A Time to Tarry

by Té V. Smith
 

The first time you catch the holy ghost, 

It grabs your mind, 

sets your soul, 

sets your sanity ablaze. 

But, 

on your first time, your very first time, 

you shrink like someone called your name, you’re surprised because it’s

not the name assigned at birth, but one only a few know

like Long Head Ricky or Slick Rick for Richard

Not soft like Mama calling you Richy. 

Your body stiffens, 

you drop your head and tears stumble 

onto the deep-rust-colored carpet 

that looks like dried blood,

that looks like minutes after your mother fell, and 

The deep red in her body crept across the tile as if she was 

s p r e a d i n g the gospel. 

***

The first time your mother’s body 

spun out of control was on an ordinary Saturday. 

The birds held their usual conferences about 

worms or nesting decor outside your bedroom window. 

The wind was new-day fresh as you 

lay in bed daydreaming of breakfast. 

That’s a strange thing for someone to mull at the start of a day. 

But, the weekend 

guaranteed something warm, not the granola or pop tart 

a school day permitted, 

& Sundays were for church with no promise of breakfast before Sunday school. 

You romped down the hall toward the kitchen, 

the thought of instant grits and toast already warm inside you; 

your slippers seemed to find every creaky board on 

the old wooden floors. 

Each step     

creak, crack, creak, crack

your very own theme music. 

If you were a superhero, you would have been called 

The Weekend (already taken), or 

Saturday Man.  

Either way, you were something special 

on a special day heading for 

a special start, 

one foot     in front of       the other.

Something fell. 

Something hard and large, large enough to 

tremble through the house

& you doubled back, 

stilled yourself and listened. 

“Mom!”

It didn’t come from the bathroom—a loud thud and crash, 

like a body or a lamp or a body hitting a lamp. 

“Mama?”

You realized the noise came from inside her room. 

& you ran, knocking over the kitchen nook barstool 

& ran past the family photos lining the hall

& ran—no collapsed into her bedroom door as you swung it open. 

Something about the sight of 

your mother spasming on the ground. 

Her hair splayed across the floor, 

life and its tributaries flow from the back of her head, 

mouth opening and closing wordlessly like 

a fish or toddler throwing a tantrum, 

made you grow up. 

Thirty-five minutes 

& eleven seconds is how long 

the sirens took to reach 

the front of your apartment building. 

***

This church is different 

from Mama’s church. 

The oak doors, 

the sunlight streaming through stained glass windows, 

the kaleidoscope of colors showering rows of pews, 

are missing, 

large yellow rectangular lights replace the vaulted ceilings, 

reaching towards heaven. 

The people moan & pray loudly

The people express gratitude & dance even louder 

as if each have headphones on and 

are listening to a different section of the same song,

or caught the same dizzying sickness. 

Symptoms are as follows: It starts with a heaving of chests, followed by hysterical wailing and wind or an invisible hand that sends faithful bodies bucking uncontrollably backward and forwards like wild bulls being captured or freed. Jerking. Reaching in every direction but within. Eventually, people wobble, drunk on holiness, until they collapse. Slain in the Spirit is what holy folks call it—Slain, like divine violence, murder by sacred magic. They lurch into broken movements like Daddy, after too much grief and dark liquor used to make him tipsy as a mountaintop before Jesus rinsed him decent—did a reverse water-to-wine to sober his sin-soaked soul. 

The Ghost even clings to a few children, 

who droop heavily in the aisles as if 

they’d been marinated in the Lord. 

The preacher tries to settle the crowd. 

The music whines in rebellion,

you can tell a few people beside you won’t obey 

&, as if the painting, a crucifix of 

Pale Jesus, with outstretched hands, has come to life, 

another wave of the Holy Ghost spreads, 

like God caught a second wind after 

sprinting from person to person. 

Shadows gallop across the wall as 

the desperate and devoted dance, dizzy with praise and 

cry themselves giddy. 

***

The potato-faced doctor spoke. 

Dizziness is common with cancers like chronic lymphocytic leukemia. 

said with no smile or worry on his face. 

It affects the body’s ability to produce healthy blood cells,

He continued as he looked down and through the papers on his clipboard. 

which can reduce the amount of oxygen supplied to the brain, 

He said, as one might mention, something every family experiences, like,

A high fever or hairline fracture from falling off a bicycle. 

& Mama held your hand

& Mama held your heart 

&, for the first six months, her prayers were 

a rock you and Daddy built your faith on. 

Life was normal. 

Kale, sugar snaps, and lettuce in your backyard garden 

Greened & browned & greened in rows like a series of resurrections. 

You and Mama played in the dirt, doing the Lord’s work. 

And then 

one day, a series of days, 

Mama’s large smile, full of gums, rose & set into 

a tight-lipped grin through unyielding pain,

then clot-coughed prayers that forced us all to 

our knees. 

Convinced that God would honor 

a behavior change, 

that the blessing would somehow carry over to her, 

You and Daddy tried on what he called ‘the new look’ for your family. 

You’d help out more around the house: 

clean up after yourself, 

make your own breakfast,

try not to ask for much. 

Daddy would tend to Mama and stop drinking as much. 

And you did. And he did.

You’d walk past their bedroom,

see him listening with kindness in his eyes 

as if her words were the first she’d ever said to him. 

***

This church is up the street from your house. 

The faint scent of wood polish in the large room with 

a raised platform at the far end. 

Here, 

no one knows you, 

no one peers at you with those pitiful looks of condolence, 

no one expects you to mourn publicly so they can feel better about their lives.

Your first experience with the Holy Ghost happens on a Sunday morning 

after ruby-tonsil’d hymns call, 

with hungry voices, for the gates of 

heaven to open, 

for God 

to send down fire, 

to shower all in earshot under His essence. 

Everything is on schedule:

The congregation chews on the holy body and drinks the Savior empty. 

You watch others in amazement and in the middle 

of whatever you are thinking

of whatever you are feeling, 

A stocky woman, as if built out of brick, 

with skin like cracked leather and fixed eyes, stares then trudges over. 

You look behind and around you to catch where she’s aiming her gaze.

She’s heading your way. You smooth the collar of 

the first shirt Daddy ironed: A black polo, polyester blend, 

white stripes along the collar. 

The last shirt Mama bought: your name written on the inside tag as if you’re still in elementary school. You wore it to your first national debate tryout. 

“People should try”—then she smiled at you—“to look as brilliant as their mind is.” 

You look dull and weary, waiting for the woman to crash into you. 

She smiles. Her thin lips stretch taut. Two teeth are missing 

in the center of her top row, like the entrance to a cave. 

For a second, 

you wonder if she’d gotten into a bad fight and got her whites knocked out, 

That makes no sense, so you shake your head and settle on her losing them to time

& wonder if losing them makes her a better whistler. 

She doesn’t introduce herself 

or ask your name 

or ask for permission before 

clawing her hand up your back, patting you like she’s trying to burp a baby

and commanding in hushed, deep octaves for you to repeat:

Jesus. Jesus. Jesus, Jesus. 

The words came out of her mouth, hard and hot 

like the Lord’s blood didn’t wash down, 

like the Lord’s bones were caught in her windpipe. 

“Why?” You whisper. 

She shoots you a terse glance,

her lips flatten,

her eyebrows draw together. 

Two deep vertical creases appear between them, 

like she’s ready to drown a nonbeliever on God’s command. 

There are many things you are not supposed to ask, and you fear that 

why might be one of them. 

***

After the sickness set in, the house was quiet. 

If not for the coughing, you’d think life was fair.

When she was well enough to make her slow rounds through 

the house—imagine a Spike Lee scene with Mama floating through 

the hall to the sound of a muted trumpet—she would smile at 

a rack of clean dishes 

or a toilet seat let down.

She would glide around corners as if the life she knew 

was still pulling her through. 

Mama’s best friend brought over angelica root for the pain in her body,

Church mothers called and offered prayer for the pain in her soul.

You followed the writing on the bags of herbs and made tea

You tried praying under your pillow with your eyes closed tight enough to squeeze out hope. 

When that didn’t work, you starved yourself as a plea for a bite of God’s grace. 

Mama only asked for a few things: 

A daily Pepsi that the doctors warned against, 

a DVD set of both seasons of Fleabag, 

a new mattress. 

The Salesman 

said it was the Dream Cloud Premier with breathable cashmere, 

said phrases like spinal alignment, action cooling, and adaptive support, 

said it was cheaper and better than the ones online. 

You both stood with confused faces as Daddy scanned his credit card.

Mama was asleep on the pull-out sofa when you returned home. 

You and Daddy unboxed and unfolded the bed-in-a-box.

“Got to be careful when we cut into it,” he said, pulling his pocket knife from his belt loop. “Because the mattress is close to the bag they wrap it in.”

“What if we get too close and cut through?” I asked

“Cut through don’t mean ruined.” He replied. “Sometimes being that close to ruin is what reminds us to breathe.”

He cut and we pulled at the plastic

Till the mattress was free.

We then ate lunch: turkey and swiss on split wheat, 

while the new foam breathed on top of the old boxspring.

***

“Jesus,” 

you finally murmur, pushing the name through your teeth in a lukewarm voice. 

“Jesus” again and again 

you chant until your mouth is a flickering gun of faith and saliva, 

“Jesus” until you start speaking in tongues: 

Stuttered consonants. Vowels that roll on top of one another and 

bounce off your lips like Morse code 

that sounds a lot like you’re trying 

that sounds a lot like you’re failing 

at translating this moment into something that’ll make sense. 

When you spit out the Holy Ghost, 

with wet, weighty eyes and quivering lips,

the name of God hangs sticky on your tongue—a candied cure. 

***

Mama spent more time on the new mattress.

Five months later,

she was rushed to the hospital.

On the seventh day of her stay—the day 

she rubbed her thumb across the top of your hand,

you stared at the hospital ceilings to keep from crying 

Images flickered through the light panels: You and Mama lay as the sky, spotty between the thick branches, blots your faces. You eat and drink ‘till your bellies are full ’till your mouths are sticky. You take a large gulp of water and turn your cheeks into a balloon to make her laughter float lovely. You hold the water so she knows how long you can control your breath and how long you can balance yourself between now and nevermore. You close your eyes, present your face to the heavens, and swallow. You open your eyes, still there, both of you—resurrection by light. 

A squeeze and the room came back into focus. 

Mama’s hand fell limp in yours, 

an unalive machine shrieked,

and a hush fell over the room.

***

Sunday School and sermons got it wrong about the Holy Ghost being a comforter.

Ain’t nothing comforting or comfortable about 

watching God reach inside people and jiggle them around like live wire. 

The fire shut up in your bones part of the book is spot on, though. 

Your insides are a loose flame that 

feels like a crackling, 

feels like a melting away of everything that has ever built you. 

When the holy ghost wants to cover you, 

you rock and breathe, breathe and rock.

your body feels like itchy flesh around the bone, 

your hands tingle, and your feet are fire in a basement trying to get out.

Another person with a heavier hand,

pushes you against the back of the pew with 

a palm pressed into your stomach and chest 

as if they’re trying to revive something near-lost. 

You feel nauseous. 

Push, rub, push, rub, push. 

Like faith is in the chest and God is in the gut. 

Your arms spring out. You are a tree, stiff and stuck and planted. 

Random thoughts branch out of one another and disappear: 

You think (then forget)

the bottle tree you and Daddy used to tend to, you think (then forget) the giant cypress that reaches across roads for one another, 

You think (then forget) 

The flowering dogwood your family visited monthly before Mama’s roots went bad before Daddy buried himself in liquor, and then the church before your trinity faded until’ there was just you and possibly God. 

“Let Him in!” someone sits next to you and commands. 

The angry drums and distressed organ are a thick fog. 

At some point, everyone except for your handlers dissolves into the background. 

All that remains is stilled adrenaline like the Lord pressed pause on everything but you. 

After what feels like you’ve been imploding forever, 

syllables stampede out of your mouth like a Black Friday sale. 

“Ha sha-ta pa-el-la ala-bee-see-yo” 

You yell with trembling lips with terrified eyes. 

And just like that, the air stops moving; 

every color is smoothed into one bright and burning sensation. 

And the room looks brighter (singed almost) 

And the air tastes different (cleaner, purified). 

And the people wander around you directionless, engulfed in the moment’s aftermath. 

And maybe the Holy Ghost is just another name for a Wildfire. 

Hands wrap themselves ‘round you from all sides. 

You don’t know what scares you the most: 

the praise thrown over you like confetti or 

the feeling of being full and empty 

the feeling of being close and far 

at the same time. 

“How do you feel?” A woman asks

“I’m fi—”

“Oh, God!” someone yells, “Hallelujah, Jesus!” and 

my handlers have done their job

with me.

Please note: The views shared in this story are the author’s own and may not represent the perspectives of Word on the Street magazine or its affiliated organizations.