Albert – 2004, remembering 1994
That last time I was with them, we were all down in the basement. It was dark. It was quiet. One of those kids kept whimpering. Then not whimpering. Muddy moldy basement smell. Woodsmoke WOODSMOKE IS ONE WORD? from outside. No candles. Pa said no candles, no lanterns. He said the ones outside would see. I can’t see the inside without candles. But after a little while I can. There are outlines, there’s dark and then there’s less dark. I am closest to the four little dirty windows above our heads. Boots go by. More boots go by. None of us breathes. None of us moves. Pa had locked the outside door. It rattled once but the boots kept going.
Now I am in the basement again. That was a long long time ago, that time before. That was so long ago I only barely remember. They are all gone now but it was this same basement. Those four little dirty windows are still above my head. No boots go by. Our calico cat goes by. I see her white feet. The wooden shelves are still back against the far wall. Before they were full of corn and apples and dried beans and dried meat. Now there’s rows and rows of glass jars. Green beans and corn and tomatoes and pickles. Back then there was a pile of coal way back in the corner. Now there’s that big tan metal furnace. It thumps and pings and roars in the winter. This is not winter. The furnace is quiet. And now there’s the freezer that you open up from the top. I am not allowed to open the freezer. Back then there were onions and potatoes and dried beans where the freezer is. Now there’s a light bulb dangling from the ceiling and a string to pull. No more candles. No more kerosene lamps. That’s okay though. I’m not allowed to use the candles and the lamps.
Sometimes I try to tell Ben and them about it. I don’t want to stop being able to remember. Ben says I made it up. He says I dreamed it. But I didn’t make it up and I didn’t dream it. Joel says I didn’t make it up and Eddy says I didn’t make it up. They don’t say I didn’t dream it, though. Quentin said he thinks I came from somewhere else. He said that a long time ago. Samuel laughed and said, I’ll take you back there sometime, Albert. Jessie says where we are now is what’s important. GOOD!
I used to try to tell Ma and Pa. I wanted to tell them they weren’t the first Ma and Pa.
Pa said, do not talk about that ever again, Albert. Pa said, that is not true and that did not happen. That is Satan making his way into your mind, Pa said. You will not let Satan into your mind, Albert.
Ma said, don’t talk about that, Albert. That makes your father angry. You are very special, Ma said. You are a good boy and you don’t have Satan in your mind. But don’t talk about that ever again. HA
I had a sister once. Her name was Sarah. She was a long time ago too. But not as long as that other time, that first time. I know it wasn’t as long ago because they all remember Sarah in this time. Except Jessie. Jessie doesn’t remember because she was just a little baby. Everybody else remembers but nobody ever talks about Sarah. There’s a tiny picture of her in the bookcase. It’s mixed in with all the other pictures. She’s sitting on the front porch in the swing, smiling. When I look at it she’s looking back at me. That was before she was their mother.
Sarah was nice. She had long gold hair and she was pretty. She smelled good, like the woods. I was little when she got married to Robert. They moved into a teeny white house in town. It was beside the river. There was a big oak tree in the front yard. After that it was just me and Ma and Pa in this house and Sarah and Robert and one baby after another baby in her house. I used to walk into town to see them and play with the babies. Sarah always told me I was a big help and I could visit any time I wanted to. Robert told me I was a retard and if any of the babies ended up like me he would throw them in the river. He never said that where Sarah could hear, though.
Sarah and Ma were in the basement that last day. That day that was Sarah’s last day. I was in the basement too but they didn’t see me. I was laying on that old couch that Pa wanted to throw out but Ma wanted to keep. I liked to lay there in the dark and try to remember the long ago time. Sometimes my other family’s faces would come back. Especially that baby in a long pale dress that used to cry so much. This time they didn’t come back. This time feet came stomping down the stairs from the kitchen. Voices came down the stairs with the stomping feet.
“I am going to do it. You might as well stop talking about it,” says Sarah’s voice. She is mad. She’s near the bottom of the steps.
“You are not thinking this through,” says Ma. She is mad. She’s stomping the steps right behind Sarah.
“I don’t want to have this conversation, Mama,” says Sarah. “I just want to get some beans and that peach pie out of the freezer.”
She skips the last step and her feet smash on the floor.
“It is foolish and it is dangerous,” says Ma.
Ma doesn’t skip the last step. Her feet are quieter on the floor. “You have those children to think of. It is not just all about you.”
“They are what I AM thinking of. EMPHASIS ON *ARE* INSTEAD? I am not worthy of being their mother if I’m not worthy of God,” Sarah says. “If God doesn’t accept me, then what is the point?”
Neither one of them is stomping now. They are still. I don’t move. They can’t see me on the couch. It’s turned backwards to them and I’m hidden.
“Your father has put these ideas into your head,” says Ma. “God accepts you as you are, Sarah. There is nothing to prove.”
“I thought you were a believer,” says Sarah. “You used to be a believer.”
“I am a believer,” says Ma. “I just do not believe that God requires you to risk your life to please him.”
“If you can’t risk your life, you have no faith at all,” Sarah says. “That is the entire point.”
She is stomping again. She stomps around to the front of the couch towards the shelves and the freezer. She screams.
“Albert! What are you doing down here? You scared me!”
Ma comes around the couch. She stares down at me.
“I was waiting to see them,” I tell her.
“Albert, do not start that,” Ma says. “I don’t have the energy for that right now.”
“What is Sara not supposed to do?? ADD QUOTE MARK I ask.
“It’s none of your concern, young man,” Ma says. “Get upstairs and wash up for dinner.”
“Mama doesn’t want me going to the church tonight,” Sarah tells me. “We were just having a discussion about it.”
“It sounded like a fight,” I tell her.
“It’s not a fight,” Sarah says. “Mama has her opinion and I have mine.”
“This is not about opinions,“ Ma says to her in the Quiet Voice. “This is about using what common sense the good Lord gave you. This is about taking care of those children and not just thinking about yourself.”
Sarah ought to know better than to talk back when Ma uses the Quiet Voice. She must not know better. She says “What this is about is doing what He’s told me to do, and it’s about having the courage to listen and to follow Him instead of being a coward and making up excuses to avoid what scares you!”
She yanks the freezer lid up as hard as she can and starts shoving things around inside.
“Did He tell you to go off with that blue eyed man?” Ma says. Her hands are on her hips. She’s still using the Quiet Voice. “Did He tell you to break your vows to your husband? Was that what He wanted or what you wanted?”
Sarah stops shoving things around and making them go thump thump thump in the freezer. She is staring at Ma now. Her eyes have gone all red.
What blue eyed man, I wonder. I know I better not ask.
Ma stops looking at Sarah and looks at me. Her face is mad.
“I’m not telling you again,” Ma says to me. “Upstairs. Now.”
Upstairs is bright and that other time fades away. The kitchen is warm from the oven and smells like roast beef and baking potatoes. Ma and Sarah stayed in the basement. I can’t hear them. I hear the television going in the den, where the little kids are. I am supposed to go wash up, but I go into the living room instead. Pa is in the living room, sitting in his big brown chair, reading the paper. His hair is slicked back. He’s already washed up. He looks at me when I come in, over his black glasses.
“Were you down in the basement, Albert?”
I am not supposed to be down in the basement.
“Ma and Sarah were down there too,” I say. “They’re still down there. They are fighting.”
Pa lowers his paper.
“Ma says you put ideas in Sarah’s head,” I tell him. He frowns at me. His eyebrows are bushy and nearly meet over his nose.
“Sarah has been chosen, Albert,” he tells me. “You are … too young to understand it. She is going to the church with us tonight. God will choose her tonight.”
“Choose her for what?” I ask.
“For His plan,” he says
“When will I be chosen?” I ask. He looks at me.
“You have already been chosen,” he tells me. “God has already selected you. He selects different people in different ways.”
Pa smiles at me then. Pa never smiles at me.
I hear the television in the other room get louder. I want to be in there with Sarah’s kids. I don’t want to be selected.
“I have to go wash up,” I tell Pa. I turn around, head for the other room where the kids are, where it’s safe.
Figure out how this works in with scene of Quentin and Samuel driving around. That will be after this one since it’s about his decision to leave – it would be after he goes to the snake church. Make that scene different enough from what Q is telling them that it isn’t repetitive