Crosshairs

by Catherine Hernandez

  “You should stay. It looks like there’s a blizzard coming.”

  “All snow looks like blizzards to us,” Ma said, laughing about their tropical origins. “I have to go back to the twins.”

  Ma never saw Keith again. Benny, his friend from work, informed her that he had been arrested. His work permit was false despite his contributions at work being true. Benny had no other information about Keith other than a mailing address clumsily scribbled onto a chit of paper. When Ma wrote to the address to inform my father of my impending birth, she received no word back. She grew in belly and worry. She gave birth at Women’s College Hospital on November 2, 1977, in the presence of strangers.

  Another Filipino family shared her hospital room. The woman had given birth by C-section to a baby girl. The father, dressed in a tan leisure suit and matching wide tie, had rushed from his job as an engineer at McDonnell Douglas Corporation to hold his new child while the mother slept painfully in recline, nursing her stitches. Once the mother stirred and the medication wore off, Ma watched as the father took the baby girl, still swaddled and swollen in the face, towards the pleading mouth of the mother, who kissed the baby and whispered sweetly into her ear.

  I, on the other hand, with my dark-brown body and slick curls, lay in my bassinet screaming and flailing for attention because I was hungry and wet. My mother refused to look at me, as she did not have answers or the heart to carry on.

  From hungry and wet I grew to be lonely and confused. When I was in grade four at St. Joseph’s Catholic Junior School, our teacher, Mrs. Rossi, set us up into pairs. Nadine rolled her eyes at the sight of me, cursing her luck for being stuck with the most awkward boy in class.

  “Well?” Nadine’s come-hither gesture was vigorous enough to shake the cherry-shaped bobble hair ties that anchored her perfectly braided pigtails. “Come on, Keith. We gotta get started.” Mrs. Rossi gave each pair of us a lamp, which we pointed to a large piece of paper taped on the wall. Our job was to take turns sitting in front of the lamp while the other traced our silhouette. I let Nadine sit first. I traced her profile, marvelling at how her chin stood erect and confident. Her nose was pointy. Her eyelashes were curly and long. There wasn’t a single stray hair in her silhouette. Just as I got to her lips, Nadine told me to hurry the heck up.

  “Your turn,” she said and pointed to the plastic stool. I had hoped the bell would ring before we would change places. Nadine removed her tracing and replaced it with a fresh sheet. I sat and looked at the paper with my shadow cast upon it. My hair was unkempt. My blue turtleneck was fuzzy and ill-fitting.

  “You gotta look to the side, Keith. I can’t draw you if you’re looking right at the paper!” She sighed and cocked her hip to the side, as she usually did when she was exasperated. I took a deep breath and nervously obliged. Nadine got to work.

  “Isn’t your mom the nanny?”

  “Huh?”

  “Look to the side, Keith. Don’t move.” Nadine adjusted my chin to match the outline she had already made. “You know. The Chinese lady. Isn’t that your mom?”

  “She’s Filipina.”

  “Yeah. The Filipina.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “Then why do you have hair like this?”

  “I dunno.”

  “You must look like your dad, then.”

  I realized I had never seen a picture of my father. The Keith Watson Smith of my mind was nothing more than the bright smile and dark skin my mother had described, but without a face. Mrs. Rossi made us stand in a circle and show each other our tracings.

  “Hold it up, Keith.” I raised my paper half an inch higher. My classmates laughed at the outline of my head.

  “Hey! Shut up!” Nadine screamed.

  “No, thank you, Nadine. Watch your language. She is right, though. It’s wrong to laugh at other people.”

  My classmates stifled their snickers until one of them exclaimed, “It looks like he has a wig on!” Then the class erupted into full guffaws.

  “Stop it! That’s not nice!” Nadine screamed again.

  “Enough!” Mrs. Rossi paced the room, preparing us for another one of her inspirational speeches. She placed her hands on the waist of her polyester slacks and looked each one of us in the eye. “Everyone is perfect just the way we are. We have to tolerate each other’s differences. Do you know what diversity is? This class is diverse. And you know what? That’s the way it should be. Whether you have curly hair like Nadine . . .” Mrs. Rossi caressed one of Nadine’s braids, and Nadine’s eyes widened incredulously, her hands closed into fists. “. . . Or matted hair like Keith’s . . .” Mrs. Rossi’s fingers stroked the surface of my head as if I was a llama at a petting zoo. “. . . We are all God’s beautiful creatures.” With each word in this last sentence, she patted my head for emphasis.

  I thought the torture was over, but Mrs. Rossi then made us sit at our desks and embellish the outline with our facial features. I stared at the edges of me, unable to manifest an understanding of my own face without a clear image of the man who contributed in making my features. Did my father’s nose slope at this angle? Was my father’s neck slight like mine, with barely a sign of an Adam’s apple? When I sucked my bottom lip out of nervousness, was this his habit as well?

  As I grew into a teen, the act of piecing together the shadow of my father overwhelmed me, so that all I could do was lie on my bed each night, stare into the darkness and hold the photo of Randell Sampson, a buoy in the sea of my confusion. “See you after school,” I imagined he would write on the back of the photo, this photo meant for me to keep.

  “It’s for you to keep,” said my mother the day she presented me a tricycle. My tiny fingers ran along the edges of the stickers of illustrated pistons, which made the plastic frame appear to be a high-end motorcycle rather than a beat-up, plastic hand-me-down toy. I sat on the low-lying seat and twisted the throttle back and forth like I’d seen in an episode of Miami Vice. Sand trickled onto our parquet floor. When I pushed down on the pedals, the wheel was so worn it spun in place. I giggled with glee. Maybe I was too fast.

  “That came from Pastor Michael. But he says you can call him Tito Michael.”

  “Who’s that?” I pressed the stickers illustrating multicoloured buttons along the console.

  “He’s from Winchester Eternal Life Church. That’s our church now.”

  Winchester was not a Gothic building like the Catholic church we’d left. It looked more like a friendly community centre with a friendly wheelchair ramp and a friendly, larger-than-life poster of friendly, running children. “Spreading the word at lightning speed,” the poster said just under the children’s clasped hands.

  Pastor Michael, the provider of plastic tricycles, was also the deliverer of arduously long sermons. He gripped his congregation with his pious dissertation on surrendering to Jesus the way he gripped the wood veneer pulpit: tightly with white knuckles and pink face from effort. He conducted the orchestra of each singsong sentence, waving the sleeves of his oversized taupe suit jacket, which bookended the width of his red paisley tie. He frequently shared stories of emigrating from Dublin in an attempt to connect with the immigrant and refugee population of the parishioners, even though he came from an upper-working-class, English-speaking family who came to Toronto by choice and not under duress. On our first visit, a hymn’s lyrics were projected onto a large screen, and the four-piece band began its number with a steady rock rhythm. Our fellow worshippers raised their arms into the air in praise and swayed side to side in time with the drum kit. Ma looked around and copied, albeit with some self-consciousness. An usher, an elderly Black man in suspenders and khaki pants, approached Ma quietly, interrupting her manufactured awe.

  “Did you want to bring your son to the daycare?” Ma couldn’t believe her ears. She smiled and grabbed my wrist.

  I was brought downstairs, feet dragging. “And what’s your name?” a young South Asian woman asked with a charismatic smile. I had never seen a grown-up crouch down to my
eye level, and the change in size and scale perturbed me, so I looked away. From the side of my eye I could see that her voluminous head of curls was tamed into a thick braid. Her slender hand gently capped her knee for balance as she patiently waited for an answer.

  “His name is Keith.” Ma pushed me gently so I would join the rest of the children in the daycare area. I whipped around and buried my nose in Ma’s crotch. I felt a tap on my shoulder. Another first. No one had ever asked permission to have my attention before. I turned towards the woman but kept my eyes closed in protest.

  “Did you know we have a water table? I can teach you how to blow bubbles the size of your head!” I opened my eyes in shock.

  “My head?!”

  The woman nodded yes. Her teeth were bright tiles of white against her dark skin. I took her hand and joined the masses. I looked back to serve my mother an obedient smile, but she had already gone. About thirty of us, ranging from babies to toddlers, ran about while our parents worshipped upstairs and rejoiced in the free daycare. From our playroom, we could hear a combination of muffled singing and testimony. At the sound of the congregation erupting in thunderous applause, the toddlers would clap too, then return to throwing sand on the floor.

  I never left the water table. I marvelled at the rainbow cast across the surface of each giant bubble before it popped into oblivion. Where did the soul of that bubble go? I wondered.

  “Pop! Another bubble gone to heaven,” said Youth Pastor Vandna, the South Asian woman who had greeted me. I looked at her, wondering if she was reading my mind, wondering if she was magic. “Have you ever thought about heaven?” I shrugged. “That’s what they’re doing upstairs. Making sure we all learn ways to let God into our heart.” She grabbed a fistful of soapy water and looked at me the way magicians ready their audiences for a special trick. She blew into the hole of her fist, and out the other end a giant bubble emerged. I was enthralled. Another round of applause from the congregation upstairs. I clapped too. All service long, Pastor Vandna and I played with the water. Hours passed and I was wet from my sleeve cuffs to my collar.

  “Service is almost over, Keith. We’d better get you dried up.” She took me to the daycare washroom, where cubbyholes were filled with toilet-training seats, diapers and spare clothes. “Go ahead and get your clothes off.”

  Ma had put me into those darned overalls again. I fumbled with the buckles. “I need help.”

  “Here. Stay still.” Pastor Vandna undid the buckles with two swift pulls, then slowly lowered the overalls to my ankles. I wavered slightly with my ankles bound by wet denim. “Whoa!” She managed to hold me up by my armpits, and I jerked away from her tickling. She placed me back in my equilibrium and suddenly things became very quiet. “Uh-oh. What’s that?” She pointed to my small erection. I had no idea what it was, so I stretched the elastic of my underwear to take a look. “You have to push it down to tell it to go away,” she said as she pushed the tiny bulge. It did not make it go away. It made it larger. But she kept pushing a few more times until my cheeks were hot.

  “Stay still,” she said again, firmly enough that I obeyed, soft enough that I felt loved. I did as I was told and kept my body limp. Eventually, she reached for some spare clothes and dressed me in clothes that were surprisingly well-fitting and easy to put on, unlike those darned overalls.

  I began to look forward to worship days. It meant I got to be with Pastor Vandna and play with the bubbles. These daycare times would always end with me getting undressed out of wet clothes, her pushing away my erection, me staying still so she could finish. Soon, the pushing times were the main feature of my visits. Ma did not notice. She was happy that we got to keep all of these free clothes that happened to fit me so well. When Ma began bringing home cardboard boxes of donated food, her devotions became our daily routine.

  “What’s that for?” I asked, pointing to the envelope Ma was stuffing with a cheque. I was still small enough that my chin rested on the surface of the kitchen table while Ma licked the envelope closed.

  “It’s my tithing.”

  “What’s that?”

  She did not answer. She never did, no matter how many times I asked her. I was a child then, though. And children can piece together truth whether it is told to them or not. The envelopes were issued during service just after my mother was paid by the Edelson family. These clothes, the boxes of food and daycare weren’t free after all.

  One Saturday afternoon when Pastor Vandna was pushing into me, the congregation upstairs applauded at the same time I experienced my first ejaculation. A rim of sweat had developed just above Pastor’s lip.

  “You peed,” is what she said before a custodian wheeled his bucket and mop into the change room and gasped. There was a brief silence I did not understand. Then Pastor Vandna quickly dressed me in clean clothes. She didn’t look at me. She just dressed me. I knew to stay quiet as she ushered me past the custodian.

  “Where is Pastor Vandna?” I asked the new caregiver the following day, this time an elderly Black woman.

  “She won’t be here anymore,” she said with the widest smile I had ever seen on an adult. I went to the water table and began splashing any child who dared come near me.

  The first time I saw an intervention was when I was ten years old. By that time, I was old enough to not go to the daycare, and I was expected to attend various youth fellowships, such as Bible study, Friendship Camp and Next Generation choir. On my way to choir practice, I passed the daycare and saw a circle of women. On the floor beneath them was Andrew, a five-year-old boy whose mother was a cashier at the nearby No Frills and a former addict seeking salvation.

  Andrew was wearing one of the princess costumes from the dress-up centre. This was wrong. He was supposed to choose the fireman hat or the policeman uniform. He was not supposed to be a princess. And his mother, pledging allegiance to her new way of living, her new church, straddled her own son and beat this belief into him. “Do not be deceived!” She broke down the Corinthians verse with every strike. “Neither the sexually immoral! Nor idolaters! Nor adulterers! Nor men who have sex with men! Nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God!”

  I wanted to stop them, but I froze. I knew that if I spoke up, the women would have to turn on me, for surely they could smell Andrew’s disease on me too. Surely, they could see the bounce of my hips. Hear the lilt and delicate tone of my voice. See the movements of my slender hands. In my head, I heard the voice of Pastor Vandna: “Stay still, Keith. Stay still.”

  Andrew’s mother did not stop until the circle of women were satisfied with her performance and held her back. She did not stop until Andrew lay motionless on the ground, his pleas too weak to continue. When she was done they held each other tightly, as if he was thankful for the teaching and she, thankful for this test.

  “Freeze!” Andrew said to me the next day in the hallway as I was heading to Bible study. He was wearing the policeman uniform and he pointed a LEGO gun at me. I raised my hands up, surrendering to the understanding that princesses like us could never be who we are. There are consequences. I understood that, even later in life as a teenager in love. Even as I fantasized about Randell.

  One night, I went to my Lord of the Flies book and couldn’t find the photo. I thought perhaps it had fallen from the pages into my backpack and went to retrieve it from the hallway closet. But when I opened my bedroom door, I could see a group of six people I recognized from Winchester crowding our kitchen table. Pastor Michael sat in the bulk of his oversized suit, only this time it was powder blue with a yellow paisley tie. He gripped the edge of our table like he gripped the pulpit. I knew I was going to be spoken to, taught a few things. Ma held the photo and looked at me. She wiped her nose with a tissue and placed it in her sleeve alongside the evidence of my wrongdoings.

  I’m ashamed to say it, Evan. I shudder wondering what you will think of me, reading my Whisper Letter. If you will think of me as a coward. I wish I cou
ld tell you I was brave. But I wasn’t. Instead, I crossed my arms around my chest. It felt too feminine. I put one hand on my waist. It felt too feminine. I settled on my arms at my side, unsure, uneven, in the presence of these people.

  Pastor Michael swept his overgrown salt-and-pepper mop to the side and gestured for me to stand before him. I did not.

  “Good evening, Keith.” I hated the sound of my name. I hated the sound of this man saying my name. I hated the singsong quality of his voice. “Please. Come here.” I did not. He exhaled. He had suspected I was far gone. “Your mother tells us that she has some suspicions that you are walking away from God.”

  Ma coughed out a sob, and her church folk rubbed her back in compassion. She buried her face in her hands and screamed, “Keith! Answer Pastor Michael!” I hated my name.

  “What was the question?!”

  “The question is, are you walking away from God?”

  “How would I be walking away from God? Is this about my hair? Is this about school? What did I do?”

  “Are you walking away from God?”

  “What do you mean? I’m not walking away from anything.” I put on a confused face. “I went to all of my fellowships this past week, didn’t I?” I did attend, staring out the window of the community centre, wondering about where Randell was, the corners he loitered on or the company he kept.

  “‘Lying with a man as with a woman is an abomination.’” Pastor Michael referenced Leviticus to me as he struggled to stand up and round the kitchen table, slowly making his way to me. Ma stood up, unsure of the pastor’s next move. “Hold your mother’s hands.” He gestured for Ma to come closer. She held my hands.

  “Keith. You are not like other boys. I can see that,” she said. My hands were molten and moist. My jaw was locked. My eyes wide and preparing for the worst. “You tell Mommy. Tell me. What are you doing? Who are you seeing? Who is this Randell?”