These Heathens

..."You 'member me?" It was a dumb question. Of course I remembered him. It hadn't been but a few hours since we met and I wasn't senile, for pity's sake. Besides, he was too fine to forget.

I'm confused, Lord, but I know you aint never confused. Please help me to see your purpose for bringing me among these heathens. And, Lord, while you at it, please forgive me for the sins I've committed. And for the one I'm still planning to commit tomorrow. Amen.

...What's a drawing room for? Drinking and talking, mostly...Sometimes they read in there. They don't drink and talk and read in all these other rooms? They do...But the drawing room more private. But nobody go in there to draw, I reckon? So why they call it that? Chile, your guess good as mine.

My 'bookish spirit' had nothing to do with it," Mrs. Lucas said, looking at me now. "I was just feeling shy and trying to avoid mingling." I wondered what the hell kind of party for five-year-olds thad them up in there mingling. All the parties I'd been at with kids that age was just a whold bunch of screaming and pushing and stick handprints everywhere.

If God wanted women to have authority over men," I said, "wouldn't he have given us some?" Mrs. Lucas gave me a real funny look this time. "By that argument," she said, "God doesn't want colored people to have the same rights as white people. Just because something hasn't happened, doesn't mean it shouldn't....

You look like you seen a ghost." "No," Mrs. Broussard said, "just an atheist." Pearl frowned and I felt relieved. At least I wasn't the only believer around here. But then I realized I couldn't be sure she was frowning at atheism itself, and not at me for having to be brought a glass of water at the mere idea of atheism.

...if that was true, then the Lord must be real petty. What else would you call a God who got his own drawers in a twist over some woman's underwear? But Daddy said God needed women to be modest, to help men control themselves. I asked, if God had created men in his own image, did that mean God had problems controlling his own self?

I...saw a young white man standing by the window. I stared at him, unable to move, fear coursing through me. "No, no, no," he said, holding up his hands as if to block the panic on my face. "It's okay. Don't worry, I'm colored." Don't worry, I'm colored aint a sentence you hear every day.

...I felt it would be rude to leave, that Mrs. Broussard would think I didn't want to be around her. 'Course, I didn't. But I was raised better than to let her know that.

Bad choices,” Mrs. Lucas agreed, nodding, “or mistakes. Or don’t live up to our hopes or expectations. Because that’s when we need love the most. Isn’t it?

I stared at Mrs. Broussard, thinking of Pastor Mills, who liked to quote the book of 1 Peter, saying, 'Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour,' and I wondered if Mrs. Broussard was really the devil in disguise and I should hightail it back to Millen before she devoured me.

...I'd read an article in Jet magazine that said she was in the hospital, suffering from exhaustion, which I hadn't even known was a thing you could be hospitalized for. Half the women I knew were exhausted all the time.

Colored women worked hard. What exactly was wrong with us getting some of the shine, as long as the shine was being given out anyhow? I knew God wanted women to be modest in every way. The Bible made that plain. But, standing there now, with the space to ponder it good and hard and nobody telling me not to, I couldn’t think of a reason why it ought to be that way. It suddenly seemed like a very strange thing for God to want.