‘I wish you weren’t sick, Mom. I wish you could take us places.’
Martin Luther’s voice is wispy, resigned. His shoulders rise and fall deeply. Almost nice, this quiet in the eye of the storm. Almost, she wants to walk out in it, touch the broken stalks, smell the earth, look at the miracle-green sky.
‘I’ll get well soon. I’ll take all you guys someplace,’ Rosaline says. ‘After Su-mi’s wedding … How’s about I take you all to see grandma and grandpa in Indiana?’
‘And Dad?’
‘Not Dad. Don’t say anything to Dad.’
3.
‘You’re a lucky man, Lynden.’
The hand that claps Lenny’s shoulder is large and muscular. He turns from watching his new wife crouching with the flower girls to smile at the owner of the hand: Brother Gene, Eugene Luce. Tall and clean-cut like Paul Newman, with that strong, straight Paul Newman nose and a look of being stuffed into his shirt and tie. Lenny smiles at Brother Gene, as he’s been smiling all day at the men who’ve come to clap him, the women who’ve squeezed his arm tight like a blood pressure test. ‘Oh? Yeah.’
Then he turns back to watch Terra some more.
Her dress is short, tight at her bent haunches, billowy at the sleeves. She’s got a crown of some kind of white flowers: apple blossoms, he wants to say, but maybe not; maybe it was Minnie who had apple blossoms? Minnie or horsey-pretty Jo Harris with the chestnut hair, who’s marrying Jorge Harrison, a mixed-race guy from Louisiana. Su-mi Jones he knows has no flowers, but a black bouffant like Priscilla Presley, and Donna, Johnny Bronco’s bride, a jaunty little hat with a birdcage veil that conveniently hides her big, humplike forehead. Whatever the flowers are, Lenny likes them, as he likes the blond hair down Terra’s back, thick as a pelt, bright as a flag. Terra’s hair and Terra’s dress and Terra’s flock of little girls: nappy-haired; daffodil yellow; foxy-red; Pomo Indian. Little girls in dresses as short as Terra’s but full-skirted, holding tiny hand-woven baskets, plucking grass to fill them, upturning the baskets over Terra’s head and hiding their faces in spasms of guilty mirth.
‘Some things never change.’ Brother Gene’s hand stays on Lenny. ‘Young ladies, they may be burning their bras and whatnot, but they all want a special day.’
‘Sure,’ Lenny agrees.
‘Course, the styles are different. Joya had this long, swirly skirt. Like a mermaid’s tail. Darn near stepped on it a hundred times. Had a few too many, that day.’ Brother Gene gives a short, cough-like laugh. ‘Dutch courage. We all need it sometimes.’
Lenny catches a whiff of sweet heaviness on Brother Gene’s breath, and the hand on his shoulder makes more sense. Unlike most Temple parties, there’s been a steady trickle of valley wines all afternoon. But then, this isn’t a typical Temple party. Sister Phyllis broke a chair from laughing too hard. Sister Antonia’s kids broke up a fight between her and their drunk dad. And, in the parking lot, enough rows of tables to accommodate anyone who’s anyone in the county.
‘Twenty-two, ’bout your age. My first year with the IPD. She was the smallest, blondest thing you ever saw, but, Lord, was I scared.’ Brother Gene, as if suddenly aware of his lingering hand, lets it drop like a piece of wood. ‘It was different back then. Never had much to do with young ladies, outside church and family.’
Brass instruments fart from the bandstand, gather voice and soul. Lenny watches as Terra gigglingly picks bits of grass from her hair, blows them like fairy-dust into the girls’ faces.
‘Shesureisgood with them,’ Brother Gene slurs curtly. ‘I know my girls? They’re gonna miss having her around. More’n they’ll miss their big brother, even.’
As if on cue, Lenny notices the younger Luce girl breaking off from the throng near the bandstand and weaving in Terra’s direction. A cute kid of about twelve, ash-blond like all the Luces, honey-hued shoulders and happy Hawaiian-print frock. She stops a few feet from Terra, hangs her head and traces a foot in the dirt until Terra looks up, reaches out a belled sleeve.
‘See? Practically sisters.’ Brother Gene’s drink slops as he nudges Lenny.
What can his new wife and little Dot Luce have to whisper about? Lenny doesn’t know, but it pleases him to watch them hold hands, the girl ducking to Terra’s ear. Terra’s mouth moving, her eyebrows upturned. Then she looks over her shoulder, eyes bright as a pair of reef fish, swimming through the corals of suits and skirts to meet his.
Lenny grins.
‘Officer. Why aren’t you out there shaking your thing?’ Terra simpers as she approaches, hands on Dot’s shoulders, tossing her mane at the bodies grooving to ‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’.
‘I got two left feet, Cinderella.’
‘They look just right to me,’ Terra flirts. ‘Anyway, that’s not what I heard. I heard you’ve got moves.’
She and Dot start giggling. Lenny feels his cheeks tighten. Strange as it is seeing his brand-new wife flirt with a man twice her age, he knows this is what she does best; that she was hand-picked by Jim for exactly this reason to meet-and-greet newcomers every Sunday.
‘Clever young lady like you shouldn’t be listening to rumors,’ Brother Gene says conservatively, but there’s a crackle of humor in his voice.
‘Well, this clever young lady is just dying for a dance with her daddy.’
Terra squeezes Dot’s shoulders so the girl whips her head around. ‘Am not! Terra!’
Terra winks and pushes Dot toward her father. ‘I’ll be watching!’
Lenny’s new wife leans into his shoulder as they watch the pair shamble off. ‘He loves you,’ she sing-songs in his ear. ‘And he’s drunk.’ Lenny laughs, shivers as Terra skims a hand over his butt. ‘Hey, Spaceboy, listen: don’t tell anyone, but I just heard the craziest thing. Listen …’
‘I’m listening.’
‘Dot, right?’ Terra lowers her voice. ‘So you know Dot Luce has the cutest little crush on Paolo Jones? Jim’s Brazilian kid?’ Lenny doesn’t know why he’d know such a thing, but he nods anyway. ‘Yeah, well, they were playing at bride and groom, and Paolo says, ‘I’ll miss you when I go back to Indiana,’ and Dot’s like, ‘Huh?’, and Paolo says, ‘Mom’s taking us to live with grandma and grandpa in Indiana.’ Not visit, Lenny. Live.’
‘Oh?’ Lenny follows the forms of the tall white cop, his little blond daughter, as they merge with the crowd. ‘Are you … sure?’
‘I wish I wasn’t, but what else could it mean? It must be serious, if Mother’s taking the kids away? Do you really think Mother could leave Father? Do you think Father knows?’
Together, they peer back at the tables. Jim Jones has his helmet of black hair bowed toward the District Attorney, Frank Mueller, a squat old dude with a mouse-colored moustache. To his right sits the DA’s son Dwight Mueller, a pimply law student just married to Su-mi Jones; Su-mi herself, looking blasé; the DA’s buxom wife and, finally, Mother Rosaline — cleft-chinned, pale as parchment, seemingly burdened by the weight of her red-gold beehive. To Jim’s left are Roger Luce and Minnie Bellows; Minnie’s parents, Isaiah and Petula; some white dudes Lenny doesn’t recognize. Evelyn.
‘He must know.’ Lenny looks to his ex-wife, as if her pale, crossed legs and talkative hands might hold the answer. ‘They must’ve figured it out together.’
‘Do you think …? ’ Terra repeats, touching her blunt fingernails to her lips.
Lenny wrests his gaze from Evelyn to Rosaline. Mother Rosaline; she’s a nice lady, if too middle-aged for him to think much about. The old people love her, and the children. She has all those children, different races. She sings a song some Sundays for her black son — black baby, as you grow up, I want you to drink from the plenty cup — with such aching tenderness, it can’t possibly be scripted. It’s a shame, Lenny guesses, that she might be leaving and taking all those kids with her. Then again, he guesses maybe it’s good news for Evelyn.
&nb
sp; Maybe, he guesses abstractly, he should be happy for Evelyn.
‘Do you think … maybe we should say something?’
‘To Father?’ Lenny can’t recall a single serious conversation with Jim Jones since getting back from Reno. There’s comfort in this, the sunny block of time between now and those draining late-night phone calls. He’s had a good appetite, these past months. He’s gained a little weight, a little muscle. He’s been earning money for the Temple with a weekend job, stacking logs at the timber mill. He’s more than halfway through his alternate service. He’s been sleeping in a shed on the Harrises’ farm, but banging Terra regularly, daydreaming regularly of how she looks on her back, her toes curled skyward, her baked-pink nipples, her brown pussy hairs, her face close and hot, scorching out all other thoughts.
He’d rather not have to talk about anything heavy with Jim today.
‘I think we should.’ Terra ignores him. ‘Father deserves to know they’re talking.’
‘It’s probably none of our business, Earthgirl. Besides, he looks busy.’
Obediently, Terra quietens to regard Jim, talking to the DA in his humble, insistent way. Though it’s impossible to know what they’re discussing, stray words of Jim’s float up: liberation, self-sufficiency, overpopulation. It occurs to Lenny that he’s been hearing Jim all day, without fully realizing it; his voice beneath the commotion like a hum of traffic, constant.
‘Well … what if we tell someone else,’ Terra muses.
A whisper of discomfort rises in Lenny as he follows his new wife’s gaze along the table.
‘Come on, Earthgirl.’
‘I mean it,’ Terra stresses. ‘Lenny, you know how people talk. We can’t just sit on this.’
He watches his new wife’s eyes fix on his ex-wife; hair in that same boring bun, skin bleached by the sun, glaringly plain next to those dusky teen brides. Terra gives a sudden bark of laughter. ‘Don’t worry, honey. You don’t have to come. Hey, it’ll only take a second, huh?’
And before he can say anything else, she’s tilting her face up to his, digging her fingers into his hair, curling her tongue behind his front teeth to tickle his palate. His new wife. What are those flowers anyway? Apple blossoms?
You’re a lucky man, Lynden.
Lenny looks off at the bandstand, where Marvin Gaye has given way to tom-tom drums, the hard bass riff of ‘Sunshine of Your Love’. Brother Willie, a new recruit with a honey-brown afro and deep cuts on his cheeks, is on lead vocals, and he’s good. The sun is good, turning Lenny’s eyelashes green, beating against his back, itching his shirtsleeves. He watches the crowd: little Dot doing a loose-armed monkey, Brother Gene hunching to mirror her; Sister Diane with her elegant, tulip-shaped ass wiggling circles around Jorge’s dad, Brother Hal; Brother Corbin, a skinny red-haired Texan, chivalrously rocking out with Sister Ursa, the white chick with Down’s Syndrome adopted by Isaiah and Petula Bellows. They’re good. It’s all good, better than any old church wedding. He’s a lucky man, yeah. And yet … he can’t help turning back.
Evelyn is making room for Terra at the table, smoothing her dress, re-crossing her legs. A satiny dress, high-necked, dappled like a Monet painting, shorter than anything she ever wore with him. The non-Temple white dudes lean in, laugh at whatever Terra says. Then, like a schoolgirl to her deskmate, Terra covers her mouth with her palm. Evelyn inclines her head.
Their two heads, gold and dark, conspiring. Like staring naked-eyed at a solar eclipse.
4.
Most nights, they eat quickly at the Red Creek commune, sopping up lentil stew with home-baked bread. Quickly because their days have made them hungry: long hours at the mental hospital for Lenny, at the Temple daycare for Terra. Because there are chores, allotted and taped up on the fridge: dishes to wash, clothes to iron, animals to feed. Because they haven’t had a honeymoon and time alone is precious.
‘I can’t believe you like me even when I smell like chicken poop.’ Terra giggles, stripping off her overalls in the bathroom. For the first time all day, they have a few minutes to themselves. She admires her reflection. ‘Well … maybe I can.’
‘Are you going to wash your hair?’ Lenny likes helping with Terra’s hair.
‘Nope. I washed it Saturday. Martha’ll kill us if we use up another bottle.’
Sister Martha is a white single mom who lives in the back part of the house with her twin sons, Joey Dean and Bobby James. It’s Martha who starts banging on the bathroom door within five minutes, yelling about hot water.
‘Dried-up bitch was probably timing us.’ Terra rolls her eyes, turns the tap off with a hiss. ‘Don’t you think it’s racist how she always sits so far from Nessa at the table?’
‘I never noticed.’
‘Just watch. Every time they’re side by side, she holds her arms like this.’ She tucks a towel under her armpits, curls up her hands like a cripple. ‘Some of these old white people, it’s like they’re all about integration on Sundays, but when it comes to living it …?’
Lenny watches her pat her breasts dry, her belly; twist the towel around her dripping locks and pull it off seconds later. She shimmies into her waiting shift dress; combs out her hair; checks her flushed face. As an afterthought, she steps into her underwear — the wholesale Woolworth’s kind they all wear, T. Lynden Sharpie-d on the waistband.
She’s quick. Why not? They’ve got a meeting to get to.
Sister Nessa is in the kitchen, mashing something in a bowl. A tiny woman, hair in tiny braids, her belly a boulder between her and the counter. Practically mute and prone to flinching when Lenny or any other white guy comes upon her unexpectedly. But she seems to like Terra; flashes her gums and mumbles, ‘Nah, I’m okay,’ when Terra fusses over her being on her feet so late in her pregnancy. Not for the first time, Lenny wonders what it’ll be like having a newborn around, and then wonders whether he and Terra will ever have one, and then guesses if they do it’ll probably be adopted. In the den, Brother Corbin is helping Joey Dean with his homework, and Terra leans over their shoulders. ‘You know, Moby Vagina is a way better book,’ she says straight-faced, then rears up laughing. She’s still laughing as they walk under the dark trees to the station wagon, and Brother Eustace is running the engine of his pickup, nodding his head to a murmur of Motown. He looks up when they reach the station wagon and nods, ‘Hey,’ and Lenny nods, ‘Hey … you going to work?’ and Eustace nods again, ‘Yup,’ showing him the night-watchman’s cap on his dashboard.
Lenny doesn’t know what to feel about he and Terra being the only ones from the commune invited to this meeting. Lenny doesn’t know what to make of all the meetings, but he doesn’t dwell on it; the drive is too nice, balmy night air blowing and a first-date excitement in his belly. When they reach the Temple, there’s fewer cars in the lot than usual, and, in the meeting room, about fifteen young people gathered, all white except for Jorge Harrison and Minnie Bellows-Luce. He wonders if he and Terra are tardy, but Jim Jones just waves them in with a lilting, ‘Lyndens,’ and keeps advising Roger and Minnie, seated Indian-style at his feet.
‘People looking up to you. Means there’s people gonna talk behind your back, that’s inevitable. I know it. Every day. But you gotta be above it. Don’t have an ego, you won’t be touched by personal attacks. Minnie, you’re stronger than most, damn sure stronger than this whiteboy. His weakness, can’t let it affect you. Now, I’m not saying total abstinence—’
‘I don’t care about that, Father,’ Minnie speaks up. ‘I just thought, now Roger and I are married … we’d make each other stronger.’
‘Ideally, honey. And don’t get me wrong, you’re well-matched. Wouldn’t have advised this union otherwise. But Roger’s got issues to work through, and you can’t let him hold you back. Strong, proud black woman like you — I think you could stand to be more withholding.’ Minnie lowers her long-lashed eyes, and Lenny feels a surge of sympathy fo
r the girl, who seems to dislike being singled out just as much as he would. Mercifully, Jim turns his attention to all the young couples clustered on the plush carpet. ‘Masturbation, that’s fine. But no sex. We don’t want any pregnancies at this time and we don’t want ego-trips. It’s egocentric to waste time on sex when you could be contributing to the Cause.’
Terra catches Lenny’s eye with a sexy little smile; they nod in unison.
After that, Jim lectures Roger for a while. Lenny is sort of glad to see Roger Luce in trouble. Roger is handsome. Roger’s nose side-on is like a Greek statue’s. Roger’s eyes are blue ice chips. Roger lived in the same house as Terra, until recently. But the incessant talk of ‘overcompensation’ and ‘latent homosexuality’ is boring; Lenny has heard it enough times in midweek meetings, where guys like Roger and Johnny Bronco are often brought up for being vain or playing the field. So Lenny turns his attention to the carpet, pretending it’s blue moss; to the children’s finger-paintings tacked on the wall; to his new wife and the young women who aren’t his wife. Jo. Laura. Minnie, listening to her husband being criticized with a poise that seems almost superhuman for an eighteen-year-old …
It’s only when Jim’s speech takes a sudden turn that Lenny’s ears prick up.
‘My marriage ain’t no different from anyone’s. I trust all you here to understand that,’ Jim utters modestly, hands clasped, chin doubled down at the carpet. ‘There’s highs and lows. Strength and weakness. Rosaline, goddamn I love that woman, never saw a better mother, but she’s not so strong.’ He shakes his head. ‘Physically and mentally, she’s unstable. It’s not easy for her, living with the burden of my future assassination.’
There’s a melancholy hush. It’s not the first time Jim has mentioned that he will someday have to die for the Cause, but it’s always a bummer to think about.
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