forget that face, smooth as a brown egg, no lines or crinkles, like she had never laughed or cried in her whole entire life.
THIS WAS NOT a good night for a late customer. My mama wasn’t al that steady on her feet, as this was her first ful week of work after her gal bladder operation. These days they can do the whole thing with lasers and make only a little hole in your bel y button, but in 1974 the doctors had to cut you open, straight down the middle, gut you like a fish. Mama was laid up for two weeks, and during that time Grandma Bunny came down to see about her. When Mary came into the shop, Grandma Bunny was only two days gone back to Ackland. To make matters worse, I had come down with a cold and a touch of fever. In the corner of the shop, I dozed fitful y on a pal et, coughing and whimpering in my sleep. Besides, it was time for Mama to change the bandage on her wound.
“Do you take walk-ins?” Mary asked. “I know you are likely closing up, but maybe you can find it in your heart to help me?”
Although it was only a couple weeks into October, something put my mother in the mind of Christmas. Maybe it was just as simple as the name Mary, but Mama felt that God would want her to take this stranger in. “I’m not wel , but I might could help you,” my mother said. “Depending on what you need.”
“I’l tip you good,” Mary said, sitting in the chair like my mother had already said yes. She pul ed half a dozen bobby pins out of her scrawny bun and unwrapped a red rubber band that came away clotted with hair. “Thank you. And God bless you.”
Mama got Mary into the shampoo bowl, and half her hair lay down straight and docile under the faucet. That’s what happens when you have been getting hard presses for more than twenty years. Some of the kink just gets lost.
“Can I talk to you?” Mary asked my mother.
“Of course,” Mama said. “Nobody in here but us.”
“I’m leaving my husband,” she said. “We’re not equal y yoked.” Mary, like my mother, had married young. Mama didn’t say anything one way or another. She just combed through Mary’s half-nappy hair, sectioning it off and plaiting it up to dry.
“The Bible says your mate got to be your equal. Y’al have to both love the Lord in the same way.” Mary’s voice was calm and steady.
It was warm for October, so Mama had the door propped open to let the breeze in. She could smel burning leaves. “You have children?”
Mary said she had three, but they would be al right with their father. The Lord, she said, had cal ed her to another man. They were going to the minister together. This new man was going to take some working on, some praying over, but the Lord was inside him. She could feel it burning through his skin. This boyfriend, Mary said, was chosen. “You ever touch the hand of a preacher that is truly righteous? That has healing in his hands? You know how it’s like he empties out your body and just fil s you up with spirit?”
Mama nodded her head, because she had met a preacher like that years ago, when she was stil a girl in Ackland. This was just after the baby boy died and she was wandering around looking for somewhere to go. This preacher that touched my mother was a child, a little girl, black as a cast-iron skil et, with a nurse’s cap pinned over her short hair. My mother was walking by, struggling with a basket of laundry, when this girl preacher grabbed her by the arm; Mama felt herself hol owed out and fil ed with light. The little-girl preacher held a white leather Bible in her dark hand. “Wil you pray with me, sister?” My mama said she didn’t have time, although she was warm from the child’s touch. “Are white people’s dirty drawers more important than your soul, sister? Come to me,” the little girl said. “Get on your knees with me.” My mother looked over her shoulder. They were standing in front of the colored high school, where Raleigh and James were in class. Mama could imagine the home ec teacher looking at her out of the window and seeing her kneeling in the street with this pickaninny preacher and the basket of laundry beside her. “I can’t,” Mama said. “I just can’t.” The little girl said, “That’s pride. Give me your hand, sister. Your vanity is your burden. Lay it down. Let me touch your soul.” My mama extended her hand, greedy for another dose of that touch. The child squeezed my mother’s hand. “You don’t have to get on your knees. He can touch your heart while you are on your own two feet.” My mama says her legs just gave out under her and she was on her knees in the road and that little girl stroked Mama’s face and talked to Jesus while my mama sobbed. “Ask the Lord to take care of my baby,” Mama begged the girl. “He’l take care of you, too,” the girl said, and with every caress of her tiny hands my mother felt her spirit mend.
“YES,” MY MAMA told Mary. “I have been touched by an anointed preacher. Just one time.”
“This man I got,” Mary said. “He sings. No matter what he’s singing, he’s got God in him. People come to hear him and start crying. They think he is crooning about love between a man and a woman, worldly love, but what he’s doing is making them feel the Jesus. He’s a miracle. We are going to build a ministry together.”
On my pal et, I woke up sweating and confused. I sat up and cal ed for my mother. I cal ed for her with a sound like a frightened question, as
though it was the middle of the night and I was al alone.
“I’m here, baby,” Mama said to me. “Lie back down, okay.” To Mary she explained. “She woke up with a fever this morning. I’ve been giving her aspirin.”
“Ginger ale is good, too,” Mary said. “If you have some fresh ginger, grate some of that in the glass. She won’t like it, but it’l help.”
I cal ed for my mother with a voice ful of tears. She set the hot comb down and walked over to me, but didn’t bend down to hold me. I stood up and grabbed her around the legs.
“Mary,” Mama said. “Can you help me? I’ve been operated on. I can’t lift her.”
“Where’s your husband?” Mary asked, walking over to me.
“If she won’t let you hold her, don’t be hurt,” Mama said. “Sometimes she doesn’t cotton to new people.”
“I love children,” Mary said. “I have three. Two girls, a boy. I miss them. But you got to do what the Lord cal s you to do.” She reached for me and I released my mother’s knees and held out my arms. I was big for my age, but she lifted me easily. “She’s got a little bit of a temperature,” Mary said to my mother. The story is that she held me in her lap like I was a little baby although I was nearly five years old. I just rested my head on her breast, sweating a dark spot onto her pink lapel.
After Mama finished pressing Mary’s hair, she smoothed it with a boar-bristle brush. Mary’s fine hair crackled
