Dirty Water

Before I grew breasts, and before my hips spread I was a wily thing. Always peeping in Mrs. May window to see what she did when Mista wasn’t home, or making sure to jump rope across from the Omega Five and Dime where the older boys could sit at the soda fountain, and through the window, see my skirt bouncing along with the rest of me.
Jump a little higher. Bounce a little harder.
I just took a liking to the things that made the hairs on my legs stand up. Never paid no heed to nobody’s word. Didn’t have to neither. They’re eyes told me all I needed to know. The way Pastor Simmons’ wife squeezed tight the corners of her eyes as I passed by in my new Sunday dresses, every year a different color. Every year the color brighter than the last.
Dresses can’t hide what generations show proof. Whore’s a whore.
And even though it wasn’t no peculiar sight to see me standing on a porch deck for little boys to see what the Lord made, when they’re Uncles or older brothers motioned them to scat- that shining of the eye, that squint that made you think the sun was hot and high on a cloudy day- that told me why it was my Momma never found out.
Oowee. That one’s there is gonna set this town on fire.
Truth be told it wouldn’t have made a difference if my momma found out or not. I was gonna do what pleased me best. Didn’t matter to me who turned a nose up, or squinted an eye, or reached for a belt strap. Cause the way I saw it, if being me was gonna get me in trouble anyway, might as well do what feels right.
See, I didn’t mind a little dust. Most other folk do their dirt and sweep it under the kitchen rug. Now, the truth’ll tell you where to find the dirt. But what the truth won’t tell you is how to get it clean.

The Easter Sunday I turned fourteen it was wet outside. My Momma told me to paint the eggs for the church hunt, and she told me to get out my new Sunday dress. But soon as her back was turned, I was out the door. I was trying to be quick so she wouldn’t see me when I slipped fast, and fell in the clay mud. Turned my yellow silk dress a deep rust color. Now, you’d think I would’a been worried bout my Momma taking the skin off my hide, but that mud stuck me. Used my weight against me. Reached around my hips and sunk me deeper. I laid back in it. And it held on tighter. Like that Creole come to Ms. May house when Mista ain’t home. It’s red was on my brown, and it wasn’t letting go. I could feel the cool through the buttons up my spine. That ruddy brown muck was in the creases in the plaits in my hair and the wide space between my knees. It crept around my neck and into my ears. Felt like spirits was talking to me. Saying, “Girl. This is what good feel like. Feel like the bottom of things.” Couldn’t tell if them spirits was Lucifer or Jesus. Wasn’t gonna move me either way.

I didn’t see my Momma look through the window at me as I lay there, legs parted, nipples showing through the spotted silk, fingers digging down so deep, deep in the mud I could feel the heat trapped down below. And I damn sure didn’t hear her coming. But I felt that belt. I ain’t hear no spirits then. Just the clat of leather on my bare thighs. She pulled me up out the ground so fast it made a loud noise. Sounded like a loud clap from a big man’s rough hands, like the earth was screaming out for me and didn’t want to let go.
I had never heard my Momma curse the Lord’s name before. She was hot that whole night. Kept yelling bout how she was trying so hard not to raise no damn heathen. Bout how she wasn’t gonna take no mess from me no more. All I could do was try to force the tears and keep the smile from off of my face. If I knew how serious my Momma was, that whooping woulda stopped me. But all I remembered was how good that mud felt before it got my ass beat. I did it again the next day, and the day after that. It wasn’t long before all of my dresses were covered with clay mud. They lay in a pile in the corner of the kitchen. Rust and green, rust and violet, rust and pomegranate red, all stuck together waiting for momma to wash. But she didn’t. She said if I insited on being dirty I was gonna show folks how dirty I insisted on being. And they saw. Mud tracks down the side walk, dusty fingerprints up and down the whitewashed fences. And the looks continued. The shopkeeper at the five and dime’s eyes would open wide then close to a squint whenever I came near the door. Not in here you don’t. The older boys at the fountain would glance, and then turn their greasy slick heads the other way. Too dirty to even think about it. I’d just prance back home, pour water onto dust and lay in the mud. And it went on like that until the cloth got too heavy to carry. So the dresses stayed in the corner of the kitchen, just a pile of clay and cloth.

I had taken to walking round town with just mud on when I met Reverend. The looks had stopped by then. Between the folks that thought I was plum out my mind, the folks who thought I was looking for attention, and the folks who didn’t give a damn either way as long as I didn’t come to close to them, people got tired of talking, and tired of looking.
Them same folks, called Reverend a holy man, ‘cept he wasn’t no preacher. Ain’t have no church house, no robes neither. He just sort of drifted from house to house spreading the word and prophesizing. Most times he could stay for dinner, every now and then he’d get took in by whoever was in the spirit. Most times he got to gettin’ in the morning before the spirit left, or round supper time when he wore out his welcome with somebody’s husband. Even Christians have limits, and it was round the end of Mista May’s limits, on one of them evenings, that Reverend came knocking on my Momma’s door. A broad tree of a man with skin like a thousand midnights, and hands big enough to take and save lives. He said he had a prophecy. Told my Momma I had demons, and he knew that that was something my Momma already knew, but he said what she didn’t know, on account that he hadn’t told nobody, was that he wasn’t just a prophesizer, but an exorcizer too. And that Jesus told him to knock on her door being that her child had demons and being that it was so cold and wet outside, and so warm in her house.
After supper that night, Reverend looked at me and said it was time to get to work. He asked my Momma to clear the table and went in the parlor. He came back with no shirt on and he was carrying a satchel that would have looked like a doctors case except it wasn’t leather. It was patchwork all over with a big yellow cross on the front. He said it was his special bag for Exorcisms and saving souls. Momma asked him why he was doing it in the kitchen and not anyplace decent, and he told my Momma that in a house of only women, the kitchen was were you could catch the most hell. After that she ain’t ask no more questions, told me to just do what he asked.

Reverend reached in his bag and pulled out four belt straps, a bible, a cross with Jesus on it, and a green bottle. He pulled Momma’s wash basin into the middle of the kitchen and told Momma to boil water. While the water was boiling Reverend started to sing. Amazing grace how sweet the sound. He grabbed me by my wrist. That saved a wretch like me. My feet were stuck, like that first day in the mud. I turned to look towards the back door and could feel my body calling out for it. I wanted it to mold itself around me, make me the bottom of things. I once was lost but now I’m found. Momma brought the water over to Reverend’s side. As he knelt down to pick up the water I tried to run out to the mud, but Momma held me where I was. She pressed against me so hard that I could feel her heart. Reverend dowsed Momma and I with the hot water, and as I watched the clay slide down my body, I began to cry. Was blind but now I see.
Reverend looked at me and my Momma. Looked us square in the face and said. Looked like both of you needed a good cleaning. Momma and I stepped out of the basin, bent down and both dumped out the dirty water.