“Yeah, they used this root to make a potion to make ya hot. Our folks and the Indians used it in ceremonies and rituals. And other folks just used it.
“Guess we can pass on this one, huh, Lena?”
Looking around at a squat prickly bush, he continued the lesson since he had her outside.
“And look a here, Lena. This what we call ’China briar.’ My ma usta make a kind a’ mush out a’ the root. A bread, too. China briar was one of the first thangs I remember ever eatin’.”
Herman showed Lena all kinds of things. He explored her hundred acres of property as if it were a tidy little backyard.
While Lena was away at work in town, he uncovered treasures and mysteries that Lena had never even thought about being on her land.
One Sunday morning after they had made love, eaten grits and salmon croquets, made more love, gone swimming and lain on her river deck to dry in the sun, Herman took her for a walk. She had wanted to grab a piece of pie or fruit before they left, but Herman wouldn’t let her.
“I got som’um sweet fo’ you,” Herman said, laughing and patting a bulge in his pants pocket.
Lena tramped out in her new heavy Timberland boots just like Herman’s and followed him into the woods with a smile on her face. She couldn’t get enough of him.
They walked for a good long time along the river to the east of the house. Lena was becoming winded.
“Maybe, we should have ridden the horses, Herman,” she said.
“Naw, not this time,” he answered over his shoulder.
When he finally slowed down by a big sycamore tree at the edge of the woods, she thought he would take out a tiny copper-colored Gstring for her to prance around in. Instead, he pulled out a pair of work gloves and handed them to Lena.
“Here, baby, I don’t want ya to get hurt.”
Lena thought she could hear someone humming in the distance as he led her deeper into the woods. Then, he held up a bare hand, stopped and pointed up ahead to the biggest circular beehive Lena had ever seen. It hung from the swooping lower limb of a massive live oak tree like mistletoe. Herman smiled at Lena while motioning for her to stand still. Then, he advanced on the golden-colored humming hive.
Herman slipped his bare hand sideways into the bottom of the nest, deliberately, steadily. He only paused a moment with his hand inside the hive, then slowly pulled his hand back out, rotating it slightly to form a cup as it came out. The hive was shaped just like the ones in cartoons she had watched as a child on Saturday mornings in which a hungry old hairy bear would try and try to get that honey. She had imagined that animated honey to be the best, the sweetest, the most golden honey in the universe.
Lena was mesmerized by Herman’s performance. It was like a theater piece, silent except for the lazy-sounding buzzing of the bees. Then, Herman drew her into the act. Looking very serious, he lifted his right hand dripping with thick dark honey and flecks of waxy honeycomb up to her lips. She took two of his fingers into her mouth and lifting her chin, sucked the honey off.
It was as sweet as the cartoon honey. The intensity of the sweetness nearly blew the top of her head off when she smacked her lips.
Herman didn’t just treat her to honey. He taught her how to survive.
“Here, Lena, tie this cotton kerchief ’round yo’ mouth when we out walkin’ in the woods,” he instructed her, “so yo’ breath don’t draw those ’squitas and bitin’ flies.”
And it worked, too. Some days, Lena and Herman looked like happy bandits loping through the woods or the dirt trails or riding the horses flat out over the rough terrain off the bridle path.
James Petersen back at the house gazing out the kitchen window over the sink would see her head off happily into the woods and chuckle to himself at the sight of Lena outside talking to thin air. “That girl knows she can talk to herself. She got so much on her mind.”
Mostly what Lena had on her mind was ways to spend more time with Herman.
One morning Herman woke Lena even earlier than usual. Brushing her face with the breeze of his kisses, he gently roused her.
“Come on, Lena,” he urged when she dreamily opened her eyes. “Put on some long pants and boots. Ticks are bad this year. I got som’um t’ show you.”
Lena sat on the deacon’s bench by the door in the Glass Hall and laced up her boots over her pants legs. She was laughing to herself at the many pairs of work boots and outdoor shoes she had acquired since Herman came into her life when he blew in and grabbed her hand. He didn’t even bother to ask what she was laughing at.
“Found som’um you might be interested in,” he said with a smile playing in his voice, pleased with Lena’s cozy joy.
He pulled her down the path to the stables, where he had saddled Goldie and Baby for them to ride. Lena always tried to ride behind Herman so she could watch his shoulders and the small of his back as he rode. Herman—with his near-midnight self—astride Goldie—with her near-sunrise self—was a sight to behold, one that Lena never tired of seeing.
They set off across her property heading south and didn’t stop riding fairly hard until they had circled a stand of impenetrable woods and reached a meadow on the other side that looked like something from a fairy tale.
The field was encircled with trailing bramble. Small vines had formed a wall around the dale that was covered with rich juicy-looking spots of amaranth.
Lena could no longer see the river, but she could hear the music of it rushing close by. Pulling Goldie’s reins up, Herman sat back proudly in his saddle as Lena took in the expanse of early-bearing blackberries.
Without a word, Herman dismounted, tied his steed to a bush and, reaching into his saddlebag, pulled out two croaker sacks. He handed one to Lena. “We gon’ pick berries.
“Lena, uh-uh, baby, don’t pick that berry. It ain’t ripe. Come here. Uh-uh-uh, you mean to tell me I gotta teach her how t’ pick blackberries, too,” he mocked her with a little tug on her hand making the underripe berries in her tin bucket rattle against the sides.
“See this here berry? Now, this un ripe,” he said softly, acting as if he were stalking some living, moving, breathing prey. “See how when you look at it, especially in the sun, it almost glisten? And see how plump it is? Plump, plump even before ya touch it. And when you do. OOooo. See, ’bout ready to bust. And when you take it, with these three fingers, and gently tug—lightly now, so you don’t break the skin. It’s real tender—it oughta come away from the stem easy, real easy like it want to come.
“There,” he said happily, sated, holding the glistening berry aloft by the bushes. “And ya got yo’ berry.”
Then, he reached over and popped the lone fruit into Lena’s gaping mouth.
Lena bit down on the juicy nugget, sighed and smiled.
Sister was right, she thought. I do have an abundance of blessings.
21
MINISTRY
Sister always teased Lena that although she owned a liquor store and juke joint, real estate business, and substantial property, what she really did was conduct a “Healing and Miracle Ministry.”
Lena was blessed with what folks calling in early on Sunday mornings to the three-hour Gospel in the Rock show on Mulberry’s WASS radio called “a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.”
Although Sister had been raised a cradle Catholic in Louisiana, she was the first person Lena had ever heard discuss her personal relationship with Jesus Christ without sounding like a broadcast from Reverend Ike. It had been Sister who had helped Lena settle her Catholicism firmly on the rock of Black Southern Christianity. In fact, Lena found herself listening to some of those late-night broadcasts when she couldn’t sleep and surprised herself by finding solace in the words of an electronic minister.
Sister said that Lena always tried to take the “Jesus Road,” that Lena was “tight with the Lord” though barely within the confines of the Roman Catholic Church.
And even though Lena chuckled at Sister’s terminology, she knew it was tru
e that most folks in Mulberry looked to her for just that: healing and miracles. But if it was a ministry, Lena thought, she had been drafted, not gently called.
Most of Lena’s adult life, she would try to ignore the voice on her phone or the face at her door, but when she looked around at her sumptuous surroundings, she’d say out loud, “Lord, you make miracles for me, and I won’t even do you a favor.” Then, Lena would get on up and go see about somebody in the middle of the night or in the middle of her workday.
“Well, here comes Mulberry’s own ‘Little Flower,’” Father Collins would greet Lena when she came bearing gifts and needed supplies for the parish’s school and its children.
Lena did share a number of qualities in common with the Little Flower, the beloved and revered French saint who died at age twenty-four promising that she would spend her time in heaven doing good for those still here on earth. Lena was especially like St. Theresa during Holy Eucharist.
At Mass it seemed to Lena that she always did the same thing. She stood with the congregation and took her place in the procession of communicants leading down the center aisle of St. Martin, waited her turn with her hands folded to step up to the eucharistic minister or priest, smile, hold out her cupped hands in front of her near her face and exclaim “Amen” when she was told, “This is the Body of Christ.” Then, she would turn to the left, walk to the minister holding the chalice at the end of the altar, smile, hold out her hands, the right one to cup the cup, the left one to balance the base of the chalice, exclaim “Amen” when she was told, “This is the Blood of Christ.”
Then, she would turn and walk back among the scattered procession to her pew to kneel and bow her head to pray. That’s what she thought she did each time.
What Lena didn’t realize was sometimes instead of saying “Amen” at the altar in response to the “This is the Body of Christ,” she said what was truly in her heart. Sometimes her response was, “Well, all right.” Sometimes “Yes, it is” or “Well, well, well” like an old woman or “Yes, yes, yes, yes, Lord” or even, “You got that right!”
Even the meanest spirit in the church felt the force of Lena’s ecstasy during the Eucharist and was warmed by her sweet spirit. But none of the other parishioners saw what she saw, felt what she felt.
Lena would return to her pew after receiving the Body and Blood of Christ. Then, she would feel herself kneel, bow her head, then begin to rise. Like the Little Flower, Lena could feel herself slowly, steadily, effortlessly rising, rising, rising toward the shiny shellacked wooden beams of the church, rising toward the newly painted white ceiling, rising through the roof like a wisp of smoke through a piece of gauze toward the blue blue Sunday sky.
As she floated among the clouds, she felt enveloped in a cushion of love, like rolling over against her grandmother’s soft chest in bed at night. It was one time she was certain, dead certain, there were benevolent spirits who loved and protected her.
Lena had a recurring dream in which all the women who had ever loved her held her and loved her once more. The dream was exactly how she felt during her levitation at church. After she had floated around the heavens for a while, feeling as if she were being passed around from one loving bosom to another, she would feel herself gradually sinking back to earth and her pew at St. Martin de Porres.
Sometimes, the priest would be giving the final blessing to the congregation when she returned to herself. More often, Mass would be over, the priests and servers and ministers clearing the altar or, like the congregation, gone entirely, in their cars driving home or to brunch or an early supper or to watch the game. Lena would be left undisturbed to continue her meditation.
The charismatic group at the church with their Pentecostal fervor and their laying on of hands and their speaking in tongues had quickly tried to claim Lena as one of their own. But Lena was polite yet firm. She didn’t fit into any group—charismatic or not.
Although Lena was a respected practicing Catholic, she probably would have been excommunicated if the Pope, whom she believed no more special than Mr. Renfroe, knew what she believed and practiced. While supporting her church and parish, while doing good Christian works throughout Mulberry, while receiving Holy Communion weekly and sometimes daily, outside of church, Lena practiced a mixture of Catholicism, voodoo, hoodoo, New Age mysticism, goddess worship and black Southern Baptist/Protestant/Holiness belief that even Sister found shocking.
She would just as likely consecrate her own hunk of whole wheat French bread and a good bottle of champagne from her wine cellar at altars and grottoes around her house, saying the words “This is my Body, this is my Blood,” aloud under the big willow tree as attend the 11:00 A.M. Sunday Mass at St. Martin de Porres dressed in a beautiful raw silk suit, hat and heels. It was all the same to her.
For her, the celebration was just as true. Sometimes, she played music when she conducted her own Mass outdoors, but it didn’t seem to matter. The flowers and plants, the bees, birds and bugs all bobbed and danced and bowed in adoration at the Eucharist that Lena performed so sincerely and joyfully. Some mornings, such as Mary Magdalene’s feast day, or her grandmother’s birthday, Lena could almost smell the scent of frankincense in the fresh air just as it was being lit in the Catholic church in town.
When Lena told Sister she was taking her own consecrated bread to her older Catholic shut-in friends, she heard Sister gasp over the phone.
“Lena, I’m no church theologian, but isn’t there a difference in consecrating the Eucharist for yourself ’cause you believe that God gave you and me and anyone who believes the power to turn bread and wine into His own body and blood and actually giving it to someone else as if it came out of a church?”
Lena had accepted Jesus Christ as her personal Lord and Savior, so she felt she had a certain license.
“Shoot, Sister, I been celibate longer than most of the clergy, considering what we’re finally coming to believe about so many priests now,” Lena said confidently.
No one really should have been surprised by Lena’s natural religious fervor. Her mother would not have called herself a religious influence on Lena, but she was. The way Nellie went around the house when her children were younger calling unceasingly on the sacred name of Jesus, it made all the sense in the world that Lena would have been affected.
“Jesus, keep me near the cross,” Nellie intoned at the drop of a hat.
Lena could pray a good prayer and preach a good sermon. Before Father Collins was severely reprimanded by the bishop of the Savannah diocese, backed up by a letter from His Holy Father himself in Rome, sternly prohibiting women from speaking from the pulpit, Lena and a couple of other women had delivered sermons on Saturday evening and Sunday morning Masses.
Standing at the pulpit those Sundays, Lena had felt she had found her true calling. The words rolled from her tongue like tiny marbles, produced effortlessly in the center of her soul one after another. Her prepared words forgotten in the ecstasy of revelation, she just opened her mouth to the congregation and opened her heart to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and a sermon of rebirth and forgiveness flowed from her soul.
“Each one of us made a new man, a new woman, washed in the blood of the Lamb, washed in the waters of the Jordan, washed in the love of our Lord, I am renewed, reborn, a child again. Dead no more, reborn to the spirit. This is what I believe. This is what I testify. In Jesus Christ’s name, let us bow our heads and accept His Love.”
People in church told her that her sermons were like poetry. And Lena knew in her soul her sermons were good because she loved to pray.
She knew she could pray and that her prayers would be answered. She had learned the art of prayer from customers at The Place. Old women standing at the door to order a fish sandwich to go because they didn’t come into places like The Place would sometimes just break into prayer, as if they were raising a hymn in prayer meeting.
“Lord,” they would pray, “thank you for getting me through the night and letting me wake up l
ive this morning. Thank you for not turning my bed into my cooling board. Thank you for not turning my gown into my wrapping cloth.”
This part was essential, Lena had surmised over the years, because a good prayer always included those intentions.
There would be prayers for the sick, for the shut-ins, for those bound by drugs and alcohol, for those knowingly living in the state of sin, for fornicators, for those who do not know Jesus Christ, for those who refuse to know Him.
Lena had gained her love for the beauty and wisdom of the Bible from the same people. A few Saturdays of sitting next to Miss Joanna as she ate her scrambled eggs, grits and toast and drank her sweet black coffee and orange juice first thing in the morning down at The Place taught Lena more about the Bible and what it was saying than sixteen years of Catholic school education.
Lena had to shake her head in wonder at the number of biblical scholars she saw in a day going about their lives in their maid and cafeteria worker’s uniforms. To say nothing, Lena thought, of the women who should be in pulpits.
During daily Mass, when the priest invited the congregation to offer their own individual intentions aloud, Lena didn’t hesitate to pray “for the evil that corrodes our church with more emphasis on gender than on Christian love, let us pray to the Lord.”
She had not intended to make such a big deal about women preaching sermons. But there were some things that just didn’t seem right and Christian. And Lena always felt it was her place to at least point them out. Simple things, like, if Mary was the Mother of God, then why didn’t she get the same rank and adoration as the Father of God. It just didn’t seem right.
It was like the way Lena had always felt about her own mother doing so much in the house, in the community and in the family business just to be relegated to someone who “helped Jonah out.”
So, just as often as Lena said, “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen,” she prayed, “In the name of the Mother and of the Son, Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.”
Tina Mcelroy Ansa Page 27