catching the spirit. To Earl, who knew
best the foreign faiths that his father
brought home, this very American thing
of catching the spirit looked like get-
ting sexy with Jesus. Which was why
Gram always covered Earl’s eyes when
a woman at Grace Baptist went into ec-
stasy. Like it was pornographic. “You
have so much potential,” Earl’s mother
was always saying. Up to now, Earl had
been certain that having potential was
just another way of being a disappoint-
ment. But that day, with God’s Cara-
van, Earl was sure he’d felt the spirit.
Felt better than potential for sure.
W
hen Earl and Brent finally got
home, Gram was in her chair in
the sitting room working on a quilt. She
sat, as she always did, right beneath a
photo of a grinning President Clinton.
The first black President, people were
always saying, confusing Earl. Now Gram
looked up at the President and then
straight at her grandboys. “I know,” she
said, as if Clinton had told her. “I know
already, so you might as well fess up.”
Over supper, Earl spilled everything
about Pastor John the Baptist. It was
the first time he didn’t feel self-con-
scious at dinner. Didn’t worry even once
whether he should eat the chicken with
fork or fingers. Earl was too busy pon-
tificating. Because he’d been special,
hadn’t he? Had stood a little apart. Pop
chewed slowly, fighting a smile or a
snicker. But Earl was sure, sure that the
Caravan was a sign of something about
himself. A sign for him—Earl.
Earl’s father was always seeing signs.
Dad said that Jesus was a white man’s
God, and so he would never be enough
for them as Black Men in America. He’d
met Earl’s mother maybe a month after
he arrived in Memphis. Mom was re-
bellious (her own word), was skipping
out on church. She hadn’t minded Gary’s
Buddhism, and then his Janism and then
his Orisha-ism. Though these days? Well,
it seemed to Earl that Mom minded
quite a bit. But Gary never stopped being
a believer. It was just the beliefs that kept
changing. Dad believed that spraying the
house with DEET could keep his son and
wife safe from every harm.
Though Gary took the pills, and Earl
could see that the pills were something
to be ashamed of—his mother certainly
was ashamed of them—he was still Earl’s
father, and Earl still learned from him
about signs and metaphors. So Earl was
a believer, too. Though sometimes he
couldn’t help being plenty ashamed of
his belief. But this with Pastor John the
Baptist was different. This was good old
American Jesus Christ that the pastor
was talking about. And Gram didn’t
think it was crazy. Gram was smiling.
“I always knew you boys would find
the Lord some way or other,” she said,
not a drop of doubt in there. But Gram
wasn’t looking at Earl, she was looking
at Pop—daring him to disagree. Pop
cleared his throat, looked at Earl and
then at Brent. But he didn’t say a thing.
He went back to his plate, which was
already scraped clean. He scraped it
some more. Put the bare fork to his
mouth, chewed the air.P
op went with the boys the next Sun-
day. He walked with his cane, even
though the whole of Soulsville knew
that Pop didn’t need that cane for walk-
ing. Brent and Earl dressed in church
clothes—Gram had insisted that nobody
change into what she called their “pitch
clothes.” Pop wore his hat with the stingy
brim. Earl carried his own two cloudy
marbles in his pocket. Gripped them the
way his father gripped his own fists whenthe voices came on. Earl kept imagining
that there were two entire worlds in his
pocket. He wondered how many saviors
these worlds might need.
They walked in a row, the grand-
father and the grandsons. Pop in the
middle. Back in Ellenwood, Earl rarely
walked around with his own dad like
this. Couldn’t actually remember if he
ever had. They drove around, mostly.
Dad liked cars, had built one, so he said,
with his own hands. Though Earl had
never seen any evidence of such a skill.
In fact, Earl didn’t much know his fa-
ther besides the weird stuff. Didn’t think
his father much knew him, either. Did
he and his father even like each other?
Hadn’t Earl wished his father dead more
than once? Just last month, to be true.
Wished he would just leave Earl and
Mom to their own simple joys—no
voices, no chanting back at the voices in
his island accent, no clenched fists, no
long drives where Earl and Mom sat
in the car quietly, Earl agonizing over
whether the voices would tell Dad to
drive the car over a cliff. Dad always
wanted Earl and Mom to come on these
drives. “Leave,” Earl wanted to say. Just
leave us. A premonition? Perhaps.
Dad did always seem to like Earl
better when they were apart from each“I worry when my doctor turns out the lights to tell me something scary.”