Newspapers / Elizabeth City State University … / April 29, 1992, edition 1 / Page 11
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The Compass Wednesday, April 29,1992 11 Fiction brown sweater stayed in her seat. The Uonde girl got up and unsteadily walked to their front. The preacher got out a litde botde oil of camphor from his podcet, dabbed his finger then put it on her forehead. Then he put the palm of his hand on her forehead, while holding the back of her head with his other hand. He started {K'aying and shaking her head in his grip when he shouted different words. “Lord, you know the need!” Some other men stood around the IM-eacher and the giri They all got at least one hand on her, and in a few seconds she dropped to the flofMT, limply. From where the boy was sitting, he could see her cottcm dress had been kkked up past her knee. Her legs were pointing toward him and he could see her inner thighs. His eyes searched up and down her legs. It was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. He thought of how he would remember her legs. He felt his heart begin to beat £ister as she shifted her legs and afforded hima more daring view. He never had made out with a girl but he had heard some guys at school talk about it. A woman got up from her kneeling on the front pew and pulled the girl’sdress down then put a white handkerchief over her legs. The vroman then went back to the pew, but only sat there and watdied the others praying. Almost everyone was up front except the boy and the gill in the broiwn sweater. Shewasstilltuggingatit,tryingtoget it around her now slightly rounded shoulders. Her gaze was still and un moved. After a half hour, the blonde girl got up and came back to the seat with her greasy-haired escort. She had been cry ing hard, and did not look the least bit cmnforted by her experience. The preacher waited in the front, then ascended to the pulpit when ev eryone was in their seats. He wiped his £ice with a white handkerdiief The people were giving litde thanks and murmurs ofpraise. He asked for Brother Outland to dose the service. While the benedictions were being said, the preacher came down to the aisle without a sound and placed him self in the vestibule, a narrow, stale air hallway that led to the sultry summer night through the unlatched door. Everyone sk>wly headed tOM^ard that door. The intense nKx>d of hell-fire, damnation, and salvadon was gone. Several groups of men were clustered around the aisles and vesdbule area. They were talking and laughing as one would tell as story and anodier would add a comment in a hushed voice. The women were talking to each other in twos or threes about how so and so’s child was doing and how hot the weather is going to be next week light on through September. The boy was waiting in the aisle to introduce himself to the girls, but the lady came up to him and started asking him questions about school and what he was going to do after graduation- The boy didn’t like being grilled—espedally not after the last hour and a half of verbal attacks. He got in a line in the vestibule to go outside. When the boy got to the preacher, he gave the man a big grin, like he always did and said, “Enjoyed your sermon.” He never had shaken the preadier’s hand. If it weren’t for his parents, he never would have come on Simday nights, anyway. The no handshake was just a rebellion the boy thought he would do. From the open door, he looked back into the church. The giris were coming in front of the greasy-haired man. Al most no one was on the pordi, except for two small diildren. They were play ing tag and a game of jun^ off the side of the porch. The little boy and giri seemed unaffected by the spectacle they had just witnessed. The preacher whispered something in the blonde girl’s ear and put his hand on her shoulder. He shook the hand of the girl in the brown sweater. The girls went on outside, followed dosely by their escort. A man in the diurdi called after the escort The men gazed at the girls as they continued down die yellow pordi lit steps. The escort caUed out to the girls that he would be right there. They both turned andnodded, thenhurriedaround the side of the diurdi to the daricened parking lot. The boy walked on further up the street, then turned and came behind Drawiitg by Sean Farrisk tutd Catma Wood the two lines of cars. He could see the girls in a late-model Ford. Illie boy had intended to casually strike up a conver sation, but he stopped short of diem with only a few feet between him and their open car windovrs. The younger girl said, “I don’t like this place. What did it feel lilffi up there?” “I don’t know. I don’t feel good.” “You know why he brought us here don’t you?” the younger giri sn^iped, “It’s because trf diose boys you went off with the other night.” “WeU you went off with them, too, two vi'eeks ago,” whispered her saved friend. “I know. Arthur is nice. I wanted to just go out with him. It was the only ws^ I could see him.” “You don’t think those boys told any body what we did, do you? I mean all of it, do you?” “OK, I don’t know. They didn’t tell you what I did with them.” The boy stepped back away into die deqiershadows, then turned and walked down the street away from the parking lot, away from thechurch. He thought, so those are the girls the boys in the school are talking about. He swallowed hard and nearly walked into a telephone pole that was placed on a curbing. He stepped and turned back to die church. Should he tell the girls what he knew? What if they just fought it was fiin? What if? What if? He was walking back briskly to talk with them when he saw their car bri^t lights come on. The car turned off the driveway and slowly picked up speed as it headed the other way, out of town. The boy slowed his pace and deject edly got into his parents’car and waited in silence till they got in. “Why didn’t you go to the alter to night,” his mother asked him. “Don’t you feel good?” The boy said, “No, I don’tfeelgood.” “Is it your stomach again?” “Yes—^it’s my stomadu” “Well, we’ll get your daddy to stop at the ice cream store to get you some thing to setde it” “Pa,” she said, “have you got some money?” “I thinki have some change,” he said. The boy looked out his back seat window. He rolled the g^s down. The houses were small in this part of town. There weren’t many streetlights. It was quiet except for the bark of the dog somewhere off in a darkened backyard. The boy’s stomach felt hot so he loos ened his belt The dogf s bark turned into a sharp yelp, then a mournful hovri. “I vronder what’s wrong with that dog,” the boy’s mother said. The father didn’t say anything. The boy rolled up his window, and covered his ears. He could only feel his stomach churning and the howl of the dog that echoed what he felt inside himself.
Elizabeth City State University Student Newspaper
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April 29, 1992, edition 1
11
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