— Storyteller —
Excerpt From “The Sermon”
I didn’t know why Mama was screaming and falling out at first. All I know is that I was scared. Daddy and John kept trying in vain to wake her up, but I knew something else was wrong. Mama used to have spells all the time. She would thrash on the floor for a few minutes before falling into a deep sleep.
Mama hadn’t had one of those spells since Rev. James the Holy Baptist prayed over her during Revival last summer. All the Negro churches in the country got together and paid to bring him all the way down here to Mississippi from Chicago to speak for four nights in a row. Daddy never went to church, but Mama was on the committee that helped raise the money from our church for Rev. James the Holy Baptist to come. So Mama, John, and I got the seats closest to the pulpit. The middle row, second bench.
Even though he was about 60 years old, he was the most handsome man I’d ever seen. He was small, but he had a muscular, fit body. I stared in amazement at the dark brown conk that remained perfectly coiffed, even when he removed his silk black and white hat. As he took off his hat, he shook his head, and his thick hair unfurled into waves that fell down his back. Each night, he wore a different pinstripe suit. Wednesday, he wore navy blue. Thursday, he wore burgundy. Friday, he wore black.
Saturday, the day he healed Mama, he wore a bright white robe with gold brocade that dragged on the floor. “The BYE-bull tells us that there was a woman with an issue of blood,” he said, pacing the pulpit. “And she’d been bleeding for over 12 years. She spent all her money seeking healing from physicians across the land. Yet none of them could heal her. But as JEE-zus, who was on his way to heal the daughter of the leader of the synagogue, passed by her, the woman touched the hem of his garment and was immediately healed.
“Who touched me? JEEzus wanted to know, but no one could answer. So JEE-zus asked again. I felt some of my virtue leave my body, so I know somebody touched me. Who was it? The woman was afraid, but she threw herself at the feet of JEE-zus and admitted to JEE-zus that it was she who touched the hem of his garment and that just a touch, Woo! “ he wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Just a touch healed her condition. Just a touch – Woo!
“And do you know what JEE-zus did next? He told her, ‘Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.’ Who here tonight is in need of a healing? Who here tonight will step out on faith and lay their burdens on the altar of sacrifice? If you believe in the healing power of JEEz-us, let him heal you tonight.”
Rev. James the Holy Baptist looked directly into Mama’s face. “Won’t you trust him tonight, sister?” He held out his hand to her. “Won’t you trust him tonight?”
Mama started to cry. I reached out to comfort her, but John pushed my hand back down and shook his head at me. Rev. James the Holy Baptist stepped down from the pulpit and walked over to Mama. “Trust him tonight, sister. You are a child of God. All it takes to be healed is just a touch.”
Mama stood up and walked toward Rev. James the Holy Baptist’s outstretched arms. Wailing and shaking, she fell forward into his embrace. “Thank you, Jesus,” she wept into his expensive suit. “Thank you, Lord.”
Rev. James the Holy Baptist gently put his hand on top of Mama’s head and pushed her down toward the floor. She knelt before him with her hands stretched up to God.
“Just a touch, sister, is all it takes. Who here trusts JEE-zus to heal this woman tonight?”
Amens and loud weeping filled the sanctuary as the piano began to play “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus.” Rev. James the Holy Baptist looked down at Mama, who was now rocking back and forth on her haunches, “Just a touch is all it takes. Touch the hem of this holy garment,” he held out the bottom of his robe for Mama to touch.
Mama reached out slowly. She was shaking so much I could see her quivering from where I sat forward on the edge of the church pew. She grabbed the robe, running her fingers along the hem back and forth. Rev. James the Holy Baptist then reached down and snatched Mama up to her feet. He pushed her down onto the front bench. “In the name of mighty JEE-zus, I declare this woman healed by the grace of God!”
Daddy said it was all a scam to get money from poor farmers and broken-hearted country folk who didn’t know any better. He said there was a white man doing the same thing to the Southern Baptists across town, except his name was Rev Jude the Holy Baptist. When Mama said she knew in her heart that God healed her, Daddy said the only thing that got healed was the two Reverend’s pockets. Still, Mama’s spells really did seem to stop. After getting healed, she went from having one or two a week to none at all.
It was strange enough for this spell to come out of the blue, but this one was much different. In the past, when she had those spells, she slept soundly for about 5 minutes or so.
But not this time. This time, she sat straight up in bed and started fighting and punching the air like she was swatting away the wood wasps that sometimes tried to bite us when we were helping Daddy stack wood on the woodpile.
“In the name of Jesus,” she yelled at us, “I bind thee in the name of Jesus.” She waved her arms. She fell back down on the bed, but she still didn’t wake up. Daddy again tried to shake her awake, but her eyes remained tightly closed.
“The fool hath said in his heart there is no God, but I say unto all under that sound of my voice that God sees and hears us all. He sits high and looks low,” Mama raised up on her pillow, her eyes still closed. “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked,” Falling back down on the bed, Mama beat her fists on the bed. “ He will NOT be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. No man is above this natural order.!” Mama’s mouth curled up into a smile. “Thank you, Jesus.”
Before he went with John to the field, Daddy told me to watch her and to come get him if anything else happened, but Mama slept for the rest of the day.
When it was time for dinner, she walked into the kitchen like nothing happened. She looked at me, “ Well, I was hoping to find the okra already washed, cut up, and ready to fry, but I guess I’ll just do it myself. Bithia, you feeling all right?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I eyed Mama’s face, looking for signs of her spell. She looked the same with high cheekbones, a wide nose, and large almond-shaped eyes. Her skin, normally a deep brown the shade of pecan shells, was still flawless. She furrowed her thick brows and stared at me.
“I don’t even see the table set, Bithia. What have you been doing all day?”
I didn’t know what to say. I’d been sitting by her bed the whole time she slept, not even going to the bathroom, but the moment I got up to stretch my legs, she woke up.
Our house was small. We only had a front room that doubled as a kitchen, a small bedroom off the left side of the kitchen, and then a back bedroom with a door that led out into our backyard. Our backyard was full of pear, pecan peach, and wild apple trees. Beyond that was the outhouse and a ditch that led into the cotton field where Daddy and John worked the land for Mr. Shooks.
Mama shook her head at me and went to the back door. I followed her, looking for any signs of the spell she just had. Mama still walked the same, slightly pigeon-toed and knock-kneed. She put her hand on her hips, looking out across the field. Daddy and John were finishing up the planting of a tiny vegetable garden just off to the side of the cotton. It was just beginning to get dark earlier, and the evenings were growing cooler and cooler. That meant it was time to plant broccoli, potatoes, and cauliflower.
It also meant that soon, Mr. Shooks would come to the house to settle up with Mama and Daddy. He was a tall man, but Daddy still towered over him. Mr. Shooks never went further than the front porch, but he always plopped down on the bench Mama and I sat on when we shelled peas or talked quietly to one another, discussing things that went on in the world. I didn’t like him sitting on our bench.
The original agreement was that after 15 years of planting, harvesting, and replenishing the soil, the small, almost-acre of land would be theirs. But that was almost ten years ago. Mama and Daddy had worked the land for 24 years, and next year, they would make 25. Each year, Mr. Shooks showed up with a pencil and a piece of paper, explaining to Daddy how the figures on it meant that he and Mama owed a little bit more than the crops they brought in were worth or that the cost of bringing in supplies from Greenwood had gone up.
Even if Mama and Daddy did owe a little bit of money, it couldn’t have been that much that it would take an entire year to pay off. Mama worked as a cook and housemaid for Mrs. Shooks a few days out of the week, and Mrs. Shooks paid better than any of the other white people in town. Everybody said so.
“It’s really not fair,” Mr. Shooks would say, “but I don’t know what else to tell y’all. Truth is, y’all been real good to the land and are one of the few Nigra families that actually pays on time. But it can’t be helped. Maybe work one more year, and then the land can be yours. I don’t expect it will be that much over the way y’all been working, and I am not going to make a bother over just a few pennies.”
Daddy always nodded at Mr. Shooks, but after the white man got back on his sway-back horse and clodded up the road, Daddy said the same thing to Mama, “That man would steal the air out his mama’s nose if he thought it would make it easier for him to breathe. And he stays at the church house.”
I studied Mr. Shooks’ face as he spoke to Daddy and cut his eyes at Mama. His hair was jet black, too black for his greying eyebrows, and his teeth jumbled in his mouth so that when he spoke, white spittle pooled in the corners of his mouth. His thin mustache was jet black, too. John said that was because he dyed his hair, trying to look like a movie star. But Mr. Shooks was far from a movie star. I’d never seen a movie, but to me, he looked like a mosquito dressed up as a human with his long, bony arms and pointy nose. Plus, he had six fingers on his left hand. When John was a little boy, he asked Mr. Shooks why he had that extra finger. He said, “That’s how God made me, and if he gave me that extra finger, he musta wanted me to have it.”
Of course, Mr. Shooks and his sixth finger must have looked pretty good to somebody. Mama and Miss Ellen delivered a baby near the county line a few weeks ago that surely could’ve been his. Miss Ellen usually came by and got Mama to help her when the baby came out breach, if the woman was expecting twins, or if there was otherwise trouble bringing the baby into the world.
On the way there, Miss Ellen told us the woman was Abigail, the maid for a family called Scoffield. The Scoffields had a daughter John’s age, and she was Mr. Shooks’ mistress. But even more scandalous was that Abigail’s baby had the exact same pointy nose as Mr. Shooks and six fingers on the left hand. Abigail was only 12, and her baby took a day and a half to come out bawling and kicking his legs. After that, Abigail fell sick with a fever that wouldn’t seem to break. Mama and Miss Ellen sat changing out bandages and keeping Abigail closed up under the blankets so that she could sweat out the fever. For hours, Mama kept Abigail under warm blankets and fed her sassafras tea while Miss Ellen tended to the six-finger baby.
“Ain’t but one left hand like that in the county,” Miss Ellen said when we finally started on the way back home.
But for now, we had time to work the land in peace.
Mama watched Daddy and John for a few more minutes. “We may as well make a quick dinner. I’ll fry up some okra, and you cut up the rest of the cheese. And I guess we can warm those biscuits,” she paused, smoothing her dress. “May as well fry a few apples, too. So much of the day got away from me, we will have to hurry.”
“Mama,” I ventured softly, “Do you remember what happened earlier today?”
Mama stopped chopping the okra and looked at me. “Yes, I told you to have the okra ready and the table set before you went to the shop to find materials for your school dress. But I don’t see the material or those chores done,” Mama walked to the front door and gazed at the porch through the screen door. “At least I see you swept.”
I watched Mama as she cut the okra into small, perfect rounds while the grease heated on the stove. The stove was what kept the books off balance last year and got us another year working the land this time.
Last year, after Mr. Shooks left and we all went to bed, John whispered to me across the room, “Now, I know my figures pretty good, and I kept a list of all the things Daddy and Mama got at the store,” he said. “Shooks is a lying old buzzard.”
“Did you tell Daddy?”
“Yeah, I told him. He told me to keep that to myself and to don’t say nothing to nobody about it. So, I told Mama, hoping she would talk some sense into Daddy. And you know what she told me?” John leaned over the side of his bed, his eyes shining in the moonlight. “She told me that when the time was right for us to have this land, that God would give it to us. She told me to go read Ecclesiastes 3.”