Every Boy Should Have a Man (19 page)

“I can’t sit by and watch God’s work go undone,” he always said.

On the day they delivered the secondhand upright piano, he told me, “You’re going to be a great man of God, Elwyn,” and he extended his forefingers like pistols and rattled a few keys.

He was already in his seventies by then, but lean and healthy and proud of his looks. His full head of gray hair, which he parted stylishly down the middle, was a contrast to his dark, handsome complexion. He always wore a jacket and tie and carried a gold-tipped cane. Grinning, he showed his much-too-white false teeth. “I love music, but I never learned to play. Maybe someday you’ll teach me.”

“I will,” I said. I had just turned eight.

“I wish you would teach him, Elwyn,” said Sister Morrisohn, the wife who was about half Brother Morrisohn’s age. From a distance she could be mistaken for a white woman with her fair skin and her long black hair cascading down her back. She was the prettiest woman at church, everyone always said, though she had her ways, whatever that meant. She removed her shawl and draped it lovingly over his shoulders. “We have that big piano at home no one ever plays.”

“I’m not cold,” Brother Morrisohn protested, frowning, but he did not remove the lacy shawl. He rattled the keys again.

“I’ll teach you piano, Brother Morrisohn,” I said.

He reached down and patted my head. “Thank you, Elwyn.”

I was so happy. I hadn’t had my first lesson yet, but I sat down on the wobbly stool and made some kind of music on that piano.

A little after midnight, my father emerged from the bedroom and drove me to bed.

“Goodnight, goodnight, goodnight,” he sang, accentuating each beat with a playful open-palm slap to my rump. It was a victory for him too. Just that weekend he had won $300 at the track. It didn’t seem to bother him that my mother had demanded half the money and set it aside for my piano lessons.

Every night I offered a prayer of thanksgiving, certain God had forgiven me.

* * *

Peachie Gregory was another thing entirely.

Peachie Gregory—with those spidery limbs and those bushy brows that met in the center of her forehead and that pouting mouth full of silver braces—I didn’t completely understand it when I first saw her play the piano, but I wanted her almost as much as I envied her talent.

She dominated my thoughts when I was awake, and in time I began seeing her in my progressively worsening dreams—real dreams, not made-up visions—dreams of limbs brushing limbs, and lips whispering into lips in a parody of holy prayer. Then I began manipulating my thoughts to ensure that my dreams would include her. At my lowest, I dreamt about her without benefit of sleep.

By age thirteen, when I began to use my hands, I knew I was bound for hell.

I couldn’t turn to my parents, so one Sunday I went to the restroom to speak with Brother Morrisohn.

He said, “Have you prayed over the matter?”

“Yes,” I answered, “but the Lord hasn’t answered yet.”

He smiled, showing those incredible teeth. “Maybe He has and you just don’t understand His answer. I’m sure He’s leaving it up to you.”

“Leaving it up to me?”

We stood inside the combination men’s washroom and lounge his money had built. Four stand-up stalls and four sit-down stalls lined one wall. A row of sinks lined another. In the center of the room, five plush chairs formed a semicircle around a floor-model color television. We were between services, so a football game was airing. Otherwise, the television would have picked up the closed-circuit feed and broadcast the service to the Faithful who found it necessary to be near the facilities. These days Brother Morrisohn, pushing close to his promised four score, attended most services by way of this floor-model television. His Bible, hymnal, and gold-tipped cane rested in one of the chairs.

“I don’t care what anyone tells you, God gets upset when we turn to Him for everything. Sometimes we’ve got to take responsibility. Elwyn, it’s your mind and your hand, and you must learn to control them. Otherwise, why don’t you just blame God for every sin you commit? God made you kill. God made you steal. God made you play with yourself.”

Brother Morrisohn was so close I could smell his cologne. His teeth made a ticking sound each time his jaw moved. Suddenly, he began to tremble and coughed a reddish glob into his hands. He moved quickly to the faucet and washed it down, sighing, “Age. Old age.” Then he turned off the faucet and looked down at me with an embarrassed smile.

I said to him, “What about the dreams?”

“Dreams?”

“The nasty dreams about … Peachie.”

“God controls the dreams,” Brother Morrisohn explained. “They’re not your fault.”

“Okay.”

“Control your hands.”

“I will.”

Brother Morrisohn was himself again. In his black suit and tie, he stood tall and handsome. All signs of weakness had vanished. Old age would not get the victory. God would get the victory.

He mused, “Peachie Gregory, huh?” The old saint pointed with his chin to the television. “That was Peachie last Sunday backing up Sister McGowan’s boy, wasn’t it? She’s a talented girl. She and that Barry McGowan make a great team. He can really sing.”

Now Barry was not my favorite brother in the Lord. Barry was a show-off, and he had flirted with Peachie in the past even though he was much too old for her. He was a high school senior. But now I smiled because soon he would be out of the way. “Barry just got a scholarship to Bible College,” I announced.

“Good for him. He’s truly blessed. But that Peachie is a cute girl, isn’t she?” Brother Morrisohn chuckled mischievously. “If you’re dreaming about
her
, Elwyn, by all means enjoy the dreams.”

I handed him his cane. He patted me on the head.

He was a great saint.

* * *

Praise be to God, as I grew in age, I grew in wisdom and in grace. With His righteous sword I was able to control my carnal side.

While she lived often in my waking thoughts, it was only occasionally that I dreamt about Peachie anymore, and even less frequently were the dreams indecent. Awake, I marveled at how through the Grace of God I was able to control my mind and my hand.

At sixteen, I counted Peachie as my best friend and sister in the Lord. We both served as youth ministers. Together, we went out into the field to witness to lost souls. As a pianist, she demonstrated a style that reflected her classical training. Disdaining my own classical training (we both had Sister McGowan for piano teacher), I relied on my ear to interpret music. Thus, on first and third Sundays of every month, she was minister of music for the stately adult choir; on second and fourth Sundays, I played for the more upbeat youth choir. As different as our tastes were, we emulated each other’s style. I’d steal a chord change from her. She’d borrow one of my riffs. We practiced together often.

By the Grace of God, genuine affection, however guarded, had replaced the envy and lust I felt for Peachie as a child.

Thus, when Brother Morrisohn passed in the late summer of ’79, it was my best friend Peachie whom I called for support.

“They want me to play,” I said.

“You should. He was very close to you.”

“But my style may not be appropriate. When I get emotional, my music becomes too raucous.”

“Do you think it really matters?”

I tried to read Peachie’s words. For the past few weeks she had grown cranky and I had chastised her more than once for her sarcasm, which bordered on meanness.

“Yes,” I said. “I think it matters. It’s the funeral of a man I loved dearly.”

“Well don’t look to me to bail you out. Play what’s in the book.”

“I hate playing that way.”

“Then play like you know how to play. Play for the widow. Play for Brother Morrisohn. Play like you have thirty fingers.”

“Okay. I just hope the choir can keep up.”

“We can,” Peachie assured.

Then we talked about what songs I would play and in what order and some other mundane things, and then somehow Peachie ended up saying, “Don’t worry, Elwyn. The Lord will see that you do fine. And I’ll be there watching you too.”

“Bless His name,” I said.

“Glory be to God,” she said.

* * *

So it was a funeral, but you wouldn’t know it from my playing.

Keep up, choir, I thought. I’m syncopating. Keep up!

I played for the stout old ladies of the Missionary Society, who sat as Brother Morrisohn’s next of kin because at seventy-eight he had outlived most of his near relations. All that was left were his wife Elaine and a daughter from his first marriage, Beverly, who was a few years older than her stepmother. In their black dresses and big, black church hats with silk ribbons tied into bows, the twenty or so women of the Missionary Society took up the first two rows. My grandmother stood among them, raising holy hands. Back in the old days, when the church was just getting started, Brother Morrisohn and my grandmother, my mother’s mother, had founded the group, which later became the fulcrum of the church’s social activity.

Sister Elaine Morrisohn, his fair-skinned widow, sat weeping among her dark sisters. She was the youngest member of the Missionary Society and that was mostly because she had been his wife. It was rumored that Sister Morrisohn had lived a life of singular wickedness before meeting and marrying Brother Morrisohn.

Beverly Morrisohn, his daughter, was not in attendance—although I had spotted her briefly at the final night of his wake. She wasn’t much to look at, a round-faced woman with her hair done up in an ugly bun. A nonbeliever, Beverly had worn pants to her own father’s wake. No wonder she and Sister Morrisohn hadn’t been on speaking terms for longer than the sixteen years I had been alive.

I played to comfort his widow.

Watch out, ushers, I’m going to make them shake today. I’m going to make them faint. Watch out!

I played so that they would remember Brother Morrisohn, benefactor and friend—Brother Morrisohn, the great saint, who had put the Church of Our Blessed Redeemer Who Walked Upon the Waters on the map.

My fingers burned over the keys. Remember him for the pews and the stained glass windows! Remember him for the nursery!

Remember him for the piano he bought me!

Now the tilting hats of the women of the Missionary Society were my target. I aimed my cannon, fired. Musical shrapnel exploded in the air. They jerked back and forth, euphoric. They raised their sodden handkerchiefs toward heaven and praised the Holy Spirit, but it was I who lured them into shouts of dominant seventh—Hear That Old-Time Gospel Roar Like a Lion! It was I who made them slap their ample breasts through black lace.

Remember Brother Morrisohn. Remember!

The choir was swaying like grass in a measured breeze as I caught the eye of Peachie Gregory, my secret love, singing lead soprano. Though I seldom dreamt about her anymore, I would marry her one day. Peachie winked at me and then hammered the air with her fist. It was a signal. Play like you know how to play!

I did. I hit notes that were loud. I hit notes that didn’t fit. Then I pulled the musical rug out from under them. No piano. No piano—except a strident chord on the third beat of each measure backed by whatever bass cluster I pounded with my left hand.

Peachie gave me a thumbs-up. I had them really going now.

Laying into that final chorus like I had thirty fingers, I joined them again. I was playing for Peachie now. She kept hammering the air. I kept touching glory on the keys. The celestial echo reverberated. The whole church moved in organized frenzy—the Holy Spirit moving throughout the earth.

I was so good that day. Even Peachie had to admit it.

Was that my sin? Pride?

* * *

At graveside, I hurled a white rose into the hole. The flower of my remembrance slid off the smooth surface of the casket and disappeared into the space between the casket and the red and black walls of earth. Suddenly, the widow collapsed beside me. I caught hold of her before she hit the ground. My skinny arms and the meaty black arms of the Missionary Society steadied Sister Morrisohn on her feet again. She was not a heavy woman. She smelled of blossoms sweeter than the rose in her hand.

“I don’t want him to go,” she wailed.

“The Lord taketh the best, sister,” my grandmother said. “He lived way beyond his threescore and ten.”

“Amen” and “Yes, Lord” went up from the assemblage.

“His life was a blessing to all,” said Pastor, just beyond the circle of Missionary Society women that surrounded Sister Morrisohn.

“Yes, but I don’t want him to go,” wailed the widow.

My grandmother, that great old-time saint, had one arm across the widow’s back, massaging her. “Throw the rose, child,” my grandmother urged.

My own arm had somehow gotten trapped around the widow’s waist and I couldn’t snake it out of there without causing a disturbance as my grandmother’s bell of a stomach had pressed the hand flat against Sister Morrisohn’s ribs. Peachie Gregory watched it all from the other side of the hole.

“Throw the rose.”

Sister Morrisohn clutched the flower to her chest. “Can I see him one more time?”

“You shouldn’t, child,” replied my grandmother.

Sister Morrisohn said, “Please,” and the August wind blew aside her veil revealing her ears, each of which was twice pierced—before she had accepted the Lord, of course. “Please.”

My grandmother finally gave in and pulled away, muttering to herself, “Lord, Lord.” She crunched through the gravel in her flat-soled funeral slippers to Pastor and commanded him in a loud conspiratorial whisper to open the casket one more time.

“Amen” and “Yes, Lord” went up from the assemblage again.

When the groundskeeper, a burly man with a patch over one eye, leaned in to pull the levers that raised the coffin up from the hole, Sister Morrisohn took my hand and walked me over to the edge of the shiny box in which Brother Morrisohn lay.

His hair was neatly parted. His lips were fixed in a taut line. He had an expression on his face like a man dreaming about childhood. Sister Morrisohn fixed her husband’s dead fingers around the white rose. When she stepped back from the box, I stepped with her.