Riders!” Pastor John the Baptist ex-
claimed in his finale. He patted the Bible
to his head, like a handkerchief. “And
you”—he pointed the Bible at Earl—
“you ain’t blinked since I started sing-
ing last week.” Earl blinked for him.
“Ahh,” the pastor said. “You won’t ride
at all, will you, son? You fly.”
Earl felt the words, the attention, go
through his eyes and through his ears
and right into his brain and down to his
what? Synopses? He was only going into
third grade, so he didn’t know the sci-
ence of it. But it would be safe to say
that he felt the pastor’s words, “You fly,”
down wherever his self was. A little push
in a new direction of who Earl might
be. He’d won two pocketfuls of marbles
last week, and he’d done the honorable
thing and returned them all. And now
here was the pastor, singling him out
special. So Earl went right up to the van.
He was close enough that, had the door
shut, he might have ended up inside.
“I don’t know how to fly,” he said
quietly. Earl was scared of the pastor’s
sweaty face, and of his cousin thinking
he was a punk, and of the marble-play-
ing boys not wanting to play marbles
with him anymore. But he was also brave.
This was maybe the first time in his life
he’d really thought this.
The pastor, for his part, hadn’t stopped
looking at Earl. “You don’t need to know
how to fly,” Pastor said seriously and
loudly, looking down on Earl with his
swarthy, dripping face. “I said you fly.”
Which Earl understood.
On the phone later, his parents on the
landline together now, Earl asked them
to call him Fly. He’d never really felt like
the “Earl” his mother had named him.
But he’d sure felt more like flight than
fight his whole life. Dad obliged, switched
up right there on the phone. “Sure thing,
Fly,” Gary said, and never went back.
Pop was serious at dinner. Gram rat-
tled off her day. The blue quilt was com-
ing along. But Sister Loretta at church
wanted one for her grandbaby, and that
one had to be pink. Every quilt the fam-
ily slept beneath had been made by Gram’s
own hands. The eggplant in the garden
was growing big and purple. Gram wanted
to put sweet potato in the ground, but
knew well the wrath of sweet potato.
They were eating food that’d come from
“the family garden,” as she graciously
called it. Gram went on. Finally, she asked
what the men had gotten themselves into.
As if it weren’t she herself who had sent
Pop with the boys to meet Pastor John.
Earl had never been called a man before.
“The pastor didn’t even collect money,”
Pop began. “He only shouted ragtime
songs and then told some Jesus stories.
Strange as a steak in a shrimp catch, but
good stories.”
“Mister,” which is what Gram always
called Pop, “Mister, what on God’s good
earth are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about that pastor singing
songs that made me feel bad, honestly.
Though they felt good in the music. Can
you imagine feeling both? And then tell-
ing stories about Jesus feeling bad, having
greed and being competitive in nature—
but also still being the Christ. Stories, I
must admit, that I was willing to stand
in the sun and dirt to hear. Never felt
that staying feeling at Grace Baptist.”
This, for sure, was the gift John the
Baptist had. There was something to his
stories, something in his author-ness, his
authority. After the men and boys had
all walked away from the van, Pastor had
called after them, “Even Jesus wept!” That
night, after supper, with Gram quilting
and Pop watching TV on low, Fly heard
his grandparents begin to argue in their
quiet, passive way: was the pastor a char-
latan or a genuine man of God?
Fly was in the bed he shared with his
cousin. Fly knew the answer, so he forced
himself to tears. Brent was
deciphering a Rubik’s Cube
beside him, but pretended
not to hear his grandparents
arguing or his cousin crying.
After he locked the cube into
place, fast enough to make
Earl stop his weeping, Brent
dug his hand beneath their
mattress. Pulled out a knot
of dirty paper and a match.
Earl—Fly—knew what the
match was, but not the marijuana. He
watched Brent light it and take one puff.
Then Fly did the same. Then Fly cried
some more. Brent puffed again. Then
he cried, too.T
he next Sunday, Gram came. And
so did other mothers, and more fa-
thers and brothers and some uncles and
aunts. Even a girl showed up. When
God’s Caravan came up the street, Pas-
tor John the Baptist sang his usual “Oh!Susanna,” and someone’s uncle fell to his
knees. “Oh, sugar, that’s my song,” the
man shouted, making Earl wonder if the
man was a little crazy, like Dad. But no
one else seemed to think so. “That’s my
godforsaken song!” the man said. The
sun beat down, but the man did not get
up. Not even during the story sermon.
Pastor told the parable of the ten
brides who all fell asleep and missed
their wedding day. The brides had been
so busy getting ready that they were ex-
hausted, missed their own party. The
guests danced and drank without them.
Their husbands married each other in-
stead. “This was not meant for you!”
Pastor said. “You are not meant to sleep
meekly and wait. Earth is not for you
to inherit when you die. The earth will
die someday, don’t you know. Hear me!
What you want is to inherit everlasting
life!” The song they sang then was “No
Such Thing as a Good Nigger.” And
then Fly understood, for the first time,
that there were actual people who’d think
he was weak because they thought he
was a nigger. He was eight years old, a
black kid from the South, but he’d never
thought about that before.
The kneeling uncle looked around
with his palms up to the sky. Some-
thing got into Fly. Like with the mar-
bles. An impulse from his deep self.
Or maybe it was the choke he and his
cousin had shared just before. Or maybe
it was the Holy Spirit. Or
maybe it was all the same.
Fly went up to that man
and placed his hand on
that man’s shoulder. “Not
meek,” Fly said.
The man looked to the
sky as if the clouds had
spoken. He stood, just like
that. Fly gave that man
his manhood. This wasn’t
potential, this was achieve-
ment. The Jesus kind.
Gram wept on the walk back to the
house. At supper, she asked Fly, though
she called him Earl, to say the blessing
over the food. After the meal, Fly went
to the bedroom he shared with his
cousin. He kneeled on the bed and
punched their one pillow, as if he were
training for something.
On the fourth Sunday, Pastor John
the Baptist sang “Every People Has a
Flag but the Coon,” and then he sharedTHENEWYORKER, NOVEMBER 4, 2019 63