Deliver Me by Elle Nash

Author:Elle Nash
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Unnamed Press

1998

Rumors spread about Sloane. People thought she had been sent to a faith camp, or was turning tricks, or had been doing hard drugs and got knocked up by a junkie. One person in the congregation would offer up a theory, and the rumor would deform and spread out into the wider community. There was never any way to fight the rumors, if you managed to hear them at all. Whenever I walked into the restroom at school, if anyone saw me, they’d wait until I was in the stall.

“Dykey Daisy! Dykey Daisy!” they’d shout through the crack in the door, their teeth flashing as they cackled. Each harsh syllable made my self-esteem spiral, but another part of me would spark alive with rage. I’d fantasize about crushing their mouths into the sink faucets, of smashing their faces into the mirror, holding them there, cheekbones churning into the glass, their pretty white teeth splintering.

Sloane had started to show so much it was impossible to hide. She dropped out of school and stopped going to church with us, and Momma stayed home with her. She insisted I was the one to go to services. I walked alone, knees and knuckles numb from the cold, then came home and reported back to her the details of the sermons. On the walk back, I imagined Sloane and Momma in the kitchen, warm in front of the stove, patting their flour-crusted hands into thick dough to make drop biscuits.

Parents at church would not make eye contact with me, Sloane’s mother included. Barb claims she doesn’t remember me, but I think somewhere deep down she does. She swayed with the rest of the congregation, eyes forward, as though she knew I was watching her. Their ecstatic prayers grew in intensity and circles of people formed beside me, though none would let me join. Some desperation rose inside me. I wanted to be known, to be truly vulnerable with somebody—maybe with God, a god, Sloane, Momma, somebody. But it terrified me. I wanted to receive the spirit gift if for no other reason than to be special, so I could go home and tell Momma I was like her.

On this particular Sunday the pastor whipped his microphone cord around him as he walked across the stage. I wished it were a noose wrapped around his neck.

“The devil knows money is a weapon against you,” he said.

“Hallelujah,” the crowd said. The way they sang it, people lifted their hands up and repeated the praise until the words ran together: Hallelujah. Hallelujah-halle-lu-lah-hall-ley-loo-la-ley-loo-la-ley-loo.

“The wicked shall see it and be grieved and melt away.” His soft whisper then rising voice brought the congregation to choir. He blotted a handkerchief against a pulsing forehead vein. With circles of sweat in his pits, he raised a hand high, the mic in the other hand, and skipped across the stage to where Sloane’s mother stood. She and I locked eyes, finally, while everyone around us shouted the lost syllables of hallelujah. The pastor chanted and the organ rose and the crowd went la-ley-loo.

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