I’m going away (going away)
Soon my love (soooon my love)
I’m going away (going away)
Where you can’t come
(yooou can’t come)
I’m going away (going away)
And that you know (thaaat you know)
My heart will stay (stay-yay-yay)
I love you so
(I looove you so)
She asked me to teach her how to play “Going Away Soon, Love” on the piano, but I refused. At least she could not get me to do that.
So there we were after she had kissed me in the mall.
“I’m not interested in the girl. I was just doing the Lord’s work,” I repeated.
Sister Morrisohn seemed on the verge of either laughter or tears. “Do you love me, Elwyn?”
“Let’s not get into this—”
“I’m nothing to you,” she said. “You’re just using me. All I am is your harlot.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I’m a fallen woman. You could never love me.”
“That’s not true.”
“I wish Buford were here. You don’t love me.”
“That’s not true.”
“Then say it,” she said. “Say it, Elwyn.”
She had that kind of power over me. She must have known I didn’t love her. She certainly knew I couldn’t risk losing her. I cried, “I love you! I love you!”
She smiled. “I don’t believe you.”
We were alone in her house. She moved close to me. She loosened her clothes. I should have turned my head. I should have prayed for God to deliver me. But no matter how many times I drank from the fountain, I found myself yet thirsting.
“Touch me when you say you love me,” she said.
I touched her. I became aroused—this for a woman who had posed as my mother but a few hours before. “I love you.”
We were on the bed. Our clothes were piled on top of the new leather briefcase on the floor. “Say it with feeling,” she said.
As we moved, I felt many things, and I used some of these things to say it the way she wanted me to say it. “I love you.”
It was, of course, a complete lie. Sister Morrisohn didn’t seem to notice or to care. She hummed, but no matter—I still heard the words.
My heart will stay (stay-yay-yay)
I love you so
(I looove you so)
The wages of sin, it turns out, is not always death: sometimes it’s a life of Chester Harbaugh records.
My grandmother said, “So what’s wrong with being a teacher?” She spoke to my back; I watched her in the mirror. She had gotten so large that she had to use her hands to lift her legs, one at a time, up onto my bed, where, at last, she stretched out, exhausted. She fanned herself with a hand, breathed through her mouth. “He made some preachers; He made some teachers.”
“I just don’t think He’s calling me to teach, Gran’ma.”
“Well, your students say you’re a better piano teacher than Sister McGowan, and nobody, not even Pastor, can explain Scripture like you.”
“Well, Gran’ma, I don’t know.” My mother handed me a black tie. I slipped it around my collar and began the first loop of a double Windsor. I liked a thick knot.
“No. Wear your good white shirt,” my mother fussed. “This one makes the tie fit funny.” She turned and began searching.
“I like this shirt, Mom.” But already I was beginning to unfasten the tie.
“Turn around,” my father said. There he was with his new camera. “I want to take a picture.”
I turned. “But I’m not wearing any pants.”
“So? Now hold the tie like you’re fixing it. No, don’t smile. Act natural,” he said. The camera flashed. “It’s a work of art. Young Man Dressing.”
“He’s not going to wear that tie either,” my mother said. She just couldn’t make up her mind. Now she held the new blue one in her hand. “The church valedictorian’s got to look his best.”
I took the good white shirt and the new blue tie from my mother.
My father snapped a shot before I could put them on—just me in my Fruit of the Loom. “This one’s even better. I’m going to put this one in the church yearbook.”
“No you won’t,” said my grandmother. As she lay, propped up on her side, she might have been a Peter Paul Rubens woman—in print dress, and with ankles swollen by diabetes. “People won’t know what to make of this family.” She trembled with laughter, two fingers covering her mouth.
My father grinned. “He’s not just smart and talented and a great warrior for the Lord, he’s the flower of manhood.” My father posed in accordance with the Marquess of Queensberry and when I blocked right, he landed one with a left. It hurt only a little. “Feel that. Solid!”
“Stop it. Stop it.” My grandmother, slapping her thighs now, laughed until she coughed. “You two. Oh, what a blessing.”
I put on my shirt, buttoned it, slipped the new tie around my collar.
“Take a picture,” said my father. He handed the camera to my mother and put an arm around my shoulder. One more inch and I’d be as tall as he was.
“Let me at least put on my pants,” I said.
My father laughed. “No.” He wasn’t holding me so firmly that I couldn’t break away. We were having a good time.
“Take off your hat,” said my mother behind the camera.
My father protested: “The bald spot.”
“They already know,” said my grandmother and mother in unison.
We all laughed at that, even my father doffing his school bus driver’s cap. It amused us when we said the same thing at the same time. We were a family.
“Snap the picture,” my father said.
“Something’s wrong,” my mother said. “Your collar’s too large. That’s not your good white shirt.”
I looked down at my shirt. She was right. It was Brother Morrisohn’s good white shirt.
“Where did you get that?” my mother asked.
“Sister Morrisohn gave it to me,” I said in an offhand way, like don’t you remember when she gave it to me, Mom? You were there. You were definitely there, so don’t ask any more questions. I only have two more weeks in Miami, and when I return, I promise I’ll be your son again. “A gift,” I said.
My father tested the sleeve with thumb and forefinger. “That’s very nice of her. This is good material.”
“Rich. But why would she give you a white shirt?” asked my mother. “Pink, green, blue, I could understand.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “She’s old-fashioned.”
“Graduation gift?” suggested my grandmother.
“No,” said my mother, “I’ve seen this shirt in the laundry more than a few times and meant to ask you about it. When did she give it to you?”
“I’m not sure,” I replied. I had to remain calm, nonchalant. I had to derail her instinctive suspicion. “I think she gave it to me after I taught her to play ‘In Love Abiding Jesus Came.’ That was Brother Morrisohn’s favorite hymn. It’s a dopey gift.”
“Don’t call a gift dopey, Elwyn,” warned my grandmother. “All gifts come from God.”
“Sorry, Gran’ma.”
“Bridle your tongue, Elwyn. Buford, rest his soul, and Elaine Morrisohn are very dear friends of mine. They have always been fond of you.” My grandmother pulled herself to a sitting position. “Buford, if you recall, bought that piano for you. You didn’t think the piano was such a dopey gift, did you?”
“No, Gran’ma.”
“Elaine was your first piano student. It’s not so dopey when she puts ten dollars in your hand for a half hour’s work, is it?”
“No, Gran’ma.”
“With all the blessings God has given you, I should think you’d be the last to bite the hand that feeds you. Here you are on the eve of manhood, getting dressed to go to church and pick up a scholarship funded by the same woman who gave you a dopey gift.”
The Buford
Morrisohn Scholarship for the Outstanding College-Bound Christian, $4,000, of which I was the first recipient.
“Sorry, Gran’ma.”
“Don’t let me hear such rubbish again.” My grandmother signaled for her four-pronged walker. I passed it to her. My father and I helped her to her feet. “I love you, Elwyn, but you’d better pray that God never takes back any of your dopey gifts.”
My grandmother lumbered out of the room. My mother and father, shaking their heads, soon followed. I finished dressing alone.
It worked.
My mother had left without asking the one question I could little answer: by the way, Elwyn, where is your good white shirt?
I certainly couldn’t tell her that on that night more than a year ago when Sister Morrisohn finally mastered the chord changes of “In Love Abiding Jesus Came,” there had been a dinner set on the floor in the fashion of the Chinese with all the romantic trappings, and afterward someone’s happy foot knocked over a candle and destroyed the sleeve of a good white shirt, which by all means had to be replaced.
I couldn’t just walk into our house with a charred sleeve.
Oh, that? As the widow Morrisohn and I were making love …
And I certainly couldn’t have entered our home barebacked.
Yes, Dad, it is a solid chest, isn’t it? Quite manly! Those aren’t birthmarks. Tonight during climax the widow used her teeth.
So instead, I accepted Sister Morrisohn’s gift of one of Brother Morrisohn’s shirts.
“They look the same,” she had said. “I never noticed it before, but you’re about his size.”
And that’s when she started with the Elwyn-marry-me jokes.
Not even John on the Isle of Patmos had such hellish visions of the future.
Two o’clock in the afternoon on a Saturday in August, the Church of Our Blessed Redeemer Who Walked Upon the Waters was packed for the awards ceremony.
I got up from the piano when they told me to get up and marched across the pulpit and stood where they told me to stand, at the head of a line of about thirty recently graduated high-schoolers. I could neither see the pews nor the floor, just three hundred brown faces floating above a sea of sharp suits and pretty dresses. Body heat negated the effects of the air conditioner. Sweat poured down my brow.
In my valedictory address, I said what they wanted me to say—The future is for the children of God. Satan’s days are numbered, for with Christ in our vessel, we can smile at the storm—and so on, and so on, to thunderous applause.
Then I collected my Buford Morrisohn Scholarship for the Outstanding College-Bound Christian and sat back at the piano to close the service.
When it was all over, I mingled with my fellows and our parents (and grandparents), congratulating those who had received lesser scholarships, and receiving congratulations for my own award.
Then the larger crowd descended upon us. From every mouth there came the same questions:
“Where are you going to college?”
(As though you don’t already know.)
“When are you leaving?”
(Not soon enough.)
“Are you excited?”
(Relieved.)
Everyone seemed to want to shake my hand, and I politely acquiesced, though I was eager to get away from the church grounds. I hoped to avoid Sister Morrisohn, who had been giving me the eye all through service.
Besides, my parents were throwing an after party for me at home where I could celebrate in safety.
Outside, small children dressed in their best clothes played with reckless energy, running and hitting and screaming and falling and getting up again. I ducked out of the way of a running one pursued by an angry one waving a hymnal over his head like the two tablets of stone. Another one said a naughty word, and I chastised her.
“It slipped out,” she said.
Where were our children picking up such terrible language?
I scolded, “You want to grow up good so Jesus can take you to heaven, okay?”
The child was absolutely precious. Pigtails and ribbons and black patent-leather shoes. “When will I go to heaven?”
“When you die,” I answered.
“Oh,” said the girl, whom I recognized as Brother and Sister Naylor’s youngest. “So can I go play now?”
“Yes.”
“Thank-you-Jesus,” she said and skipped away.
I opened the door to my old Mazda, slipped inside, slammed the door, and started the car.
Sister Morrisohn, appearing out of nowhere, knocked on my windshield. “Hey.”
I rolled down the window. Up close, under her perfume, I smelled alcohol. She had been drinking wine again. She wore a blue church dress with a modest collar, but when she leaned against the car, almost passing her head through the window, the modest collar hung loose around her neck revealing that she was wearing no brassiere.
She had never behaved this way on church grounds before.
I pulled away when she made a sudden move, thinking she was trying to kiss me as she had in the mall.
“Hey,” she said, passing me a greeting card. “Congratulations on your graduation.”
“Thanks.”
Raising her head, she checked to see that no one was near enough to hear. “We haven’t been together in a week. Why are you avoiding me?”
“We’ll talk later.”
“Was it the mall?” she whispered.
“Yes. The mall.”
She made a silly face. “That was a joke. No one saw. I swear.”
“It’s too risky. And it’s so wrong. We’re Christians. We’re the light of the world.”
“You don’t plan to see me anymore.”
“I don’t.”
“This is the end.”
“Yes.”
“When you said you loved me, did you mean it, Christian?”
I did a quick scan myself to see if we were being observed. “Could we talk later?”
Her eyes blinked rapidly. “Tell me now. Did you mean it?”
“No.”
“Yes you did. Yes you did,” she said, nodding her head vigorously.
“Sister Morrisohn, we have to get on with our lives. We have to wake up. What we did can lead to nowhere good.”
She set her face. “Look, Elwyn, we’re not going to get married. That’s impossible. You’re just a kid. I’m … mature. Too bad. But you can’t tell me you don’t love me because no matter where you go or what you do, I’ll always love you.” She put her hands together as in prayer. “And I know you love me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re not sorry. You’re scared. What we did may seem wicked in the eyes of the church, but it is real. You know it’s real.”
“I want to go to heaven when I die.”
Her eyes blazed. “So that makes it okay to step on my feelings? To use me?”
“I didn’t use you.”
“Then you loved me?”
I didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure anymore that I knew the answer. Why did I feel it necessary to go to another city? Why hadn’t I broken it off before?
“Love is never a sin.”
“Bye, Sister Morrisohn.”
“Come by tonight. Let me prove your love.”
“Sister Morri—”
“Just one last time,” she cooed, “and then it’s over forever. Go on with your life, pretend you don’t love me.”
“No.” Help me, Lord. “No, I won’t.”
“Just one last time.” She smoothed the hairs on my arm. “Then I’ll let you go.”
“Okay.” Already I had become aroused. “One last time.”
“You won’t be sorry.”
“Okay.” I shifted in my pants. I had yielded one last time. I put the Mazda in reverse. “Bye.”
“See you later,” Sister Morrisohn said. And then: “You look very good in his shirt.”
The party that took place afterward was a lot like the awards ceremony, except that there weren’t so many peop
le—just my parents, my grandmother, my best friends from church, and several members of the Jesus Club from school. The Reverend James Cleveland boomed “Lord, Do It” from the record player. There was turkey and ham and collard greens on the table. Hugs, congratulations, and the unavoidable questions abounded: “So where are you going to college?”; “Excited, aren’t you?”; “Can we get together before you leave?”
My mother said, “It’s your party, Elwyn. You say grace.”
I said a quick one: “Lord, bless this food that it may give us the strength to do Your will.”
“Amen,” we all said.
My father said, “Dig in.”
We ate, we laughed, we cried. After I straighten out my problems with Sister Morrisohn, I thought, I shall be able to take genuine pleasure from such fellowship divine. As it was, I was eager for the party to be over. The devil yet had full control of my hormones.
I was not the only one eager for the party to end. Eldridge Pomerantz, the Grand Gopher himself, was there. He had avoided me all afternoon, still fearing the power of God.
Now he sat at my piano with Sabina, the less bubbly half of the Anderson twins. Sabina played the right hand of “Old Rugged Cross,” Eldridge the left. She had already begun taking classes at Miami-Dade Junior College, where she was a powerful witness for the Lord. He was leaving in two weeks for Pennsylvania to play football and study architecture at the University of Pittsburgh.
I approached them.
“Elwyn,” they said.
“Eldridge. Sabina,” I said. “I see you’re making lovely music together.”
“I’m teaching him,” Sabina said. “Praise the Lord.”
“Praise the Lord,” I said back.
Eldridge smiled. He was a nice guy, though a backslider. He wouldn’t have come to my party had Sabina not been there. They had been in love for about a year.
Accidentally, Eldridge hit an augmented chord. “OOPS,” he said. “What was that?”
“Sounds good. Play it again,” I commanded.
They played the chorus again, using the augmented chord instead of the plain F chord.
“Wow,” said Sabina. “We sound like experts.”
“The augmented adds another dimension to the song,” I observed.
And Sabina caught my cue. “Just as Christ adds another dimension to our lives,” she said.
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