Now Lanie and Tracy are sure
I'm insane. But I tell them this.
I tell them to consider blessings.
The thing about blessings is that
they aren't just delivered to you.
There is some mystery to their appearance,
but once they're in your reach,
you have to do something for them.
They ask me if Anton
is my blessing or if I am his.
I say that neither of us is a blessing,
but that both of us could be, everything
around us could be. The boys in the back
of the room could be a blessing if they push us
to a kindness they would never
understand, but that we can begin
to understand.
Lanie and Tracy point out
that I will be sitting in the choir
when Anton comes to our church.
They will be the ones he will
sit between. I tell them they too
are certainly part of the blessing.
And when Sunday comes, they are
waiting for me out front. Our families
are used to us separating ourselves from them,
sitting in our own pew. Anton arrives
only a few minutes later. His darkness
has reshaped itself into a black shirt,
a black tie, a black jacket. Black pants
and the same black shoes. He takes off
his headphones as he gets closer.
He smiles.
I have never brought someone into my
church before. Nobody but cousins and aunts,
friends of my parents and their children,
the ones I never liked as much as I was
supposed to. This visitor is different.
The choir ladies look at me with curiosity
and some disapproval as we put on our robes.
Honey, Myrna Walker asks,
who is that boy? And I'm glad
she's come right out and asked, because
I can say He's a friend and let that explain
as much as can be explained. Myrna nods
as the organ begins to play. That is our cue.
When I sing the Lord's words,
I am usually looking at the Lord.
Not seeing him as you'd see a picture,
but letting my feeling of the gospel
block out everything else.
Hallelujah!
I am elevated higher than my life
can usually go. I am filled with all the joys
and troubles and wisdoms and challenges
of the world, and I sing them out of me
as the psalms preach it,
as the preacher leads it,
as the Lord sings it in all our voices
and in the music of the organ and the
shaking, agreeing bodies that chime in from
the congregation.
This time I look down as I'm singing.
I know exactly where Lanie and Tracy will sit,
so I look right over to see him.
And at first I feel the urge to laugh,
because he is so clearly over his head with us.
He thinks there's a certain way
his body should move, a certain place
his hands should be. When the truth is that
we just move our bodies wherever our bodies
want to take us. I sing louder
and he looks right at me, finally
getting it, because what I am saying
with the rise of my voice is that I know
he understands what music is about,
he has seen the Lord in it, even if it's not
my Lord. He begins to sway along,
loses himself a little to something
greater. I will admit right here he looks
ridiculous, white boy in black clothing.
But there is also something beautiful
in his trying.
I believe
in glory, in praise.
I could not sing
if I did not believe.
My singing
is how I come closer
to glory, to praise.
By singing
I keep such faith alive.
by singing redemption.
I become part of the rock
by singing its weight.
I become part of the gospel
by voicing it.
Listen to us.
We believe.
After the service is over,
after the congregation becomes
a collection of people once more,
I take off my robe and return
to Lanie and Tracy and Anton.
I ask Anton what he thought
and he thanks me for bringing him,
for showing him my church.
My parents come over, itching
for an introduction. Anton falls quiet
but stays respectful as my father
measures him in a handshake
and my mother asks after his parents.
Even though I do not like to lie
in church, I tell my parents
the four of us are going out
after. My mother says That's
nice while my father stays quiet.
Our preacher comes over, sweat
still on his brow, his voice still
at a preaching volume. He welcomes
Anton and says he hopes he'll come back.
Anton says he hopes to do so,
and I can see the preacher approving,
even if he's more than a little confused.
Lanie and Tracy walk a little of the way
with us. Usually we'd be chattering
about what people wore to church or
which husbands and wives didn't sit
as close as they usually did. But Anton
alters our conversation, so we find ourselves
in an unusual silence. Anton recognizes this
and starts to ask us church questions.
We tell him how long Myrna Walker's
been in the choir, how many people
usually come to services, how the gospel
is something that's there all your life,
so it's not something you really know
you're learning until you've learned it.
Lanie asks him where his family goes
to church, and he says that the place
they avoid is St. Elizabeth's. They go
to Christmas Mass as if it's a show
every year.
There isn't any signal,
but Lanie and Tracy know when it's time
to leave. They'll go home, change out of
their dresses and into homework clothes.
They thank Anton nicely for coming,
and he thanks them for putting up with him.
I try to imagine us doing this every Sunday,
and I can't picture it really.
But for today it is working in this
awkward kind of working. And that
is enough for a beginning.
I don't know where I thought he'd live,
but it's a big house on a street graced
with trees and long driveways.
I am telling him about the choir,
about all the people in it, and while
I'm the one talking, I can feel him
falling silent, losing words. When he says
We're here, he is apologizing for something
I don't know yet. As soon as we walk through
the back door, he starts darting through
the house. I can hear the television on
in the other room, people watching golf,
but instead of making introductions
Anton runs me up the stairs to his room,
then closes the door with emphasis.
Not to keep me in, but to keep
everyone else out.
I am overwhelmed
by his room. The walls are all covered
with posters and stickers for bands
I have never heard of, have never heard.
Anton heads straight to his stereo
and unleashes a blast. I cannot believe
the noise. Surely if Job had a sound
forced in his ears, it would be this.
It's an angry screaming with a dark
something underneath. Do you
like it? Anton yells to me, sitting down
on the edge of his bed. He is so proud
of it. He is sharing his music with me,
and who am I to say that it is Job's music,
that it is music like an assault? His chair
is covered with books and his jacket,
so I sit on the floor by the bed. The song
changes, the disc switches, but it's more
of the same. He drums the air, asks me
if I can feel the bass. And I do feel it,
working into my body from where
my hands touch the floor.
I don't know what to say.
I look at the posters, see that there are
some drawings on the walls, too.
The disc changes again, and suddenly
it's Billie Holiday singing about stormy
weather, it just keeps raining all the time.
At the same moment, I see a drawing of
Billie on the wall, small and sad.
Anton slides down on the floor next to me
and before I know it, his hand is gently
on mine. I turn to him and see how
nervous he is. I notice he hasn't taken off
his tie, he is still dressing up nice for me.
I am about to say something when he
removes his hand from mine and reaches
the other hand around, touching my cheek
then my shoulder. He says my name
like it is the gospel itself, and then he
moves his lips onto mine. He holds me
and it's that drowning kind of holding.
It is all so fast. He pulls back to look at me
and I don't have to say anything. He loses
his courage, he loses his footing. The
song shifts back to noise and he starts
telling me he is sorry, so sorry, and he
is so flustered and so lost and Lord, I am
lost too, as he stammers and begins to cry
because he is so lost. And the only thing
I can think to do is find him, pull him
back to me, that drowning kind of holding
again, but with the feeling that we won't
drown, not today. And he is crying he is
sorry and I am telling him there's no reason
to be sorry. With one hand I keep him
to me and with the other hand I turn down
the noise in time to hear him say he
loves me.
I have never been given these words
in this way before. This small piece of
gospel, three parts hosanna, two parts
testimony, one part lamentation.
He is apologizing again, this time
for loving me, and I am still holding him
so gently that our bodies could be spirits.
And I find that I am loving him, too,
and that I am sorry, too, because I love him
in the way that the gospel can love;
I love him in the way I want to love
everybody, not in the way that would make me
kiss him back in the way he might want to be
kissed. I am sure he is confusing
these kinds of love, that what he wants
from me is caring, not a roll around
on the floor. Or maybe that's just
what I think.
He lets go before I do.
I see him eye the stereo, wanting
to turn it up again. But he doesn't.
Instead he says he's sorry again,
and I tell him to stop. I tell him
everything is right by me. I ask him
to put Billie Holiday back on.
She is not a gospel singer.
She sings like someone who tried
to live by the gospel, but was hurt
at every chance there was.
I barely know the words
but I start singing along anyway.
I try to make it into the gospel,
and when that doesn't work, I just
sing it from a different place.
Eventually Anton turns the stereo
down and sits there carefully,
looking at me. I close my eyes and
raise the roof for him. I sing so loud
that the stormy weather will cease,
that the television will turn off,
that the black clothes will unveil
all the color that we are underneath.
I sing to be a blessing, and I sing
because the song is a blessing to me.
The song goes: I got the whole world
in my hands, the whole world in
my hands. You've gotta live the gospel,
you've gotta take the whole world in
your hands and show it kindness.
Is love the gospel, or is the gospel
love? Only the Lord knows, and the Lord
isn't saying. It's up to the rest of us
to make it out. To make it work.
When I am done,
when the song is over and we are left
in that silence that can be so many things,
Anton looks at me with such an open heart
that I know mine will open to him, and
that we will have that, which is
everything.
As the last echo of the song
leaves the room, he applauds
for a moment, smiles at me,
loosens his tie, and says
Amen.
lying awake beside you, these thoughts run through my head
the inhale, the exhale.
the watching in the dark.
you can sleep through anything,
except your parents coming home.
but they are gone for the weekend,
so I am here.
watching as you sleep.
the gentle movements.
the blue room.
you have no idea.
you sleep, I watch.
the afterwards.
we have just been as close as two people can be.
you have said those three words.
and I believed it.
now you are asleep,
and it is dark,
and I am back with myself again.
you have no idea.
this dark.
it would be so easy to let you take me with you.
that waking dreamland we escape to every now and then.
to be the person you think I am.
that person worthy of your love.
but I'm not.
I do not deserve you.
your breath,
my confession.
I have hurt people.
different people, the same hurt.
I have done things because I wanted to.
for no other reason than wanting to.
I have done things.
I have been that darkness.
you are sleeping with your arm around the pillow,
your feet dangling off the bed.
there should only be one of us here.
you have no idea that I will break your heart.
when you break someone's heart,
you also break your own.
whenever I approach the truth,
y
ou back away from it.
you don't want to know.
but you should know.
the more you love me, the more I will ruin you.
I will take my darkness and I will push it inside you.
lying awake beside you,
these thoughts go through my head.
I have done unforgivable things.
(you inhale, you exhale)
I have taken advantage of other people's weaknesses in order to cover my own.
I have slept with boys even though I knew they would later make me want to die.
I have lied so often that I've lost all track of the truth.
I have stolen people's boyfriends, because I knew I could.
and then I dumped them like everyone else.
because there was always someone else.
I have never been faithful.
until you.
but I do not know if that can last, if I can overcome who I am.
you open your arms to me and I want to tell you not to.
do not expose yourself to me.
the last boy who did that ended up shattered.
he could not stop asking me why?
he told me he loved me and I slapped him.
he thought I was playing, but I wasn't.
I am that damaged.
you sleep so innocently, and I watch so guiltily.
I didn't think it would come to this.