say that once or twice before. It was the truth. The tent near glowed in the dark as she approached it. Inside, lit lanterns and the fiery passion of all them people made the thin covering shine yellow from the outside. As Rue neared, the applause that emanated shook away the smudge of black on the tent’s far side that she’d been thinking was a shadow. It was, in fact, a thick murder of crows that took flight and cawed as they did so. Such a synchronous exodus that. How’d they know? Not just to flee but to flee as one, none left behind.
Rue parted the flaps of the tent. The enthusiasm shook her, a blast of hot air. Standing before hard-hewn benches, a crowd of fifty or so folks, come from far and wide, were on their feet, praising. They needn’t have bothered making the benches. This was not a place for sitting but for standing up and hollering, for rising up in ecstasy to be that much closer to the good Lord. Their hands worked in clapping and fanning and upturned exalting. They stomped and sweated, raised up whorls of dust and grass into the air, audacious on the very spot that had once been the plantation House.
Rue’s man hotfooted at the front of the crowd in his usual glory, and there beside him, like a miniature in white robes, was Bean, holding out a collection basket half his size, taking in the action with the full of his big black eyes.
Bruh Abel threw Rue a wink across the crowd when she came in. Didn’t miss a step. Bean moved amongst the parishioners with his little wicker basket, collecting dark-colored coins and even dirty, coiling slips of paper money that he had to tamp down with his little hand, lest they get caught up by the wind. Folks gave and gave. Here Bean was, a little miracle, or the little miracle that they had made him, five years old, and he carried himself like a man. Who had taught him that? Up in the front Bruh Abel was kissing the wrinkled hands of some reed-bent old grandmama who was moved to weeping just to see him.
Folks left in an unhurried fashion. They kissed and hugged and goodbyed each other, exuberant, congratulating themselves for worship well done. They dropped money in Bean’s basket, rubbed his thick brown hair, same as if he were a rabbit’s foot, a disembodied thing for other folks’ luck. They streamed on past her and said, “Miss Rue,” if they knew her or just cast a smile in her direction if they didn’t. They knew she was someone important, leastwise, because she was important to Bruh Abel.
Rue waited as the tent all but emptied. Bean, drifting, neared her, and she caught his eye. “Miss Rue,” he said politely, and she liked the way he said it. He mashed the two words together like they were one. For him, there was no distinction. She was who she was.
“Bean, I brung you somethin’.”
He held out the collection basket and it made her heart hurt to see that that was what he was expecting. From her apron pocket she pulled out a little bag full of marbles. Bean’s eyes narrowed down to strange black stitches of delight when he smiled. He pulled the drawstring open and spilled them right out onto the grass aisle.
“I can have ’em?” he asked. His collection basket was all but forgotten now as he plopped down to play with the marbles. Rue laughed and scooped the basket up.
“?’Course you can.”
“Can I take ’em to play with her?”
An ill chill ran through Rue at that. Her enthusiasm shriveled but surely he had meant Sarah, his mama. Who else?
Bruh Abel came up on her from behind and put his arm around her waist, took Bean’s basket from her in the same motion.
“Y’all stayin’ on to listen to the next sermon?”
Bruh Abel’s services had grown so sought after, he’d lately had to double them. It was a fascinating thing to see them back-to-back. To watch the things he mirrored in himself and the words that came to him in one and not the other, the movements