by Han Nolan
That stirred folks up good after that. They were all pushing forward, trying to get the line moving faster, and more folks were squeezing onto the porch as if that would hurry things up some. I could see faces mashed up against the screening; and a group of folks, strangers, just outside the entrance to the porch, had fallen to their knees and started their praising and crying and such, right there in the dirt.
Seeing all that made me want to push Miss Tuney Mae's chair into the line and get her praying on Mama coming home right away.
Someone called out, "Only two minutes a person, now, only two minutes up there!" And the word was passed along until it got outside the living room door, where folks were knocking and shouting, "Hey, time's up in there."
Mad Joe was still dancing and, seeing us, he jigged his way over—just to show us his happy face, I guess, 'cause he turned right around again and headed back.
I called out to him. "Mad Joe, what's happened?"
He spun around and jiggitied toward us. He stopped and slapped his hand down on Miss Tuney Mae's chair and hung over us, panting. Then he pulled a hankie out of his back pocket and wiped his sweating face. He waited until he slowed his breaths down before he spoke.
"Datina's smiling in heaven now, praise the Lord," he said, wiping his face again and laughing his he-he-he kind of laugh.
"Are Vonnie and Velita over their spell, then?" I asked.
"Over it and cured, they sure are, and glory hallelujah! And it's just how Datina said. She always said once I believed with all my heart and got straight with the Lord our babies would be cured for sure." He stuffed his hankie back in his pocket and wiped at his face with his free hand. "It was my not believing that held them back—Lordy, it sure was—but no more."
"But how did it happen?" I asked. "They were looking a mite poorly, last I heard."
"And how do you know they're cured and not just having a well spell like they do sometimes?" Miss Tuney Mae added.
Mad Joe nodded at us and stood up straight. "It was me hearing last night how Miss Becky come back. That's when the miracle took up happening."
"But you were wild drunk last night," Miss Tuney Mae said. "You were shooting at my corn."
"Whoeee, I sure was. But, see, that's a part of this here miracle I'm telling you about. There I was out a-roaming the streets and feeling sorry for myself when I seen Miss Becky riding along in the Cobb truck, setting right next to her sister. And they stop and they say how she'd been found at exactly ten o'clock, and how the prayer meeting had broke up at exactly that same time, and how it was a miracle; and hearing it, my own miracle started to happen." He rubbed at his neck. "I'm going to have to write a book about it, I sure am, 'cause all a-sudden I wasn't drunk no more and I was hearing this voice a-telling me, Git ye over to the Dabney house and pray, and believeth in what ye ask and pray.'"
Mad Joe wiped at his face again, this time using the sleeve of his shirt. He couldn't keep the sweat from just rolling down his face. Then he said, "Well, I've never been hearing voices before, 'specially not ones speaking 'ye' and 'believeth,' no sir, and I hurried on over here and went on inside, and that's miracle number two."
Me and Miss Tuney Mae looked at each other, and then I asked, "How was it a miracle, you going inside?"
"'Cause I heard this morning that the house was all locked up after the prayer meeting for Miss Becky. Locked up till this morning. No one got in last night, 'cepting me. And funny thing, Miss Dabney said she was in that room listening to music and cleaning her art supply stuff most of the night and she never saw me. No sir, never saw me. It was like I was a ghost or something."
I felt these chills on the back of my neck, and my eyes teared up with the wonder of it all.
"Yes sir, the door just opened right up and I went in and I saw the chair and it was glowing this soft blue-white light."
Mad Joe was whispering now.
"So I got right down on my knees and started praying, and then I heard these singing voices coming from every corner of the room. I heard three notes, and they was sung by a angel choir, each note higher than the last, and on the last note it was like something inside me split wide open and came a-pouring out, and when it was through pouring"—Mad Joe raised his voice—"I was clean. I was clean through and through, nary a dark thought left to weigh me down. And that voice said to me, 'Go ye home an' feed your children grain, and sleep believing that they are healed.' And I did. I did just that. And after I fed them oatmeal and slept some, I set out for here to tell the Lord how I believe, and when I come back they were cured—both of them. Both of them cured at the exact same time, not a day or two apart the way it usually is. That's how I'm a-knowing it's forever and it's a miracle, praise the Lord. And I've got me no hangover and I've lost that drinking desire, yes sir, glory be!"
He fell to his knees and held his arms above his head.
"Glory be!" he said again, and then kissed the ground and stood up. He had this big smile on his face and tears in his eyes. "Now wait till that Miz Marshall comes nosying around our place again. Won't she just see what's what! An' your papa, well, maybe this will help him see the light some. He's needing awful bad to see the light."
"My daddy's the preacher," I said, feeling this hurt spot swelling inside me. It was one thing me thinking a bad thought about Daddy, but I wouldn't let anyone else do it, especially someone half-crazy. "He already sees the light," I said. "Shoot, he is the light, and it's just you not believing in preachers that's got you talking that way about my daddy."
"Charity, listen to Mad Joe," said Miss Tuney Mae.
"Listen?" I glared at her. "Shoot, he doesn't even believe in preachers."
"Now, where did you ever get a notion like that?" Mad Joe asked.
I turned back to him. "I've seen the way you don't ever look at him, you look right past him. Always you look right past him like he doesn't exist."
Mad Joe studied his turned-up-at-the-toes shoes and wagged his head. "Miss Charity, I believe in preachers. I do, sure 'nuff. But your papa, he's different. He needs to own people, understand? I can't look him in the eye or he'll own me, way he does this whole town, an' black folks have come too far to let some white man think he can own us. Nobody should own nobody. No sir, he can't own me long as I'm knowing my own mind and looking in my own direction." He stared into my eyes. "Your papa's holding on too tight, you hearing me? He's holding on so tight something's just bound to bust, and when it does, just you watch out, Miss Charity, 'cause all hell's gonna break loose. It sure is. It sure is."
19
Daddy was downright cheerful when he came walking out the front door of Adrienne's house. He was springing up on the balls of his feet and swinging his arms like he had a tune going in his head.
I hurried to the car and climbed in beside Grace and we rode home with Daddy whistling the whole way, and I knew why. He had seen the chair. He had seen the glow. He'd probably talked to it, too. Probably even saw Jesus. He wouldn't say, of course. We never talked about deep-feeling things, but I could tell, and I wanted to throw my arms around his neck, I was so pleased.
That night I had a dream about Mama. I dreamed she had these big green wings attached to her back and she was flying over Casper and bombing it with prunes, and I was swimming after her, trying to take off from the water, but I didn't have any green wings. One of her prunes landed on my head and I started to sink. Mama flew away.
When I woke up my pillow was wet like I had been crying for real. I sat up and wondered about asking Daddy about Mama. He was the only one who really knew if she was coming back, not Grace or Miss Tuney Mae. Daddy knew—and God. I was afraid to ask Daddy about it, but if I could get to that Jesus chair again, why, I could ask Jesus and just wait there till He answered.
I got up and got dressed, thinking all the while about Mama and the day she left. I remembered how after the car rolled out of sight and we'd all gone back inside, there was this funny kind of silence hanging over us. Not the usual kind that hangs around after someone's left, reminding u
s of that person's voice or laughter or the music that's gone missing. No, this was Mama's silence left behind. The silence she moved and breathed and lived in every day like an extra layer of skin. And when she left, wearing all that green, it was as if she had peeled off that silence and left it here for us, her old discarded skin of silence.
I heard someone banging on our front door.
I went down to answer it but Daddy beat me to it, so I just stayed on the steps watching and listening. It was Mad Joe and he looked a sorry sight. He was holding his hands up like he was praying and they were trembling. The knees of his saggy black pants were shaking, too, and he was saying to the ceiling, "Dear Lord, have mercy, no! My babies. They's cured. You can't take that away. You can't give it, then take it away. No, Lord, You can't give it, then take it away."
"What are you talking about, Joe?" Daddy growled. "What are you doing disturbing us this early in the morning? I've got a sermon to give in a bit, I can't be listening to this. Now, you go on home and sleep it off."
"I ain't drunk." Mad Joe straighted up some. "I come about the Jesus chair. You can't take it, no sir. You got to put it back. You got to put it back now. They's cured. You got to put it back now."
"Now, listen," Daddy said, holding up his hand. "If you want to know about the chair, you come to the service this morning."
"Forcing me to come here a-begging for my daughters' lives," Mad Joe said, ignoring my daddy. "Yes, sir. I am begging. I have no pride. I'm begging you. Have mercy. Dear Lord, have mercy on my daughters' souls." He dropped to his knees.
"Get up, man. That chair won't save them."
"Please. Just give me the chair. Lord a - mercy, they'll die, don't you understand? They'll die! Give it to me. Give it, I'm begging. I'm begging!"
Mad Joe was crying. Begging and crying and saying how his daughters' blood would be on Daddy's hands. But Daddy stood firm, quoting Scripture, yelling it out over Mad Joe's pleading, and I couldn't stand it. I knew Mad Joe would never get the chair from Daddy.
I brushed past the two of them, with Daddy calling after me wanting to know where I was going, but I just ignored him. I had to get out of the house.
Vonnie and Velita were sitting in the back of their daddy's pickup, parked in our drive, fanning themselves.
"Hey, Vonnie. Hey, Velita," I said, not wanting to be rude but wishing I could run away.
They both looked up at me, and looking back at them it seemed to me the light that used to shine from their eyes had gone. Their eyeballs were dry and funny looking, like those weren't their real eyes atall, like their real eyes were already somewhere else, somewhere the rest of them was wanting to be.
"Vonnie? Y'all all right?"
Vonnie held a bunch of flowers up to her nose and sniffed. Then she said, "Take my body who will, take it I say, it is not me."
I glanced back at the house. I could hear Mad Joe's voice still pleading and Daddy still quoting Scripture.
I couldn't stand it. I ran. I ran as fast as I could away from my daddy. Just like Mama, I was running, trying to block out Mad Joe's voice. Trying to block out Vonnie's and Velita's faces. All their pain and fear was more than a body could handle.
20
The sign pointing the way to the Jesus chair had been pulled out of the ground and was lying facedown in the grass. I ran down the long drive toward the back porch, wondering if the house was locked up again the way Mad Joe said it was the other night. I caught sight of the herb garden sprouting weeds and looking trampled, and I closed my mind to it, not letting the pain reach me, just running on past.
The porch door was open. When I got to the living room door I held my breath and turned the knob. It twisted in my hand and the door opened. I stepped inside. The room was cool and dark. The chair was gone. I called out to Adrienne.
"My God, who is it now?" Adrienne called down from upstairs. "Go away. The chair's not here."
"It's me, Charity."
I heard the clinking of jars and a chair scrape back and then there was Adrienne coming down the stairs. Her hair was up and she had on her painting shirt and her India-print skirt, like the one Sharalee made me.
"Charity?" She gave me this wondering kind of look with her head tilted and her brows furrowed.
I ran to her and threw myself in her arms. "I hate him," I said. "I do. I hate him. I've run away. I'm never going back."
Adrienne grabbed my arms and held me away from her.
"What's happened? Of course you're going back."
"No, never—and anyway, how could you let Daddy take the chair?" I cried.
"Charity!"
"How could you?"
"Very easily. It was a nuisance." She shook her head and her hair fell out of its knot.
"A nuisance! Jesus a nuisance?"
"Charity, calm down. Your father took the chair to the church. Didn't he tell you?"
"But it belongs here. Here's where Jesus is. You saw Him here. We need it. Mad Joe's daughters and Sharalee and the Cobb sisters and—and me! I need it. I hate him! How could he take it? How could you let him?"
"Charity, stop. You know I can't have people in here day and night. I can't. I need space. I need time for my art. I'm not running an amusement park."
"But the chair is helping people—isn't that more important than your art? I—I mean, can't you just wait a bit till things kind of..."
"Charity, maybe someday you'll be an artist and you'll understand. Nothing's more important than my art. Nothing. Speaking of which"—Adrienne turned back to the stairs—"I've got work to do." She stood on the first step and looked back at me. "Now you run along, and lock that door behind you."
"No. I'm staying here."
"Charity, please."
"I want to be with you. I want to go to New York. I'm ready. I want to go today."
"Well, I'm not going today."
"But you've got to. I've got to go. I'll never forgive him. I hate him, I really do. Mad Joe's over at the house right now pleading for his girls' lives and Daddy's standing there quoting Scripture. I hate him. He's a liar. He's not like Jesus at all."
Adrienne laughed. "He's a man. He's just human. Really, Charity, if you put someone that high up on a pedestal, they're bound to fall. No one's perfect."
"You are." I rushed up the steps. "You are. You're great. You can stand up to Daddy. You can do anything. Shoot, you can even see Jesus."
Adrienne backed up a few more steps. "Charity, stop. That's just what I'm saying. You can't do that to people, idolize them like that. In the end you just get hurt. You do. Nobody's perfect. Now—now I'm going to go upstairs and get back to my work, and you go on home, where you belong."
"But I don't belong. You even said so, remember? You said I had way too much spirit for a town like Casper. You said you wanted me. You said you would teach me; we'd go to New York."
"Now, wait a minute. I said no such thing. I said that the best art schools are in New York and if you ever wanted to study you should go there. That's all I said. The rest was all in your imagination. My God! I can't even stand my lover living with me full-time—I certainly couldn't put up with an adolescent."
I moved up the steps toward her. "But I can't go back. I can't go home. Let me stay here. I won't even talk to you if you don't want. Just let me stay."
Adrienne moved up the steps and I followed her. She held up her hand. "Stop. Now listen—"
I ran up and threw my arms around her before she had time to say anything more or back away again. I cried full out then and told her she was right about Mama, about her flying the coop. I told her I needed the chair to get Mama back. Adrienne tried to pull away, but I held on. I couldn't help it. It was like she was a window ledge I was hanging on to, to keep from falling. If I let go, I just knew I would die.
I remembered Mad Joe saying how all hell was going to break loose, and that's just what I felt. All hell was breaking loose and I was falling in. I held on even tighter.
"Charity, you're hurting me." Adrienne pushed
against me. "You're hurting me, let go!"
She pushed again and I lost the step beneath me and fell, rolling and bumping down to the bottom of the stairs.
I sat up, stunned. Then I felt my neck and my shoulders and decided I was okay. I looked up and saw Adrienne leaning forward over the banister. Her forehead was wrinkled, like she was worried, but she didn't run down to me.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
I rubbed at my sore knees and glared up at her. "No, I'm not, but what do you care? What do you care about people anyway?" I stood up. "Your art! Your art! Big fat deal about your art. Mad Joe and his daughters are much more important, and Sharalee and Boo and Becky Cobb. All of them are more important than some stupid painting, and anyways, excepting for The Holy, all your paintings look like a computer could have done them and—and they just leave a body cold all over!"
I felt evil through and through saying that, hurting her, but I wanted to hurt her. I wanted to feel evil.
I waited for Adrienne to cry or something, but she didn't. She laughed.
She threw her head back and laughed, and I ran out of there crying.
21
I didn't go far, just to Adrienne's back porch. I didn't know what to do or where to go. I thought about Mama. Was she still in Nashville? I could go to her. Yes, I thought to myself, I'll find out where she is and I'll go to her.
The porch door slammed open behind me. It sounded like a shotgun going off. I spun around and saw Daddy standing in the doorway.
"I knew you'd be here," he said, glaring at me.
"You took the chair," I said. "You just snuck over here like some thief and took the chair."
"I did nothing of the kind. Now, I want you home, this instant. I have a sermon to give in a few minutes."
"Well, I don't want to hear it."
Daddy grabbed my arm. "Don't you be sassing your papa." He swung me around toward the exit, letting go of my arm once I was pointed in the right direction, and swatted at my behind. "Now, you git on in that car, this instant!"