northeastern Brasil, 1945-1954, part six
(reminder: 1945-1954 is once upon a time, and these experiences were had by a boy between two-and-a-half and ten years old.) you have met the blue-grey house, the walled-away back yard, and its hidden shed, a rickety shed. these hardly figure in this appreciation, except to give it context. it might also be important that if I was about ten, then my sister was about seven-and-a-half, the older of my younger brothers was about five, and my little brother was about three-and-a-half. they all have roles in this appreciation. we left off with me seeing the shed in a new light, so to speak, as an opportunity rather than a disappointment. what did I see? light and shadows, but mainly dimness. what association did I make? churches where I'd heard my father preach one sermon or another. you have probably gathered that I had a strange relationship with my father. he was seldom home, and I thought that was a good thing. whenever he was home, he created such turmoil that it took my mother a week to soothe things out after he left. he was my father, and in some sense I loved him, but I didn't trust him. he had lied to me so many times, lies so stupid that they were easily revealed as lies, that I no longer accepted anything he told me except as possibly true. he had set me up to hurt my feelings and then teased me about being a baby so often that I'd taught myself to smile with one corner of my mouth turned down - damn, that took a lot of practice! - so I could give him that smile and he wouldn't know whether I was smiling with him or being disappointed. I had learned not to wince when he murdered Portuguese. and I had practiced making fun of his sermons. he had phrases that repeated from sermon to sermon, and a clever little boy could study those phrases and find a way to twist each one so it didn't quite make sense any more. my father had certain gestures that went along with those phrases, and by re-pairing them, the gestures no longer fit, so the combination of phrase and gesture became a little silly. he also had vocal tricks, like dropping to a stage whisper for certain phrases, or building the volume with phrase after phrase, so that when he got to the key point, he was almost shouting. now, in the blue-grey house, I had a room of my own, on the first floor. the rest of the family lived on the second floor. really. and I thought it was wonderful! I not only had a room of my own but it was in a separate part of the house. when I was sent to my room, or when I sent myself to my room, I would practice putting twisted phrases, gesture, and vocal tricks together and in the right order for maximum foolishness. but I had no audience. I wouldn't have dared put on my sermon for my father. he had no sense of humor except when he was with other men. but sitting there in that shed, I thought maybe I could put it on in the shed for my sister and brothers, and maybe they'd laugh. so I arranged all the crates but one in a curved row. the one, the empty one, I set up as the preacher's dais, in the focus of the "chairs". then I had to go convince my sister and brothers that they wanted to come visit A Church of Our Own. Took some doing. my sister had been told not to go back into that part of the yard. my brothers had peeked in from the gate and decided it was too scary. I must have been at my persuasive best though. pretty soon I led my sister and my brothers back into the walled-away back yard, back along the path through the taller-than-a-man weeds, back to the rickety shed, and inside it. I helped each one to her or his seat. My little sister had even worn a hat and carried a purse. then I climbed onto the dais solemnly, thanked them for coming, promised them that God would bless them for being there, and began my sermon. just as I finished the crescendo part where I wagged my finger at the sky and delivered the line that was most nearly a joke, the top of the crate collapsed. my little brother remembers that I'd just hollered and made that gesture when I disappeared. he screamed and jumped off his chair, and my sister and the older of my younger brothers did too. my little brother ran for the door and they followed him. the three of them ran for the house, inside it, and upstairs to their rooms, and never ventured into the walled-away back yard again. me? I climbed out of my "dais" all alone, looked around disgustedly, and figured out how to repair that damned crate. I did, but it didn't matter. my audience wanted nothing to do with A Church of Our Own ever again. except to tell the story now and then. and I learned that magic of my own takes a little more preparation than I'd thought.
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