On the calendars it was mid-October, but in Dallas it was still summer. The tent collected and radiated heat like a cast-iron frying pan. Daytime services were the worst. About three hundred people sat scattered among the seventeen hundred or so wooden folding chairs. The employers of the elect insisted that they show up for work, revival or no revival, and that kept the morning and afternoon services small, quiet, and dull as dirt. The only movement was the occasional flick of a fan fashioned from the “Repent and Be Saved” flyers we printed and handed out as advertisements. Beyond the rows of empty chairs, beyond the rolled-up canvas curtain, beyond the hot white light reflected off the dusty automobiles parked in neat lines across the gray clumpy field, beyond the field and the sticky tar of the highway lay the world with its oscillating fans, water-cooling units, and
air conditioners
. I eyed the glare beating through the tent above me and wondered why it never stormed during the morning services.
Brother Terrell perched on a chair in the middle of the platform. He was early into his latest fast and already everything about him seemed sharper, more focused. He had declared fasts before, for a week, two weeks, thirty days. This time it was different. This time he wouldn’t eat until he heard from God. Fasting mortified the flesh and honed the spirit, and that made it easier to get to God. He was dark as a crow with his black hair and black suit. The Bible lay open on his lap and his finger traced Jesus’s red-letter words. “Verily, verily I say unto you . . .” The visiting ministers sat behind him in rows, all dressed in the same dark suits. My mother had moved away from the organ bench and arranged herself at the end of a row, legs crossed, face eager, her body pointed toward the true north of Brother Terrell. Under the dark heavy fabric of her ankle-length skirt, her leg pumped back and forth. Mama had taken to wearing long skirts and dresses as a consecration, a sort of secret pact between her and God. Despite her high-necked, long-sleeved blouse and heavy skirts, she looked unfazed by the heat. I picked up my paper fan and moved it across my face. Hot air. My mother, the preachers, and Brother Terrell seemed so removed up there on the platform. Their zeal for God turned the ordinary comforts of life into something as unnecessary as a dime-store whatnot.
Down here in the valley things were different. Pasted to the back of my chair with nothing to distract me, I counted seven new beads of sweat rolling down my body. I slumped in my seat, head lolling on my shoulder. My dress, petticoat, panties, and socks were soggy. I was indeed a poor little thing. My eyes rolled up to Laverne, Brother Cotton’s wife, searching for pity. She bent over her Bible, following Brother Terrell as he marched through scripture, hup, two, three, four, verily, verily.
Gary and I sat through the services with Laverne now instead of Betty Ann. When Betty Ann became pregnant, Mama said it was too much of a burden on her to watch us. And then the baby came and it really was too much of a burden. Pam still sat with her mama and the baby, and her absence made the tedium of the daytime services almost more than I could bear. I watched my foot swing round and round, then switched directions. A horsefly landed on my wrist and crawled up my arm, feathery-legged and red-eyed. I gave him a limp swat and slumped lower in my chair. Just when I thought I couldn’t take another minute, Randall slid into the seat next to me and whispered, “If it’s this hot in hell, they may as well not send me ’cause I won’t stay.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “At least you don’t have to sweat to death on Earth.”
He grinned.
“What is it?”
“That new tent man, John, the young one, said he would take us swimming.”
“Swimming?”
Laverne cut her eyes at us.
“I’ll talk to your mama. I’m gonna get Pam. You and Gary meet us round back.”
In less than a couple of minutes, Randall was on the platform, whispering in Mama’s ear. She nodded and they left the stage together.
How did he do that?
Pam and the new tent guy appeared at the side of the tent, and Mama and Randall joined them. My mother waved Gary and me outside.
Yes.
We walked up just as John told Mama he wanted to take us and a couple of other kids who traveled with the tent to a big swimming hole outside of town. He would have us back before church that night. Mama didn’t look convinced.
“My kids don’t know how to swim.”
Pam and Randall stood on either side of her and tugged at her hands. “Please, Carolyn, let ’em go. Please.”
John reassured us. “Don’t worry, Sister Johnson, I’ll keep ’em in the shallow water.”
Pam and Randall piled into the cab of the pickup with John, and Gary and I climbed into the bed of the truck with two boys from one of the families who followed the tent. We held on to the sides of the truck as we bounced across the field toward the highway. I made Gary sit between my legs; that way I could keep him safe and he could hold my dress down. As we turned onto the highway and the tent grew smaller, the thrill of what we were doing rushed through me. Swimming was one of those things Holy Roller kids didn’t do. When our parents felt sorry for us they might let us stick our feet in one of the slimy pools of whatever motor court we happened to spend the night in. And if my mother or Betty Ann felt especially guilty, we might do a drive-by vacation, as in we drove by the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean en route to the next revival. “Looky there, kids,” they said, and we would jump up and down and clap our hands at the sight of the waves rolling up on a Mississippi or Florida beach. It never occurred to them to stop, and it never occurred to us to ask them to do so. And now, here
we
were, here
I
was, about to do the impossible.
Yes, Lord.
My legs and arms wanted to pound the bed of the truck. My voice wanted to whoop. I looked at the two skinny tent boys who sat beside Gary and me. They were about my age with blond crew cuts that shimmered in the sun. Their faces wore the serious, self-conscious expression of the true believer. One of them smoothed his long-sleeved white shirt deeper into the waist of his dark, baggy dress pants and tightened his belt. Neither would meet my eye. I clamped my jaw shut. The wind whipped my hair into my face and stung my eyes. I didn’t care.
The pool parking lot was a field, not unlike the field on which the tent sat, only with large pecan trees that cast a generous shade over the parked cars. Kids and grown-ups lazed against the cars or strolled casually between them, arms and legs long, brown, and naked, chests and bellies forested with thick black hair or smooth as stones. Swimsuits stretched tight over curves that dipped and swelled, a mound of breast here, a crescent of white buttock over there. So much skin. The tent boys dropped their jaws. I knew how they felt. My mother screamed and crossed her arms over her chest if I caught a glimpse of her in a full slip. Gary stared and pointed up into the trees. “Look. Look.”
“It’s a bird,” I said, but my eyes never left the bodies around us.
Doors slammed and Randall, Pam, and John were at the back of the pickup, letting down the tailgate. The seven of us stood there for a moment, feeling exposed and unsure what to do or where to go. The two tent boys shoved their hands as far into their pockets as they would go, hunched their shoulders, and pulled their heads in like turtles. Randall slapped one on his back. “Come on outta there, Lynn. Let’s have some fun.”
“This way, kids.” John led us toward a clump of buildings in the distance.
Uneasiness mounted as we approached the line of kids waiting to enter the pool. Most wore swimsuits, but some were still clothed, in shorts and sleeveless shirts mostly. They turned to look as we joined the line, all of us dressed in what appeared to be our Sunday best.
“Why don’t they mind their own beeswax,” Pam muttered. I shrugged and focused my attention on the ant that crawled into a crack between the light-green cinder-block walls. The girl in front of me leaned one tanned arm against the wall. She threw the other one around her friend. Someone yelled. Someone else laughed. Another ant moved into the crack. Pam pushed me forward until we stood on wet cement looking out at the long pool. Grass and boulders lined the sides. Little boys cannonballed into the water. Teenage girls in twopiece suits rode atop the shoulders of boys and wrestled other girls on other shoulders. Kids walked through the water with their eyes closed and their arms extended in front calling out, “Marco! Polo!” Everyone smiling. Water flying. Bodies glistening. “Marco! Polo!”
John nudged Pam and me toward a small room. “Go get ready in there. Then come on out.” The dressing room was a revelation. I didn’t know where to put my eyes. Naked women sat on benches pulling on or peeling off swimsuits, talking to one another or to their kids.
“And then I told him if he wanted someone to do that, he’d better find a new wife.”
“Wait, Jimmy. Over there. Shelly, come here.”
One of the women smiled at me. I looked down. Pam pulled me into a small stall with a curtain. We unbuttoned each other’s dresses, took off our slips, and put our dresses back on. I took my shoes and socks off. My toes spread in all directions on the damp concrete. With crinolines and shoes in hand we tiptoed out of the dressing room toward the pool. Randall, John, Gary, and the tent boys stood there in their black pants and long-sleeved white shirts holding their shoes, socks, and belts. Randall’s grin took up his entire face. He bounced up and down on his naked feet.
“Come on. Let’s go. Let’s go.”
We placed our shoes and other things on a dry patch of ground and walked over to the white concrete steps. John put Gary on his shoulders and he and Randall ran down the steps into the water, leading with their bellies. They began splashing each other as soon as they hit the pool. Pam told the tent boys to go ahead, and they descended into the water with slow, measured steps, hands white-knuckling the rail.
Randall splashed at them. “Come on, y’all. This ain’t no baptism.” The tent boys assumed a martyred air as the locals retreated toward the sides and the deep end of the pool.
Pam pulled at my hand. “Our turn.” I kept my eyes fastened to her back as we walked down the steps. My ears thrummed. We moved oh so slowly. The water tugged at my legs like quicksand, only cold. I had not expected it to be so cold. Little waves lapped at my knees and thighs. Chill bumps popped up on my arms and legs. Our dresses floated open like flowers around the white stems of our legs as we stepped down into the pool. I didn’t know what to do, so I began to move slowly from right to left, watching my dress trail behind. I looked anywhere, everywhere, except at the kids staring at us.
Randall pointed at me and Pam. “I see your panties, both of you.”
John shushed him. We walked back to the steps, tied the hems of our dresses around our thighs, then waded back in the water. Randall splashed us and we splashed back. The splashing helped us pretend that we didn’t care if people stared at us, didn’t care that we were in a public pool fully clothed, and after a while we really didn’t care. John took Gary off his shoulders and began to swing him through the water, holding him under his arms. Gary laughed so hard he started to cough. The two tent boys hoisted themselves out of the water and sat on the side of the pool, determined to remain apart or unable to overcome their sense of separateness. The rest of us played sharks, pirates, mermaids, even Marco Polo. Pam figured out how to swim underwater and we had contests to see who could hold her breath for the longest time. She won. Groups of local kids gradually made their way back to the shallows and resumed their games. If they ventured too close, we glared and they backed off. Riding in the back of the truck on the way home, I thought about how happy everyone at the pool seemed. They either didn’t know or didn’t care that they were practically naked and on their way to hell.
Chapter Eight
IN HOT SPRINGS, BROTHER TERRELL OPENED THE LITTLE HALF DOOR AT the back of the platform and walked to the center of the stage with his head slightly down, chin tucked in. After weeks of fasting, his shoulders were coat-hanger thin and his shirt billowed about when he moved, almost as if there were no one inside. Every week his black belt snaked a little farther around his waist. Soon it would touch his back. He took the microphone from Brother Cotton and began to speak in the middle of the chorus.
“Y’all ever been tempted? It’s a lonely place to be.”
The singing died away and the crowd sat silent.
“Bathsheba tempted David and he murdered a man. Delilah seduced Samson and destroyed him. Jezebel caused a king and an entire nation to stray with her painted lips and idols.”
Jezebel. The pagan princess who painted her face and seduced the king of Israel into marrying her. Jezebel. Thrown from the castle window and devoured by dogs who left only her skull, hands, and feet. I saw her severed hands lying there in the street, rings stacked on slender fingers that ended in long red nails. The sun reflecting off gold sandals crisscrossing her tiny, unbloodied feet. Her skull rolling to a stop against the curb. She never should have worn all that makeup. I tore the Kleenex Laverne had given me in half and wrapped one piece around each of two small sticks I had fished from the sawdust, glad Pam couldn’t see me making ladies out of sticks and Kleenex.
“Seems like every time a man of God falls, there’s a woman in the picture.”
“That’s right, there is.”
“Uh-huh. Preach it, brother.”
He stumbled and one of the preachers brought him a chair. He sat, reconsidered, and stood again. “You women who set your cap for a preacher better be careful not to end up like Jezebel.”
Brother Terrell moved the folding chair aside and began to walk up and down the platform. His steps grew steadier and his voice stronger as he paced.
“You women like to fix yourselves up to look good. Even you holiness women.” He dropped the microphone and let it hang from the cord around his neck. With one hand on his hip and the other crooked at the arm so that his hand flapped in the air, he pranced forward on his toes, hips swaying. He pitched his voice to falsetto. “Why, I just want to look nice. Nothing wrong with that.” His voice fell back to its normal timbre. “And you smear on a little more of that
tinted
chapstick.” Again he mimicked a female voice. “It’s flesh-colored. Nothing wrong with that.”