Bound South

by Susan Rebecca White

  THE NEIGHBORHOOD CHARLES takes us to is nice enough, nicer than the one Mama and me live in but not by far. It’s sure not what you picture when you think of television glamour. Just rows of smallish houses with grassy front lawns and woods in the back. Charles slows down in front of one of them, which has brick on the first floor and vinyl siding on the second. An American flag flies to the side of the red front door.

  The numbers on the mailbox say 2620, and that is when I get really excited because I know these numbers, I’ve seen them on the front of the Praise house when watching the show.

  We really are here.

  We climb out of the car, Charles shielding the sun from his face with his hand.

  I am wearing my white church dress. I made Charles stop at a McDonald’s on the way over here so I could change into it. I was going to wait and wear it to services on Sunday, but I decided I wanted it to be the first thing Daddy saw me in. It’s a young-looking dress, babyish almost, and maybe I want Daddy to still think of me as a little girl. Maybe it scares me a little for him to see me so grown up, my breasts so big, my legs so long. The problem is that the dress is a little tight in the chest. It’s not like I can’t breathe or anything. But it’s tight enough that Charles raised his eyebrows when I came out of the McDonald’s bathroom wearing it.

  “Are you sure you want to go for sexy Catholic girl about to take her first communion?” he asked and I had a strong urge both to take off the dress and to punch him in the stomach.

  I didn’t do either, just pulled down on the skirt a little bit and told him that Jesus loved him but the rest of us found him real hard to take.

  Of course now that we are walking up to the house I’m thinking, Does it look as if I’m trying to be sexy? Is the dress too little for me? Too late. Charles is already ringing the doorbell, pressing his finger on the buzzer again and again as if our being here constitutes an emergency.

  Which it might.

  A BLOND MAN wearing a tight T-shirt that shows off his arm muscles opens the door. All I can think is that he looks like a Ken doll. A Christian Ken doll, as he wears a large silver cross on a chain around his neck.

  “Aw shoot, I thought y’all was my pizza,” he says. “Thought y’all was Domino’s.”

  “Domino’s delivers and they want you to, too,” says Charles in a singsong voice.

  He said the same thing to me once when a Domino’s commercial came on while we were watching TV. When I asked him what on earth he was talking about he said that he boycotts Domino’s because the founder gives money to pro-life groups. I said, “You just made me a Domino’s customer for life.”

  “Hi,” I say, smiling, trying to make up for Charles’s rudeness. “We’re not the pizza guy, we are just big fans of your TV show.”

  The man grins. “So Carol told you where to find us?”

  “Yeah,” says Charles. “She said she hardly ever gives out that information, but Missy here and I are special.”

  “Lord, that woman is the mouth of the South,” says the Christian Ken doll. “Pastor keeps getting on her about her big mouth and she just keeps sending fans over to us.”

  He’s smiling in a way that makes me think he doesn’t think it’s so bad for Carol to always be spilling the beans.

  “Pastor as in Pastor Meadows?” asks Charles, shooting me a look.

  “That and Pastor P. It’s hard to keep the two straight in my head. I mean, they’re both Luke, it’s just one is the real live version and the other is the made-for-TV. It’s gotten so confusing for all of us, we just call him Pastor and figure that covers both bases.”

  “Is he here?” I ask, my voice cracking.

  “What’s that?” asks the man, cupping his ear.

  “Missy and I are the biggest Salt fans on the planet,” says Charles. “So if Pastor is around, maybe we could get his autograph? We drove all the way up from Atlanta just to meet him.”

  The man starts looking at Charles as if he might be carrying a gun in his pocket.

  “You drove all the way from Atlanta just to get Pastor’s autograph? Boy, you cain’t even get the show in Atlanta. It only plays on a little old cable channel here in Durham.”

  “Charles has a satellite dish,” I say. “To pick up college sports games. One day it picked up Salt of the Earth. We think God must have wanted us to see it.”

  The man is studying me like I’m a math problem he’s trying to figure out. He smiles, revealing the whitest teeth I’ve ever seen.

  “You drove all the way up here just to get our John Hancocks? Well, I am flattered.”

  It feels wrong to be lying to this man. Especially because of that cross he is wearing.

  “Look, the truth is—”

  Charles cuts me off. “The truth is her daddy lives here in Durham and she comes to visit him on the weekends so we didn’t just drive up here to get autographs, but we are very interested in meeting the cast.”

  “Does your daddy live up here too?” asks the man. Something about his tone makes Charles blush.

  “No. But I’m her cousin and I have a car so taking Missy to see her daddy just seems like the right—the Christian—thing to do.”

  Why Charles has to go making up all kinds of lies—including saying that he is a Christian—is beyond me.

  The man continues to study us, looking back and forth, back and forth, smiling like he knows a little secret.

  “Look here,” he says. “Luke and just about everyone else are off at Durham General, but why don’t y’all come in and I’ll get you a Co-Cola and we can get to know each other better while we wait for them to come back.”

  “Durham General? Is that the hospital? Is Luke—I mean Pastor—is he okay?” I ask.

  “They’re just shooting a scene. I’d tell you all about it, but it’s top secret.”

  I LIKE THE inside of the Salt house. The front door opens right up to the living room, which I recognize immediately from the show. There’s the L-shaped sofas and the entertainment center with the big-screen TV. There’s the braided rug and the fireplace with the mantel above it lined with photos. I walk over to the mantel and begin looking at the pictures in the frames, hungry to see more of Daddy.

  All of the photos are of the Salt cast, which disappoints me a little, though I know it shouldn’t. (What was I thinking, that Daddy would prop a big old photo of me right on the mantel?) There’s the same one of the Praise family that was on the bulletin board at the church, the one where Daddy’s arms are slung around Dawn’s and Matthew’s shoulders. There’s something familiar-looking about Matthew and then I realize what it is.

  “Oh my Lord!” I say. “You’re Matthew. From the show!”

  The blond man sits on the sofa looking just as proud and pleased as a cat with a mouse. “Guilty as charged,” he says. “I’m surprised you didn’t recognize me sooner, seeing as what fans you two are.”

  “Wowsers,” says Charles, who has already made himself comfortable on one of the sofas. “I had no idea we were among celebrity.”

  “Well you are,” says the man who plays Matthew, giving Charles a look that says, I don’t like you.

  “Is Matthew your real name?” I ask.

  “My real name’s Dwayne. Pastor just thought it was important for me to have a biblical name for the show.”

  “Like the very biblical moniker Dawn,” says Charles.

  I don’t even know what moniker means, but I know Charles is being a real pain in the butt. I shoot him a look like he is my two-year-old and he is one second away from a smack. I swear, it is hard to believe that Charles is Mrs. Parker’s son. Even though she sometimes acts like she’s better than you just by being so polite all the time, she’s a really nice lady while Charles can be such a jerk. Once Mama and me were over at the Parkers’ house helping them get ready for their Christmas party, and I overheard Charles’s daddy tell him to quit being such a “g.d. smartass.” Only he didn’t say “g.d.” He said the whole word and he sounded like he meant it too.

&nbs
p; I remember thinking, You tell him, Mr. Parker. But then I also felt kind of sorry for Charles.

  “Y’all look like a real family in this photo,” I say.

  “Thank you, darlin’,” says Dwayne. “We’ve got some extra copies of that picture. I’ll sign one for you if you want.”

  “Ooh, I want one!” cries Charles.

  I hope Dwayne doesn’t give Charles an autographed photo. If he does, Charles will probably try to sell it on eBay.

  The doorbell rings. Deep breath, take a deep breath. I start running my fingers through my hair. Then I give the hem of my dress one more tug. I wish it wasn’t so short. Dwayne keeps looking at my legs out of the corner of his eyes.

  I don’t know if I should go sit on the couch or if I should just stay here by the fireplace or what, but my body decides for me by freezing right up.

  Dwayne answers the door. It’s the Domino’s guy, holding a box of pizza.

  “About time, my friend,” says Dwayne. “Way over thirty minutes. That means it’s free, right?”

  “No sir,” says the delivery guy, who’s sixty if he’s a day old. “We changed that policy a long time ago.”

  “Betcha had to give away too many pizzas, didn’t you?”

  “That’ll be twelve eighty,” says the man. I watch as Dwayne takes a ten and two ones out of his wallet and then counts out eighty cents in change.

  Charles notices too and shoots me an astonished look. He mouths, “Wouldn’t Jesus tip?”

  At least I think that’s what he’s mouthing.

  Dwayne shuts the front door and walks toward the kitchen with the Domino’s box. “’Scuse me, folks, but I am starving and if Loretta catches me eating this pizza in the living room she will skin me alive.”

  Charles shoots me another look. This time he mouths, “None for us?” and gives such a sad hound dog look that I have to laugh.

  I go over to the sofa and sit by Charles.

  “This is weird,” I whisper. “I feel like we’ve tricked our way into here, like we’re breaking the law or something.”

  “If anyone’s up shit creek it’s your father,” whispers Charles.

  “That’s not what I want!”

  He puts his hand on my knee and squeezes. “You’re just nervous because it’s a big deal to see your dad after so many years. Don’t worry. It’s going to be okay. Things have gone great so far.”

  I study his fingers wrapped around my knee. They are long and thin and bony. I like having his hand on me. I wouldn’t mind if he just kept it there.

  And then I hear a car door slam. And another. And I can hear people talking and laughing in the driveway, saying, “The look that nurse gave us…” and “Staci played that scene just right, didn’t she?” and “I would have thought she was miscarrying for real,” and “Man oh man, I thought that woman was going to call the cops on us.” And then the front door opens and a barrel-chested man wearing a T-shirt and baggy shorts comes barging in followed by a tall skinny guy with a ponytail.

  “Dwayne, get out here,” the barrel-chested guy says, not even noticing us. “Have we got a story for you!”

  And right behind him walks Mrs. Praise and the girl who plays Dawn. Dawn is wearing a pair of khaki shorts that look like they have blood all over them and I can’t believe that she looks so completely happy and at ease and not at all embarrassed that she obviously is leaking from her period.

  Mrs. Praise notices us right away. “Uh, hello,” she says. “Who are you?”

  Dwayne walks into the living room, a piece of pepperoni pizza hanging from his mouth.

  “Want to introduce us to your friends, Dwayne?” asks Mrs. Praise in a voice that makes it clear she’s really not interested in meeting us at all.

  Dawn is talking to herself, saying she has got to get out of these shorts right this instant, now where did her bag with the clean change of clothes go? And Dwayne is saying, “These two are Atlanta’s biggest Salt of the Earth fans.” Two other guys walk in the door, both of them with video cameras slung around their shoulders, and just behind them, in walks Daddy.

  Daddy.

  Tears press against my eyes. It really is him. Just as handsome as he was in that photo I have of him holding me when I was just a little baby. His curly hair looks too bright in the light of day, on account of its being dyed blond. But oh Lord, those are his eyes. I will never forget those blue eyes framed by those long lashes.

  Charles looks at Daddy, looks back at me, and then looks at the guys with the cameras. “I’d start those things going if I were you,” he says.

  Dwayne is looking strangely at Daddy and then he blurts out, “Pastor, I want you to meet two of your greatest fans; they drove here all the way from Atlanta.”

  And Daddy. Daddy’s been staring at me this whole time like he can’t believe it. Like I’m Jesus Christ, come around for the second time to judge the living. Him first.

  I stand up and start to walk toward him. I want to put my arms around him. I want to tell him that everything is okay, that I love him. I want to feel that he is real, that his skin is warm, that his heart beats beneath his T-shirt. But he has turned away from me and he is running, running out the door, leaping over the stoop, running down the gravel driveway and into a white pickup truck parked on the street. It starts with a roar. And he must have put the pedal all the way to the metal because the truck jumps and then makes a terrible grinding noise and then it goes. And before I manage to say, “Stop, wait, come back!” the truck is roaring down the street.

  I am left just standing in the living room, everyone staring at me. Stunned.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Backsliders

  (Missy, Fall 2004)

  Dwayne told the rest of the cast and crew that they could go on home, that he would stay with me at the Praise house until Mama came to pick me up. Charles had been gone for a couple of hours by then, headed back to Atlanta, I now know. After everyone else left, Dwayne told me that Durham had some of the best barbecue in the world. He asked did I want to drive out with him to get some. I didn’t actually say yes or no, but I followed him to his car. I did not want to be alone at the house.

  On the way to get barbecue, Dwayne was playing what used to be one of my favorite songs, “I Bow Down before You” by the Mars Hill Aliens. That night I didn’t want to hear it. I did not want to hear about how God has a plan for me, how God knows every thought I’ve ever had, how God knows my past and my future. If God knows my future, I thought, then why did He let me drive all the way up here with Charles only to have my daddy leave me again? On that night it seemed to me that God was either a bully or just plain dumb.

  At the restaurant Dwayne ordered pulled pork sandwiches and baked beans and cornbread to go, and then he said that he didn’t know if I partook or not, but that there was nothing like a cold beer to accompany smoked meat. I had never tasted beer before in my life, but I told him that I would try one, so we stopped by the Kroger and Dwayne bought a twelve-pack.

  We drove back to the house, because that’s where we told Mama we would be waiting when she came to pick me up. I asked Dwayne whose house was it exactly and he said the church owned it but Daddy kind of acted like it was his. We went inside to the kitchen and ate our pulled pork sandwiches. I drank one beer and then drank another. At first the beer tasted horrible but then I sort of got used to it. It still didn’t taste good, but it got easier to swallow. Dwayne took one of the moistened towelettes that came with our sandwiches and wiped the barbecue stain off his lip and then he said that if this were a real barbecue there would be dancing, and did I want to dance with him?

  Now, I’d never been to a barbecue with dancing, so what Dwayne was saying didn’t make much sense to me, but I said yeah, I’d dance with him.

  He took my hands in his and danced me around the kitchen and I leaned my head against his chest and pretended that everything was okay. I pretended even, for a moment, that Dwayne was my daddy and he and I were dancing together because he was so excited that I
found him, he was so excited that I was back in his life.

  Dwayne said, “Come on, let’s go downstairs and put on some music so we don’t look like two fools dancing without a song.”

  He led me down to the basement, which was wood-paneled and cozy and felt like a living room. In the middle of the room was a brown couch set up in front of an old TV, and in the corner was a desk with a computer on it. Near the desk a guitar leaned against the wall. It was the same one Daddy played in the opening credits of the show.

  “That’s where Luke writes his scripts,” said Dwayne, motioning to the desk. As soon as he said Daddy’s name I started to cry. It was just too hard being so near all of his things.

  “Hush now, darling,” Dwayne said. “I didn’t mean to make you upset.” He clucked his tongue in his mouth and wiped away my tears with his finger.

  “I never knew what a fool your daddy was until today,” he said, and then he kissed me on the mouth.

  I kissed him back. It was my first kiss, and unlike what I had heard from a girl at school it felt good and not sloppy. It made the hair on my arms pop. It made me want to be kissed more, to be kissed harder, to be swallowed up by Dwayne so that I no longer had to be in my body.

  “Oh Missy,” he said and we kept kissing and kissing. He led me over to the couch and we sat down on it and he started running his hand on my thigh underneath that stupid dress I wore.

  Dwayne kept rubbing and rubbing my thigh with his hand. It felt good. It made my nipples get hard. He pushed up my dress so that it was bunched around my waist and then he sort of pushed me back onto the couch and started unzipping his pants.

  Hearing that zip brought me back to earth and I told him that no, I could not do that, I could not have sex with him.

  “It’s okay, honey,” he said, breathing real heavy. “We don’t have to do that. We can save that for when we’re married. I just want to be near you. That’s all. I just want to press up right next to you. Look, I’m keeping on my underwear, you see?”