made her realize how much strength she was always needing.
She didn’t want to, but she’d do it. She’d sing a stupid solo part—the Waterfall, they called it—not even something she’d invented or planned to do who knows how many years ago when she’d had to sneeze her brains out, but oh no, she’d tried holding it in, and when she had to sing her solo, those years ago, her near-sneeze had made the words come out tumbling in a series of staccato notes that were almost fluid, and ever since then, she’d had to sing all solos that way, it was expected of her, everyone loved it, it was her trademark. She sang: “All-hall other-her her grooouund—is sink-king sand!”
The congregation applauded.
“SAINTS,” the Pastor said, winding down, “you know this world will soon be over! Jesus will come back to this tired, sorry Earth in a moment and a twinkling of an eye! So you can’t use call-waiting on the Lord! Jeeee-zus, my friends, does not accept conference calls! You are Children of God! You need to PRAY! Put down your phone! Say goodbye to AT&T! You cannot go in God’s direction, without a little—genuflection!”
The congregation went wild, clapping and banging tambourines, whirling in the aisles. But the choir remained standing in case Pastor Everett wanted another song. For the first time, Clareese found that her monthly troubles had settled down. And now that she had the wherewithal to concentrate, she couldn’t. Her cross-eyes wouldn’t keep steady, they roamed like the wheels of a defective shopping cart, and from one roving eye she saw her aunt Alma, waving her arms as though listening to leftover strains of Clareese’s solo.
What would she do? She didn’t know if she’d still have her job when she went back on Monday, didn’t know what the staff psychiatrist would try to pry out of her. More important, she didn’t know what her aunt Alma would do without the special medical referrals Clareese could get her. What was a Sister to do?
Clareese’s gaze must have found him just a moment after everyone else’s had. A stranger at the far end of the aisle, standing directly opposite Pastor Everett as though about to engage him in a duel. There was Cleophus Sanders with his crutches, the right leg of his pinstriped pants hollow, wagging after him. Over his shoulder was a strap, attached to which was his guitar. Even Deacon Mc-Creedy was looking.
What in heaven’s name was Cleophus doing here? To bring his soul to salvation? To ridicule her? For another argument? Perhaps the doctors had told him he did not need the operation after all, and Cleophus was keeping his end of the deal with God. But he didn’t seem like the type to keep promises. She saw his eyes search the congregation, and when he saw her, they locked eyes as if he had come to claim her. He did not come to get Saved, didn’t care about his soul in that way, all he cared about was—
Now she knew why he’d come. He’d come for her. He’d come despite what she’d told him, despite his disbelief. Anyhow, she disapproved. It was God he needed, not her. Nevertheless, she remained standing for a few moments, even after the rest of the choir had already seated themselves, waving their cardboard fans to cool their sweaty faces.
Our Lady of Peace
THE CHROME-TOPPED vending machine in the Baltimore Travel Plaza flashed Chips! Chips! Chips! but no one could have known it was broken unless they’d been there for a long time, like Lynnea, having just escaped lackluster Kentucky, waiting for a taxi, watching a pale, chain-smoking white girl whose life seemed to be brought to a grinding halt by an inability to obtain Fritos.
The white girl kicked the vending machine, then cracked her knuckles. After a few spells of kicking and pouting, she found her way to the row of seats where Lynnea was sitting, then plunked down next to her.
“I’m going to kill myself,” the white girl said.
Lynnea turned in the girl’s direction, which was invitation enough for the girl to begin rattling off the story of her life: running away, razor blades, ibuprofen; living day to day on cigarettes and Ritz crackers.
Outside the Travel Plaza, Baltimore stretched black and row-house brown. Traffic signals changed, dusk arrived in inky blue smudges, and slow-moving junkies stuttered their way across the sidewalk as though rethinking decisions they’d already made. This, she thought lamely, had been what was waiting for her in Baltimore.
But any place was better than Odair County, Kentucky. She’d hated how everyone there oozed out their words, and how humble everyone pretended to be, and how all anyone ever cared about was watching basketball and waiting for the next Kentucky Derby. Her grandparents had been born in Odair and so had their parents. Her family was one of four black families in the county, and if another white person ever told her how “interesting” her hair was, or how good it was that she didn’t have to worry about getting a tan—ha ha—or asked her opinion anytime Jesse Jackson farted, she’d strangle them.
Nevertheless, she’d gone back to Odair County after college and started working at the Quickie Mart. One night—while in the middle of reminding herself that the job was beneath her, and that once she’d saved up enough, she’d move to a big city—four high school boys wearing masks held up the place with plastic guns, taking all the Miller Light they could fit in their Radio Flyer wagons. She hadn’t been scared, and the manager had said she’d done the right thing. Still, she smoked her first cigarette that night, and spread a map of the country over her mother’s kitchen table.
When she’d ruled out the first tier of cities—New York (too expensive), L.A. (she had no car), Chicago (she couldn’t think of any reason why not Chicago, but it just seemed wrong)—Lynnea had settled on Baltimore. She took an apartment sight-unseen, her last few hundred dollars devoured by a cashier’s check for a security deposit, signed to a landlady named Venus.
Now that she had arrived in Baltimore, she’d begun to have doubts. There was no taxi in sight, and the white girl next to her droned on, describing preferable methods of suicide.
“Tibetan monks light themselves on fire,” the girl said.
Lynnea held her head in her hands and tried to ignore the girl. She stared at the floor, its checkered tiles marbleized by filth; she looked outside to see if any taxis had arrived. She even cast her eyes about the bus station crowd, but the white girl still would not shut up.
“Eskimos kill themselves by floating away on icebergs,” the white girl said.
“If you can find an iceberg anywhere near Baltimore,” Lynnea finally said, “I’d be glad to strap you to it.”
HER LANDLADY, Venus, was a tiny sixtyish woman who walked in quiet, jerky steps. Her complexion was the solemn brown of leatherbound books—nearly the same shade as Lynnea’s—but atop her head, where presumably black hair should have been, Venus wore a triumphant blond wig. Lynnea had been living in a damp efficiency below Venus for nearly three months when she spotted the woman taking out the garbage, readjusting her wig as though Lynnea were an unexpected guest.
“Oh my. Shocked me near to death. How’s the moving going?” “I moved in three months ago,” Lynnea said. “I’m pretty much finished moving in.”
“I thought you were moving out.”
“No. Not that I know of.”
Lynnea always paid her rent late and hadn’t paid last month’s at all. She slurped black bean soup straight from the can, used newsprint for toilet paper, had tried foreign coins and wooden nickels in the quarters-only laundromat. By the end of three months she’d decided freelancing at the weekly paper was not enough; she would need a job that paid for dentist visits, health insurance, toilet paper.
Then she read about a teaching program that promised to cut the certification time from two years to a single summer. This, she knew, was for her. Inner-city Baltimore students would be nothing like the whiny white girl from the bus station. Lynnea would become an employee of the city, and have—at long last—benefits.