The Vanishings (3 page)

Vicki finally pulled away from her dad. “Well, I'm glad if this works for you two,” she said, “but don't expect me to be part of it. It sounds weird. You hear a crazy preacher for five minutes and now all of a sudden you're holy?”

“We're not holy,” her mother said. “We're just giving ourselves to God.”

“And you don't think that sounds strange?”

“When God gets through to you,” her dad said, “you won't think it sounds so strange.”

Vicki finally made it to the little bedroom she shared with Jeanni and flopped into bed. She was scared about what was happening with her parents. She decided that if this really kept her dad from drinking and fighting and being a lazy worker, it would be all right. But this much of a change in such a short time was too much to handle.

Jeanni stirred. “Is that you, Vick?”

“It's me.”

“Did you hear what happened tonight?”

“I heard. Go back to sleep.”

“Then you know I'm a Christian now?”

“You too?”

“Yup. I got Jesus in my heart.”

Vicki sat up. Now her parents were brainwashing her little sister! “Jesus in your heart? What does that mean?”

“Well,” she said, “he's not really inside me, but I took him into my life. I'm going to go to heaven someday.”

“Oh, brother!”

“You'd better do it too, Vicki. You don't want to go to hell.”

“You'd better get one thing straight, Jeanni. Everybody in this trailer park is going to hell, and that includes you and me.”

Vicki regretted it as soon as she'd said it. Who was she to be dumping on her little sister? Maybe church would be good for Jeanni, too, as long as they didn't make Vicki go. Jeanni's response proved she had not been bothered by what Vicki said.

“Not me,” she said brightly. “I'm going to heaven with Jesus!”

Good for you,
Vicki thought.
Just leave me out of it.

L
IONEL
Washington's parents had moved him out of the inner city of Chicago when he was six years old. His mother, Lucinda, had been a reporter for the Chicago office of
Global Weekly
magazine. When she was promoted to bureau chief, the family could afford to move to the suburbs. They were among the first blacks to live in their Mount Prospect neighborhood.

Now, seven years later, thirteen-year-old Lionel was having trouble deciding where he fit. When he visited his relatives in Chicago, or when his other relatives visited him from the South, his cousins criticized him for “losing your blackness. It's like you're white now.”

It was nice to live in a neighborhood where he didn't have to be afraid to ride his
bike anywhere or run with his friends, even after dark. And Lionel enjoyed having more things than he was used to having when he was smaller. His cousins, probably to cover their jealousy of his nicer clothes and shoes and the fact that his parents had two cars, called him “rich boy” and “whitey” and said he might as well not even be black.

Lucinda Washington was a no-nonsense woman. She had become a well-paid executive with the leading newsmagazine in the country, despite her being black and a woman. She laughed when her nieces and nephews teased Lionel. “He's as black as you are and always will be,” she said. “Now you just go on and leave him alone.”

Still, Lionel didn't like it. No way did he want to give up what he thought was a better and safer life than he had known. But neither did he want to be different from his relatives. There were few other black kids in his junior high, and none of them went to his church. His older sister, Clarice, went to Prospect High School, and his younger brother and sister, Ronnie and Talia, were still in elementary school.

That made him feel all the more alone at his school. He grew quieter there and at home, and he could tell his mother was worried about him. Lionel didn't like the
changes in his body and his mind as he became a teenager. It was too strange. He found himself thinking more. He thought about everything.

Mostly, he thought about his Uncle André. André was the bad apple of the family. He was a drunk and had been known to use and abuse drugs. He'd been in and out of jail for years and once even served a short term at Stateville Penitentiary in Joliet, Illinois.

The thing about Uncle André was that he was a charming guy. When he was sober and out of trouble and working, everybody loved him. He was fun and funny and great to be around. When he was “sick,” which was the family term for when he was doing drugs or drinking or running with the wrong crowd, they all worried about him and prayed for him and tried to get him to come back to church.

Uncle André was a great storyteller. He loved to regale the family with exaggerated tales that made them all laugh. He told the stories in a high-pitched whine, making up new things as he went along, and each story grew funnier each time he told it. He would throw his head back and grab his belly and laugh until he could barely catch his breath. Tears would stream down his face until everyone else laughed right along.

That was puzzling to Lionel. How could Uncle André be everyone's favorite half the time and everyone's worry the other half? Lionel's mother told him it was all about understanding and forgiveness. “I don't excuse what he does when he's weak and goes back to doing things he knows he shouldn't,” she said, “but when he comes back to church and asks forgiveness and tries to live for the Lord, well, we have to accept him and help him if we can. I believe he's really trying.”

Lionel was proud of his mother, but for reasons other than that she seemed wise in the areas of forgiveness and acceptance. The truth was, with her job, she was the star of the family. Not just Lionel's family, but the whole Washington clan. They traced their roots to the freedom riders on the Underground Railroad during the days of slavery, and many of his ancestors had been active in the civil rights movement, fighting for equal opportunities among the races. His mother was one who had proved that a person, regardless of the color of her skin or the housing project she had grown up in, could achieve and make something of herself if she really committed herself to it.

Lucinda Washington told Lionel she had been born and raised in a Cleveland ghetto,
but “I loved to study. And that was going to be my way out of the projects.” She said she fell in love with journalism, reporting, and writing. She graduated from journalism school and worked her way up finally to
Global Weekly
magazine.

She made good money, even more than her husband, Charles, who was a heavy-equipment operator. He was as proud of her as anyone, and secretly Lionel was proud of her too.

But Lionel had another secret, and it caused him no end of anxiety. Lionel knew something no one else in the family except André even suspected. Neither he nor André were really Christians, even though the whole family history revolved around church.

Church was something that had not changed when Charles and Lucinda Washington had moved to the suburbs. They had been able to somehow fit in to the strange white culture, though many people made it clear they were not happy about a black family's moving in, wealthy or not. The Washingtons had quickly befriended those homeowners who had not moved out and convinced them they were good neighbors.

Finding a church they were comfortable in was another story. Lionel could not remem
ber when he had not been attending church. Family legends said his mother took him to church when he was less than a week old, but is mother told him that was slightly exaggerated. “But you weren't two weeks old,” she said, grinning. “You might as well have been born in the church and grown up there.”

Actually, he liked church a lot. Lionel was glad that his parents drove all the way back into the city to attend their old church. Some of the people who criticized them for “moving out and moving up” were glad to see they had not forgotten their roots. And even if they were jealous of the Washingtons' ability to move out of a high-crime area, they were glad to see them come back every Sunday morning and evening and every Wednesday night.

Church was what the Washington family was about, but Lionel knew it went deeper than that. His mother not only loved church, she truly loved God. And Jesus. And the Holy Spirit. They had visited a few churches in the suburbs, including a couple that had both white and black members. Lionel had been a young boy then, but even he could see that these just were not the same as his home church in Chicago.

Those people didn't seem to have any
spirit. His mother assured him, “They are certainly true believers, and I don't question their salvation for a second. But I need to go to a church where people don't mind expressing themselves. If I was to jump and shout praises or sing at the top of my lungs, or sway to the music or even dance in the aisles, I wouldn't want to worry about what someone thinks.”

Lionel knew what she was talking about. He loved to clap and sing and sway, and while he had not danced in the aisle, he enjoyed watching people who did. The services at his church were long and loud and enthusiastic. People were happy and joyful. He was as happy as anyone when his parents finally realized they would not find their kind of church in their new neighborhood.

So Lionel had the best of both worlds. He lived in a safe place, went to good schools, learned to work and earn and save but also had whatever he really needed, and he got to go back “home” for church twice a week. Every Sunday, his family stayed with relatives between the morning and evening services.

One week while staying with his grand-parents, Lionel got to spend a lot of time with Uncle André. Lionel rode along while André picked something up at the store. When André came out, Lionel was surprised to see
him followed closely and quickly by two other men about André's age. Obviously not noticing Lionel at first, one of them said to André, “You hear what I'm saying? You get us that money by Friday or you disappear.”

André immediately smiled and slapped hands with them, nervously introducing them to “my big sister's little boy.” Lionel shook hands with them, but he was scared. He pretended not to have heard, but those guys had clearly just threatened Uncle André. As they drove back to the neighborhood, Lionel asked him about it.

“Them?” André said. “Oh, they're just friends. They were havin' fun with me.”

“It didn't sound like it,” Lionel said. “I don't like them. They scare me.”

André pulled to the curb, several blocks from his parents' home. He took a deep breath and told Lionel, “You're right. They're bad guys. I borrowed some money from them for a deal that went bad, and I don't know how I'm ever gonna pay them back. I'll figure out somethin', or I'll just have to hide out for a while.”

“Aren't you scared?” Lionel said.

“'Course I am. But that's my life, Lionel. That's why it's good you're a Christian and bein' raised by my sister. She'll keep you on the straight and narrow path.”

“Uh-huh,” Lionel said.

“What's that mean?” Uncle André said. “You in trouble already?”

“No, but I was just wondering. I mean, you're a Christian too, aren't you?”

Uncle André looked surprised. “Me? Do I seem like a Christian to you?”

“When you're not, um, I mean—”

“When I'm not gettin' in trouble, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

André chuckled, but he looked sad. “You've seen me come back to the Lord lots of times, huh?”

Lionel nodded.

“I'm gonna tell you the truth about that, Nephew, but you can't be tellin' anyone, you hear?”

Lionel nodded again.

“I mean, I don't even want you tellin' your mama. Now listen, those people care about me, I know they do. And I need a place to crash and people to help me get back on my feet now and then. And when I get myself cleaned up and try to start over, I'm serious about it. But the truth is, I tell 'em whatever they want to hear so they'll take me back. If they knew I was serious about surviving but not serious about God, I'd have nobody.”

Lionel sat stunned. “So, you're not really a Christian then?”

André sighed as if he hated to admit it. “No, I'm not. Truth is, I don't believe God would forgive somebody like me. I just keep messing up. And every time I go straight, I know I'm gonna mess up again.”

“But doesn't God forgive you every time?”

“I don't ever feel forgiven. My family forgives me, but that's because they believe I'm either tryin' or I'm sick.”

“But my mom says that's how God forgives people. He uses the people who love them to show them his forgiveness.”

“Well, I can't deny my family has done that. But the truth is, I've never been a true believer, a real Christian, and I really believe it's too late for me.”

Lionel sat shaking his head. This was sad, but it was also scary.

“So, Lionel, tell me I'm wrong.”

“That's the trouble,” Lionel said. “I don't know, because I think I agree with you.”

“That's not what I wanted to hear,” André said. “I was kind of hopin' you were still young enough to believe.”

“Well, Mama says you're never too young or too old, and you're never too good or too bad to become a Christian.”

“I know she does. Remember, I grew up
with her. But what'd you mean by sayin' you agree with me?”

Lionel wasn't sure how to say it without coming right out with it. “I've never really become a Christian either.”

André squinted at him and smiled. “So we're the two secret heathens in the Washington family?”

Lionel did not find it funny. “It's a secret all right. Everybody thinks you're a Christian who has bad spells once in a while. They think I might become a preacher or a missionary someday.”

André pulled away from the curb. “You ought to talk with your mother about this,” he said. “I'd rather see you grow up like her than like me.”

“I can't talk to her,” Lionel said. “It'd kill her. She thinks I'm one of the best young Christians she knows. You won't say anything to her, will you?”

“Not if you don't want me to. You could spill the beans about me too, so we'll just keep each other's secrets, OK?”

Lionel nodded, but he didn't feel good about it. He wondered if André was as worried about Lionel's not being a Christian as Lionel was about Andre. “Aren't you afraid it might all be true?” Lionel said. “And that we might end up in hell?”

André parked in the alley behind his parents' home. He threw back his head and cackled that crazy laugh of his. “Now that,” he said, “I do not believe. I may have once, but I've outgrown that. Some of these stories and legends about what's goin' to happen at the end of the world, I don't know where the preachers get them. I can't imagine they're in the Bible.”