Bastard out of Carolina (23 page)

Most of the singers arrived late.

It was a wonder to me that the truth never seemed to register with Mr. and Mrs. Pearl. No matter who fell over the boxes backstage, they never caught on that the whole Tuckerton Family had to be pointed in the direction of the microphones, nor that Little Pammie Gleason—“Lord, just thirteen!”—had to wear her frilly blouse long-sleeved because she had bruises all up and down her arms from that redheaded boy her daddy wouldn’t let her marry. They never seemed to see all the “boys” passing bourbon in paper cups backstage or their angel daughter begging for “just a sip.” Maybe Jesus shielded their eyes the way he kept old Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego safe in the fiery furnace. Certainly sin didn’t touch them the way it did Shannon and me. Both of us had learned to walk carefully backstage, with all those hands reaching out to stroke our thighs and pinch the nipples we barely had.

“Playful boys,” Mrs. Pearl would laugh, stitching the sleeves back on their jackets, mending the rips in their pants. I was amazed that she couldn’t smell the whiskey breath set deep in her fine embroidery, but I wasn’t about to commit the sin of telling her what God surely didn’t intend her to know.

“Sometimes you’d think Mama’s simple,” Shannon said one night, giggling oddly. I wished she would shut up and the music would start. I was still hungry. Mrs. Pearl had packed less food than usual, and Mama had told me I was always to leave something on my plate when I ate with Shannon. I wasn’t supposed to make the Pearls think they had to feed me. Not that that particular tactic worked. I’d left half a biscuit, and damned if Shannon hadn’t popped it in her mouth.

“Maybe it’s all that tugging at her throttle.” Shannon giggled again, and I knew somebody had finally given her a pull at a paper cup. Now, I thought, now her mama will have to see. But when Shannon fell over her sewing machine, Mrs. Pearl just laid her down with a wet rag on her forehead.

“It’s the weather,” she whispered to me over Shannon’s sodden brow. It was so hot that Jesus and the lamb were wilting off the paper fans provided by the local funeral home. But I knew if there had been snow up to the hubcaps, Mrs. Pearl would have said it was the chill in the air. An hour later, one of the Tuckerton cousins spilled a paper cup on Mrs. Pearl’s sleeve, and I saw her take a deep, painful breath. Catching my eye, she just said, “Can’t expect that frail soul to cope without a little help.”

I didn’t tell her that it seemed to me all those “boys” and “girls” were getting a hell of a lot of “help.” I just muttered an almost inaudible “yeah” and cut my sinful eyes at them all. If they’d let me sing I’d never shame myself like that.

“We could go sit under the stage,” Shannon suggested. “It’s real nice under there.”

It was nice, close and dark and full of the sound of people stomping on the stage. I put my head back and let the dust drift down on my face, enjoying the feeling of being safe and hidden, away from the crowd. The music seemed to be vibrating in my bones.
Taking your measure, taking your measure, Jesus and the Holy Ghost are taking your measure ...

I didn’t like the new music they were singing. It was a little too gimmicky.
Two cups, three cups, a teaspoon of righteous. How will you measure when they call out your name?
Shannon started laughing. She put her arms around me and rocked her head back and forth. The music was too loud, and I could smell whiskey all around us. Suddenly my head hurt terribly; the smell of Shannon’s hair was making me sick.

“Uh uh uh.” Desperately I pushed Shannon away and crawled for the side of the stage as fast as I could, gagging. Air, I had to have air.

“Uh uh uh.” I rolled out from under the stage and hit the side of the tent. Retching now, I jerked up the tarp and wiggled through. Out in the damp evening air, I let my head hang down and vomited between my spread hands. Behind me Shannon was gasping and giggling.

“You’re sick, you poor baby.” I felt her patting the small of my back comfortingly.

“Lord God!”

I looked up. A very tall man in a purple shirt was standing in front of me. I dropped my head and puked again. He had silver boots with cracked heels. I watched him step back out of range.

“Lord God!”

“It’s all right.” Shannon got to her feet beside me, keeping her hand on my back. “She’s just a little sick.” She paused. “If you got her a Co-Cola, it might settle her stomach.”

I wiped my mouth, then wiped my hand on the grass. I looked up again. Shannon was standing still, sweat running down into her eyes and making her blink. I could see she was hoping for two Cokes. The man was still standing there with his mouth hanging open, a look of shock on his face.

“Lord God,” he said again, and I knew before he spoke what he was going to say. It wasn’t me who’d surprised him.

“Child, you are the ugliest thing I have ever seen.”

Shannon froze. Her mouth fell open, and her whole face seemed to cave in as I watched. Her eyes shrank to little dots, and her mouth became a cup of sorrow. I pushed myself up.

“You bastard!” I staggered forward, and he backed up, rocking on his little silver heels. “You goddam gutless son of a bitch!” His eyes kept moving from my face to Shannon’s wilting figure. “You think you so pretty? You ugly sack of shit! You shit-faced turd-eating—”

Mrs. Pearl was coming around the tent.

“You girls ...” She gathered Shannon up in her arms. “Where have you been?” The man backed further away. I was breathing through my mouth, though I no longer felt so sick. I felt angry and helpless, and I was trying hard not to cry. Mrs. Pearl clucked between her teeth and stroked Shannon’s limp hair. “What have you been doing?”

Shannon moaned and buried her face in her mama’s dress.

Mrs. Pearl turned to me. “What were you saying?” Her eyes glittered in the arc lights from the front of the tent. I wiped my mouth again and said nothing. Mrs. Pearl looked to the man in the purple shirt. The confusion on her face seemed to melt and quickly became a blur of excitement and interest.

“I hope they weren’t bothering you,” she told him. “Don’t you go on next?”

“Uh, yeah.” He looked like he wasn’t sure. He couldn’t take his eyes off Shannon. He shook himself. “You Mrs. Pearl?”

“Why, that’s right.” Mrs. Pearl’s face was glowing.

“I’ve heard about you. I just never met your daughter before. ”

Mrs. Pearl seemed to shiver all over, then catch herself. Pressed to her mama’s stomach, Shannon began to wail.

“Shannon, what
are
you going on for?” She pushed her daughter away from her side and pulled out a blue embroidered handkerchief to wipe her face.

“I think we all kind of surprised each other.” The man stepped forward and gave Mrs. Pearl a slow smile, but his eyes kept wandering back to Shannon. I wiped my mouth again and stopped myself from spitting. Mrs. Pearl went on stroking her daughter’s face but looking up into the man’s eyes.

“I love it when you sing,” she said, and half giggled. Shannon pulled away from her and stared up at them both. The hate in her face was terrible. For a moment I loved her with all my heart.

“Well,” the man said. He rocked from one boot to the other. “Well ...”

I reached for Shannon’s hand. She slapped mine away. Her face was blazing. I felt as if a great fire was burning close to me, using up all the oxygen, making me pant to catch my breath. I laced the fingers of my hands together and tilted my head back to look up at the stars. If there was a God, then there would be justice. If there was justice, then Shannon and I would make them all burn. We walked away from the tent toward Mr. Pearl’s battered DeSoto.

“Someday,” Shannon whispered.

“Yeah,” I whispered back. “Someday.”

 

Driving backcountry with Mr. Pearl when he went on his prospecting trips meant stopping in at little rural churches with gospel choirs, shabby tents with a soloist or two, and occasional living-room prayer meetings that might shelter an extraordinary young singer. Following up Mr. Pearl’s tips was extended, tedious work requiring great patience and tact. All too many of the singers couldn’t sing at all, and hadn’t an ear good enough to know when they went off tune. A few were enthusiastic enough that Mr. Pearl cautiously encouraged them to try out for one of the existing gospel groups. But mostly all he found was an echo of the real stuff, a diluted blend of harmony and aspiration.

“Pitiful, an’t it?” Shannon sounded like her father’s daughter. “That sad old organ music just can’t stand against a slide guitar. ”

I nodded reluctantly. I still wanted to believe that spirit, determination, and hard work could lift even the most pedestrian voice into the rarefied atmosphere of heartfelt gospel music.

" There was no predicting who the hand of God might touch, where the clarion would sound. Sometimes one pure voice would stand out, one little girl, one set of brothers whose eyes would lift when they sang. Those were the ones who could make you want to scream low against all the darkness in the world. “That one,” Shannon would whisper smugly, but I didn’t need her to tell me. I always knew who Mr. Pearl would take aside and invite over to Gaston for revival week.

“Child!” he’d say. “You got a gift from God.”

Sometimes I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t go in one more church, hear one more choir. Never mind loving the music, why hadn’t God given me a voice? I hadn’t asked for thick eyelashes. I had asked for, begged for, gospel. Didn’t God give a good goddam what I wanted? If He’d take bastards into heaven, how come He couldn’t put me in front of those hot lights and all that dispensation? Gospel singers always had money in their pockets, another bottle under their seats. Gospel singers had love and safety and the whole wide world to fall back on—women and church and red clay solid under their feet. All I wanted, I whispered, all I wanted, was a piece, a piece, a little piece of it.

Shannon overheard and looked at me sympathetically.

She knows, I thought, she knows what it is to want what you are never going to have. I’d underestimated her.

 

That July we went over to the other side of Lake Greenwood, a part of the county I knew from visiting one of the cousins who worked at the air base. Off the highway we stopped at a service station to give Mrs. Pearl a little relief from the heat.

“You ever think God maybe didn’t intend us to travel on Sunday afternoon? I swear He makes it hotter than Saturday or Friday. ”

Mrs. Pearl sat in the shade while Mr. Pearl went off to lecture the man who rented out the Rhythm Ranch. Shannon and I cut off across a field to check out the headstones near a stand of cottonwood. We loved to read the mottoes and take back the good ones for Mrs. Pearl to stitch up on samplers and sell in the store. My favorites were the weird ones, like “Now He Knows” or “Too Pure.” Shannon loved the ones they put up for babies, little curly-headed dolls with angel wings and heartbreaking lines like “Gone to Mama” or “Gone Home.”

“Silly stuff.” I kicked at the pieces of clay pot that were lying everywhere. Shannon turned to me, and I saw tears on her cheeks.

“No, no, it just tears me up. Think about it, losing your own little baby girl, your own little angel. Oh, I can’t stand it. I just can’t stand it.” She gave big satisfied sobs and wiped her hands on her blue gingham pockets.

“I wish I could take me one of these home. Wouldn’t you like to have one you could keep up? You could tell stories to the babies.”

“You crazy.”

Shannon sniffed. “You just don’t understand. Mama says I’ve got a very tender heart.”

“Uh huh.” I walked away. It was too hot to fight. It was certainly too hot to cry. I kicked over some plastic flowers and a tattered green cardboard cross. This was one of the most boring trips I’d ever taken with the Pearls. I tried to remember why I’d even wanted to come. At home Mama would be making fresh ice tea, boiling up sugar water to mix in it. Reese would be slicing peaches. Daddy Glen would be out of the way, off working on the lawn mower. I swatted at mosquitoes and hoped my face wasn’t sunburning. I was tired of Shannon, tired of her mama’s endless simpering endearments, tired of her daddy’s smug contempt, and even more tired of my own jealousy.

I stopped. The music coming through the cottonwoods was gospel.

Gut-shaking, deep-bellied, powerful voices rolled through the dried leaves and hot air. This was the real stuff. I could feel the whiskey edge, the grief and holding on, the dark night terror and determination of real gospel.

“My God,” I breathed, and it was the best “My God” I’d ever put out, a long, scared whisper that meant I just might start to believe He hid in cottonwoods.

There was a church there, clapboard walls standing on cement blocks and no pretense of stained-glass windows. Just yellow glass reflecting back sunlight, all the windows open to let in the breeze and let out that music.

Amazing grace... how sweet the sound... that saved a wretch like me
... A woman’s voice rose and rolled over the deeper men’s voices, rolled out so strong it seemed to rustle the leaves on the cottonwood trees.

“Sweet Jesus, she can sing.”

Shannon ignored me and kept pulling up wildflowers.

“You hear that? We got to tell your daddy.”

Shannon turned and stared at me with a peculiar angry expression. “He don’t handle colored. An’t no money in handling colored.”

At that I froze, realizing that such a church off such a dirt road had to be just that—a colored church. And I knew what that meant. Of course I did. Still I heard myself whisper, “That an’t one good voice. That’s a churchful.”

“It’s colored. It’s niggers.” Shannon’s voice was as loud as I’d ever heard it, and shrill with indignation. “My daddy don’t handle niggers.” She threw wildflowers at me and stamped her foot. “And you made me say that. Mama always said a good Christian don’t use the word ‘nigger.’ Jesus be my witness, I wouldn’t have said it if you hadn’t made me.”