Zora and Nicky: A Novel in Black and White

by Claudia Mair Burney

  I have to get out of Linda’s apartment. Maybe fresh air will act as a cold shower for me. Maybe I should drive home. Now.

  Yeah. I’ll drive home and save my soul. If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off. If Zora’s glory offends, or pleases me more than words could adequately express, cut it off. And since I’m no psycho wanting to take a hacksaw to that masterpiece of God’s creation she carries on her backside, I have to get out of Dodge. Fast.

  I’ll miss the Bible study and sharing, but I have a fighting chance at salvation if I leave now and if she never returns, which I figure she won’t.

  I practically back out of the parking space in front of Linda’s apartment on two wheels, ungodly fantasies riding shotgun with me all the way back to Detroit. If I were the type, I’d pray in tongues, but the proper Southern Baptist, political Parkers don’t encourage that kind of demonstration.

  I race home doing my own version of praying without ceasing. I say the Jesus Prayer all the way to my hovel, an abbreviated version I hope my heart catches on to a little faster because of its lack of pretense.

  Lord, have mercy, Lord, have mercy, Lord have mercy!

  Lord, have mercy all the way down the freeway until I reach downtown, exit on John R., and find myself in front of my building.

  Don’t let her come back, Lord.

  Hear my prayer, O God. Incline Thine ear to me, and if You will, have mercy!

  CHAPTER THREE

  ZORA

  Thursday morning, I sit at the computer in my office at the LLCC, chiding myself about my complete meltdown at Linda’s Bible study. Mama would have been appalled at my display. I’m appalled! My face burns every time I think about it.

  I should be working, but instead my gaze wanders about the room. The offices stand in stark contrast to the impersonal environment of the sanctuary. Everything in the room looks gold and gilded. It reeks of “kingly.” Lots of damask fabrics and rich tapestries drape the windows. Massive desks and plush upholstery, with Egyptian art accents of all things! Once a white preacher visited and didn’t know if he should rebuke Daddy for the Egyptian art or commend him for being culturally proud. It was hilarious.

  I design LLCC’s esteemed newsletter that goes out to ten thousand Word-Faithers in the tricounty area. I am what Daddy calls Light of Life’s Visual Arts Director, which means I make things look pretty around here, specifically all the print media we send out. I should be grateful for this job—and I am—but in truth, it takes me away from my true passion: painting.

  Daddy has a little difficulty honoring me as an artist. He thinks I’ll make more money as a graphic designer. I hate to admit he’s more right than not. But it’s just as well. I haven’t put paint to canvas in a year. An excruciatingly long year that eats away at me every day, hour, minute, and second. But Daddy confesses—as in fires off Scriptures machine-gunlike toward God or whoever is listening—that I’ll be blessed one hundredfold for contributing my talents to the ministry. A one-whole-hundredfold return on my investment of twenty-five hours a week (and of course, I get weekends off). That’s like, twenty-five hundred hours’ worth of blessings. Who am I to complain because God needs clip art and public domain-photos skillfully arranged?

  Easy, Z. Back to work now, God help me.

  Daddy wrote an article using Isaiah 40:31 as the Scripture reference. “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

  I wish that sounded remotely like me. Guess that goes to show who’s an eagle and who’s a big, black, nasty crow.

  But even crows fly.

  The thought of flying takes my mind right back to the Bible study. I haven’t stretched my shiny black wings to their full span and cleaved the night air in how long? Maybe I stopped soaring around the time I stopped painting. That awful Bible study! It did something to me.

  I’m never going back there. It’s too painful. And yes, I know I begged God to do exactly what He did for me, but it’s one thing to ask God to devastate you. It’s another to have Him do it. And in front of white people! They probably thought of me as some savage African. Might as well have brought the drums and the half-naked dancers! All that excess. What was I thinking going there?

  Makes me think about being in Atlanta that first week of college.

  The weather still nice, me and my girls from school went swimming. I wore my long hair natural, like I do now, and I don’t, contrary to popular opinion, wear a weave. But even if my hair grew down to my butt, it would shrivel up to a four-inch afro when it got wet. So there we were hangin’, my sistahs in their weaves, and me in my ’fro looking like a fierce Angela Davis in the sixties. We’re swimming to our heart’s content when I heard it.

  Some white people in the water talking smack.

  It was a public beach. Late in the evening. The only lifeguard, a black kid about our age, was way up in his lifeguard chair paying absolutely no attention to us. The white people were laughing. Rude enough to point at me. They said I looked like a blankety-blank monkey. They called me the “n” word and the “b” word and then strung the two together. They went on a tirade about my nappy hair. Oddly, they singled me out. Spared my synthetic-hair-enhanced friends. They called me a savage and told us, the only blacks in the water that time of day, to go back to Africa.

  Go back to Africa? Guess they forgot it was them who came and got us in the first place.

  We stepped out of the water to go tell someone from management—well, I did. My girls bounded out ready to rumble. I talked them into keeping the peace. Yes, indeedy, I’m a regular Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Got the emotional scars to prove it. We finally got the lifeguard’s attention, but by that time the hecklers had gone.

  The lifeguard gave us a knowing smile. Must have noticed my northern accent. “You’re in the South now, sis.”

  It ain’t much different in the North, bro.

  Daddy says racists are everywhere. Even in lily-white liberal Ann Arbor. And a lot of them don’t know they’re racist, but they can’t help it, the racism slips out. The way the white woman clutches her purse in the presence of a brotha. The nervous white guy who sweats as his eyes dart around an elevator full of black people. Those tests psychologists have done, flashing the image of a black person in front of a white person. The physiological changes that register. Changes that mean they’re seeing something they don’t like.

  Racists that don’t know they’re racist.

  And then there’s the blatant stuff. The persecution you get driving while black. Being profiled at every turn. Followed around in the boutique when you have enough money to buy whatever high-end items they have. In pairs if you want two of them! The assumption that you are a thief, even in a convenience store—especially there. Indignities chip away at your soul, unrelenting, until you’re angry and don’t even know why anymore, until you look up, and so much of you has been chipped off you realize you’ve been turned to ash.

  I slam my fist on the gold marbled desk. I shouldn’t have gone to that Bible study. I trusted Ms. Little-House-on-the-Prairie with her whack modest clothes. Maybe I should have done a background check first. Show of hands, does anybody here think I’m a savage? What about a noble savage? Or how ’bout we keep it churchy? Does anybody go to an Assemblies of God church? At least they’d be familiar with my Pentecostal extremes. Biker chick with dreadlocks, do you ever attend Women’s Aglow meetings? She’s got to be okay. She’s got dreads. Probably listens to Bob Marley. He’ll take care of her white guilt. Old guy who’ll kill me from the second-hand smoke emanating your shirt, could you in your wildest dreams go to a Word-Faith church? There are a lot to choose from. Please, please, please say yes.

  In their defense, none of them shunned me—not to my face. They all seemed a little sympathetic after my big display of God affection. Bible study began without another hitch, but I still sat there wishing I could disappear, even though my soul felt light and
airy. I flew away with God, if even for a few minutes, to somewhere high, and bright, and clear. And white, black, or green, they let me go there.

  This is too complicated. I curve my back into the thick throne-like upholstered chair. With wheels! I need to stick with my own kind. And God, don’t make me think about Nicky Parker and his buttons-up-all-the-way-to-the-top conservative church. Didn’t he practically tell me his father was a racist? Nicky, the bleeding heart liberal, fled the scene as soon as I got started.

  I stab at a few keys on my keyboard, deciding not to use the eagle-in-flight photo. I punch at a few more to bring up another picture, an eagle sitting on a rock high atop a mountain. It had to get up on that rock somehow. Flying.

  I chide myself again. I can’t think about flying anymore. Besides, suddenly Nicky fills my thoughts. I stop beating the computer keyboard long enough to stretch my limbs and allow my thoughts a leisurely few moments of him.

  Nicky, with the eyes like a Bahamian beach, where the ocean is so blue against the blazing sun that it hurts to look at. Nicky, who needs a haircut, but the way he wears his shaggy do makes him look wonderfully wild-headed. Nicky, with the Republican dad, who gets mad at black women he thinks are too smart to vote for his own father. Nicky, full of mysteries, with hands that look like they can make music.

  Okay. I’ve lost my mind.

  Even if he does think I’m cute, and he does, he obviously can’t deal with Mother Africa here. And who cares? It’s not like I ever have to see him again.

  But there’s something about him. Something a little sad and empty that I recognize in some ways. What’s he doing at that kooky Bible study?

  What was I doing there?

  I go back to battering my keyboard.

  I should have been done with the stupid newsletter on Tuesday, but I’ve avoided coming into the office since Sunday. I didn’t want to deal with Daddy about my walking out, or worse, have to think about the fact the Daddy never noticed I left.

  I’m unraveling like a ball of yarn, more and more of me coming undone from the perfect circle of symmetry I believed myself to be. I thought I was worthy for God to use. Now knots, tangles, and frays mar what I believed to be my usefulness. I think about the songs at Granddaddy’s church. Sing that one I love aloud.

  When I fall on my knees with my face to the rising sun, O Lord, have mercy on me.

  A clear-toned baritone voice joins, and his voice soars around the room like an eagle, finally crashing through the ceiling to be free. I stop singing to listen. I love Daddy’s voice.

  “Let us praise God together on our knees. Let us praise God together on our knees.” I join him and we repeat the refrain. “Lord, have mercy on me.” And we sing it again.

  Daddy plants a kiss on the top of my head. “I can’t believe you remember that song, baby.”

  “I do remember it, Daddy, and all those visits to Granddaddy’s church. That old spiritual touched me in a really special way.”

  He shrugs. “I guess. But I don’t miss the old songs, or the old ways. I don’t miss being a lowly worm before God.”

  I miss it. My parents groomed me to be successful. The top. The best. I didn’t have to be last, they’ve always told me, even if it meant I had to work twice as hard as those born with privileges they didn’t have to earn. I miss being the last God would exalt in the end. They had something I don’t, and I know it.

  But Daddy isn’t really talking about the old ways. He’s talking about the old man, and the condemnation his father heaped on him like white-hot coals. He means he doesn’t miss him.

  “Sometimes I think the old folks had it better,” I say.

  Daddy laughs. “Better? We’re the ones free in Christ. We prosper, and they groveled. We’re the head and they were the tail, only they weren’t really the tail. They were the head, too, but didn’t know it.” He sits at the edge of my desk, and for a moment, sitting amid all that gold, he looks more like a TV preacher than my daddy. He gives me his million-dollar smile and a shake of his handsome head. “I don’t miss that, Zorie, and you shouldn’t either. You have what they couldn’t. What they fought and died to see, but didn’t.”

  I nod, wheel a few feet away from the desk and take a long look at him, but I don’t necessarily agree. I figure when it comes down to inheriting the kingdom of God, the last will be first like the Scriptures say. Daddy seems to conveniently skip these texts in his arguments for prosperity.

  I take a deep breath. I’m not up for sparring today, not that I’ve gone to battle with Daddy about this or anything else. No, I’m a perfect daughter. Just perfect.

  “I’m almost finished with the April issue.”

  “Good girl. You and Miles are coming for dinner tonight.” He’s not asking.

  I can’t take both Daddy and Miles tonight. “I’m really behind. I’m going to take this home and work on it tonight so you can get it to the printer tomorrow. Sorry I’m late with it.”

  “Don’t worry about it, baby. Get somebody else on staff to finish it. With something like that, it doesn’t make any difference who does it anyway.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” I say through clenched teeth. “Anybody on our team can do this work. Anybody!”

  He doesn’t even catch my sarcasm. He doesn’t ask why I walked out of church Sunday either. He just clipped my wings a little bit more just now, and he doesn’t see the blood on his hands or on me.

  He knocks absentmindedly on my marbled desk. “See you at dinner tonight, baby.”

  “I’ll be there, Daddy.”

  And I will because I’m a good girl. I do what I’m told. Daddy’s little princess. I fold my wounded wings inside myself.

  Maybe I’ll go back to Linda’s Bible study. Maybe one more time, and that’s it.

  NICKY

  I sit in my company’s big, stinking white truck that says VendCo LTD, bored out of my mind. It really is big—practically a semi. And it does stink, of stale diesel fuel, and Ron, the unwashed freak who works the shift before me and reeks of weed and patchouli.

  The truck is pretty much stocked wall to wall with Tom’s potato chips, pretzels, and other assorted snack foods. I personally loathe the entire product line, which just goes to show, it doesn’t favor me.

  Is it normal to want to lie down in front of the truck I drive to deliver snacks to vending machines? Let said truck drive back and forth over me a few thousand times until I’m out of my misery? Finally. And a miserable day it’s been. More so than usual.

  I can’t get her out of my mind. And I don’t just mean that luscious … oh, oh, don’t make me say it. I’m worse than I thought I’d be. Lust is one thing, but I want to know her.

  I’m in trouble. Big trouble.

  I Googled her. Thank God for Google, and thank all the saints, the prophets, the angels, and the apostles deep down in my Southern Baptist soul for MySpace. The beautiful Zora Nella Hampton Johnson, according to her profile:

  Is twenty-two years old.

  Comes from one of the most prominent African American families in Ann Arbor.

  Studied African American studies at Spelman and graduated at the top of her class.

  Loves gospel music, rhythm and blues, and hip-hop. Favorite album of all time, Fred Hammond’s The Inner Court.

  Is a BAP.

  Spends too much money on Kate Spade and Prada.

  Loves the book Their Eyes Were Watching God, and gives a shout out to her namesake.

  Is a praise dancer at Light of Life Christian Center. A dancer. And an artist. A painter. Calls herself dreamy. I’ll call her that too. For the rest of my life.

  And God help me—and I mean that in the most destitute way—she posted pictures of herself. A dozen of them! Not pictures of her sticking out her ample rear end or—not quite as ample, but nice anyway—breasts like most of the MySpace ladies—if you can call them that. Pictures of Zora dancing. A lithe beauty with her lovely arms extended and those endless legs poised gracefully, about to do a pirouette. Zora smilin
g. Zora reading a book. Zora holding a paint brush in front of her grinning face, a streak of blue paint forgotten at the tip of her nose. So freakin’ gorgeous that I reach out and touch the computer screen.

  I got it bad.

  She blogs that she wants to spend the rest of her life finding out what Jesus meant when He said, “Blessed be ye poor.” In another blog she said she wanted to be naked before God.

  Naked!

  I spent a lot of time reading that one. And rereading. And rereading. And now I can’t stop thinking about her. What’s worse is that my route is over now, and I gotta go face Linda.

  Linda, of extraordinary discernment. Linda, who can see right through my crap and call me on it. And she does it in love.

  Now, I know all about people allegedly doing things in love. My father preaches in love, so he says. He’s lacerated every poor unfortunate soul he’s drawn to our church in love. I’m telling you, Dad makes Jerry Falwell look like a raging hedonist. The King James Bible is his sixty-six-book arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. I’ve seen the sin-weary flee our church so fast after his fiery “You’re going straight to hell for even thinking of that” preaching that Jesus shook in the stained-glass windows.

  But Linda, she really does love with that double-edged blade—the Word of God. She wields it like a master swordsman.

  I shuffle into the office of the vending company. Linda’s running the front desk as usual. I eye anything but her—the walls, a weird blue color, which are badly in need of painting. I check out for the gazillioneth time a few bad posters supposed to inspire us to do our best. If you can believe, you can achieve. Blah, blah, blah. I look at the front desk, a huge countertop covered with yellowing Formica that’s old as God. Linda brightens the place up with her smile, even though everybody laughs at her crazy, old-fashioned clothes. She’s unfazed. She believes in modesty and lives it. And she lives love. Just wants to bless her brothers and sisters in Christ whenever she can, she says.