She could be ill, she considered.
“You coming in, Sister Stella?” Luella Jamieson, Frank Jamieson’s wife, asked her.
“I would,” she said, wistfully staring inside the church, “but I think I better check on Sister Brown. I notice she didn’t make it, and I’m wondering if she isn’t awfully ill or something.”
“Sister Brown?”
“My friend Ioletta,” she answered. “You didn’t see her, did you?”
“No, and I don’t think one could easily miss your Ioletta Brown, Stella Jo.”
“No, I guess not,” she mumbled. She fanned herself with her white hankie, and said, “That’s a lovely hat you’re wearing today, Luella.”
“Why thank you,” Luella said. “So few people wear hats like they used to, it’s nice to wear one now and then. It seems much more respectful in church, doesn’t it?”
“I guess so,” she said, smiling wanly. She frequently wore hats, yet Luella had never complimented her on any of them. She wondered why not? But then, few people ever complimented her on any of her clothing. It was enough to depress a woman.
“Are you coming in, dear?” Luella asked. “Or should you check on your friend?”
“I think I best, and I have Angel to fetch at the hospital today, you know.”
Luella, or Lu, as most people from church called her, disappeared inside the doors, which clanged shut behind her. Wringing her hands, Stella descended the church steps and waited on the sidewalk for traffic to pass before crossing the street. She put her hands down at her sides, refusing to wring them further, before she had walked a full block.
“I refuse to worry anymore,” she insisted. “Lord, I’ve decided I’m giving my anxieties and fears to you from now on. Do you hear me, Lord?”
She didn’t hear an answer and she hadn’t expected any booming voice from the sky, but she did feel immediately better. What was the use in fear or anxiety? What had they ever profited her?
“You promised to be with us and to never forsake or abandon us, Lord, and I’m taking you up on it.”
Alliance’s remains loomed a block beyond Ioletta’s house. That was how she thought of it, the remains. The fire had consumed the majority of the building. Only a few timbers with their rafters still stood, giving one the impression of a pitifully charred skeleton.
Arson, she thought to herself. Sight of the church sickened her. How could anyone be so monstrous as to burn down a house of worship? Or any house at all, as far as that went? What sick, evil hearts and minds some people had. It made her feel terribly sad. But the moment passed, as she thought of all those people worshiping in Flowers Baptist at that very moment. She only wished for the day anyone could feel accepted in whatever church they happened to enter, regardless of the color of their skin.
She found Ioletta on her front porch stoop, legs outstretched, head bowed in grim contemplation.
“Hey, you all right?” She called, walking the hard-packed clay to the old but neatly kept shotgun-style house.
Ioletta glanced up from her thoughts and bowed her head again. “Cain’t nobody get by herself once in a while around here?”
“Ioletta Brown!” She exclaimed. “What on earth can be wrong with you?”
Ioletta let out a long, whistling sigh through the gap in her front teeth. “I’m tired, I guess, just plain tired.”
“Tired of what? You don’t work any harder than I do, and I’m not tired, not really.”
“Oh, there’s plenty kinds of tired. They ain’t all from workin’, you know.”
“Then what’s it from? How can a person be tired if it’s not from working?”
“Wrasslin’, wrasslin’ with the Lord, I guess.”
O, Stella silently formed the word with her lips. “I see.” She sank to the porch beside Ioletta. “Why are you wrestling Him now? Have you about beat Him, or has He about beat you? Who’s winnin’ here?”
“Sometimes you are so funny, Stella Jo,” she said, eyes rolled in mock disgust. “Now, how am I gonta beat God?”
“You’re the one wrestling Him, not me.”
Ioletta shook her head. “I wish it was you. Lord knows, I’m sick of it.”
“Then why don’t you give up and let Him beat you?”
“Don’t want to, I guess. That’s the problem, isn’t it? I been carryin’ this thing so long, it’s hard to give it up.”
“It’s hard to forgive, is it?” Stella quietly asked.
“Fo’ some of us,” she admitted. She nodded her head unashamedly. “But then, you were always so sheltered.”
“How was I ever more sheltered than you?” Stella asked, obviously perplexed. “I’ve never understood that.”
“You just be tryin’ to worm it out of me, girl, I know,” she said, her head tilted toward Stella. “It ain’t gonta happen.”
Stella frowned, and looked away. “I suppose I should see to Angel at the hospital.” Quietly, she added, “Of course, I hate to think what shape I’ll find you in, the next time I see you.”
“What are you talkin’ about?”
“Well, Jacob and all, you know,” she said, barely restraining a grin.
“Oh, you’re funny. Who Jacob?” Ioletta demanded.
“The Jacob,” she answered, with a reassuring pat on the arm. “You know, the one who wrestled God in the Bible.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Well, God crippled him, didn’t he?”
From the sharp intake of breath, Stella knew she had hit her mark. A lone tear trickled down Ioletta’s cheek.
“I ain’t cryin’,” she said, teeth gritted. She wiped the tear off with the back of one hand. “I ain’t.”
“Nobody said you had to,” Stella whispered.
“And I ain’t,” Ioletta repeated, as she reached out for Stella and sobbed on her shoulder.
Stella patted her on the back. “That’s all right, honey, you don’t have to cry unless you want to.”
“I know,” Ioletta said, pushing her away and knuckling the moisture from her eyes. “What was your father like, Stella Jo?”
“The kindest, sweetest, most gentle man I ever knew.” Her eyes lit up with memory of him. “I suppose that’s where my Angel comes by his sweetness, you know.”
“It weren’t from your Leonard, that’s for sure.”
“Oh, Leonard had his ways.”
“When he wasn’t drinkin’,” Ioletta muttered.
“Ioletta! My Leonard wasn’t a drunkard.”
“Well, I seen him myself,” she protested. “Layin’ out on that porch of yours, an’ him shakin’ from the DT’s.”
“Those weren’t the DT’s!”
“Well, then what were they, girl?”
“My Leonard had diabetes,” she said. “And after Duane was taken from us, he didn’t always do well at taking care of himself. His insulin level would fall, you know, and he’d pass out.”
“And it had nothin’ to do with drinkin’?”
“No,” she said, disgusted. “Oh, he had a drink once in a while, especially after Duane vanished and all, but he wasn’t a drunkard or anything like that.”
“Well...”
“Funny, how some people judge their neighbors, when they just don’t know,” Stella said, obviously offended.
“Huh,” Ioletta grunted. “At least Leonard had his excuses, I guess.”
The two of them were silent for a moment, staring off in different directions, neither one willing to look at the other.
“I guess,” Stella spoke quietly, breaking the silence, “this is about your father.”
Ioletta didn’t answer, showed no sign of having heard her friend.
“Now that I think of it, Ioletta, all these years we’ve known each other, I don’t believe I’ve ever heard you speak of the man. Do you hate him so much?”
In response, she took a deep breath, held it, and exhaled slowly. Took another, repeating the exercise.
“Doesn’t help your high blood any, thinking about him, huh?”
“Pushed him out of my mind for a long time,” Ioletta said between breaths. “This forgiveness business done brung it all back to me.”
Tremors shook her frame. Stella watched with wide eyes, unsure if she was crying or only restraining laughter.
“What?” She demanded.
“Sorta reminds me of what one of your closets used to look like,” Ioletta said. She burst out in momentary laughter. “You open the door and all this mess falls on your head like in the cartoons!”
“Oh sure, make this about me instead of about you,” Stella retorted. “I guess it isn’t all that bad, if you can laugh about it.”
“I always laugh the biggest when I’m in pain,” she said, with a sniffle.
“You could just clean out that closet,” Stella suggested.
“Maybe...’Course, maybe I’ll just close the door instead, lock it forever an’ a day.”
“Ioletta--” Stella began, but clamped her mouth shut, as she saw her friend’s defenses go up higher.
“Yeah?”
“Oh, nothing,” she answered, praying under her breath. “I know you’ll feel much better when you just open that door inside of you and clean out all the junk, but I guess you’ll have to do it in your own time. Lord knows, you can be stubborn.”
“Well...” Ioletta sniffled back more tears. Rising to her feet, she straightened up and brushed herself off. “I should be workin’ on my tattin’, is what I should be doin’. Ain’t done any lace work in a long time. But I suppose you want I should go down to that hospital with you to see to Angel?”
“That would be all right,” Stella answered, smiling quickly. “I guess the Lord won’t strike me with lightning just for hanging out with someone who won’t forgive her own dearly departed father.”
“Oh, shut up,” Ioletta retorted. “Let me go in and blow my nose, and I’ll be right with you.”
****
Chapter 26
As Ioletta walked, she unconsciously whistled the chorus to Beulah Land through the gap in her front teeth. On either hip was perched a straw basket, cornucopias overflowing with men’s dress shirts. Birds answered from the trees with whistles and trills, cackles and caws. The joy of spring could not be quenched by the prospect of hours of ironing or by a few passing vehicles, one among them spewing a trail of diesel fumes behind it.
On some days, seeing her thusly burdened, neighbors driving by would slow to offer a lift, and unless there was the threat of a cloudburst, she would laugh and point her chin at Stella Jo’s house. Getting in and out of a car and hauling out the baskets from the back seat or trunk was more work than just going on, when it was but a two or three minute stroll to her destination. Besides, there was the morning air and the birds and flowering trees, and the chance to stretch her legs instead of being stuck at home, bent over her ironing board or her sewing, thinking all by her lonesome about things she didn’t want to think about, and how Lamarr had not made it home this past March for his vacation from the Army.
Graciously gauntleted by Angel’s statues, she came up Stella Jo’s path. The stairs were a trial, always had been, thank you Lord for the handrail (on one side only), which made it easier for anyone wanting to help Angel out of the house. Not that Angel really needed help. If he wasn’t in leg braces and on elbow crutches, as on his Sunday forays to church, he was just as likely to crawl where he wished, the yard and his statues his furthest destination.
Stella opened the door and came down the steps to take one of the baskets. Ioletta wrinkled her brow at Stella’s harried expression, at her turning and rushing up the steps to the door.
“You goin’ to say hello, what a fine day it is, or just ignore me like I wasn’t here?”
“Oh, hey,” she answered, with a laugh. “Don’t mind me.” She waited for Ioletta to reach the porch. “I’m late, is all, problems with Angel in the bathroom this morning, you know.”
“Well I didn’t know but I appreciate how the boy is a trial at times.”
Stella held the screen door, as Ioletta sidled past with her basket.
“It’s not fair to ask you to do this all the time,” Stella said, closing the door and setting her basket on the floor. Ioletta dropped hers from her hip.
“Fair? What you talkin’ about? I been watchin’ over your Angel now for a lotta years, one way or another. Don’t you remember that’s how we met?”
Stella sighed. “Yes, but this has been going on for--for over two months. I hate imposing on you so long.”
“It ain’t imposin’--gives me something to do besides look at the four walls of my house while I iron and sew for a bunch o’ people I don’t know worth beans.”
“Well,” she said, timidly staring at the floor. “If you’re sure.”
“An’ if you don’t let me look after him? You plan on puttin’ him in some kind of home?”
“No,” Stella said, glancing at Angel asleep on his sofa. “But at least you could let me pay you something. It’s not right you should have to do it all while I’m at work.”
“Oh.” She had gone through this very same argument with Stella since the first day Angel came home from the hospital. “Ifn it makes you feel so bad, I s’pose we can talk about it later. But don’t you think you should be off to work?”
Stella checked her Timex wristwatch. “Oh gosh, yes! If I don’t go this very second, I really will be late.”
That was the end of their argument. Stella grabbed her purse and rushed out the door. Glad to have her gone, Ioletta pulled Stella’s ironing board from a closet and plugged in the iron to begin her work. In the space of little more than an hour, she starched and ironed a dozen shirts and left them to hang from the molding of two different doorways. When Angel stirred awake, she turned off the iron and went to make breakfast. While she spooned scrambled eggs into Angel’s mouth, she reflected that she and Stella were about even, since she breakfasted and lunched from Stella’s refrigerator at the same time as Angel. When it came right down to it, to be genuinely fair, she felt she should maybe pay Stella for the extra electricity used ironing.
When she resumed her work, she kept up a running commentary for Angel’s benefit, informing him of events around Flowers Avenue, both in the black church and in the white church and among their various neighbors. Naturally, Angel said nothing, a poor return on her investment of time and gab. In between soliloquies she sang, either entire hymns or snatches of choruses from church, and if on the rare occasion she couldn’t remember the words, she whistled the tune between her teeth. In her own way she was havin’ church, and just because Angel failed to join in didn’t mean he wasn’t part of it or didn’t benefit from it. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them, meant to her that Jesus was in the house with them, whether Angel could speak for himself or not.
After ninety minutes went by and her dogs were barkin’, she sat down on Angel’s sofa. She propped her feet on the coffee table, and lifted Angel’s feet onto her lap.
“You doin’ okay, baby? Today could be your day. You know we love you and we’re all prayin’ for ya, don’t ya?” She sighed deeply. “One of these days you’ll come back, just like that fancy doctor said. Your momma wants you back, an’ everbody else does, too.”
Angel appeared unmoved by her speech, failing to turn even his head to indicate he had heard her voice. For what must be the tenth time that morning, he raised his hands and flexed them near his face. She shook her head in frustration. Whatever Angel was doing, she couldn’t figure it out. It wasn’t like he knew sign language.
Heaving a big sigh, she moved his feet from her lap and rose from the depths of the sofa cushions, and nearly fell, just managing to steady herself against the coffee table. As she straightened up, Angel’s collection of hammers and chisels caught her attention.
“Maybe you been tryin’ to tell me somethin’, A
ngel!” She exclaimed, nearly popeyed. She stared first at his flexing hands, and then at the hammers and chisels spread across the table, and back again at his hands. What did she have to lose? Certainly he wouldn’t hurt himself, would he?
While a hammer would be okay, the chisels were out, she decided. What did he need with a chisel anyway? Searching the room, she quickly found an eraserless pencil, its lead worn down to a nub. Not much to worry about that nub poking his remaining eye, she guessed.
In silent prayer, she bent over and took Angel’s right hand and forced the hammer into his grasp.
“Now don’t go hittin’ me with that, honey,” she said, only mildly concerned. As soon as the handle was in his grip, she would have sworn his brow rose in expectation.
Bent over him again, she helped him make a fist around the pencil, like he might hold a real chisel. For a moment he smiled, the first smile she had seen since his stay in the hospital. Then the pencil broke. Abruptly, he tossed the pencil remains aside and turned his head toward the sofa back.
“Well, I declare!” Ioletta said in surprise. “I believe you’re sulking, young man.”
He rolled fully onto his side and buried his face in the cloth upholstery.
“Do you want a real chisel?” She demanded. “Is that what you want?”
She wasn’t sure but she thought she saw him nod. It had been the slightest of movements.
“Well, I’ll fetch it for you, boy, but if you hurt yourself--”
He rolled onto his back at once and held out his hand for the promised item.
“Well, I--” she began, then picked up a chisel and handed it over. “I might have to kill you boy, you go and hurt yourself and put me in trouble with your mother an’ all, you know.”
A sudden grin covered his face. For the time being it was his only response. She stood over him, staring down as he continued to lie on his back, fists frozen around his tools.