On the Divinity of Second Chances (12 page)

Then I just remember fire.

I didn’t bomb Willa Meyer’s chicken house right away. I had to study for quite a while to learn how to build the right bomb for the job. This took months of correspondence with Great-Uncle Herman, who had once blown up his college dormitory while doing a chemistry experiment under the influence of LSD. Herman is the first person to tell you that dropping acid and chemistry experiments don’t mix. He really is harmless, though, not the threat that Hamill County believes him to be. Anyway, it was this gap of time between Moose’s murder and the murder of Willa Meyer, in combination with the fact that I was only fourteen and had moved to Idaho by then that led no one to suspect it was me. Truth be told, I didn’t intend to murder Willa. She just walked into the coop after I had lit the fuse.

Jade says it’s because I’m a Scorpio, and Scorpios made up that eye-for-an-eye business. You know, I knew there was no way her chickens could mean to her what Moose had meant to me—she didn’t sleep with her chickens—but blowing up her precious coop was a start. Still, I only meant to even the score, not end the game.

I watch Mom and wonder how it all shook down, wonder how long it took her to piece it all together, wonder if she ever confessed to anyone that she suspects her son is a killer. I wonder if she feels like she failed. Probably. What bigger failure is there as a parent than to raise a killer?

I hate that word—“killer”; it sounds like a jagged knife. I hate that it’s a word that’s attached to me, actually part of me like a tattoo. Murder is so permanent. You can’t undo it.

I wonder sometimes if the world would be a better place if I were in jail. Prison, it’s argued, serves one of three purposes: punishment, protecting the public, or rehabilitation. I consider punishment. Would conventional imprisonment be worse than the one I imposed on myself for all these years? In some ways, yes, it would be worse, but on the other hand, my self-imposed prison was far worse. I froze, and sometimes I starved. I went for four and a half years without speaking to anyone, and even now live most of my life in solitary confinement. During storms, my house whips around like a carnival ride and I never know if it’s going to hold. It’s a pretty effective punishment. As far as protecting the public, I don’t believe society needs to be protected from me. I feel great remorse over what I did, and rest assured, I won’t go blowing up anything again. As for rehabilitation—yes, I could use some rehabilitation, but who can heal their soul in prison? Perhaps a monastery would be an appropriate place for rehabilitation. Perhaps men who have dedicated their lives to the philosophies of life and death could counsel me on the best way to approach creating karmic balance—righting my wrongs. They could help me with the concepts of divine forgiveness and self-forgiveness, if there’s any difference.

So this is where I stand now. I suppose I could probably filter back into society somehow, put myself on parole, but do I deserve it? I’ve been waiting for a sign that my penance is over. I’ve been waiting for a sign that there is good I can do in this world. I’ve seen neither.

Mom’s birthday is approaching. I wish that just for once, I could bring her happiness.

Pearl on the Birth of the Thunderellas
(June 12)

It was my house, but it seemed temporarily foreign . . . my daughter gone, my husband dead, so few dirty dishes, so little laundry. Sometimes I felt like my husband was watching me when I was alone. It was creepy.

I never would have guessed it would be Miss Fern to turn my life around, Miss Fern who once whacked me with a ruler in her first-grade class. I was going a little nuts in the new emptiness, worrying about losing the farm. At night I would just walk laps around the house, pacing around. Miss Fern, my old teacher who lived up the street, stopped by after three days or so. It needs to be said Miss Fern was ancient. True, I was no spring chicken myself, but Miss Fern was truly ancient. We sat chitchatting over a cup of tea at the small kitchen table the first night she came to check up on me, until she broke from the conversation and informed me, “Now, I will teach you a technique for getting through this time.” She reached into her large wicker bag, pulled out two pairs of black tap shoes, and handed one pair to me. “These belonged to my friend Elsie. She’s dead now. She was a mammoth woman—Polish, you know. Those might be too big for you, but you can put some cotton balls in the toes and they’ll be okay.” I studied Miss Fern, half my height, with gray hair in a short bob with lots of bobby pins. She looked delicate and bright. Maybe it was just her yellow floral dress that was bright, but I don’t think so. I think it was her eyes. “Are you okay, honey?”

I nodded and put on my shoes.

“After my husband died, I was restless and crazy. Elsie taught me this. Shuffle-shuffle-shuffle-shuffle. Like that. Good. Move your ankle more. Yes, you’ll use your ankles like you’ve never used them before. Okay, now try this: shuffle-ball-change, shuffle-ball-change.” Miss Fern began to sing “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” slowly as I tried to follow along with her taps. “After my husband died, I started thinking about ghosts a lot. Ghosts hate tap dancing. It drives them away.” She flashed me a winning smile. “And it keeps your legs looking great.” She pulled her dress up high to show me her legs. Then she tucked the extra fabric into the top of her underwear to make her skirt shorter. “Look! I’m a flapper!”

I nodded approvingly and laughed, sure Miss Fern must be a little senile. She laughed with me. I realized it was the first time I’d laughed not only since Henry died, but since years before his death.

Miss Fern paid weekly visits to my house, except during harvest, to give me tap-dancing lessons. When Beatrice moved in, Miss Fern taught her, too. Those were the days—Miss Fern, Beatrice, and me drinking wine in my kitchen, and Miss Fern warding off my husband’s ghost with loud tapping.

We picked up Hazel a year and a half later, after her sister died. For a while, the three of us would make house calls to her place. Then Fiona returned to care for Trudy, her mother, who had developed dementia, and we knew we better get her out of the house once a week to keep her sane. Tapping at her house seemed like a bad idea, because it might really frighten Trudy, so we began renting the grange hall. There was quite a group of us by then, and the wood floors at the grange hall are ideal for tapping. That’s how the Thunderellas began.

Jade on Her Recurring Nightmare
( June 12)

It’s the same every time. You know why? It’s not a dream; it’s a memory. It’s the late sixties. I’m him, the Reverend Byron James.

The black and tan mutt who slept on the steps when the church was empty mixed her way into the crowd to hear the congregation sing. Sometimes she would sing along as well. The choir began to sing “Sweet, Sweet Spirit.” Their joyful voices lifted me up. I loved that congregation. How I loved those beautiful souls who came together every week to celebrate their blessings. Suddenly, the mutt ran to the back door and began to bark. The congregation stopped singing, turned their heads, and watched the dog, concerned. A rock came through a window at the back of the church, then two bottle grenades. On the other side of the church, two rocks flew through two windows. One hit little Sally, only five years old, in the head. She fell limp as chaos erupted around her. Three torches and another bottle grenade flew through those two windows. I took a chair and knocked the rest of the broken window out, and put the chair in front of the window. Brother Nigel, Brother Samuel, and Brother LeRoy went through the window first to protect the children, who came out next. Grace led the choir in singing “May the Circle Be Unbroken” while the congregation began to evacuate. It seemed to calm the church members somewhat. I tried to keep order and to get my beloved congregation out as fast as possible, and as I did, I was thinking, damn, I hoped Jesus would forgive me for the hatred I felt in my heart for white people right then.

All in all, sixty-one of the eighty-four who were in attendance that day made it out before the smoke filled the church and the fire consumed the earthly bodies of the twenty-three remaining, including Grace, who held little Sally in her arms, the mutt, and me.

I wake up sweating and unable to breathe. Grace touches my face, brushes back my red braids, and then places her hand on my hand. “There, there, sweet child. Now let me tell you the end of the story.” Grace sits on the edge of my bed next to Aretha, who sleeps with her head on my chest. I sob for a minute, as I always do, saddened and shaken by this dream. Some acts of humankind are so much uglier than I like to believe my kind is capable of.

“Shh, now, child, everything is all right. That was just a chapter in a book that has a very happy ending.” Grace takes my other hand now, which rests on top of Aretha, and tells me the rest, as she always does. And thank God she does.

“As you, the Reverend Byron James, floated up, up out of that earthly body, and up to the Kingdom of Heaven, you began to remember some things. Yes, you began to remember the last twenty times you made that journey. You began to remember the other names for the dimension you were going to. You began to remember a few of the numerous identities you had had.”

I vaguely remember this. As I went through the tunnel, I remember walking on the bottom of the quarry where my brothers and I swam when we were little, and then floating back to the surface. Earth life—not so different from walking on the bottom of the quarry. On the bottom of the quarry, you could not see a clearer and more hospitable world above. No, you could only see some light filtering down. And just as my brothers and I couldn’t wait to get to the surface of the water and finally take a good satisfying breath, so did I feel the same anticipation as I floated up, up to God’s Kingdom, as I called it in that life.

Grace continues, “On the plane of bliss, the Kingdom of Heaven, whatever you wish to call it, you, the Reverend Byron James, saw the other twenty-two. ‘Well, Hallelujah! We made it!’ you called out to them. The black and tan mutt ran up to you, and changed forms into at least thirty other dogs—remember that? It triggered your memory of being with that dog in many lifetimes. You were filled with great love for this dog, and bent over to greet it properly. Who is that dog now, child?”

“Aretha,” I answer like a little kid.

“And who is little Sally?”

“Forrest,” I answer again.

“That’s right, child. See, nothing is really permanent. Everything is always changing form, always evolving. Okay now, back to your story. Since your exit was rather traumatic, the angels cocooned you and the others in green light for a time that cannot be measured, so that you could rest and heal. When the time came to leave the green light cocoons, a representative came to guide you, and the black and tan mutt who always followed you, to the Council. ‘You have broken out of the samsara of the life and death cycle!’ announced one member. Remember that? Oh! That was good news! ‘Technically, you are enlightened!’ he told you. ‘Technically, you may go to the plane of enlightenment! ’ And you thought ah yes, yes, yes! Then that Council member said, ‘But you do have a bonus lifetime option.’

“ ‘Now why would I want that?’ you thought. Remember that? Oh, you had so much dread just thinking of another birth!” Grace laughs.

“ ‘Now, I know what you’re thinking,’ another member of the Council said to you. ‘Why would you want to do that, right?’ The Council member smiled knowingly. ‘When one goes down the chute for a bonus life, he or she has unique opportunities. In addition to getting to tie up any loose ends that aren’t really important enough to merit a whole ’nother life but are nice to have tied up nonetheless, one also has the opportunity to elevate countless others . . . to speed up their journeys . . . or sort of just grab on to them and bring them into enlightenment with you.’

“ ‘Yes, think of it like running out of a burning building, but then going back in to pull out others, and it’s not like you have to do this all on your own. You’ll have cream-of-the-crop guides,’ the first Council member added. Oh, Lordy! Those Council members were campaigning hard!” Grace always laughs when she remembers this. “And that’s when they told you about me, remember? ‘The soul you most recently knew as Grace has offered to guide you through your bonus life, should you choose to take it.’

“And you thought, ‘Hm! I do like that Grace! That Grace is one brave soul! That Grace is one good cook! Where would I be without the fine, fine cooking of my favorite soul in the whole universe, Grace!’ ” Grace takes it a little far just to make me laugh. “Oh, yeah! You didn’t know I wouldn’t be cooking for your sorry self in this lifetime! Ha! So the Council explained to you that guiding is what you do when you’re not quite ready for the full force of another incarnation. You still experience enough of the heartache of human existence by virtue of the compassion you have, mind you, so it’s by no means painless, but it’s not as intense as another round of actual human existence either. Only the bravest souls go back down to Earth for another round. Oh, yeah! You liked the sound of that. You liked bein’ the brave one! And you felt plenty brave at that moment, didn’t you? You were feelin’ all good from your green light cocoon rest, and of course, good in the way everyone does on the plane of bliss. Yes, you were feelin’ that Superman kind of good, that invincible kind of good . . . that kind of good where you find yourself agreeing to all kinds of ideas . . . ideas that seem neutral on the plane of bliss, but not on Earth! Ha! Next thing you know, you’re thinkin’ ‘Goddamn!’ after you left your mamma’s birth canal and saw your blueness turn to white. Oh, yeah! Experts will tell you that babies don’t recognize their hands as their own for some time, but Jade, honey, you had been through this routine thousands of times, enough times to know that you had indeed come into this life as a white girl! Ha! You looked around the room and saw me, all beautifully rich, coffee-colored, looking down at you, and I said, ‘Hot damn, Reverend! You’re looking mighty peaked!’ Ha!”