The Waking (37 page)

I’m home. I can rest now.

18: Mobile

He walks on a path only inches wide, leaves gently brushing his legs, trees with dangling vines giving him shadow, a clear creek bubbling by cooling him, refreshing him.

A baboon watches from a branch, his multi-colored mask tight, his shoulders squared to leap, and he does, from one side of the path to the other, soundlessly as the man’s steps.

He looks down and sees his bare feet, he feels the grit and texture of the earth, he tastes the breezes, he smells freedom …

I can’t remember getting such a good rest. The pew, though hard, is comfortable, and the blanket is just enough to keep me warm.

Maxi shakes me. “Are you ready?”

For anything. “Yes.”

He drives me through the wind and rain to a park on East Street where plain wooden benches and folding chairs filled with people lie underneath a huge canvas tent that has been staked to the ground. The tent flaps its wings sending sprays of water into the air, and the ropes to the stakes tremble.

Before we get out of his car, I touch his elbow. “Isn’t it, um, …”

“
Crazy?” He laughs. “Yes, it is crazy to have a meeting in such weather, and dangerous, too. But we will be all right because God is with us.”

Though I have an umbrella, I still have to dash to the tent to escape the rain blowing sideways through the air. The rest of the folks are finishing a song I’ve never heard before, and as they take their seats, Maxi leads me to a spot a couple rows from the front where a dark-skinned man wearing a dress shirt and bow tie under overalls holds a microphone. People in the row in front of me turn to greet me with hugs and kisses, and I know there are tears just waiting to fall behind my eyes. People who have only known me for a couple of hour are welcoming me as one of their own.

“
I’m so glad to see so many of you here today,” the man in the bow tie says. “And some of you have come great distances and survived great tribulations to be here. I welcome you.”

“
That’s Reverend Lewis, one of your first cousins,” Maxi whispers.

Auntie June was right. I do have a godly heritage.

Reverend Lewis smiles and looks behind him. “Showers of blessing all around us today, and any time is a good time to worship the Lord.”

“
Amen!”

Whoa. I just heard three hundred people use one voice.

“
Don’t know if I’m gonna do any hard preachin’ today,” Reverend Lewis says, and then he doubles over as laughter ripples through the crowd. “But y’all know that ain’t true. I gotta preach hard, cuz the world is hard.”

“
Amen!”

“
We live in a hard world, y’all, a hard world. We live in a for show society, you hear me?”

“
Yes!”

“
For
show.
Look at any church on Easter Sunday, and what do you see? You see the show. It’s a charge of the hat brigade, am I right?”

“
Yes!”

“
Not that I don’t like me a good hat now and then. It keeps the sun off what’s left of my hair, but you feel what I’m sayin’. It’s all for show. Gettin’ your hair done, your nails done, your face done. It’s for show. God don’t care about none of that cuz God don’t see nothin’ but your soul.”

“
Amen!”

“
God don’t care about
your
show cuz it’s His show, always has been, always will be His show. So you got you some padded benches and wall-to-wall carpetin’ and a big stained glass window and a big choir with fancy robes and a big organ in the back. For
show.
God don’t need all that mess. God only needs you to gather in His name anywhere anytime, just like today, and God will show you
His
show.”

“
Amen!”

A flash of lightning brightens the sky followed by a cracking of thunder. “He been showin’ us His show for a bunch of days now, ain’t He?”

“
Yes!”

Reverend Lewis scans the crowd. “Good to see so many young folks here today.” He pauses, his face hardening like granite. “Our young people are caught up in the show, too. What, we’re paying a child barely out of high school ninety
million
dollars to play basketball, a child that ain’t even played a lick of really competitive ball? I’ve been preachin’ since I was old enough to carry a Bible, and I’ve never made more than thirty thousand dollars in one year workin’ two, sometimes three jobs. Yet who’s the hero? Who are our young people lookin’ up to? The person with the biggest show.”

“
Yes!”

“
Our little boys got a
million
times better chance being doctors or lawyers or politicians or preachers or teachers or workingmen like me, but they all wanna go to the show. We got to change that, people.”

“
Yes, Lord!”

“
Look at me. I’m wearin’ a shirt I’ve had since I was a young man, got shoes on older than some of you, wearin’ a tie handed down to me from my granddaddy. I don’t need no labels, I don’t need no name brands to know I’m a man. Plain is good. Plain is not for show. Plain is for God.”

“
Amen!”

He holds up two massive hands with thick black fingers. “These hands have chopped, plowed, planted, dug, dug some more, cut, and built, and I’ve never had a manicure, never needed a manicure.” He laughs. “Don’t even know what one costs! I ain’t in this life for show. I’m not in it for glory in this life. I’m livin’ for the glory to come.”

This is like no preaching I’ve ever heard. There’s no mystery like at a Latin mass at St. Benedict, no frilly language and long speeches like at Ebenezer. It’s plain, simple, and real, like all the folks around me.

“
We got to get
for real,
people. Ain’t that how the kids talk nowadays?
Fuh real?
”

“
Yes!”

“
Yeah, I know our existence in this country sometimes seems unreal, and I know we was brought to this country against our will, but my God says to bloom where you’re planted.”

“
Amen!”

“
I look around and I see the fruits of that labor, the results of that harvest, and I think to myself that there are too many black people still on the boat.” He pauses as many folks start nodding. “They never got off the slave ship, and y’all know what I’m talkin’ about.”

“
Yes!”

This man is crazy.

Shut up.

Shut up. He’s talking to me.

Doesn’t mean you gotta listen.

I’m all ears. Go on back to wherever you hide. I’m getting me some real religion today.

The man ain’t even usin’ a Bible, Manny!

So?

We’ll talk about this later.

Whatever.

“
You may be still on the boat yourself, and we all know someone or a whole bunch of someone’s who are still on that boat.”

More nodding, and I find myself nodding along with the rest, mainly for myself but also for all those people I came up with, including Mama. She never got off the boat either.

“
They’re still shackled down in the darkness of the Middle Passage, shackled by drugs, shackled by hate, shackled by shame, shackled by alcohol, shackled by fear, shackled by ignorance, shackled by the for show society they have bought into.” He takes a deep breath. “They’re goin’ on a boat ride to nowhere and have been goin’ on a boat ride to nowhere for goin’ on five centuries.” He takes another deep breath. “It’s time to get off the boat, people.”

“
Amen!”

“
Time to get on shore, get land under our feet, and I ain’t talkin’ about reparations, though I’ve heard the talk. I understand the feelin’, don’t get me wrong. I understand what our people have been through, understand the sufferin’, the loss, but everyone in here knows that the government ain’t gonna pay nobody back for nothin’. You got to make do with what you’ve got.”

“
That’s right!”

“
We’ve had to make do with what we’ve had for five hundred years. We’re good at it.”

“
Preach on!”

“
My God will supply all your needs accordin’ to His riches in glory!”

“
Yes!”

“
There ain’t no riches here, no real riches. They’re all for show. The rich and the poor go into the same ground, and neither the poor nor the rich can take nothin’ up to heaven when they die.”

“
That’s right!”

“
We’ve got to educate our young people so they know that, got to get them some pride in what they do
now,
got to get them thinkin’
for real
instead of for show.”

“
Amen!”

“
Fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, cousins old, and cousins brand new …” He smiles at me. “Cousins lost and found.”

Here come the tears again. I’m crying in church, but I’m not ashamed.

“
We’ve got to do somethin’ now and keep doin’ it or we’re gonna lose our young people forever to the show.”

“
Yes!”

“
Think of how we was raised. Most of us come from big families, farmin’ families some of us, all livin’ in one house, eatin’ together, sleepin’ four, five in a bed, wearin’ each other’s hand-me-down clothes, fixin’ dinner together, entertainin’ ourselves together. Wasn’t time for no show, wasn’t time for nothin’ but gettin’ through the day, gettin’ through the week, gettin’ through the month, survivin’ the years.”

“
That’s right!”

“
I was twelve years old, and I’ll never forget this day. I was twelve years old when someone told me I was poor. ‘I ain’t po’,’ I told ‘em. ‘I ain’t never been po’.’”

“
Amen!”

“
I may not have had much money, I may not have had the best clothes, or the best shoes, or the best toys, or the best place to live, but I was never poor as long as I had my family.”

“
Amen!”

“
There’s different kinds of poverty, y’all. There’s poverty of mind, poverty of spirit, and poverty of soul. ‘Oh, just look at all the people in poverty around us,’ they say to us. ‘What a shame, what a shame,’ they shout. But ain’t none of us here poor.”

“
No!”

“
Cuz we got each other. We got each other’s backs. And God’s got my back. He got your back?”

“
Yes!”

“
He got my front, my back, and my sides, and I feel
rich,
y’all. I feel the Lord’s riches every day I wake up.”

“
Amen!”

“
I smell His earth, I feel His sun, I walk through His forests, I swim in His streams.” He watches the rain falling behind him. “I even taste His rain.” He turns back to us. “They say that America is God’s country, and I believe it. Look around you.” He pauses. “Well, go on, look around you.”

I turn and see the smiling faces of my newfound family, their eyes … all their eyes shining as if on fire.

“
If you can’t see the beauty and the riches all around you, you been livin’ a for show life too long. You might think you ain’t got much, that what you got ain’t enough and will never be enough. My ancestors told me, my family tells me, I’m tellin’ you, God’s tellin’ you, it’s always been enough and will always be enough if you get real and let it
be
enough.”

“
Amen!”

“
Just think. The richest man in Mobile County and you could be side by side in a cemetery. The richest woman in Mobile County and you could be side by side on your way up to heaven. Y’all could even be side by side praisin’ God up in heaven, but who led the richer life down here on earth?”

“
I did!” Maxi shouts along with many others.

“
Who can better appreciate the riches of heaven?”

“
I can!”

“
We have been the backbone and we
are
the backbone of this nation, and I don’t care if anyone tells me I’m wrong cuz they know I’m not. I know down deep that I carry this country on my back, that if it weren’t for me and my ancestors, there wouldn’t be any place called the United States of America.”

“
Amen!”

“
I’ve got pride in that, but it’s not the kind of pride that makes me better than anyone else. It’s deeper than that, and it’s quiet, so quiet I don’t have to shout it to nobody. I can sit on my front porch, maybe I’m whittlin’, maybe I’m shellin’ peas, maybe I’m doing some cannin’, maybe I’m plannin’ my next sermon. Whatever I’m doin’, I feel a quiet pride in gettin’ this far. I ain’t on the boat no more.”

“
Amen!”

“
I don’t have any shackles.”

“
Amen!”

“
I’m bloomin’ in this land despite those who would rather I withered and died, despite those who hate me for survivin’, despite those who say I’m ignorant and poor just for bein’,
despite
…
it
…
all.
”