Send Me Down a Miracle

  I stepped back, away from him, not in fear of him but in fear of myself. I couldn't believe what I had done. I had grabbed his jacket and ripped it, I had answered back and hadn't been afraid to do it, and worst of all, there was more I was wanting to say and I knew I was going to say it.

  "You—you quote Scripture and it sounds right. Daddy," I began, moving toward him again. "But it feels wrong to destroy the chair." My voice grew louder. "It is wrong. I know it. Jesus is there. It would be like chopping up Jesus Christ. You're going to chop up Jesus Christ! Daddy, you can't do it!"

  Daddy's face exploded with rage, and I felt the sting of his hand as it smacked against my cheek. "Jesus Christ dwells within us all!" his voice boomed. "He is not a chair! He is not a piece of wood! He's here. In here!" He pounded his chest. "How I have failed you if you can't see that! If this town can't see that ... You have opened your soul to Satan and he has walked right in. You have no need of the chair. It is the devil who needs it." He pounded the roof of the car.

  I looked away and rubbed at my cheek, smearing my tears around on my face. He had never slapped me before. He had never slapped anyone before. I wanted to drop to my knees and curl up into a tight ball and cry out for Mama, but I didn't. I kept talking, and my voice was quiet and tiny when I spoke.

  "Isn't it ever just all right to listen to our feelings, Daddy? Aren't our feelings ever right?"

  "No, daughter, never. Our feelings alone are never right. Now, I'm telling you, get in the car."

  New tears ran down my face. "I can't. I can't let you do it."

  "You think it's up to you?" Daddy got in the car and slammed the door. He rolled down his window. "You coming?"

  I shook my head.

  Daddy twisted around to Grace and yelled, "Get those doors closed!"

  Grace had barely finished getting both doors closed before Daddy shot back in the drive, pulled out into the road, and screeched away.

  I kept talking as if Daddy were still standing there listening to me, and I said what I should have said all along.

  "It doesn't matter how many verses you pull out of the Bible, Daddy, 'cause, see, I've seen the chair, I've felt the Lord's presence, and it's good, I know it's a good thing."

  And that's when I knew I had to fight him. I had to keep Daddy from hurting that chair.

  I took off for the fields, knowing that if I went the shortcut I could beat him to the house. I ran in the tire ruts alongside the rows of corn, and it was like I was just running in place, getting nowhere. The stalks were just a green blur that I caught out of the corner of my eye, as constant as a gnat pestering at my face. I kicked off my sandals, hoping I could run faster, needing to run faster, even though I knew I could beat him to the house. See, I was thinking of Daddy and him splitting up that chair, and this picture came to me of him striking the first blow and a stream of blood flowing out the side of the chair, just like the blood that flowed from the side of Jesus. So I ran faster, not knowing what I was going to do, how I was going to fight Daddy—only knowing that even if I couldn't fight him, if I couldn't win, I needed to be there. I needed to weep at Jesus' feet.

  17

  I came to the end of the second cornfield and slowed down to a fast walk. I tried to catch my breath, rehearsing in my mind what I was going to say to Daddy. Then, coming out from the fields and looking across the road to the Dabney house, I saw the longest line of cars and trucks and people I'd ever seen in my life. The cars and trucks were parked on the lawn, poked in frontways, sideways, and backways, and then more of them were parked along the road, sometimes side by side, narrowing the road down to one-way traffic.

  The people, town folk and strangers alike, formed a double line along the drive. I could see the Dooleys and the Pettits and the Boles and Old Higgs and Jim Ennis, and beside them Miss Ivy-June. Even from where I was walking along I could hear Miss Ivy-June singing her usual "His Eye Is on the Sparrow," and I saw that she was singing it to some strange man who stood in front of her with a pad and pen in his hands. The man was the shape and size of a Mack truck, which brought to mind Clope Dovey, "The news reporter from the Dothan Recorder," as he liked to call himself.

  I crossed the street and hid behind Dale Dooley's truck and caught me a better look. Sure enough, that's who it was, Clope Dovey, the reporter with a special gift for insulting everyone he ever wrote about. I knew Daddy would have nothing to say to him. Last time they met was when Clope interviewed him for a special-interest story on "our neighboring towns." He called Daddy's story "The Little Man Who Could" and began by describing Daddy as a chihuahua in Clark Kent glasses. From there it only got worse, and it took Daddy a good couple of weeks to build his pride back up. Since then he's made a second career out of keeping out of the newspapers.

  I looked out to the road and saw our car rolling to a stop beside Miss Tuney Mae's car; then it started up again and turned right into the drive, right into where folks were standing. Daddy had his hand on the horn and was dividing up the line like he was Moses parting the Red Sea. I saw him spring from the car and march around to the trunk. Grace got out and waited by her door, looking like she was ready to jump back in at the slightest need.

  I could hear Daddy yelling something about bowing down to a block of wood and what Isaiah had to say about it, and all the usual rumble and noise of the crowd stopped. He poked his key into the lock and looked back up at the people.

  "And well you should stand and listen," he said to them. "All through the Bible, all through it, with Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt, and Noah and his ark, and the prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah, again and again we see the anger and the destruction of the Lord upon those who worship idols and graven images." Daddy held up his hand. "And the Lord said to Moses, 'They are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them.'

  "Is that what you want? You are violating the First and Second Commandments of the Lord, and my fear for you is great." Daddy opened the trunk of the car, and I ran out from behind the truck.

  "Yes, indeed," Daddy said, "so great is my fear for this town that I..."

  Daddy stopped in midsentence. He saw me standing in front of him. I moved in closer and said what I had rehearsed.

  "I'm going to fight you on this, Daddy—'cause, see, I've seen that chair and I know it's good." I was breathing hard. My voice was trembling when I spoke but Daddy was listening, looking between me and the folks creeping closer trying to get a better hear of what I was saying; so I talked on. "And these folks"—I gestured to the people behind me—"they've seen, too, and none of your scripturing means anything compared to what they've seen and what they know is true and good."

  Daddy wagged his finger at me. "Nothing is good that teaches disobedience," he said. "Nothing is good that turns wife against husband and child against father. Now, you move."

  Daddy pushed me aside and turned back to the trunk.

  Clope Dovey came up behind him. "Having a little family squabble, are we, preacher?"

  Daddy popped out from under the lid and turned around to see who was talking.

  Clope grinned at Daddy and clicked on the little tape recorder he had clipped to his breast pocket.

  I saw Daddy shrink back against the car, fumbling behind him to lower the lid of the trunk. I saw his face leaking out blotches of red and his jaw muscles bunching up tight. His eyes had narrowed down to slits, but every bit of the eyeballs showing was focused on that tape recorder. And seeing all this, I knew that Clope Dovey, with his writing pad and tape recorder, had a kind of power over Daddy that no one else had ever had. For the first time in my life, I saw that my daddy was nervous, almost scared, and it made me feel as if something solid and strong inside me had taken a blow, leaving it chipped and brittle.

  "Care to give me a bit more of your side of the story?" Clope asked, still grinning and rolling his pen between his fingers.

  "No comment," Daddy said, lifting his head a little higher and setting his jaw out
like a bulldog.

  "Oh, come now, I already heard your sermon here. So what's the deal? You and your daughter having a disagreement?" He laughed. "Don't tell me the preacher's daughter has taken to idol worshiping." He turned to me. "So what's this all about, young lady?"

  I heard Daddy clear his throat. I looked at him and he was giving me the eye and then nodding at the trunk. I saw him push down on the lid and heard the lock click back into place, and I felt that same something, already chipped and brittle, crumble inside me.

  It hurt my feelings good to think that he believed the only way I wouldn't speak was to show me he wasn't going to chop up the chair.

  I turned away from the both of them, feeling that this battle they were having was beyond anything I could handle. Holding back my tears, I stepped around to the other side of the car and joined Grace.

  Then Daddy said, in this victorious voice and without looking at us, but keeping his eyes on Clope, "You girls wait here by the car. Don't you go wandering." Then he said to Clope, "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment."

  He marched off, busting between Pete Boles and Miss Ivy-June, startling them good, and then going on inside the house.

  I thought Clope Dovey would run on in after him, but he didn't. He came around to where me and Grace were standing, leaned his weight against the car, and turned up the volume on his tape recorder.

  18

  "Now," Clope said, grinning at us and giving us a close-up view of his crooked gray teeth, "now we got your father out of the way, let's us have a talk. It's about time you young folks had your say, isn't that so?"

  He waited, flashing his eyes first at me, then at Grace, then back to me. He waited like we were really going to say something.

  "Parents are always thinking they know what's right; believe me, I know. I remember how it is. That's why I always try to give youngsters space in my column. So how 'bout it? How do y'all feel about this Jesus chair?" He nodded at me. "Go ahead, honey. Speak right up."

  I moved around to the other side of the car. Clope Dovey followed me.

  "Now, you're a smart girl," he said, hovering over me and breathing burped-up barbecue pork in my face. "Tell me, what were you and your papa discussing?"

  "No comment," I said, turning away and looking out to the line of people that had shifted onto the lawn, away from Daddy's car.

  He came around and stood in front of me again, switching off his tape recorder. "I'll tell you how it is, honey," he said, leaning forward over me. "I can pretty much guess what was said between the two of you, and you can either verify my hunch or deny it; either way the story goes in. So why not have your say, huh?"

  That was it. I had had enough of his Mack-truck looks and his belching barbecue pork in my face and his just-between-you-and-me kind of talk. I was fed up, and when I spoke, all the anger and hurt and worry and hope of the past few days just exploded out of me like the innards blown out of a watermelon.

  "No comment!" I shouted. "No comment, no comment, no comment!" Louder and louder I shouted, and the hot tears rolled down my face, making it hard to see the tape recorder I had torn from his breast pocket. I threw it on the ground, still shouting "No comment," and I heard Clope swear at me and felt his hand squeeze around my aim.

  "You're going to pay for this, honey pie, believe me."

  "I don't think so." Hank Dooley grabbed ahold of one of dope's elbows and Dale Dooley grabbed the other. Then Old Higgs picked up the tape recorder and slapped it into Clope's big hand.

  "You have everything you came with—now git," he said.

  Hank and Dale helped him git, and Old Higgs called after him, "An' don't think I won't be calling the Recorder. They ain't wanting to be running no snoop paper down there."

  Old Higgs turned to me. "Don't be paying him no mind," he said.

  I nodded, keeping my head down and watching my tears leave wet circles on my dusty feet.

  Old Higgs offered me the gray hankie he'd dug out of his back pocket, and I took it and wiped at my face.

  "Miss Tuney Mae's a-calling you." He gestured toward the house with his head, and I turned back and saw her setting in a folding chair under a big beach umbrella.

  She signaled for me to come to her, and after getting the nod from Old Higgs, I handed him back his hankie, thanked him, and went to her.

  I had to kneel down to see her under the umbrella, and she right away took up my hand and patted it.

  "Now, don't you worry," she said. "Your papa's done right, saying what he did about us worshiping the chair. That Clope Dovey can't hurt him. Idol worshiping's dangerous, and it's a preacher's job to try to stop it."

  I looked up into her eyes and noticed for the first time that they were blue, like Mama's, only faded like a pair of denims.

  "But if you feel that way about it, why are you here?" I asked her.

  Miss Tuney Mae rubbed my hand, moving her own hand in circles over it, and she smiled.

  "You know me, honey pie. I just love being in the thicka things, and this here is thick, real thick. Just you look at that line an' all those people, all that living going on right there in that line."

  I studied the line of folks talking to one another in little clusters, keeping watch on the moving line ahead of them, drinking their soda, and drawing on their cigarettes.

  Miss Tuney Mae took her hand from mine and pointed. "Look ayonder at your Sharalee, just joining the line and looking like a spy. Poor child's traded one kind of sneaking for another."

  Miss Tuney Mae was laughing, and it didn't seem like she was feeling all too sorry for Sharalee.

  "What do you mean by that, her trading sneaking?" I asked, watching Sharalee looking over her shoulder every half second.

  "Used to be her sneaking food, an' now she's taking to sneaking over here, knowing her folks don't approve."

  "But she's wanting to lose weight. It's for her mama she's doing it," I said.

  Miss Tuney Mae shifted in her chair and tilted her umbrella more toward the sun. "I know why she's a-doin' it, an' it ain't for her mama. She may be wanting to lose weight on account of her mama, but she's sneaking on account of herself. Sneaking's her protection. It's the only way she can give her mama what she wants and still hold on to a bit of Sharalee."

  "Well, if it works, then..."

  Miss Tuney Mae nodded. "Oh, it works, but it ain't good for neither one of 'em. That Sharalee will lose the weight, all right, or die trying." She shook her head. "Or die trying, bless her heart."

  I didn't like Miss Tuney Mae talking that way. It gave me the shivers, like just her saying that about Sharalee dying would make it come true.

  I squinted out across the lawn and searched for something to fasten my sights on and reminded myself that if there was one thing I was learning about Miss Tuney Mae, it was that she loved a good story—and if it wasn't fantastic enough, why then she just added to it till it was.

  I saw Miss Anna's pickup bump onto the grass and then stop. Her door opened and she jumped down from the truck and came hurrying toward the crowd. She walked along the line, stopping to chat every now and then, and folks hugged her and patted her back.

  "It's a miracle how they found Miss Becky," I said.

  Miss Tuney Mae nodded.

  "Do you believe in the chair?" I asked her. "Do you believe it was a miracle, her being found?"

  Miss Tuney Mae yanked at my arm, pulling me in close to her, and said in this hushed voice, "I know your mama run off."

  Her words knocked the breath clear out of me. How could she know? I didn't even know for sure, not really. Anyway, it wasn't true. I looked up into her eyes and I saw her love for me.

  "Do you believe in miracles?" I whispered. "Do you believe in the chair?"

  "If I'm going to believe in it, then I have to believe in the other, the dark side, Miss Adrienne's last vision. No, I believe in the Lord showing us Himself who He is, each one of us private, an' we don't need to be going to no Jesus chair to get that. We just need to set still a
moment an' look inside ourselves."

  "But miracles, what about them? What do you believe about them?"

  "You wanting me to pray for your mama, honey?"

  I nodded. "If you believe."

  "Well, all right, then. What you want said?"

  I thought on it a good long minute, staring down into Miss Tuney Mae's lap all covered with flower print, and then closed my eyes and said, "Ask the Lord to please send Mama home, and have her very happy to be back, but not 'cause she got hurt or sick or anything, just because, just because, well, she loves us."

  I gave Miss Tuney Mae a quick peek, wanting to see if her eyes were laughing or anything, but they weren't, so I went on. "And make Daddy happy and our family happy, and Daddy accepting of the Jesus chair and Adrienne and me. Amen."

  Miss Tuney Mae cleared her throat like she was getting ready to say something, but our attention was caught by the commotion going on in the line.

  We poked our heads out from under the umbrella and saw Mad Joe, all spruced up and doing this clogging, jigging kind of dancing. Folks in the line were clapping and calling out "Hallelujah" and "Praise the Lord" and "Glory be."

  "Well, I'll declare," Miss Tuney Mae said.

  Mad Joe was hugging folks and dancing and skipping and doing everything shy of spinning cartwheels. He wove in and out of the line with his hands raised above his head and his face turned up to the sky.

  "Another miracle, praise the Lord. Another miracle!" he was shouting. He turned to face the whole line of folks and stood like a preacher calling to his flock. "Brothers and sisters, when you get down on your knees in front of that Jesus chair, sing your praises. Glory hallelujah, sing praises to the Lord. A new miracle, yes sir!"