Where do you think it went, Travis asked. And I said I didn’t know. I don’t know where anything goes, I said. Don’t be sad about stuff like that, okay, he asked me. He put his arm around my shoulders. I said yeah, okay, I wouldn’t be. He picked some dandelions that were poking out of the dirt next to the barn and handed them to me and I said thank you and held them the whole way back to my place. At least if I couldn’t have one of his kidneys I could have weeds.
He had to go do some stuff for his dad. Did you have fun today, he asked me. I nodded and smiled and hugged him. He said he’d call me later and then he lifted me up off the ground.
My parents had their first date at church. It consisted of walking side by side for three whole beautiful blocks to the gravel parking lot where my father said to my mother: Well. And my mother said: That’s deep. They cracked each other up. Thank God I wasn’t there. English wasn’t their first language, so jokes were a particular type of achievement. Their mother tongue was an unwritten language. How do you write things down, I’d asked Trudie. We don’t, obviously, she said, not in that language anyway. The stories are passed around. They come to us.
Should we go inside? That was my dad wondering. He often wondered. Of course, said my mom. We’ve come all this way. Three blocks only, said my dad. He, like the doomed Professor Knuf, enjoyed specificity. He liked to take note of irrefutable facts. In fact he liked to take hold of irrefutable facts as though they were life rafts. Things, unlike wives and daughters, that would not go away. I think he would have walked forever with my mom if she’d suggested it. They’d be walking still. They could be in New York by now.
He had a hard time making decisions. It was tough. The guy arrives at his pre-planned destination with his girl and then wonders if they should go in. It seems…he said. It seems what, my mom had asked. He didn’t know. Take off your jacket, she said. It’s so warm. It’ll be hotter than stink in the sanctuary. Normally, when my mom made a suggestion, my dad followed through. But not when it came to his suit jacket. It was like Batman’s cowl or Samson’s hair. No…no, he said. I’d better leave it on.
They went inside. They split up to go to their respective sides of the church and listened as the elders, one by one, cast their votes. At the end of the evening, there were three fewer members of the church.
That’s all I know about that, my mom told me when I was a little kid. I don’t know what they’d done.
Jesus H., Tash said, your first date was a shunning? What did they do, I’d asked my mom. Oh, brother, I don’t know, she said. I never really paid any attention. But I pressed her. I was six or seven. What did they do, I asked. Just guess. Well, she said, they may have been fooling around, I don’t know. Fooling around how, I’d asked. Oh, she said, misbehaving. Kissing. Just fooling around. And then what happened, I’d asked. They couldn’t be a part of the church, she’d say. That’s right, Mom. And then? Their families weren’t allowed to speak to them, she said. And? I’d ask.
This was a bedtime ritual. I dug the shunning story. I couldn’t wait to hear it. What a gem. It completely reinforced my belief system of right and wrong. And everyone had to stand up in church and publicly denounce them. Yeah! I’d say. Denounce them! I’d always loved the sound of that.
And everybody was sad, I’d say. Right? Yes, everybody was sad. It was a very difficult position to be in not only for the person who was shunned but for the people who loved them. God especially, I’d say. Right? Yes, God especially. I loved that hook. Even though he was the ultimate punisher, he got no satisfaction from it. It hurt him, but it had to be done. I thought that was damn heroic.
But Nomi, she’d say, there was always the possibility of forgiveness. Remember that. I didn’t like that part. It muddied my crystal-clear waters. But probably not, I’d say. Probably not.
One night my mom said she’d had enough of that story. She didn’t like it any more and wanted to tell another one. And they lived like ghosts in their own town, right, I’d ask. No friends, no family. Floating around. Bound for hell, right? Crying all the time? Hey, Mom! For fooling around? Right? She’d make up excuses to leave my room. Oh, Dad needs help choosing his shirts for next week, she’d say. And gently close my door.
My mom had told me about the table trick. How if, say, your wife was shunned, you weren’t allowed to sit at the same table as her but if you put two tables together, with an inch between them, and then put a tablecloth over them, it would seem like you were at the same table, which would be nice, but you wouldn’t be at the same table, so you wouldn’t be breaking any rules.
Tash often threw me out of her room with the words I shun thee! She didn’t take things as seriously as she should have. Like my uncle, The Mouth of Darkness, said, there were eternal issues at stake. And when discipline is properly applied, the one under it needs the humility to come home.
My uncle’s name is Hans Rosenfeldt. He is the pastor of our church. He is my mother’s brother. Tash once said The Mouth of Darkness has pulled up onto our driveway. Shall I let him in? From then on she and I called him The Mouth, which, if not smart or funny or anything like that, is apt.
There is a woman in this town who was shunned for adultery but didn’t leave. She’s one of the ghosts. She has health problems and sometimes she just faints on the street, usually in front of Tomboy. People will leave sausages or cheese next to her sometimes but that’s as much as they can do. Although I did once see an older woman give her skirt a tug after it had ridden up above her knees.
My mother once told me that her blackouts had to do with stress, which fascinated me. That you could collapse on the spot and wake up a few minutes later feeling ready to go on. I wanted to be able to do that, although I think my minutes would stretch to days or possibly even years. My mother once told me that there were no adults in our town. But what do you mean by that, I’d asked her. What do I mean by that? she answered. I was never amused when my questions and her answers were the same thing. When she washed the dishes she’d have conversations with invisible people. I’d watch her from the dining room, shaking her head, moving her lips, shrugging, flicking her hand periodically to punctuate some imaginary point. Who are you talking to, I’d ask and she’d look at me and laugh, of course, telling me she didn’t know who she was talking to, or what did I mean, or talking? Was I talking? Yeah, I’d say, you were and you seemed ticked off. I did? she’d say, all innocently. That’s strange, she’d say. How odd. She’d try to compensate, afterwards, with an abundance of fake enthusiasm that literally felt like an attack. It stung my skin and I’d usually leave the room after enduring a few direct hits of good cheer. I wanted to know who the hell she was talking to in the first place.
You know how some people, I’m not sure which people, say that something that happens on one part of the planet can make something else happen on another part of the planet? Usually, I think, they mean some kind of geological event, but I’m sure that my mother’s silent raging against the simplisticness of this town and her church could produce avalanches, typhoons and earthquakes all over the world. But there is kindness here, a complicated kindness. You can see it sometimes in the eyes of people when they look at you and don’t know what to say. When they ask me how my dad is, for instance, and mean how am I managing without my mother. Even Mr. Quiring, the teacher I am disappointing on a regular basis, periodically gives me a break. Says he knows things must be a little difficult at home. Offers to give me extensions, says he’s praying for us. I don’t mind.