Jesus Land (12 page)

These fingertip caresses were exquisite, amplified by our inability to see the lust and embarrassment in each other’s faces. There was only a tingling sensation and our open-mouthed breathing. But our caresses never progressed beyond our palms; years of Sunday school, Christian school, Calvinettes, Cadets, Young Calvinists, and
Youth Group had taught us to keep ourselves pure for the marriage bed, and even the smallest token of physical affection was given with much hesitation and reluctance. “‘Petting’ encourages sinful thoughts,” our youth group leader told us.

By the time Rick gave me my first kiss at the end of seventh grade—in a closet, during a party when the adult supervisor left the room and David pushed us inside, Rick skimmed my lips with his, then scrambled away—Jerome had already taken most everything else.

A second offering is taken—Mother gives me only a quarter this time—and Reverend Dykstra clears his throat and adjusts the microphone. I take a bulletin from the pew back; the sermon title is “God Is ALL You Need.”

“Beloved in the Lord: All of us Calvinists are familiar with the first question and answer of the Heidelberg Catechism,” he says, leaning forward and gripping the pulpit. “Our children memorize it in fifth grade, and I’m sure you adults can recite it by heart as well . . . that is, at least I hope you can. If not, there’s still space available in Mr. Vanderkleed’s Wednesday night class.”

Laughter riffles through the pews, and Reverend Dykstra leans back and grins, taking it in, before putting on his stern preacher face again.

“It is a profound question, the cornerstone of our faith: What is your only comfort in life and death? The answer is equally profound: That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, who preserves me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my heavenly Father.

“What does this mean, exactly? It means that God is the only comfort we need in a world where Communist missiles may fall at any moment and our families and friends may fail us. It means
that nothing happens without God allowing it to happen. It means that He is in control.”

My mind wanders, as it always does, lulled toward random thoughts by Reverend Dykstra’s singsong voice. Sunlight streams in rainbow colors through the stained glass windows; green and orange stripes fall across my pale yellow skirt. Outside, a basketball thuds down the sidewalk next to the church. On the other side of Mother, David plays with a paper cut on his thumb, pressing the seam open and closed, and Mother elbows him sharply.

If God is in control, why does He allow so many bad things to happen? I lay my hands in the jeweled light on my lap and spread my fingers. If God is all we need, why does it so often seem that He is not enough? God may be enough for Mother, but I need other things, too. Immediate, solid things. I need Dad to stop beating the boys and Jerome to leave me alone and Mother to be kind.

“. . . A passage from the Bible that helps put things in perspective is Proverbs 3 verses 5 and 6: Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not lean on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him and He will direct your paths.”

Mother offers me a roll of butter rum Lifesavers and I take one before she passes the roll to David. He takes several, and Mother elbows him again as candy drops loudly to the floor and rolls under the pews. Mother shakes her head and closes her eyes, exasperated, and David peers over at me with a mischievous grin. I smile back at him.
Ding dong
.

“When we surrender ourselves to God and allow Him to take control of our lives, we can endure every battle and face every foe, confident of the outcome. We can say ‘Thank you, Lord, for giving me all the comfort I need. You are mine and I am yours and I trust your authority.’ What an amazing gift!”

Maybe God’s punishing me for not praying regularly. I used to pray all the time, but cut back when I didn’t see results. Jerome didn’t stop bothering me, Mother didn’t get any happier, and my chest is still flat.

Reverend Dykstra’s voice softens and I look up to see his head bowed.

“Thank you, dear God, for all you have done for us. Apply your Word unto our every heart, and bring us into Thy courts again this evening. Forgive us our sins, oh Heavenly Father, and hear us in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

He raises his head and nods curtly at Mrs. Molestra, the hunchbacked organist, who launches into “Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us.” The congregation rises. Mother thrusts a Psalter Hymnal into the space between us, and when I look at her she smiles; a warm, sweet smile, the one she reserves for church people and strangers. This throws me off-guard and I look away, unbelieving, before looking at her again and smiling feebly in return as I take a corner of the hymnal.
Mother smiled at me
!

They say that God works in mysterious ways that our finite human minds cannot comprehend. Maybe I should pray harder.

I grew jealous of him.

“What an adorable little black boy!” strangers gushed as Mother walked us down the sidewalk, me dangling from one hand, David from the other. “A miniature Bill Cosby!”

They’d pinch his cheeks, pat his spongy hair, ooh and ahh over him. And they’d ignore me. After all, Lafayette was swarming with tow-headed toddlers. David was unique.

After the strangers finished their poking and prodding, Mother would nudge David to say thank you. “Tank ew,” he’d say in his high little voice, and they’d gush all over again. Sometimes I’d get so jealous, I’d reach behind Mother’s legs and pinch him. Then I’d feel bad when he got in trouble for crying.

My competition for attention was fierce, and sometimes painful.

Once he rode his tricycle down the stairs at our house and crashed into a wall; everyone rushed over to console him. I took one look at all the commotion and rode my trike down the stairs right after him.

Another time we sang “King David: Kindhearted King” in Sunday school and I raised my hand to demand a song about “Queen Julia.”

I was convinced that David got special treatment because he was black.

The pool spreads out before me, purple-blue in the deep end and turquoise in the shallows. I stand on the high-dive platform, knees bent, toes curled over the sandpaper edge. Mary waits at the far end of the water.

“Ready?” I shout. She gives me two thumbs up.

I bounce twice and push off the board, soaring for a long moment before knifing through the cool surface, hands in prayer position over my head, elbows tight to my face. When I feel the counter-tug, I pull down my arms and frog kick, breaststroking underwater. I open my eyes in the scratchy chlorine and the world is pale blue. I glide past Mary’s brown legs, reach the wall, and crouch down to kick off the hard tile, lungs burning, and manage several strokes back toward the deep end before rising to gulp in air. I turn to look at the marker at the edge of the pool.

“Five feet!” I yell, raising my arms in triumph. Mary made it to four. She freestyles over.

“Not by much,” she says. “Do it again?”

“Sure.” I shrug. “Just let me know when you get tired of losing, okay?”

She splashes me and as we swim to the side of the pool, a car horn blares one, two, three times.

“Gotta go,” Mary says, hoisting herself from the water. She winds a towel around her thick body, grabs her gym bag from the bleachers, and bolts out the side door as the car horn sounds again.

“See you tomorrow,” I call at the closing door.

Fluorescent lights buzz overhead. I pull off my rubber cap and lean back, letting the water cushion my head as my feet rise to the surface. As always, I’m the last girl in the pool after practice. This is my favorite part of the day, when I can float alone in the deep end and think.

My hair caresses my shoulders, and I close my eyes, pretending the white glare of the overhead lights is sunshine. David and I will have a pool at our Florida apartment. Not one of those dorky birdbaths that take three strokes to cross, either, but a decent plunger, ringed by palm trees and hot pink hibiscus, a stone’s throw from the ocean. We’ll float just like this under the brilliant blue Florida sky, listening to the waves and the seagulls as the gentle sun warms us.

Life will only get better when we’re eighteen, and it’s not unbearable now. I’ve got two friends and have won a few ribbons at swim meets. And now that I ride my bike to Harrison for the swim practice, I no longer have to endure the shame of the reserved bus seat or rush ahead of David on the sidewalk. Jerome rides the bus with him now, and nobody messes with Jerome.

David seems to be okay, too, consumed by Dungeons and Dragons. David calls Kenny Mudd the Grim Illusionist and Kenny calls him the Dark Cleric. Whatever. He seems to be happy. And no one’s called me “nigger lover” since I stopped hanging out with him. Things will be different for us in Florida, but for now, it’s best we keep to ourselves.

“Hey, little sister!”

Jerome. I drop my feet and scissor my arms and legs, backing farther into the deep end. He squats at the edge of the pool, twirling his hand in the water.

“What do you want?” I glance around; we’re alone.

“Mom says to get home on the double.”

I glance at the clock on the wall behind him.

“How come?” I ask him. “It’s only 5:15.”

He takes his hand out of the water and wipes it on his jeans.

“Fuck if I know. Maybe you’re in trouble or something.”

Maybe Mother found out that I borrowed her earrings without asking. When I returned them to her jewelry chest, I didn’t remember which drawer I’d taken them from and dropped them in the top one.

“You coming?” Jerome asks.

“Yeah, I’m going,” I say, glaring at him. “You don’t need to wait for me.”

I don’t want him to see me climb dripping from the pool with my swimsuit plastered to my body. I don’t want him to see me, period.

Jerome walks backward toward the side exit grinning smugly, turning at the last minute to slip through the door.

After he’s gone, I rush to the locker room and throw my blue terrycloth sweat suit on over my Speedo, imagining Mother festering angrily at home. If she sent Jerome all the way down here
to get me, she must be pissed. I’ll say I thought I’d asked to borrow her earrings, then apologize for forgetting.

The hallway is unlit. At the far end, Jerome stands on the other side of the glass doors, straddling his bike and cupping his hands to the glass. I halt and cross my arms, and he pedals out of sight, the long shadow he threw over the floor refilled with orange sunlight.

As I’m pulling my wet hair into a ponytail, the boys’ locker room door opens and three figures emerge. They stand facing me, but the hallway is too dim to see their faces; the fading light is behind them.

“Hey there, Julia,” one says; I recognize Scott’s velvety voice.

They walk toward me in a row, arms curved slightly at their sides, apelike. Squinting, I make out the two other boys, football players I’ve never talked to before: Brad MacIntyre and Todd Klondike.

“What’s up?” I ask in a stiff voice, sensing something sinister in their crouched walk.

One of them grunts something and there’s a flurry of motion and suddenly I’m on my back, swaying between them as if we were on the beach and they were about to toss me into the ocean. Scott’s at my shoulders, Brad and Ted have me by the ankles.

“Easy, girl,” Scott murmurs, as if he were calming a skittish colt. “Everything’s okay. We’re just gonna have ourselves some fun s’all.”

I know what’s happening. I’ve heard talk of this on Mondays after a big party. A bunch of guys will single out a girl, drag her away, and pull off her clothes. They’ll do things to her, and if she hollers, everyone ignores her.

It’s called a gang bang, and it never happens to the popular girls. The boys always pick a loner or a wannabe, a girl who
wants to be part of the in-crowd, but doesn’t quite have the right attitude or clothes. She’s flattered to be invited to the party, but on Monday she walks through school cringing, as the popular girls talk trash about her—
Who the hell did she think she was, anyway?—
while the jocks slap each other on the back.

It’s happening to me. No, it
won’t
.

“No!” I scream, and Scott stuffs a salty hand in my mouth.