High Cotton (11 page)
Authors: Darryl Pinckney
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #United States, #African American
Grandfather, the step migrant, walked on. The congregation of retired drugstore owners and schoolteachers lifted their heads at words like “bloodshed,” thinking they recognized something of the apocalyptic vocabulary from the battlefield states. They had decided that they wanted “heart religion,” like everyone else, but Grandfather could not imitate storefront showmanship. He lectured his congregation on the vanity of piety, his posture announcing that he was as strict as his model, the old Harvard dean, Willard Sperry.
Ears rolled up among the front pews’ hat flora of taupe, burnt orange, and canary yellow. Molars went on insolent display. One old-timer made a lot of noise getting his watch from his pocket; a woman appeared to be balancing her checkbook. I wished he’d stop for a minute, lean on the rostrum, and tell the story about the women in France who wore such high, elaborate wigs that mice made nests in them. I found myself moving in my seat. My parents gave me a keep-still look. My sisters played tic-tac-toe on a program. We used to play a game when we went to church. We’d each select a word beforehand, “God” and “Lord” were excluded, and count how many times it came up during the sermon. The winner got a share of the losers’ dessert.
The sheer flow of Grandfather’s words suggested that it was dangerous for me even to pretend that I had fallen asleep. The white dot on the brick wall returned and followed Grandfather in his revolutions. It occurred to me that this was not a reflection from his glasses or his crown, no matter how much they shined. The dot was, in fact, pursuing Grandfather, trying to alight on his head. I turned around: nothing back there but the lolling heads of the old-timers. They were too far away anyway.
Grandfather also must have finally noticed the moving dot. Any evidence of concentration fled his face. The little spot disappeared, as if someone had clicked off a flashlight attached to a key ring. I couldn’t possibly get blamed for the practical joke, but I felt guilty. Old-timers simply did not pull that sort of schoolboy prank. The beige stepgrandmother ground her metal cane into the floor. I coughed—“germ,” my sisters said—because Grandfather looked, quite suddenly, like a senior citizen on a bus, adrift and in danger of missing his stop. Maybe he was at a crossroads of sorts, trying to decide in what style he should proceed, up or down. His eyes roamed slowly over the hard hearts in the front pews, like searchlights from a guard tower.
I’d seen that look before: at Westfield Junior High School. The two cool girls, the upper shadies, had written a play, “Twenty Negroes Land at Jamestown, Virginia.” The cast included most of the black table in the cafeteria. For some reason, every word struck me and the other blacks who weren’t performing as hilarious. After the all-school assembly, the two girls confronted us one by one.
They said if we weren’t part of the solution, then we were part of the problem. Whenever a black tried to do something, they said, other blacks came along and tried to tear them down by acting worse than white people. Black people hated to see another black person get anywhere. Black people hated to see another black person get attention. Black people thought they could do better whatever a black person in the spotlight was doing, just because they were black, too. Then they went home and told their parents, who called my parents.
“The Daniels and the Elijahs of all time and any time have always gotten into trouble.” Grandfather, the day’s poet of metaphysical need, recovered. “The Daniels will get into trouble with the forces and principalities of wickedness and the Elijahs with other religionists. When Daniel learned of the plot against him he simply went home to his house, where the windows were regularly open toward Jerusalem, and thanked God as before time. When Elijah heard from Queen Jezebel he went for his life across the border and wailed to God on the subject of religion’s futility. The religion which rises to visibility in terms of unassailable conduct is automatically possessed of the potential stuff it takes to face life’s crises in scorn of consequence. The religion which manifests itself solely at the point of correct worship or proper belief possesses no inherent resources against the day of trouble.”
Even I thought it was small of Grandfather’s people not to
throw out an encouraging word, not to part with a single token cry of “Teach,” “Yes, Lord,” or “Tell it.” They didn’t have to mean it. He glanced at the back wall as he turned, but the mocking dot hadn’t reappeared.
throw out an encouraging word, not to part with a single token cry of “Teach,” “Yes, Lord,” or “Tell it.” They didn’t have to mean it. He glanced at the back wall as he turned, but the mocking dot hadn’t reappeared.
“By a strange paradox,” Grandfather charged, “Elijah religion is finally judged and ultimately defeated on the basis of its conduct, while Daniel religion is eventually persecuted because of its worship. Elijah murdered 850 Baal priests. That was his conduct breach. While Daniel prayed to a forbidden God at the wrong time. That was his worship crime. Thus, in reality worship is judged by the conduct it engenders or permits. On the other hand, right conduct can be persecuted only on the ground of trumped-up charges from another realm.”
“That’s right,” we heard. Everyone turned in amazement toward the beige stepgrandmother, who nodded her head furiously. The front pews felt challenged and made dissenting noises with their programs.
“Jesus was criticized not because he healed the sick but because he did it on the Sabbath. Jesus was maligned not because he drove out demons but because it was possible to claim that he did it by the power of Beelzebub. Jesus was put to death not so much on account of the things he did but because his teaching was demonstrated to be in conflict with the accepted tradition. His religion far outstripped that of his enemies, who were content to tithe mint, anise, and cumin and to neglect the weightier matters of justice and mercy. Jesus was crucified not because of his conduct, which had been open and above reproach, but because of his worship, which had been private, misunderstood, and misrepresented.”
“That’s right,” the stepgrandmother said, and thumped her cane. The sound of angry programs, the equivalent of the gnashing of teeth, increased. I wanted to say something out loud, too,
but as a modern Negro youth, I was obliged to wrinkle my nose at the glad noises old darkies were supposed to make when the spirit moved them. I’d heard that Grandfather, when he had a church in Memphis in the 1940s, once interrupted the service, revived a woman, and told her if she wanted to “fall out” to do it in a juke joint, not in his church.
but as a modern Negro youth, I was obliged to wrinkle my nose at the glad noises old darkies were supposed to make when the spirit moved them. I’d heard that Grandfather, when he had a church in Memphis in the 1940s, once interrupted the service, revived a woman, and told her if she wanted to “fall out” to do it in a juke joint, not in his church.
“Is there no hope, then, for an age in which religion has drifted so far from ethics and which has contented itself so largely with the assumption that good conduct follows automatically in the wake of an elaborated and widely exhibited worship? Is there nothing of potential value in the zeal and earnestness of the Elijah mood? And must the Christian Church go on multiplying theological Mt. Carmels in the very face of their accumulated futility? The answers to these questions are yes, yes, and no. Justice shall roll down as waters and righteousness as a mighty stream. If, then, exhortation is still a legitimate function of sermonizing, may we nourish our spirits upon the example of Daniel rather than upon that of Elijah. May we turn our footsteps toward the task at Naboth’s vineyard.”
The organist intervened with hemidemisemiquavers. “May we confront the new troubles in Jezreel with a greater measure of fortitude. May we courageously address ourselves to the behavior of the Ahabs of our time. Man to man shall be a brother, yet in a day such as ours when the temper of the various nations resembles that of a billy goat it becomes a crime to lean far forward. May we proclaim, after John Wesley, The world is my parish. And lest we forget, the kind of religion that gets itself expressed in conduct will bring with it its own type as well as its share of trouble for those who live it. And let us not forget, the disciple is not above his teacher nor the servant above his Lord. If they persecute me they will persecute you.”
The front pews understood and were not impressed. The hymn
broke, the congregation made to rise, but Grandfather, being Grandfather, couldn’t turn himself off, and we dropped heavily into our warm seats. “Augustine, the guiding star, meets the ultimate matter of the supreme power, the dispenser of values, in his prayer. Be Thou exalted, Lord Jesus, bound, scourged, crowned with thorns, hung on a tree, dead, and buried. Be Thou exalted above the heavens and Thy glory above the earth. Reign, O reign, Master Jesus, reign.”
broke, the congregation made to rise, but Grandfather, being Grandfather, couldn’t turn himself off, and we dropped heavily into our warm seats. “Augustine, the guiding star, meets the ultimate matter of the supreme power, the dispenser of values, in his prayer. Be Thou exalted, Lord Jesus, bound, scourged, crowned with thorns, hung on a tree, dead, and buried. Be Thou exalted above the heavens and Thy glory above the earth. Reign, O reign, Master Jesus, reign.”
Several old-timers squirmed, as if they had to go to the bathroom or were trying to unstick themselves from the pews. Grandfather’s sleeves were still catching the air like sails. “James Weldon Johnson tells of our reward so sweetly. You’ve borne the burden in the heat of day. You’ve labored long in my vineyard. Rest, take your rest, take your rest.”
He would have gone on quilting the air before him, but the organist had his revenge. There was no power on earth that could prevent a black church, however annoyed and tone-deaf, from lunging into “Steal Away to Jesus.” Grandfather’s people snatched up the theme—“Ain’t got long to stay here”—and refused to let it go until his retirement dinner some months later.
Great-grandmother said that black people had a tendency to put you out every now and then if you didn’t keep a hard grip. Grandfather never mentioned his dismissal. His only defense in a series of stormy board meetings had been to repeat over and over, “The proof is in the pudding.” They gave him an engraved silver tray and “peed on” the mover’s bill.
It happened while I was away, off becoming convinced that everything all-Negro, separate, and tribal was a corral, and anything white a great opening-up to the general dance. The pleasant grammar school on Capitol Avenue had been an extension of our wrecked boat, nothing more. I went up the street to school and
then I went home; life contrived somehow to occur in between. Westfield Junior High School, however, was, as I saw it, the Bosporus that led to the wide world.
then I went home; life contrived somehow to occur in between. Westfield Junior High School, however, was, as I saw it, the Bosporus that led to the wide world.
I’d traveled far, I thought, as a Pullman porter would have, back in the days of miles of smiles, when Westfield sent the journalism club to the Midwestern Music and Art Camp in Lawrence, Kansas. I laughed into my sleeve when Grandfather said the William Allen White School of Journalism at the University of Kansas had been named for a man whose prize-winning editorials were in defense of lynch mobs.
I had a Negro roommate. He and I were the Only Ones in the dormitory. He said it was obvious why we had been assigned together. We never even said good night to each other after that. I envied his trick in the cafeteria, which was to follow a low-flying mosquito and squash it so that the blood splurted across the tiles.
He was taken up by juniors from Minnesota who dressed like Jimi Hendrix and painted psychedelic posters under something called black light. He was followed by seniors from California who had come out against Vietnam, seen Janis Joplin kick the balls of her lead singer on stage, gone to R-rated Mike Nichols films, and feigned twisted ankles so that they could get codeine prescriptions at the infirmary. He sat with a guitar on the dorm roof.
He was the Most Popular Black Kid at Camp, which didn’t leave me many choices among the remaining titles. I became the Most Religious Black Kid at Camp. I was taken up by nuns. My calling included dropping in uninvited on the Sisters of Charity. They jumped out of their chairs to put on their habits and awaited my condemnation of the riots in various U.S. cities.
I’d told the whole dorm that I was a Roman Catholic, thinking my title as Most Religious Black Kid demanded that I go one better than the Most Popular Black Kid, who styled himself “a
lapsed atheist” and could sing an hour’s worth of hymns without a break. The Catholics at camp, even the wildest of them, went to “folk Mass” in a chapel of folding chairs. Because I assumed that Roman Catholics were different from mere Catholics, and that it was rare for us to find the proper Mass, I thought it was a safe lie. Then, in a panic, I purchased a book on the subject by Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, though it was too late to cram effectively. I entered the confessional and said “Hi.”
lapsed atheist” and could sing an hour’s worth of hymns without a break. The Catholics at camp, even the wildest of them, went to “folk Mass” in a chapel of folding chairs. Because I assumed that Roman Catholics were different from mere Catholics, and that it was rare for us to find the proper Mass, I thought it was a safe lie. Then, in a panic, I purchased a book on the subject by Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, though it was too late to cram effectively. I entered the confessional and said “Hi.”
Fortunately, Vatican II had replaced Latin with whatever. The young priest pressed me into service as an altar boy and was very patient with my blankness under pressure. He cued me, the backward, thick, terrified Negro, in a gentle, forgiving way. It happened in movies, the fugitive who has slipped into a dead doctor’s identity pulls off difficult surgery. But by the time the Host was elevated, everyone from the dorms thought my mari performance deliberately comic, a comment of some kind on the Goody Two-shoes-ness of the abstract fish on a green felt banner, and the arts-and-crafts renditions of the Stations of the Cross. I felt almost popular. Afterward, the damp priest dared me to admit that I wasn’t really Catholic and began my instruction with a highly unorthodox version of the miracle of procreation. To appease him, I said I wanted to be a priest.
“What about the sex drive?”
“I’m a Negro. I don’t need one.”
Our fishbowl back in Indianapolis had a guest lodger—Grandfather, the arch darky. Retirement in Pensacola had not worked out. “The Lord created Florida for the benefit of devils,” he said. He was en route to San Diego, where he would or perhaps would not accept a temporary post. The stepgrandmother had stayed behind in their pink bungalow of sleep-depriving acoustics to once again pack up the houseplants.
He’d done his homework and shared with me the information
that the Portuguese explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo landed at Point Loma in 1542. An Episcopalian army chaplain had gone to San Diego in 1850. The Baptists arrived in June of 1869 and the Presbyterians two days later. His Congregationalists founded their Logan Heights Church in 1886. Of course the Catholics had come first, in 1769.
that the Portuguese explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo landed at Point Loma in 1542. An Episcopalian army chaplain had gone to San Diego in 1850. The Baptists arrived in June of 1869 and the Presbyterians two days later. His Congregationalists founded their Logan Heights Church in 1886. Of course the Catholics had come first, in 1769.
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