Zora and Nicky: A Novel in Black and White (4 page)

I can’t take one more minute of the lies I sit through Sunday after
Sunday.

I get up and walk out, passing our pew dwellers without looking at them.
Who cares if I disappear? If I vanish into thin air—personally raptured—
right in front of them, nobody will notice. On second thought, Rebecca will.
She’s made it her job to scope me out during services, probably to see if my
eyes stray to any female over age eleven and under fifty. She’ll see me shuffle
out, but will she be able to read the defeat branded like a scarlet letter on my
face?

What of the words of Jesus, written right there in the New Testament,
in red?

“If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth
he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh
that which is gone astray? And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you,
he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not
astray.”

You have to forgive me. I think in the King James Version, having heard
“it’s the
only
true word of God that exists” drilled into me from the time I
was a fetus. I don’t care what translation of the Bible I use; all of them say a
real shepherd goes after one lost sheep. Even the bad stained-glass shepherd is
good enough to carry one of his straying sheep.

What of my dad, the shepherd, Reverend Nicholas Aaron Parker Sr.? The
man I’m named after. The man I can’t seem to do anything but disappoint
with every choice I make that isn’t
his
choice. He’s supposed to be all about
the Bible.

“How shall I choose a career?” “Just go to the Holy Bible,” he’ll answer.

“How do I choose what I’ll eat for lunch, Dad?” “The Holy Scriptures,”
he’ll say, beaming.

“Should I wear the red polo shirt, or the blue- and yellow-striped one?”
“Search the Scriptures, my boy.”

Okay, it isn’t that extreme, but man, it’s close. Didn’t he read the story
of the good shepherd? He commissioned those awful windows for heaven’s
sake! Why didn’t he know when I fled for California to pursue a degree in
literature, which he found worthless, that I found
life
? Why didn’t he know
I waited, bleating and moaning in grief, the saddest sheep of all? Didn’t he
know I needed him to come for me?

I swing the door open and storm out, and nobody grabs my legs while I drag
them across the steps of the vestibule. Nobody says, “Please, Nicky, don’t go.”

Don’t go
.

A few minutes later, I’m sitting in my black Chevy pickup, reading my
contraband
NIV Men’s Devotional Bible
, and I read, thinking of a Jesus who
may actually want me enough to leave His ninety and nine to find me no
matter where I stray to. I can’t even concentrate on the words, I feel so twisted
inside.

A tap at my window.

It’s Rebecca. I roll the window down. “Hey.”

“Hey, are you okay, Nicholas? I saw you walk out. Are you feeling all
right?”

I look at her, seeing what my mom and dad see: a good girl. Pretty.
Perky. Blonde, blue-eyed. Jesus loving. A True Love Waits girl. Someone they
can groom into a good pastor’s wife. Someone so much more malleable than
myself.

And I like her. She’s one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met. She’s the
freakin’ bridge between me and my parents—the only thing I’ve done right
since coming home to fix things with my father, like God told me to.

God, what did You mean? How do I put things right with him? Do I have
to marry her? I don’t want to marry her.

“I’m okay, Rebecca.”

She stands there. She wants me to open the door. I don’t want to open the
door. I want her to go away, but she’ll stand there until Jesus returns if I don’t.
I decide to stop acting like an animal, and actually get out of the car and go
open the door for her. Get her seated in the truck. Close the door behind her.
Get back in.

I wonder if she’d leave with me. I don’t think she would.

When we’re settled in, I risk asking her, “Do you ever wish you could
run away?”

“From church?”

I don’t say all the expletives before the word yes that pop into my head. I
don’t even say yes. I just watch her.

“Sometimes I wouldn’t mind leaving home, but I love church. I love your
dad and your mom. I love it here. I love this building. And the people. The
old folks. The babies in the nursery. I’ve been here since I was eleven and your
dad knocked on my door
himself
to see if me and my brother wanted to take
the bus to Sunday school—the
pastor
!”

She’s says
pastor
like it’s a big freakin’ deal. When she was eleven and
he was knocking on her door evangelizing, I couldn’t get him to have a
conversation with me. The
pastor
!

She means it. That’s the worst part. Or maybe it’s the best part. I’m not
even sure. She wants this life at Tabernacle. That’s why my parents love her so
much, because she shows up at the potluck with her casserole. And she shows
up for the antiabortion rally. And for the women’s breakfast, and basically
every time the door opens.

Rebecca doesn’t want to run away from church.

“Did you enjoy the sermon?”

Say no. Please say no.

“I didn’t hear all of it, but it’s very good.”

Rebecca is good about recycling. She’s a regular spiritual
environmentalist.

Cut it out. She doesn’t deserve that.

She reaches for my hand. I let her take it. I never let things go further
than this, except in my thoughts. I wonder if I should just kiss her. Just
surrender to this life. I don’t even know what I’m holding out for. Kiss her.
Fall in love. Go to seminary. Be the good son. You can do it, Nicky. That’s
why you’re back home.

You’re not a writer.

Ouch. It kills me to think it.

Rebecca must see me wince. “You sure you’re okay?”

I don’t even speak. I just nod.

“Why don’t we go back in? It’s almost time for communion.”

“I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

I see her out of the truck like the good boyfriend, even though I suck
to high heaven. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to be Anglican today. I’ve been
sober since I left Cali, even though I don’t go to meetings. My dad would be
appalled if he thought I went to Alcoholics Anonymous. But dear God, if we
served real wine instead of grape juice, I’d take the leftovers out of those tiny
plastic cups and tie one on today. Then seek out the rest, served up straight
from the bottle.

Jesus, help me. Help me.

CHAPTER TWO

ZORA

I’m at a strange white woman’s Bible study. Linda welcomes me into her
cramped apartment, and I see books instead of walls. The volumes, dust, and
stale air conjure the spirit of my girlhood like a roots woman casting spells,
and for a moment, I imagine I’m sitting on the floor of a used bookstore,
twelve years old, some treasured tome in hand. Toni Morrison’s
The Bluest Eye
or Zora Neale Hurston’s
Their Eyes Were Watching God
. A buck fifty taking me
on a voyage where I travel by words instead of planes and trains, boats and
automobiles. The thought of that comforts me now.

’Cause sistah girl don’t feel no other comfort in this place. I walk toward
the sectional sofa where the others wait, and I’m feeling fragile as glass and
just as transparent. I think the four of them can see inside of me; they can
look right through me at the disheveled room inside my head, books stewn
all over the floor and debris piled up, now invisible to me since I’ve let it go
for so long.

Their smiles welcome me, greetings to the new girl. The
black
girl. I
wonder when it will begin. When will they thrill and inspire me with their
insipid stories about the one
black
person they know? When will they ask me,
subtly or not, if my long hair is a weave? When will they tell me how pretty
they think I am without saying “for a black person,” even though we both
know that’s what they mean?

I grin wide at them like I own the whole world, conscious of keeping my
back straight—invisible book, something big, maybe the collected poems of
Langston Hughes, balanced precariously on my head. I shake hands with a
firm, decisive grip.

“I’m Zora,” I shoot at them. I make an effort to remember their names. I
think of Mama and Daddy telling me I have to work twice as hard and twice
as long to get an equal measure of success among them. I wonder what I’ll have
to bone up on to prove myself when all I want to do is listen, soak it all in, and
maybe add something to my heavenly bank account with the zero balance.

They are an odd lot, this group. Young and older.

Older man, Richard, maybe in his late sixties. White hair, and a shock of
it, sticking straight up. He is frail, but his big blue eyes teem with a delightful
mix of wisdom and mischief. Baby-blue button-down shirt with a few buttons
open. Crazy throwback windowpane pants. He wears a crucifix attached to
a leather cord like somebody hip loves him. He reeks of cigarette smoke.
Richard caresses a well-worn, obviously loved black leather Bible.

I wish I had a Bible that looked like that.

White boy so pretty he can pull off having a girl’s name. He must make
his parents proud. Nicky. Heaven help me, he’s hot as
fire
. Blue eyes that
make me think of sweet raspberry popsicles and September birthstones, and
that subtle sense of sadness because the season will change so soon, and before
you know it, it’ll be cold again. Nicky’s sapphire eyes make me think of that.

A graphic T-shirt stretches across a broad chest that will make some white
girl—blonde—very happy one day, if he isn’t making her grin already. Those
blue eyes of his widen just slightly when he sees me. They flicker up and down
my frame, and a smile he probably can’t help affirms his appreciation.

Oh, yeah. Go Zora, go Zora.

No Zora, no Zora.

I’ll buy myself a first-class ticket to hell before I consider him for
anything
.
I don’t care how good he thinks I look. Or how good I think
he
looks. I don’t
do white boys. Uh-uh.

But is he ever
fine
. And, watch yourself sistah Z. Is that a hint of a smile,
acting completely of its own accord, spreading across your mouth? And pretty
boy notices.

I make sure not to sit by him.

Billie. Platinum blonde in her forties. Maybe. She’s too cool to let the
cutie get to her. She probably has a stable of boy-toy bucks to choose from.
Her hair is a wild mane of crazy dreadlocks with rainbow colored tips. I’ve
never seen anyone like her. She’s flung a black leather motorcycle jacket
across the back of her chair. Her white tank top shows off impressive, though
feminine, muscle mass. Tattoos of a flowered vine snake up and down her
right arm. The Virgin Mary in Technicolor on her left. Nice tats. I sit between
her and Linda.

I met Linda at LLCC several weeks before I walked out. This brave white
woman came alone to visit us. “Just wanted to fellowship with my brothers
and sisters in Christ.”

I’d looked at her like she was high. I didn’t particularly mind her being
with us; she was a curiosity to me. I asked her why she chose to visit us, and
she said she’d watched Daddy on television.

She didn’t seem to have the hysterical “speak the Word tick” afflicting
most Word-Faithers. When I shook her hand and asked, “How are you?” she
didn’t spout off fifteen pages of Scriptures she’d memorized. She didn’t even
say, “I’m blessed.” She said, “Fine, thank you. How are you?” I wanted to kiss
her for that alone.

“Welcome.” I actually had a sincere smile for her.

“I’m happy to be here.” She had an easy way of speaking, almost lazy. Coarse
red hair she couldn’t handle. Freckles all over. Wise hazel eyes, but a child’s
zeal for life. Something about her that put you at ease. Skinny and terribly
unfashionable, she’d never fit in at LLCC, and I liked her for that, too.

We chatted for ten or fifteen minutes, and for the first time in God only
knows how long, I didn’t care I wasn’t being politically correct, a good pastor’s
daughter working the crowd. I learned in that short time that Linda took
Sundays to visit churches, and during the week she hosted this small Bible
study in her home. Whosoever will, let him come. She pulled a card out
of the long, Little-House-on-the-Prairie jumper she wore. She’d done the
calligraphy herself on the card she gave me.

I tucked the card away in my Coach handbag and promised I’d visit her
Wednesday-night Bible study one evening. Now, here I am, as thirsty and as
bereft of God as the Samaritan woman at the well. I just want a drop of God.
I want Him to come to me in a way He isn’t allowed to at LLCC.

Knock me on my face, God.

I stop. My mother will institutionalize me if she gets wind of such
thoughts flying around my head. You have everything.
Everything
, Zora. You
don’t need to be knocked down.

Linda asks me to tell the group more about myself. I hate this part. I take
a deep breath and start my spiel.

“Like I said, my name is Zora. Zora Johnson. My father is the pastor of
Light of Life Christian Center in Ann Arbor. It’s a pretty big church, and I
work there.” God, please don’t let them ask me what I do.

Linda says, “That’s a coinkydink.” And I think how very Linda-like it is
that she says
coinkydink
rather than
coincidence
. “Nicky is a PK too.”

Poor Nicky. His ears and cheeks turn pink, and he looks down. I feel his
pain. I smirk at him, and he shifts on his part of the sectional.

He shrugs. Looks embarrassed. “My dad is the pastor of True Believer
Gospel Tabernacle. It’s a big—”

“I know that church! I voted for Reverend Nicholas Parker when he ran
for governor the first time I ever voted.” I’d just turned eighteen.

Nicky Parker’s fine-as-wine mouth hangs open. I love surprising people
by doing something completely opposite of their expectations. I’m black and
female. I’m not supposed to vote for a white Republican man with no concern
for the poor and a rabid antiabortion agenda.

Surprise!

He seems to pause in thought for a moment. Runs one of his hands
across his mouth, long fingers like a musician’s. Fingers that look soft-tipped
and capable of magic. I shake the mental image of him touching me with
those hands.

“You voted for my dad?” he says, as if he’s never heard anything so absurd
in his life.

“I know I don’t look like a Republican, being the wrong color and all—”

“No, I’m not surprised about your color. I know plenty of black
Republicans. You look
smart
however. I mistook you for a thinking person.”

Now my bottom lip almost hits the floor. When I can speak again, with
the precision of an orator, I say, “Excuse me?”

I sound so much like my mother it chills
me
more than it does him.
Nicky keeps on swingin’.

“I said, I mistook you for a thinking person.”

“Are you suggesting people who want to see abortion abolished are not
thinking?”

“No, I’m saying that people who were historically subjugated and choose
to ignore my dad’s despicable policies, including his thinly veiled racism and
capitalistic interest in doing away with welfare—which by the way, he feels is
a crutch for lazy African Americans—are not thinking.”

“Mr. Parker, are you suggesting that because I’m black, I should, without
question, vote for Democrats based on what we perceive as their support,
nominal at best, of America’s—specifically black America’s—poor? Did it occur
to you that I may believe abortion to be murder? Genocide to be precise.”

He opens his mouth to respond, but Linda halts our discussion. “My
dear brothers and sisters in Christ, I believe it’s time for us to pray.”

The four of them pull out a thick book, one I don’t have until Linda
walks across the room and digs a volume out of a big box full of assorted
books sitting on her dining room table.

She presents the copy to me with a grin, like she’s giving candy to a little
kid.
The Divine Hours, Prayers for Springtime.
Biker chick tells me what page
to turn to. It’s almost 7 p.m., and they seem to be sticklers about the time. We
sit in silence in those few minutes, and I’m glad no one rushes to fill the space
with conversation. I’m still salty with Nicky Parker, and I try to calm myself.
I close my eyes, drinking in the pause before we’d contact heaven, greedy for
it, consumed by my need for the simplicity of not running my mouth for a
change.