by Alice Landrum
“Mr. Bloom and Stephen entered the cabman’s shelter, an unpretentious wooden structure, where, prior to then, he had rarely, if ever, been before; the former having previously whispered to the latter a few hints anent the keeper of it, said to be the once famous Skin-the-Goat, Fitzharris, the invincible, though he wouldn’t vouch for the actual facts, which quite possibly there was not one vestige of truth in.”
—James Joyce
Ulysses, the 1922 text, p. 577
Oxford World Classics
The farmers, with their wives and children, drove in Ford pickups or Chevy sedans onto the steaming, black asphalt lot shaded by the huge white oaks that had dropped their acorns for more than one hundred years on that spot.
Sandra, a teenager, came with her parents. Her father sat behind the steering wheel while her mother sat in the front passenger seat. Sandra and her three younger siblings crammed together on the back seat of an azure-blue Chevrolet. Their bare legs stuck together from sweat in the summer heat. A chorus of protests rose from the back: “Stop touching me!” “You touched me first!” “No, I didn’t!” Their mother would occasionally turn around to scold them, or their father would raise his voice as he drove, but mostly they ignored the children’s complaints.
According to Sandra’s mother, blue was her father’s favorite color, and he had purchased the car for the family with the money he earned while her mother washed and ironed his shirts, beat the butter, made the biscuits, peeled the potatoes, fried the meat, harvested the garden vegetables, canned the tomatoes, froze the green beans, and communicated his wishes to the girls.
Three times a week they gathered at this white clapboard church, which stood on the southeastern intersection of a crossroads in southern Kentucky with the roads pointing to towns in the four directions of the compass. These towns had the grain bins and the mills that used the grain from the harvest, and they had the banks that loaned the money to the farmers to buy equipment and seed for each planting season. From this intersection flowed the green fields of wheat, corn, and soybeans. In the middle of the fields, groves of trees surrounded the houses and barns. Native bushes and blackberry vines marked the fencerows.
In July a much-welcomed cool shade came from those leafy trees that included pin oak, white oak, burr oak, red oak, black cherry, black locust, black walnut, black gum, sassafras, tulip poplar, white ash, buckeye, pawpaw, persimmon, red maple, dogwood, redbud, red cedar, white pine, and pecan. Along the fencerows berry pickers could find blackberries with red juice to stain their fingers mixed with the blood from thorn pricks. There would also be the sweet perfume from the honeysuckle’s pale blossoms and the danger of a nasty rash after an unwary brush with the leaves of poison ivy.
True to its fundamentalist origins, the white walls of the church had no decoration: no crucifixes, no paintings, no images of the Virgin Mary or of Christ hanging on the cross, and no stained-glass windows. The wooden benches had no cushions. During a long sermon buttocks would wiggle on those hard boards.
On this occasion the family sat through an interminable sermon by a bombastic, middle-aged, pious white male who hurled the Lord’s commands and warnings at them nonstop. The message contained frequent reminders that women were to keep silent, to be seen and not heard, and that the men were to be the leaders of the church and the family. The ministers, the elders, and the deacons were all men. There were many “antis”: anti-female leaders, anti-female voices, anti-female questions, anti-trousers on women, anti-university secular education, anti-scientists, anti-evolution, anti-instrumental music, anti-dancing, anti-strong drink, anti-cards, anti-parties, anti-images in the church, and anti-Catholicism. There were a few pros: pro-vocal music, pro-male voices, and pro-literal interpretation of the Bible.
After an hour of this male pomposity, Sandra could feel her bladder distending. She needed to go to the bathroom, but she dared not walk out as they rose to sing the hymn of invitation. This was the time for sinners to come forward to confess their sins and ask for forgiveness. Not the time to walk out in the other direction away from the pulpit. So, instead, she stood and concentrated on holding the urine in her bladder as she moved from one foot to the other.
The congregation began to sing. Their voices rose in joyful, jarring, jangling praise for the fearsome, terrifying God who hurled bolts of lightning amid peals of thunder and who loved them so much but who also longed to throw each of them into the pit of hellfire if they dared disobey.
Being an obedient daughter, Sandra dared not draw attention or embarrass her parents by pushing her way out of the center of the row to the aisle, but then she felt the trickle of warm urine as it crawled down her leg. She continued to sing and the urine poured in a flood as she lost control. She stood still, unable to venture past her sisters, who stood on either side. Her mind whirled as she worried if the people behind her would see her wet skirt. Finally the song ended. The congregation began to break up with cheerful greetings to each other, but Sandra looked straight ahead, too embarrassed to catch anyone’s eye, even the eye of Mrs. Thompson, her mother’s best friend, who stood in the aisle, blocking her path. Instead, she brushed past Mrs. Thompson to walk out as fast as possible, past the minister in his black suit with his outstretched hand at the door. Someday she would leave and never come back.
Meanwhile, the farmers gathered outside in clusters to share the latest news. The children who lingered on the edge of these scattered conversations would hear that the wheat had rust this summer or the stalk borer had returned to attack the corn. The crop yields would be low this year because there had not been enough rain or there had been too much rain, which allowed the fungi to attack.
Category: Featured, Short Story