In the car on the way home, Uncle Rufus said, “Well, Devon, there’s always next year.”
“Yeah, I reckon. That’ll be my last year, though. Ya can’t be any higher than the eighth grade.” I do believe in the Holy Ghost. I do believe in the Holy Ghost.
“You’ll win next year,” Aunt Uma stated confidently.
“I hope so.” I do believe in the Holy Ghost. I do believe in the Holy Ghost.
In school on Monday morning, Devon was half-listening to Mrs. White talk about the assessment test of aptitudes they were about to take and wondering about the return of the fear that he was going to hell because he had blasphemed the Holy Ghost. Why was he still repeating the Holy Ghost mantra when he was saved and filled with the Holy Ghost? He was wrestling with that conundrum when he absentmindedly flung his right wrist away from his body, like Rig had done at church the night that Keith and Dora had been saved. The tension connected with his repeating the Holy Ghost mantra briefly abated. “Ah, I can stop the voice by flickin’ my wrist.”
His attention returned to Mrs. White. “Now, all you have to do, boys and girls, is read each statement on the test and fill in the circle according to how much you think the statement applies to you. If you think the statement applies to you, fill in the ‘yes’ circle. If you feel that it doesn’t apply to you, fill in the ‘no’ circle. And if you can’t decide if the statement applies to you, fill in the ‘maybe’ circle. Does everyone understand what we are doing?”
Everyone shook his or her head yes.
She began distributing the tests.
The test was easy, a series of statements about jobs: “Do you think you would enjoy working on cars? Would you enjoy being a farmer? Do you think you would enjoy arranging flowers? Do you enjoy doing math problems? Is drawing a plan of a house or church something you would like to do? Do you enjoy reading?” When the results were returned to the students a month later, they indicated that Devon would be most suited to be a teacher, a writer, an interior decorator, an architect, or a lawyer. He showed the results to Marie when he got home.
“A teacher, an architect, a lawyer? Why, you need to go to college for those things. We can’t afford no college. You need to gitchou a good fact’ry job like Dad when you graduate from high school. You can’t git above your raisin’,” his mother told him.
“OK,” he said. He picked up the comics section of the newspaper that was lying on the floor beside the sofa and went upstairs to the bathroom. He sat down on the toilet and folded the comics section to L’il Abner. “Wow! Daisy’s tits look like they’re gonna bust outa that top today!” he thought. He grasped the neck of his bird in his right hand and held the paper with his left. The Holy Ghost mantra faded away as he focused his passionate attention on Daisy. The flicking of his wrist was put to better use than diminishing fear.
Devon was walking home from school one afternoon in May and had just turned from Neva Drive onto Hiawatha Drive when Adam zoomed past him in the Chevy station wagon and sharply spun the car into Hiawatha, nearly hitting the stop sign and kicking up dust and pebbles from the side of the road.
“What the heck?” Devon thought.
Adam screeched to a stop in front of the house and then Devon saw it. An ambulance was sitting in the driveway. Two paramedics were just closing the rear doors to the ambulance. Adam jumped out of the car, spoke briefly to them, and then got back into the car. He shouted at Devon as he pulled out, “Watch the young’uns!” He backed the car down the street, waited for the ambulance to pull out, and then followed it quickly as it turned left to go onto the freeway.
“What happened?” Devon yelled after the car. He went inside the house to find Gloryann and Denny sobbing on the couch. “What happened?” he asked Glory. She rushed off the couch and ran to him. He got down on his knees to hug her. Denny also crawled off the couch to hug him.
“Jack . . . Jack . . . Jackie’s dead!” she stammered.
The icy fist plunged into his stomach. “Jackie’s dead?” he repeated.
“Yoooowwww!” she howled. “He’s dead!”
“What happened?” he asked again as he led them back to the couch. I do believe in the Holy Ghost. I do believe in the Holy Ghost. Wrist flick.
“Mommy put Jackie an’ Gina down on the bed to take a nap. When she went to check on ‘em, she coulden find Jackie. She ask me if I seen him, an’ I said no.”
“So where was he?” Devon asked.
“I helped her look for him, an’ she found him hangin’ between the wall an’ the bed. He was BLUE!!” she wailed.
I do believe in the Holy Ghost. I do believe in the Holy Ghost. Wrist flick. “What did she do then?”
“She called Daddy at work, an’ then she called the amb’lance. He was still blue when they took him out!”
Devon was dumbstruck. He didn’t know what to say. “Maybe he ain’t dead. Maybe they can bring him back.” I do believe in the Holy Ghost. I do believe in the Holy Ghost. Wrist flick.
Gloryann shook her head no. “No, he’s dead! He’s dead!!”
Devon began crying too, for Jackie, for Gloryann, for Denny, and for himself.
Jackie did not die. The paramedics resuscitated him on the way to the hospital. But he would forever after be slightly removed from what was happening around him, always with a bemused look on his face, as though he were still somewhat in that celestial realm from which he had been retrieved.
One morning in June after Sunday school, the family went to Adam’s sister’s house, a hovel in Snyderville which stood on the left side of the hill across the dirt road from Hood and Lee’s trailer, to celebrate Adam’s birthday. When they walked through the screen door into the kitchen from outside, they saw a birthday cake with white frosting and chocolate chips sitting on the kitchen table. The chocolate chips moved slightly when they entered. Aunt Virge waved her arm over the cake and the flies on the frosting buzzed into the air. Adam swallowed. He hated flies. He had seen too many dead Krauts in France covered with the foul things. Aunt Virge was a wisp of a woman, barely enough skin and muscle on her wiry frame to keep her skeleton from collapsing into a heap. “Ah made all yore favorites, Ad,” she told Adam, “Corn on the cob, fried chicken, fried taters, biscuits an’ gravy, pork an’ beans, an’ grits.”
“Sounds good, Virge,” he said, swallowing hard. “Do we really hafta eat with all these flies?” he thought.
“John, go out to the shed an’ bring in them extry chairs!” she yelled into the doorway on the other side of the kitchen.
John, a grizzled man in his fifties, shuffled through the doorway. He had a two-week growth of beard along his jawline. “Hi Adam. Happy birthday. Hi Marie. Hi young’uns,” he mumbled as he edged past them.
They all said “Hi” to him.
“Y’all can warsh yore hands right there in the kitchen zink. Ret’s in the bathroom dollin’ up for Sonny,” Aunt Virge told them. “He’s comin’ for dinner too. They’re gittin’ hitched soon.”
“Oh yeah?” Marie asked, feigning interest. “When’s that gonna happen?”
“Last week o’ Joo-lie, Ah reckon,” she replied. “Soon’s they git approval from the judge.”
“The judge?” Adam queried as John came in with the wooden folding chairs. “Why do they need approval from a judge?”
“Why, ya know Loretta ain’t right in the head, an’ Sonny’s livin’ in a group home. He ain’t right, neither. So’s they gotta git a judge’s approval so he can git outa that home an’ come an’ live here.”
“Oh, they’re gonna live here?” Marie asked, as she sat down on one of the chairs John was unfolding around the table, holding Gina in her arms. Adam sat down beside her, holding Jackie.
“Why, where else they gonna live? Ret ain’t got the sense God give a goose. They hafta live here.”
Loretta came through the doorway at that moment. She had put her black hair up in a bun and smeared some pink lipstick on her mouth. She was walleyed; her right eye looked straight ahead, and her left e
ye looked off to the left. “Hey, y’all,” she said. She smiled shyly.
“Why, don’tchou look purty!” Marie complimented her.
“Thank you, Aunt Marie. I got all purtied up ‘cause Sonny’s a comin’.”
“Congratulations! I hear you’re gittin’ married.”
She sat down at the table and started studying her hands. “Yeah, if they let us.”
“Knock! Knock!” a voice said at the kitchen screen door.
“There he is now!” Loretta said. She got up and opened the door for Sonny. “Hi, honey!” She smiled at him.
“Hi,” he said and pecked her on the mouth. He was a tall, lanky boy with a protuberant Adam’s apple, blond spiky hair, and pimples. Loretta introduced him to everyone, and he shook everyone’s hand, even eight-month-old Jackie and Gina’s.
“Set down, now, so’s we can eat,” Aunt Virgie instructed them. “But let Marie or Adam say grace first.”
Marie prayed, “Heavenly Father, we thank thee for the bounties we are about to receive. We ask thee to move in these lives an’ to bring them to thy side. In Jesus’ name, amen.”
“Amen, thank you, Jesus,” Adam said.
Del, Devon, Gloryann, and Denny filled up their plates and went into the living room to eat at a small card table. All of the adults sat at the kitchen table. Del and Devon looked around in wonder at the newspapers that covered the walls instead of wallpaper. They ate while waving their arms over their food, trying to keep the flies off their plates.
In the kitchen, Adam and Marie were doing the same. No one else at the table seemed to notice the flies crawling on their food. Adam had a difficult time eating, remembering all the dead Germans he had seen.
“So, Ret, you lookin’ forward to gittin’ married?” Marie asked Loretta as she gnawed on a chicken leg.
Loretta put the chicken leg down and licked her fingers. “Oh, yeah, Aunt Marie. Me an’ Sonny gonna have us lots o’ kids,” she gushed. “Ain’t we honey?” she asked, as she looked lovingly at him.
Sonny just looked at her, smiled, and chuckled, “Huh-huh-huh.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” Marie said. “I love babies.”
“Me too,” Loretta said, one eye looking at Marie and the other at John.
Marie looked at Virge. “Who’s gonna pay for ‘em?” she asked.
Loretta thought she was still talking to her and said, “You don’t buy babies, Aunt Marie. They come another way.”
Sonny chuckled again, “Huh-huh-huh.”
“We’ll find a way,” Virge said.
Virge had married John in Kentucky when she was fifteen. John had gotten her pregnant, and they had to get married. John was Virge and Adam’s first cousin.
That night at church, Marie led the congregation in singing “The Old Rugged Cross.” They sang the last two stanzas:
To the old rugged cross I will ever be true;
Its shame an’ reproach gladly bear;
Then He’ll call me someday to my home far away,
Where His glory forever I’ll share.
So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross
Till my trophies at last I lay down.
I will cling to the old rugged cross
And exchange it some day for a crown.
She left the pulpit and sat down on the left side of the dais beside Rufus. Adam stood up behind the pulpit and said, “Thank you, Sister Hensley, for leadin’ us in that beautiful hymn.”
Suddenly, Marie stood back up and, with her eyes closed and her arms raised, said loudly in tongues, “Sala sum lada sik nah sah la din bah noe la ef sine jah. Jah nuh la suh, dee nok la lay, dee nok loe nigh.” She sat back down. The congregation went quiet, wondering whom God would choose to translate His message.
After a few minutes, Dwayne stood up on the right side of the dais with his eyes closed and his arms raised and gave the congregation God’s message, “Verily, good an’ faithful servant Marie, thou hast a second-born son who will bring multitudes of sheep into my fold an’ through him I will work many wonders.”
Marie looked down at Devon in the first row and smiled. “Praise be his holy name! Thank you, Jesus! Yes, Lord!”
Devon felt the icy fist plunge into his stomach. “Me?” he thought.
Adam also looked at him. “Devon, since God has anointed you, I think you should come up an’ show us how you have been chosen an’ blessed by the Lord by prayin’ for anyone who is sick or heavy-laden. Come on up, son.”
Devon shyly rose from the pew and stood awkwardly in front of the pulpit.
Adam picked up the bottle of olive oil on the pulpit and handed it to him. “Brothers an’ sisters, if you need healin’ or have anything that’s troublin’ you tonight, I wantchou to come up to Devon an’ let him pray for you. God has anointed him to be a great shepherd, as we just heard, an’ I’m sure God’ll richly reward you if he prays for you right now. Come on up now.”
Sister Connie was the first to come up. Devon inverted the small bottle of oil onto his right forefinger and made the sign of the cross on her forehead with it. He handed it to Uncle Dwayne, who was now standing beside him to his left, and then placed both his hands atop Sister Connie’s head, as he had seen Dwayne and his father do. He closed his eyes. “Jesus, we ask thee to bless this woman an’ make her whole. In Jesus’ name!” She suddenly fell backward, as she was overcome by the Spirit. Devon opened his eyes and saw Uncle Rufus laying her gently onto the floor. Devon suddenly felt a strange surge of power when he saw the woman lying before him with her eyes closed.
Others came up. Soon there was a line of people standing in the aisle, waiting for Devon to pray for them. Some of them swooned in the Spirit and lay on the floor when he prayed for them, and some instantly began to weep as soon as he placed his hands on their head. There was a great outpouring of the Spirit.
Devon and Rig were going from house to house on Embury Park Road, knocking on doors and asking the residents if they wanted to buy a copy of Grit for ten cents. Most people said no. It looked as though they were not going to get the fabulous rewards that the advertisement in the Batman comic said that they would if they sold fifty copies. They had only sold three.
They left the last house on the block and walked across the street to look at the river. Two ambulances and a fire truck sat on the dirt access road along the river. There was a group of people standing on the bank, watching two boats on the river.
“Wonder what’s goin’ on,” Devon mused.
“I doeknow,” Rig said. “Let’s go see.”
They walked down the grassy embankment and approached the crowd. Devon saw David among the crowd. They walked up to him and Devon said, “Hi. What’s goin’ on?”
David looked at him with tears streaming down his face. “Richard drowned. They’re draggin’ the river for him.”
“Richard?”
“Richard Booher.”
“No!” Devon said. The icy fist clutched his stomach. “What happened?”
“Him an’ his cousin were out on the river in a rowboat, an’ somehow Richard slipped an’ went overboard.”
“Did his cousin drown too?”
David shook his head. “No, he’s in one o’ the ambulances.”
Devon imagined what it would be like to drown, gasping for air and only gulping water. “How long they been draggin’ the river?”
“I doeknow. Prob’ly an hour at least.”
Richard Booher and Debbie Maitlin had been the only couple in the seventh grade who had had the courage to be a couple. They had held hands at lunch and recess and never left each other’s side. Richard was a tall boy, not quite as tall as Devon, who had brown hair and an easy laugh. Debbie was a slightly overweight blond. And now Richard was gone.
They watched the two boats move slowly up and down the river, dragging lines to try to snag the body. It began to get dark.
“Well, I guess we better git home. You goin’ home?” Devon asked David.
“Nah. I’m gonna stay till it gets d
ark.”
“OK. See ya.”
“Bye.”
As they walked up the embankment to Embury Park Road, Devon said, “I hope I never die by drownin’. What a horrible way to die.” I do believe in the Holy Ghost. I do believe in the Holy Ghost. Wrist flick.
“Me too,” Rig agreed.
It was a hot, muggy August afternoon. The fan in the dining room was slowly blowing warm air across the dining room table. The family was just finishing dessert, banana pudding with vanilla wafers. It was Friday night.
“I got a date with Linda tonight,” Del announced.
“Oh, yeah? Where ya goin’?” Marie asked.
“Nowhere. We’re just gonna play board games with her parents.”
“Wha’da ya play?”
“Oh, Scrabble an’ sometimes chess.”
“I didden know you knew how to play chess,” Devon said.
“Yeah, Linda taught me,” Del replied. “Is that alright?” he asked, looking at Marie and then Adam.
“Course, son. Just be back before eleven,” Adam said.
It seemed to Devon that Del was favored by his parents and allowed him to do anything he wanted.
“Dev, that means you need to do the dishes tonight,” Marie said as she looked at him.
“But I did ‘em last night,” he said, whining.
“Devon. You heard your mother,” Adam said in a harsh voice.
“I did ‘em last night,” Devon repeated.
“You’re gonna do ‘em, an’ I don’t wanta hear any more outa you,” Adam commanded.
Devon pushed his bowl away from him, stood up and glared at Adam. “I ain’t doin’ ‘em!” he shouted. He left the table and ran through the living room and upstairs to his bedroom, taking the steps two at a time. He slammed the bedroom door, not noticing that Del’s baseball bat lay in the doorway. The bat went bouncing down the stairs. He lay down on his bed, white hot anger burning inside him.
Adam opened the door, taking off his belt. “I ain’t whupped you in a long time, an’ I see that was a mistake. Why’re you talkin’ back an’ why’djou throw that bat down the stairs?”
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