Church Girl Gone Wild (2 page)

“So after all these years, you and your boys still playin' with little girls in the dark huh?”

The shuffling, scuffling, and clawing stopped. We all froze with our eyes bulging out of our heads and our chests heaving.

“Mommy?” My voice was a cracked whisper.

The last time I'd seen her I was trying to press a towel over the bullet hole in her stomach.

“Ava? Is that you?” Papa Psion was the first to find his voice. “I, um . . . it's been a while sis. You know I, uh . . . I was really sorry to hear about you and D.J. splitting up, given the circumstances.” He stumbled over his words sounding embarrassed and awkward.

As soon as his grip loosened up, I squirmed myself free scooting down off the table. Bits of old straw and gritty dirt met my feet. Derian crossed his arms over his chest. Deacon and Papa Psion stood frozen like they were waiting on someone to tag them back in.

“It was long overdue Psi. But I'm not your sis or sister-in law. You can't call me family anymore. And you obviously ain't too sorry from what I'm seein'.”

Squinting against the blinding glare from the flashlight I edged around the mess from the rabbit on the floor. She was standing just inside the double wide doors that led outside. I had a thousand questions to ask her, starting with whether or not what Papa Psion was saying was true but my head wasn't ready to process any of that. Now, I was the one doing the shuffling because my legs were too shaky to take full steps. I still couldn't believe it was her. I'd had so many dreams about seeing her again and I wasted all kinds of time daydreaming about the day she came back. She was a familiar stranger that I'd loved and re-hated over and over again in my head. I cast a sideways glance in Deacon and Papa Psion's direction. Worry that they'd thaw from their positions and grab me before I could get to her made me shuffle faster.

Everyone said she'd disappeared and once my daddy got out of jail for shooting her he went to work out of state. The girls at church told me that when old folk say somebody's daddy “works out of state,” it was always code for, he found a new family. The story came in as many different versions as the mouths telling it, but everyone ended with momma and daddy somewhere minus me and Leslie.

I stared at her so hard she got blurry and came in clear again. I couldn't figure out if seeing her and hearing her voice meant I was safe or if I was already dead and didn't know it.

“It's okay baby girl, I got you. You're okay.”

Her voice floated over the sound of the cicadas and Papa Psion's loud mouth breathing.

My chest tightened with so much relief I thought I'd pop. That was the voice that used to tuck me in at night and apologize when I didn't get exactly what I wanted for Christmas. My legs ate up the short distance in between us. I crashed into her hip wishing I could wrap my arms around her. Something was different about her. I had to compare mental memory notes to be sure she was the same person. I remembered old pennies at the bottom of a purse and fresh clothes dried outside on a line. Those were the smells I remembered. But now she smelled like really strong cinnamon perfume that clogged up my nose. She brushed long pearly- fake claw looking nails across my cheek. She used to hate fake nails.

Deacon let out a long sigh. “Okay, what is this Ava? You know what the scripture says about–” his tone was flat, almost bored.

“No
Ozias
,” she snapped at him.

Ozias?
I mouthed Deacon's real name. Nobody called him that, not even Momma Rose, he was Deacon to everyone. The air crackled from the heated look that came over his face.

Momma's foot went to tapping as she sucked her teeth. “I don't give a fuck about your conceptualized scriptures. I know what my bank statement says. You've missed
three
mothafuckin' drops in a gotdamn row.
That
wasn't the damn deal. You ain't gettin' over on no gotdamn-nobody. I've come to take my kids back.”

Her words echoed inside my head. They were far from what I was expecting her to say. Then I realized she wasn't hugging me or crying a thousand happy tears at the sight of me. She didn't even bother with untying my wrists. Her hand was painfully tight on my shoulder. Her fingers were frigid icicles against my skin, colder than my soaked nightgown. My lower lip quivered as my feelings double-dutched between loves her and loves her not.

“You were never one for manners. Your sister was always the polite one.
In case
you ever wonder why I married Rose instead of you. A woman in a position of power has to be polite. Genteel.” Deacon kept his cool distant composure but the meaning of his words carried a ton of heat.

Her fingers clenched into icy needles in my skin.

I gave her a nervous side glance.
Eeew, I know she didn't date Deacon's old crotchety baldy black behind?

Her spiky-black spider-leg lashes lowered into a nasty glare.

“Hold on now Deac,” Papa Psion huffed. He leaned towards Deacon lowering his voice. His argument came out in a rush of hushed words that carried across the empty room. “You just had me tear into a flaming coffin with my bare hands. And that's
after
I gave you what I know was damn near five times what any of the brother's say they've ever paid for one of your
virgin
brides of the church. Look man, our deal is a deal . . . but maybe a different girl–”

Deacon raised a hand stopping him mid-sentence. “We still good Psi.”

His eyes were blank and cold as he stared a hole into momma over the top of my head.

“I think Ava here, just got confused about our agreement.” He still managed to look rigid and calm, like a master salesman going over a basic lay-a-way plan. “I mean, Ava I did graciously take in your newborn, who's two now in case you didn't remember.
And,
this one here who puts food away like she has an army of tapeworms in her gut. The choosing ceremony is a mandate of the church; it's also me doing you a financial favor. I'm taking care of the debt you owe with the money I get for her.”

“What kind of favor is this? I don't want favors. I want my money on time, like we discussed. Don't make me tell
all
your secrets,” Ava hissed. “How your fake ass is the furthest thing from sanctified and Derian would probably burn if he ever stepped foot in a
real
church. And Psi we all know you wouldn't be shit if your daddy didn't leave you his church. I'll tell everyone how y'all lie, buy, and sell little girls . . .”

Deacon was in front of us with his hand around her throat before she could finish her sentence. She let me go, to grab pitifully at his hand around her neck. They were locked eye to eye.

“You know good and well when you make deals with the devil, you accept the devil's terms,” he whispered. “There's
nothing
to tell Ava,” Deacon exploded, shaking her so hard I was worried her neck would snap. Sweat rolled down the sides of his face. He dragged his freehand back across the light-grey stubble on top of his head flinging sweat to the ground.

I waited to hear it sizzle.

His tongue snaked nervously across his fat lips.

Papa Psion, shifted from foot to foot. Derian, rocked back and forth, still holding the bloody rabbit. My momma had just gone from hero to zero and I was shaking like the room was below freezing.

Deacon patted the top of Ava's head. “Now you can make yourself useful and hold her down while Papa Psion consummates his choosing
or
you can take her place.”

She swayed on her feet before straightening up with her shoulders shaking. “Take her,” she said without so much as even looking in my direction.

Just as easily as she let me go before, she let me go again. I tried to make a run for the door tripping over my own feet with my vision on underwater exploration. The hem of my pee soaked nightshirt itched the back of my heels. I crumbled to the floor, scraping my knees, but I didn't even feel it over the pain of what she'd just said stabbing me in my chest. Now I could never call her mommy again not after this. She'd just be Ava, as far as I could tell I didn't have a mommy anymore.

Deacon chuckled as he turned towards the men in the room. “Oh, no no no, Ava. That wasn't a question for you. Papa Psion will make the decision.”

The sound that came out of the Ava was like the wicked-witch, her monkeys,
and
the tornado were all about to come flying out of her mouth. Her eyes locked on me and I'd swear she hated me in that stare.

Papa Psion's fat bullfrog face split into an ugly grin. He turned to Derian announcing in a loud croak, “take the girl home so she can get cleaned up. She smells like shit. He winked at me. “Our little party's cancelled for now. So no boys honey-bee, you're already engaged. I'll just keep it in the family until you're old enough to appreciate all this.”

Derian, dropped his nasty rabbit. He snatched me to my feet and marched me out into the humid musky night air.

I stared through the rearview as the forest swallowed up the orange glow from the shack. Everything I'd ever felt for Ava vanished with that light.

 

My birthday was only a couple of days away. Turning sixteen should have had me on some mess like cake, car, and party. But since I was stuck living under Deacon's ever watchful third, fourth, and invisible eye, with Papa Psion coming any day now, the only thing I wanted was to get away. You see, in Deacon's church you didn't follow the bible; you followed his interpretation of it or what he liked to call Deacon's Law.

People would give everything they had in offering. Deacon would use his connections to answer their so called prayers. The church was full of business folk, itching the left hand of the person beside them so they could scratch it in the church's pocket. They'd help find you a better job, house, life, it didn't matter. They knew as soon as you started getting what you asked for, you'd tithe more out of thanks. Because law number one was, “anything multiplied by zero is zero.”

The Church of Kings would never build with somebody that “ain't got” to begin with. And it didn't even have to be money. You could roll up like Ava offering your own children to for the choosing. Choosing could happen at any age, but Deacon liked to start as early as five or six. Kids even came with fake adoption paperwork so neighbors wouldn't get suspicious. That's how crooked, conniving, and sideways Deacon's church really was.

Deacon's views on women could get even more twisted and complex than the Jacob's Ladders Leslie was obsessed with making out of string. I was stretched out on my back pretending that I was paying attention and not trying to take a nap. Leslie was stretched out on top of me using my boobs to rest the back of her head.

“And this one is breastbone and ribs,” she announced proudly.

The blue yarn was looped a gazillion times around each of her little fingers. I nodded, giving her a mumbled ‘mmm hmm.' Each and every one of those things looked like tangled yarn, or straight up knots to me.

“Eva, I don't want boobs.”

I frowned down over the natural arch of her eyebrows towards her sandy-brown lashes. She had no idea how much she reminded me of our parents. Those brows were all Ava. My girl Storie shaped mine up in the bathroom at school. At least it stopped everyone from calling me Attila the Hun. But then they replaced it with Attila the Nun, as in don't even try to date me because you will get none. Not that anyone was every actually checking for my eyebrows anymore. My chest usually caught everyone's attention before the rest of me.

I don't even know how it happened. One day I was five ‘one, flat as a board and straight as an arrow. The next day my boobs were hurting so bad I'd have sworn Momma Rose was beating them in my sleep. Yes, on some straight-up African breast ironing mess. A few weeks later I was still five ‘one, but my hips were wider, my breasts grew, and my ass had even gotten bigger.

My growth spurt went all out instead of up. And it made me wish Leslie would stay a kid forever. She'd be super pissed, like Claudia the little vampire girl that couldn't age from Interview with a Vampire. I loved the book so much I forgot to return it to the library on purpose. Had to pay forty-five dollars for a twelve dollar book but that was easier than letting Deacon find out I'd borrowed it. But the thought of Leslie with eye-catching, attention-grabbing, chest-pillows made me shift uncomfortably.

“Is there a way to just not grow any?” Leslie asked.

“Why would you say something like that? Every girl wants boobs.”

“I'm not every girl. And Momma Rose said you're leaving us. Sue said if you don't go you'll turn into Onibaba, the demon witch. And that you'd start tryin' to eat my skin. But Momma Rose said it's because you need a man to take care of you and keep other men off your goodies.” She rocked her head back and forth between my breasts. “I'm pretty sure she was talking about
your boobs
. So, I just don't want no man or no goodies. And since I ain't got any now I can take care of you, Eva.”

As usual, whenever my choosing was brought up my throat would shrink to about the size of a rice grain. All these years I did everything to protect her and now she was one talking about protecting me. I pressed my lips to the top of her thick wavy hair. Who was she gonna' protect when she still smelled like a damn baby? Momma Rose had caked so much Just For Me detangler in her hair it probably came out her pores when she sweat.

“Les, I told you not to listen to Sue and what in the world would you do—”

“Why is my TV on channel twenty-two?” Deacon snatched the bedroom door open letting it bang against the wall. He stood in the doorway making his crazed with religion face at us.

Maybe it's because, I was watching MTV when you weren't home.
I needed to think up a quick lie before he decided to snatch the coaxial cable right out the wall to beat us with it. We'd just gotten cable back in the house from the last time he did exactly that. He was good for turning a broken rule into a punishment. It didn't make any sense for me to be able to have a husband and babies, when I wasn't even trusted basic cable. There wasn't even a lock on my bedroom door. Which I was reminded of every time he just bust right in.

“Because, Momma Rose sits on the remote. And, sometimes she don't even know it's underneath her.”

Leslie was right on it.

“Yeah, and you sound like you don't have any sense or upbringing when you use don't instead of doesn't. Both of you up and dressed in thirty. Dinner with Ava. In honor of Eva's birthday and all.” He spat his orders and shuffled away yelling through the house for Sue to get off the phone.

She'd started using telemarketers to practice her English whenever they called. They'd get stuck on the phone with her for hours in a reverse outsourcing call center hell.

My breath was already gone and Leslie going into excited kiddie overdrive on top of me didn't help. I just stared at the spinning blades of the ceiling fan until they faded from sight. The thought of being in the same room with Ava made me see black. My breath hitched and there was the lingering smell of burning wood and misery. All the tiny hairs on my arms were standing at attention.
What made Ava, think I'd want to be anywhere near her? Oh, no what if this is it and Papa Psion's ass is there too.
I was getting light-headed from the thought of finally facing it all.

Leslie propped herself up, jabbing me in the stomach with her bony elbows.

“Hello Earth to Eva? I asked you if you think momma will like me. Why aren't you smiling? She used to like me when I was a baby right? What should I wear? Do you think she's with daddy and they want us back? That would mean you wouldn't have to leave Eva.” She was out of control with all her questions.

Considering the way things went down the last time I'd seen Ava I could only imagine what this whole dinner thing was going to be about.
Me or money.
Especially since she'd single handedly shut down my bullshit choosing ceremony. I might have seen Papa Psion once or twice since. It left me wanting to hate and hug her for distracting him, even though she hadn't done it by choice.

Leslie was still going on and on about “mommy-this and does-mommy-that facts.

“Damn Leslie, how many times do we have to go over this?” My voice came out harsher than I meant it to. “It's just us and it's always been that way. If I hadn't told you, you wouldn't know a thing about daddy or Ava–” I took a deep breath. “Let's just go pick you out something cute and do something with all this hair okay?”

 

 

Half an hour and five arguments later we were dressed. Leslie finally lost the fifth argument on why she couldn't wear her hair in a wavy afro. After taming her mane, I decided that we'd both dress as informal as possible so I picked out stone wash jeans, black t-shirt, and beat up black Chucks for me. Leslie was my twin except her Chucks and her t-shirt dark blue. It was my version of a silent mutiny. Deacon, Momma Rose, and Sue were all dressed like we were going to a formal dinner party.

“What in the world, are we going to a dinner or out fishing?” Momma Rose stared us up and down violently shaking her head. “Where are the sundresses I got y'all when I went to Potomac Mills. We have a reputation to keep up ladies, I can't have ya'll–,”

“It's just Ava, they look better than the condition we got them in. So it's fine,” Deacon interrupted her.

As we made the two-hour long drive towards Franklin and Mecklenburg County on what had to be the hottest day in June, they were the ones looking stuffy and overdressed

Part of me wanted to know what Ava had been up to and why she'd moved all the way out bum-fuck-Egypt. On the other hand I could have cared less. I'd spent six years listening to the gospel. And eavesdropping in on the “nigga-news” at night, trying to figure out who or what Ava was doing before I stopped caring about her not caring about us.

The nigga-news was usually started by somebody that seen what happened and they hooked up the story a little bit before retelling it. By the time it got to you you'd have to pick the pieces apart to find the truth. Like the time they said Ava was hookin' on High Street for a pimp named Reena. That just sounded completely made up, everyone knew women weren't pimps. The gospel was the sanctified, cleaned up version passed down the pew on Sundays. Ava resurfacing was like a punch in the nose. It hurt like hell that'd she waited so long to see us but I kept blinking back tears waiting for that feel-good sneeze that never came. Leslie had been driving me crazy with questions and now she could just ask Ava herself.

We drove for what seemed like hours passing a sprinkling of abandoned wooden shacks.

“That looks like those vampire nests from that movie we watched,” Leslie open-loud mouth whispered against my ear.

I tried to melt into the side paneling of the car and peek out the window at them. My toes involuntarily curled into the bottom of my shoe, my chest got that achy heavy feeling. They were rotting reminders with their shutters barely hanging by a nail set against the graying cloudy sky boarded up with old rotted wooden boards. Each shack could have been the perfect safe haven for a vampire, serial killer, or choosing ceremony.

“Deacon, why don't they just tear those creepy things down?” I asked when I couldn't stand the sight of them anymore.

He never took his eyes off the road. It was as if his answer was rehearsed.

“Those houses are older than freedom itself.”

What he meant was that they were probably from the slavery days.

We finally pulled up in front of a small wooden greenish-yellow house with rickety shutters. It was all by itself in the middle of the woods at the edge of town. All the spit dried up until my tongue felt like I'd bitten into one of the unripe persimmons Sue had given me one day.

It wasn't the tear-soaking, “I'm sorry and I take it all back” greeting I'd been secretly hoping for. This woman who was supposed to be my mother methodically unhooked the latch on her raggedy screen door. The springs creaked like we about to walk into a crypt. Without saying a word she stepped aside and let us in. Her eyes were red and tired, like she'd been awake for days at a time and was about to fall asleep any minute. I could still see they were the same Jupiter-round light brown eyes as mine, and the same spiky-spider-leg thick lashes. I was expecting her to have wider hips maybe put on some weight, but her orange sundress fit her like a second skin. It tapered in at her tiny waist that was still small as if not smaller than mine.

Her house was dark for the middle of the day. The bare hardwood floor creaked and groaned with every step. Everything was covered in a layer of dust. You could even see the particles in the air as they floated through the tiny slivers of sun that managed to squeak between the aged yellowed blinds. Ava wasn't acting nice, motherly, or even friendly. For all intents and purposes I wasn't going to jump back and forth between her periods of solitude and suddenly wanting to be a part of our lives.

“It's a dirty dirty bird that won't keep its own nest clean,” Momma Rose whispered behind her hand to Deacon as we filed into the squelching heat of a tiny windowless kitchen. Leslie, held onto my hand with a vice grip. She stared at Ava in awe and fear. If she wasn't going to speak to me, the least she could have done was acknowledged Leslie. I wanted to scoop her up in a big hug and apologize on Ava's behalf but knew it would be best to just wait until we got back home. Sue was the only one that wasn't the least bit bothered. The other day, I'd overheard Deacon promising her everything from shoes to a cruise. He wanted her to suck his thing in the study and go somewhere, now I know where that “somewhere” was. That was one snooping session I could have done without.

A black bucket sat by the stove with fruit flies hovering over it. I glanced in it and gagged.

“That's for the hogs around back. It's a slop bucket. I don't waste anything. Old food to me is good food to them.” Ava spoke to me for the first time since the last time I'd seen her. It wasn't exactly what I imagined our first words to be and if I wasn't mistaken her tone was a little snippy
. I can't help if I've never seen a bucket full of rotten slop. And what happened to all that money Deacon supposedly been giving her?

We all crowded in Ava's kitchen, waiting to be offered a seat, taking one on our own when we realized she wasn't going to offer. Roaches scurried underneath the cabinets and thick cob webs waved from where they hung in the corners. My Motorola flip-phone dinged in my back pocket. I already knew it was Storie, asking for an update. Trying to make sure I hadn't killed anyone yet. Deacon cleared his throat shaking his head at me. He was strict about my phone and would take it in a heartbeat if he thought I was being disrespectful.