glory, glory, glory. Wanda found me there weeping once, and asked what was wrong.

  “Nothing’s wrong. It’s just so . . . you know, beautiful.”