Transcontinental (40 page)

Clayvon gave Leroy a knowing look.

“Yeah you will,” she agreed.

“But they
is
cheap asses.”

“I know.”

“Yo, so was that all true, Marcus?” Clayvon said.

Leroy bit into his toast before speaking. “Wish it wasn’t.”

“Damn. Those pigs really messed your boy up like that?” Rashaun asked.

Jemisha shot him a hard glance.

“I mean… sorry to hear that. Hope he okay.”

Leroy exhaled. “I really tried to find him. I called every hospital in the area. If you’re not family, they won’t even talk to you. It’s crazy.”

“Sometimes you can’t see them even if you are,” Whatson noted with an uncharacteristic woefulness, departing from his usual stoicism.

After a silent minute, Leroy said “So I guess I’m back in the fields today.”

Clayvon shook his head, smiling. “No work today. Sunday’s for rest.”

“Which means you can do bible study, watch any of the five approved television channels, or read a non-fiction book,” Whatson said.

“Or, you could take a walk with me,” Jemisha said.

Rashaun leaned back in his chair, lifting the two front legs, and crossed his arms. “You don’t never ask me to go on a walk with you.”

“I know.”

“How far can we go?” Leroy asked.

“Long as we’re back by dinner, they don’t care. It’s somethin’ about Sunday makes people ‘round here much more relaxed than regular.”

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. A girl wanted to spend time with
him
. That was definitely a first, at least as far as he knew. He held back his excitement. “I dunno, I really like TV…”

He thought he’d been lighthearted, but the look on Jemisha’s face convinced him otherwise. So stupid, he thought. Should’ve just said yes.

“‘Sup, Marcus?” said a girl’s shrill voice.

Leroy turned to see two girls standing behind him. “Uh, ‘sup?”

“We just wanted to tell you how moved we were by your story,” said the shrill-voiced girl, round-faced with braids and braces. “You’re really brave.”

“Really brave,” said the other girl, bony but pretty.

Unsure how to react, he surveyed his friends’ faces: Whatson, Rashaun, and Sherman were blank, Clayvon and Darius were nearly drooling, and Jemisha looked more dismissive than ever, which said a lot.

“Thanks,” Leroy said, then added “I actually didn’t do anything.”

“Anythin’ else, Jill?” Jemisha demanded.

“Well, Jemisha, I was going to tell Marcus that we have a seat open at our table if he’d like to spend some time with normal people. Is that okay with you? Oh wait, I don’t care.” Jill winked at Leroy, smiling through her braces. “See ya.”

He watched the two girls walk away, until Jemisha smacked his arm.

“So about that walk…” he said.

* * *

Leroy and Jemisha trod through the waist-high grass a few feet apart. He could see the compound fences in the distance, but in the golden glow of noon, with a pond on one side and a girl on the other, he felt more free than ever.

“This my tree,” she said as they walked.

He turned away from the pond to face forward and saw an elephantine Jacaranda tree, its light purple bell-shaped flowers ringing their own special note in the summer breeze. From a distance, the tree looked like one big pastel bouquet, ruffling as waves of wind blew across it.

“Damn,” Leroy muttered. He’d seen trees that were red, yellow, white, blue even, but never purple. The dusky bark of the thick, sprawling limbs spilled upward through the lavender haze, giving the tree an Asian aesthetic.

The two of them climbed onto separate branches and laid out, taking in the sun. The breeze was cool, a departure from the past few days.

“Gonna rain soon,” Jemisha said, her eyes closed.

Leroy looked around at the sky. There was hardly a cloud in sight. “What makes you say that? Sure doesn’t look like it’s gonna rain.”

She smiled. “I just know.” She rolled over on the limb and laid on her stomach, letting her arms and legs dangle. “Just like I know you into me.”

The words set off an earthquake of anxiety in him. He hadn’t fully come to terms with it yet himself, but he supposed he was into her. Even so, how could she just say it like that, so casually? He blushed.

She laughed. “It’s cool. Boys and girls’s supposed to like each other.”

“So you’re saying you like me?”

“Now you puttin’ words in my mouth.”

“Why me? Why go on a walk with me?”

She shrugged. “Dunno. You ain’t all cocky like the others, I guess. Kinda nice bein’ around somebody who ain’t yappin’ all the time.”

“Don’t say ain’t. Makes you sound uneducated.”

“I am.”

Leroy thought about that as the wind raked his face.

“You real quiet, huh?”

After a moment of hesitation, he said “I like to listen. And watch.”

Jemisha sat up. “You some kinda weirdo?”

“No! I like to remember things. Just the way they were. So I can draw them.” He spoke the last sentence much quieter than the previous few.

“You draw?”

“I try.”

“Better draw me somethin’, Picasso,” she said, tapping him with her foot.
 

“Wasn’t he a painter?”

“Shit, I dunno.”

* * *

They lazed around the enclosure until dinner, then Leroy went to bed a happy man. He’d had a crush on a classmate once, but it was no more than a proximity infatuation. This was different. This was real. He laid in his assigned bed, feeling like his heart was too big for his chest in the best way.

The next morning he was awakened, as well as most of the boys in the dorm, by a deafening clap of thunder that seemed to shake the ground. There was a slight sense of unease in the pitch black dorm as rain pounded the roof, until Atasha entered a minute later with a flashlight.

“Sorry, boys. Power’s out. The generator should turn on in a minute. If your job takes you outside, find somewhere else to help out today.”

Jemisha wasn’t at breakfast, so afterward, Leroy headed right to the kitchen and posted at her station before she arrived. After a few minutes of her absence, he slipped on gloves and started to wash the dirty dishes piled on the counter.

By the time she arrived, two and a half piles of clean plates and bowls glistened as they awaited drying. Her eyes were puffy and reddened, and she avoided looking at him as she approached. “Hey,” she said just above a whisper, before putting on a hairnet and gloves and starting to wash.

Leroy watched her from the corner of his eye as they worked.

“You okay?”

“Bad morning. You know.”

She handed him a clean plate and he set it in the bin.

“So,” her voice cracked, “gonna make me that drawing soon?”

He stopped washing. “Soon as I can. You got a deadline?” he joked, trying to lighten the mood, but she faced down as she scrubbed.

“No idea.”

* * *

For the next few days, Leroy only saw Jemisha at meals, and even then she didn’t seem herself. Her feistiness had faded. Any time she was asked about it, she’d brush it off, saying she just wasn’t feeling well.

Leroy worked the fields by day, and was happy for various reasons to find himself less sore each morning. By the end of the week, he dared to look at himself shirtless in the mirror, and while there wasn’t noticeable growth, he was toned where he hadn’t been before. That alone was motivation to continue.

Spiritually, too, he was progressing, or so he thought. He didn’t think he’d ‘felt’ God yet, but he understood the gist of things: Jesus died to absolve him of any sins he could ever commit, as long as he confessed in sorrow, genuinely believed in Jesus as Lord, and was baptized both in water and in the Holy Ghost. One down, three to go. He was believing as hard as he could, but had no idea how to gauge if it worked or not.

On Saturday, Jemisha seemed better; she smiled occasionally, but only for brief moments. Leroy supposed her sickness story checked out, although he didn’t think a cold would make her distant toward him. But, for all he knew about girls, that could be normal. He couldn’t wait until Sunday, when he’d have the free time to start her drawing. He already had it planned out in full.

As his relationship with Jemisha cooled, he felt himself growing closer to his new group of friends. He wasn’t afraid anymore to crack a joke, or pop into a conversation. And he’d realized that other people could be just as nervous or clueless or speechless as he sometimes was. Social situations weren’t as stressful when he could blend in.

Leroy couldn’t blend in, however, when people came up to ask him about his confession. He told them all the same things: yes, it really happened; no, he didn’t know if Ant was dead or alive; thanks, he hoped God
did
bless Ant, wherever he was. It was tiresome, but it introduced him to dozens of people he’d probably never have talked to otherwise, which set him at ease. Then it hit him: he was popular. No wonder the popular kids seemed so graceful and composed—it was easy to be cool when everyone already liked you.

At dinner that evening, Jemisha sat next to Leroy, which brought a smile to his face despite the two-foot gap she enforced to either side of her. She was still distant throughout the meal, but eventually Clayvon made a joke that got her laughing. Noticing that, he riffed on it for about a minute, and by the end of it, Jemisha was breathless from laughter. Her laughter put the whole group at ease. Leroy looked from face to face, smiling at his good fortune.

* * *

Leroy awoke with excitement in his heart on Sunday morning when Carl came through. It was the big day; he could feel the drawing pent up inside him, ready take shape one line at a time. It was the first time he’d felt inspired in specific; he’d forced himself to sketch people from TV or his room in an effort to get better, but this time there was an image in his head that needed to get out. Just thinking about creating something made his spine tingle.

As they lined up to leave, Carl held him back. “Say, Marcus… you know Jemisha, right? You two seem like you’re getting pretty close.”

Leroy shrugged. “I guess so. Not as close as her brother.”

“Clayvon. Right. They talk a lot? Tell each other things?”

“I don’t really know. Probably. But maybe not.”

“How’s she doing?”

“She’s been weird lately. Quiet.”

Carl’s head slowly tilted back. “I see. Thanks, Marcus. Oh, and you’ll need this.” He handed Leroy a white gown, frilly and laced around the edges. “Put that on before you head to church, please.”

“What? Why?”

“It’s a requirement. Put it on, please.”

As Carl walked into the hall and picked up a telephone on the wall, Leroy stared at the gown in his hands. Why should he have to wear a dress if no one else had to? Someone had to be playing a joke on him. But Carl and the adults wouldn’t let that happen, would they?

He decided it was best to follow directions and slipped into it.

Thankful that Carl had held him back a minute, Leroy hurried through the empty atrium and into the cathedral. He found his friends toward the back of the room and was glad he didn’t have to go very far. He felt like Cinderella.

He expected his friends to laugh when they saw him, but as Clayvon tapped the others to turn their attention toward Leroy, they seemed mostly indifferent. Darius winced. Rashaun snickered. The rest looked as if they understood, which confused Leroy.

His gown flapped as he stepped past seated churchgoers and dropped into his seat between Sherman and Clayvon. “Hey.”

Darius spoke first. “Sucks for you.”

“I know, this dress is ridiculous.”

“No, I mean—”

The Bishop took the stage to applause, and the band quieted.

“Thank you. Thank you all for being here this morning.”

“You’re going to be water baptized,” Whatson whispered.

“Like… today?”

Whatson nodded once. “It’s a simple process. Nothing to worry about.”

As the Bishop spoke of Jesus dying on the cross, and his resurrection three days later, Leroy sat in a daze.

* * *

The rest of the sermon had washed over him like the water in the pond by the Jacaranda tree was about to when the Bishop confirmed that Leroy was to be baptized. He knew it was nothing to worry about, as Whatson had assured him, but he still felt unsettled, his palms clammy, as he stood knee-deep a dozen feet out in the lake.

Bishop Wood paced the shore, preaching, as the majority of the congregation sat on the bank, watching, waiting. “And after Jesus rose from the dead, he met his disciples on a mountain in Galilee where he said ‘All authority in heaven and on Earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you!’ Can somebody say amen?”