The Choiring of the Trees - Donald Harington [108]
“I’m sorry?”
“Yessir, you are, because what I’m tellin you is, and you’d better believe it, is that here all along folks have been under the mistook impression that God is a man, and a father. But She’s not. No, I’m tellin you, She’s a female, and a mother. She’s the best mother ever there was.”
Jimmie Mac did not say anything. He seemed to be searching his memory to see if he had ever encountered anybody who had ever said anything like this and, if so, what he had said in reply. But after searching corners of his memory he had forgotten he had, he couldn’t find anything. Finally he said, “Well, Brother Chism, that’s very interesting. But you’re wrong. The Good Book tells us through and through that He’s a him, and a man, and He took the form of a man when He became the Son of Man and died on the cross for our sins. They never hung no female up on a cross.”
“Yeah, poor Jesus was a man all right, just like me, but God was his mother, not his father.”
“That’s blasphemy, Brother Chism. It hurts me to hear a man talk sacrilegious.”
“You don’t have to listen,” Nail pointed out to him.
“Are you saying I’m not welcome here in your time of torment and travail?”
“You’re welcome to hear me help you get straight about the sex of God.”
Jimmie Mac did not come again, or, rather, he did not stop by Nail’s cell when he came to visit Fleas, and that didn’t last much longer, because Fleas was taken up to see Old Sparky on April 14th. It seemed as if all they were waiting for was somebody strong enough to take him up there. Sure enough, as Short Leg had feared, Fat Gabe’s replacement wasn’t a bit of improvement on him. For one thing, he was just as fat. His name was Gillespie Gorham, and from the beginning Nail thought of him as Fat Gill, but the first time he called him that, Fat Gill smashed him in the face and broke one of his teeth. Fat Gill did not slap, forehanded or backhanded, the way that Fat Gabe had done. He simply made a fist right alongside his cheek, then rammed it straight into the victim’s face. “Call me fat once more,” he invited. Nail did not.
Apart from his own execution, Nail had two things to expect: one, he would probably be required to witness Fleas’ electrocution, and two, Viridis might be there too and he could sit next to her. And sure enough, when Fat Gill and Short Leg came to get Fleas before sundown on April 14th, the guards first handcuffed Nail and took him upstairs, then came back for Fleas, who had to be practically carried, he was fighting and screaming so much. Nail took his usual seat in the witness area and waited for Viridis as the other witnesses came. The guards managed to strap Fleas into the chair, but they wouldn’t gag him, which was what he needed most; he was drowning out both Jimmie Mac’s attempt to say “Our Father Who art in Heaven” and Nail’s attempt to correct him: “Our Mother Who art in Heaven…” Viridis never came. Was Fleas’ picture not worth putting in the paper? But then Nail remembered that Viridis had resigned from the paper. Maybe she’d tried to come and they wouldn’t let her in.
Right before the end, Fleas, who was a very dark colored man of about thirty, seemed to recognize Nail. He stopped begging for life and looked Nail right in the eye and said, “Aint you Nails? I never seed you befo. You Nails, aint you?” Nail nodded. “Nails, could you play on yo mouf foggan fo me? Could you play ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’?”
“Shut up, nigger,” Warden Burdell said. “You got any last words?”
“I’se sayin ’em,” Fleas said. “I’se askin Nails to play on his mouf foggan fo me.”
“He aint got his mouth organ, nigger. Sorry.” Warden Burdell raised his hand and dropped it, and Bobo shoved down the switch, and the light dimmed and the dynamo hummed and Nail watched very carefully every twitch and jerk of Fleas’ body so he would know exactly what to expect of his own body in six more days. When Bobo brought the switch back up a while later, Warden Burdell motioned Doc Gode to see if the