Judith Mercado Short Stories and more ...

My Father As Mentor

2012-01-28T09:40:00.006-05:00

I learned from one who
through gentleness of spirit
embodied power.

With a quiet smile
he calmed the roiling waters
bringing clarity.

Trials never crushed
his gift of humanity
then bestowed on us.

Short Story - Janey's Turn

2012-01-06T08:48:00.003-05:00

I came up the companionway, soggy towel in hand. Why I thought hanging the towel on a lifeline would dry it out, I don’t know. Nothing dried in the muggy air of this stagnant Dominican Republic harbor.

My wife Janey stood in the cockpit, staring at a sailboat just coming into the harbor. I clipped my towel to the lifeline and held onto the forestay as I watched Janey.

She unhooked the VHF radio mouthpiece and spoke into it. “Stargazer, Stargazer, No Moss Here calling Stargazer. Over.”

Continue reading at Life As An …

Short Story - "Anna B's Owner"

2011-08-23T16:27:00.003-04:00

“I hear your brother’s living on a boat in the Florida Keys.”

I stared at this childhood friend, in town for a short visit, who had no idea what he had just done. Finally, I heard myself say, “Really? Where in the Florida Keys?”

“I don't know where exactly.” He squinted. “It's not Key West or I think I'd remember. Not Key Largo either . . . .”

Please don’t remember, Bob.

For the rest of the story, please continue reading at the SNReview.

Back Story for "The Details"

2011-05-11T06:53:00.008-04:00

Rose & Thorn Journal, which published my short story "The Details," has a recurring feature in which their authors discuss how their work evolved. My back story has been published here.

For a link to the story itself, go here.

Short Story - "Coins Dropping"

2011-05-09T17:33:00.003-04:00

Cacti tendrils brim over the clay pots below the peeling Rita’s Resale Shoppe sign. With her mitten, Ana picks at the hoarfrost at the window’s edge, trying to read the movie poster stuck inside the window. She has uncovered “Sandra Dee, Romanoff and” when Mami pulls her to the shop door.

Continue reading at Writes for All literary review.

Short Story - “Visiting Zora”

2011-04-13T09:52:00.001-04:00

Sarita didn’t really know where she was going. Before leaving for Ft. Pierce, an hour north of where she lived in Palm Beach County, she had not found the Garden of Heavenly Rest Cemetery on any map. She knew for a fact, though, that the place existed. Novelist Alice Walker had tracked down Zora Neale Hurston’s abandoned grave there and marked it with a stone memorial.

Short Story - “Til Next Year”

2011-04-13T09:36:00.004-04:00

Stuart walked out his front door. His olive corduroy slacks and dun-colored cable-knit sweater were as ordinary as any Fall day. Only the burnished red coat of the toy poodle scampering beside him indicated that this was someone worth noticing on Halloween, that most exotic of all holidays.

[More in Glossolalia ... ]

Short Story - “The Details”

2011-04-13T09:31:00.002-04:00

Mr. P sat upright in his rush-seat chair and held a cane between his knees like a scepter. His ash-brown, arthritic fingers gripped the stubby end of the homemade cane. His steel-wool hair was white like his crisply ironed shirt. Hatless, unmindful of the bristling Bahamian sun, he stared at the gentle waves lapping onto the sand. I’ve paid my dues, that uncovered head seemed to say. I no longer have to be on guard, not even against the sun.

[More in Rose and Thorn ...]

Short Story – “About a Boy”

2011-04-13T09:25:00.004-04:00

The rock-strewn peninsula jutted into the inlet. A wave detonated against the bow of the aging trawler heading in. Spray leapt up and cascaded onto the deck, spilling over the sides. From the promontory, Sarah measured the distance the trawler had to travel before reaching safe harbor in the bay. For the barefoot, tee-shirt-clad boy on the aft deck, it had to be a far piece.

[More in Gemini ... ]

A Graceful, Wise, and Humble Man

2010-10-22T10:35:00.014-04:00

The following is a translation of my remarks at the opening ceremony of the Mercado Library. The original in Spanish follows directly after the picture.

At this dedication and opening of the Biblioteca Mercado, also called the Mercado Library, the memory of a gentle, wise, and humble man, follower of God, is reborn in the memories of those who witness this inauguration. From this day forward, anyone who enters here will benefit from a legacy of respect for the written word, something which was essential in the life of Miguel Mercado. Poet, essayist, reader and preacher, he would have felt here as if he were in his own home.

As his blessed daughter, I am grateful to all those who have facilitated the establishment of this library; Doris Santiago, in particular; pastor Gilberto Novales also; and all those whose names I don't know.

I hope that this library will bring knowledge, spiritual formation and pleasure to all who enter here. I hope that each person will feel the warm welcome of the memory of my father. That memory is a heritage that everyone lucky to have known Brother Miguel has for the rest of his life.

Rev. Miguel A Mercado

En este día de dedicación y apertura de la Biblioteca Mercado, también denominada the Mercado Library, la memoria de un hombre gentil, sabio y humilde, seguidor de Dios, renace en los recuerdos de los que presencian esta inauguración. De hoy en adelante, todo aquel que entre aquí podrá beneficiarse de un legado de respeto por la palabra escrita, algo que fue fundamental en la vida de Miguel Mercado. Poeta, ensayista, lector y predicador, él se hubiese sentido aquí como en su propia casa.

Yo, como su dichosa hija, les agradezco a todos los que hayan facilitado el establecimiento de esta biblioteca; a Doris Santiago, en particular, al pastor Gilberto Novales también y a todos aquellos cuyos nombres desconozco.

Espero que esta biblioteca les aporte conocimiento, formación espiritual y placer a todos los que entren aquí. Anhelo que cada persona sienta la cálida bienvenida de la memoria de mi padre. Esa memoria es una herencia que todo aquel dichoso de haber conocido al Hno. Miguel lleva por toda su vida.

Dedicación y Apertura
Biblioteca Mercado (Mercado Library)
octubre de 2010
Iglesia de Dios Pentecostal, M.I., “Emmanuel”

Description of my father by the church:

"Un gran hombre de Dios, héroe de la fe, exegeta, erudito, poeta, y dedicado a la lectura y al estudio."

"A great man of God, hero of the faith, exegete, scholar, poet, and dedicated to reading and studying."

***

A Hero's Journey - A Son of Slaves Sparks an International Religious Movement

2010-02-03T20:43:00.026-05:00

In 1906, William Joseph Seymour, a pockmarked, half-blind son of former slaves, began a religious revival in a former stable in working class Los Angeles. Within two-and-a-half years, members of his multiracial Asuza Street mission had fanned out across the U.S. and 50 countries. By the end of the 20th century, this spiritual gold rush had converted Pentecostalism into a mainstream, even dominant, form of Christianity in many areas of the world. Today, with half a billion followers on all continents, Pentecostalism is the world’s fastest growing religion. Some scholars describe Pentecostalism as "the most important event in religious history since the Reformation."

Before I proceed, I want to disclose that, in speaking of Pentecostalism’s vertiginous rise, it is not as adherent. Though I am the daughter of Pentecostal ministers, I left the religion in my teens. If I sometimes sound admiring of what has happened globally to Pentecostalism, it is because I appreciate a fascinating story about how an ordinary black man changed the religious landscape and, by extension, the world. In so doing, he met one of the Encarta definitions of a hero: "somebody who is admired for outstanding qualities or achievements."

On Azusa Street, William Joseph Seymour inspired viable multiracial and socioeconomic fraternizing at a time when such a thing was unprecedented; indeed, criminalized. Though the revival began with poor blacks, it soon spanned the color, gender, and socioeconomic spectrum. Seekers from around the globe—European; Asian; American Hispanic, white and black; et al.—quickly converged on Asuza Street, lured by the riveting stories heard about Holy Spirit baptism, prophesying, and physical healing. Charwoman, business owner, and university president worshipped side by side, drawn to Asuza Street’s fiery revival, which many believed hearkened back to the earliest days of Christianity. And all this was led by an impoverished black man with limited educational and social resources, a man whose dying words would be “a plea for love among the brethren everywhere.”

Unfortunately, Asuza’s early bridging of racial divisions soon ran into rough weather. Its racially diverse worship devolved in less than five years into numerous Pentecostal sects, largely organized along racially segregated lines. It would take until the latter part of the 20th century for these divisions to start healing, and todayPentecostalism is one of the least segregated forms of Christianity. What seems undeniable is that, despite the racial and theological conflicts that emerged later, what many recognize today as Pentecostalism unleashed its global spiritual storm at Los Angeles' Asuza Street under the direction of William Joseph Seymour. Several books about Asuza have been written. A feature film about the mission is in the works. William Joseph Seymour’s significant contributions are enjoying renewed attention.

Because many, if not most, of my readers do not know what Pentecostalism is, I provide this brief primer. Pentecostalism is a renewal movement within Christianity which places special emphasis on a direct personal experience of God through the baptism in the Holy Spirit as evidenced by speaking in tongues. Harvey Cox has referred to its primal hope, primal piety, and primal speech. Beyond this, I hesitate to venture for fear of treading on the same theological quicksand which nearly suffocated the nascent Pentecostal movement. Moreover, Pentecostalism has always resisted being a monolithic movement, in part because of its emphasis on direct personal experience.

What is generally accepted now is that while ... "some of the characteristics we now associate almost exclusively with Pentecostalism—such as healing, speaking in tongues, and prophesying—[have] a long history dating back to the earliest years of Christianity, and before ... they all came together [at Asuza Street where] the Pentecostal movement began its earth-encircling career. It was at Asuza Street that Seymour injected the rapturous intonations of African American spirituality into the ecstatic Holiness piety .... The mixture was highly flammable." [Harvey Cox]

In addition to Seymour's personal role in the rise of Pentecostalism, I find noteworthy the movement’s evolution from marginal to mainstream status in a relatively short period of time. I especially find interesting the religion’s early ability to transcend gender and racial constraints. Martin Luther King Jr. once observed that the most segregated hour in America was Sunday morning at 11 a.m., when churches hold their weekly service. While Pentecostalism later suffered its own glaring shortfalls in racial tolerance, its early days were markedly different. Seymour's dying plea for love was a, perhaps inadvertent, foretelling of Pentecostalism’s eventual global reach. In addition, it may have evoked a poignant reminder of his disappointment that the early multiracial cohesion had not lasted.

When I was growing up, I never heard about Asuza Street or William Joseph Seymour. What’s more, the thought of Pentecostalism becoming mainstream or the world’s fastest growing religion seemed ridiculously farfetched. One of the reasons, though, that the Asuza story resonates for me is that certain aspects of my parents’ ministry reprised those of the Asuza experience. Among these are the startling influence of people from humble walks of life and the complete and uplifting surrender of followers to the spiritual experience of speaking in tongues.

The other reason the Asuza Street story particularly resonates with me is even more deeply personal. Comments I still hear about my late father resemble those made about William Joseph Seymour by the people who knew him:

"He is the meekest man I ever met ... simple-hearted ... [yet] you feel the love and power every time you get near him ... The glow would be on that man's face .... He didn't talk much ... [yet when he spoke from the pulpit] His voice was like the roaring of a cannon." [Larry Martin, see below]

On a much smaller scale, the trajectory of my father's work also resembled that of Seymour's. For both, the original humble mission evolved into a more grand and institutionalized version of itself. After my parents left Puerto Rico for the mainland U.S., they served as missionaries for their Pentecostal faith. Meeting informally in apartments and boarding rooms, they spread the Gospel among Latino working class families. As the years progressed, they and other Hispanic ministers became seminal figures in the creation of Spanish-speaking Pentecostal congregations across the U.S. Midwest and eventually internationally. What started out in living rooms evolved into storefront churches which eventually became congregations now housed in expensive, high-tech buildings, producing TV and radio broadcasts, and experiencing socioeconomic diversity.

Indeed, it is sometimes startling for me to visit my parents’ successor congregation and see present the town’s mayor and council members or to watch the youth choir belt out a hip hop gospel hymn. My father did not live to see this happen, but I can’t help but think that, once past his surprise, he might have smiled at the broad reach of his beloved religion. After all, in their courtship letters, my parents talked more about “saving souls” all over the world than they ever did about being in love.

An interesting coincidence between my father and William Seymour is that the latter died the same year my father was born. Seymour represented the first wave of the Pentecostal movement. My parents and their evangelizing peers represented a subsequent wave into Hispanic communities. Today, Pentecostalism's mainstream status and breathtaking pace of growth are a fulfillment of the treasured dream both Seymour and my parents had about their beloved religion. For me, the irony is that in both instances the original missions they shepherded may have been the most pure representation of their Christian faith.

Related Post: Music in Pentecostalism

Additional Reading:

The Life and Ministry of William J. Seymour and a History of the Azusa Street Revival by Larry E. Martin, a Pentecostal minister.

Fire from Heaven: the Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-first Century by Harvey Cox, a Harvard University professor. One of the most interesting chapters in this book is the comparison of jazz and Pentecostalism. Professor Cox, a jazz musician but not a Pentecostal, found parallels in the birth, development, and style of both movements.

Asunder - A Short Story

2010-01-31T12:06:00.001-05:00

This short story w0n the Literary category of the January 2010 Literary Lab Genre Wars Contest.

He turned away from the front window and said, “If she’s not here by now, she’s not coming.”

His wife shrugged without looking up from the tattered lace handkerchief she was darning. If thirty-four years of married life gave him license to guess, the shrug likely meant, “I never invested myself in hope.” But Edie didn’t say anything. Her mastery never lay in talking about what she knew, but in knowing what she knew.

From her shrug he was free to construct whole worlds. Sermons had been inspired from prior shrugs. Stoicism, he focused on one time. God’s will, another. Inner peace, a month and a half ago. Perhaps they all amounted to the same thing. If a shrug suggested an inner fortitude, accepting whatever happened, Edie had succeeded in finding the key to serenity. If their daughter Esther showed up or not in the next half hour, Edie would not falter.

“Mom’s like an old oak,” Esther said once, “standing stubborn and proud.”

“More like Earth Mother,” he had rejoined.

Esther laughed, not unaware of his condescension.

He could take no satisfaction now from their shared cleverness. It was no surprise that Esther could so easily overlook those other qualities of Edie he esteemed, like piety and devotion. He rarely mentioned them. If he inadvertently guided Esther astray in devaluing her mother, he surely never intended for her to end up in the barren, God-less terrain of a nonbeliever. He had named her Esther in honor of a Persian queen who saved her Jewish people from massacre. A strong woman who stands for principle, that’s what you want to be, he told her when she was young, adding quickly enough, a strong Christian woman. She only listened to half a counsel.

An old oak at least has leaves that rustle in the breeze, he thought now. Edie’s stillness had no language he could hear. He watched her needle penetrate the lace border; her movements small, measured, as if the old lace could only be repaired with painstaking care.

Add constancy and loyalty to the attributes we overlooked, Esther.

Edie’s stillness seemed to permeate every molecule of air, a stillness he had to escape. “I’m going outside for a moment,” he said.

She hardly seemed aware he was in the same room with her.

He opened the back screen door and suffered the whine of the rusted hinges. He would oil them tomorrow. If Esther came, he would absolutely oil them tomorrow. If you let her come, God, I’ll do it tomorrow.

He shook his head. He, of all people, should know that bargaining with the sacred for the mundane was a profanity.

He stepped into the back yard. The rose arbor overhead sheltered him from the still hot setting sun. He stood underneath and gazed out, the delicate scent of yellow roses reminding him once again that he could never remember their name. Nor could he remember the name of the spiky blue flowers towering above all others in the garden planted by Edie. He wondered if after more than three decades she remembered his sermons.

He suspected she did. Maybe not the fine turn of phrase he labored over for hours, maybe not the surprising classical allusions he inserted. More likely Edie remembered the title. It was perhaps his greatest challenge every week, how to condense into a meaningful but sparse phrase the potency of his message. Once the title of the sermon was posted, he would wait for Edie to walk up and examine it. If she nodded, however slightly, his delivery of the sermon was always lightened somehow. They shared that, he and Edie, the importance of the message. It guided their lives on a path of faith and committed worship. Why it failed with their daughter, he could never understand. All he knew was that somehow he had to be at fault.

He traced visually the tortured path the rose branches wove above him. When Esther was still with them, he had pointed to the juxtaposition of thorns and blossoms as a lesson in trust.

“You must trust that you can get beyond the thorns and end up with ample reward. Trust in God facilitates that journey.”

He ran his hand down his tie and let it rest on his belt. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Edie’s work bench sheltered under the eaves. He walked over and examined the elaborate tools hanging from the pegboard. Edie owned so many cutters. Did each type of plant require a different cutter? He unhooked the nearest one and turned it over in his hand. He’d have to get a ladder or risk cutting into the weave of intertwined lower branches.

Edie would never forgive him. He hung the cutter back on the board.

He heard a car coming down the street and listened as it approached. If it were Esther, he’d cut a rose anyway and hand it to her as she walked in the front door. Surely Edie would forgive him for desecrating her rose arbor for this occasion.

The car drove by without stopping. His breath escaped slowly. Tearing a leaf from the rose bush, he scrunched it in his hands and then looked down at what he’d done. The leaf’s green color was striated now. Smoothing it out wouldn’t rescue it. He stared at the mauled leaf, thinking, not for the first time, how unnatural his daughter’s withdrawal seemed. How could she not yearn to connect with her family? Even the prodigal son returned home in the end. And Esther wasn’t living a life of wasteful extravagance. At last account, she was teaching mathematics at an inner-city school, nothing to be ashamed about.

His arm dropped. The leaf floated onto the ground. He pulled the back door open and cringed at the whine of the hinges. Inside, he stood by the door and looked at his watch. 5:28. Seven minutes left before they had to leave. He turned to look through the screen at the rose arbor.When he suggested that thorns and blossoms were a lesson in trust, Esther had gazed at him evenly. “They’re just thorns, Father. No need to complicate matters.”

This became their dialogue’s running theme once she was old enough to acknowledge for all of them how unsuited she was for the family she was born into. All his sermons and admonitions, it seemed, were attempts to complicate matters.

“Life is challenging enough,” she said. “God is an unnecessary complexity.”

His life’s work reduced to unnecessary complexity.

Less than an hour from now, that life’s work was being honored at a church dinner. The entire congregation was coming. Pastors from neighboring churches were invited. A small insurrection among the younger women threatened for about a day to include Edie as an equal partner in the acknowledgement until Edie found out and absolutely prohibited it. He debated whether to convince her to change her mind, but then was distracted by something, he couldn’t remember what.

Maybe, by wondering how Esther would react to the news of his being honored.

They sent her an invitation.

Her response came by return mail. “Congratulations, Father. A prophet is honored in his own land. You must be pleased. Love, Esther.”

He had walked into the kitchen and wordlessly handed the card to Edie. She wiped her hands and took the card, read it, blinked hard once, and handed it back to him. With economy of motion, she picked up her knife and began slicing carrots. Only today, in a momentary lapse, did he deign to state what they already suspected—Esther was not coming. Two years earlier, their only child announced that she would never step foot inside a church again. Why should today be any different? In the only land I really care about, Esther, the prophet is not honored. Had it been that bad, being the daughter of a minister and the lightning rod for everyone’s hubris of spiritual mastery?

He walked into the living room. Edie remained bent over the handkerchief. He stood behind her and looked over her slumped shoulders. Her precise stitches had nearly filled the hole in the lace border. It was an old handkerchief, yellowed, hardly worth preserving.

“Dear, that seems like eye-blinding work. Don’t you have one in better condition?”

Her needle paused in mid air. Then both hands floated to her lap as her head rose, her gaze fixed on a distant point. Not for long. She soon picked up her handkerchief and bowed her head. “You don’t remember,” she said in an even tone lacking vitality.

What had he forgotten? “Would this have belonged to your mother?”A barely perceptible shaking of her head.

“I apologize for forgetting, Edie, but what don’t I remember?”

She paused in her stitching without raising her head. Then she inserted the needle into the lace again. “It was my grandmother’s.”

He still didn’t know. “Which one?”

“Grandma Hoxie,” she said in that dispirited voice.

He stood straighter and took a deep breath, careful not to be heard.

Esther Hoxie. He had named his daughter after a Persian queen, savior of her Jewish people. Edie had named her after her grandmother, a woman whose iron mettle was embroidered with the appearance of fragile womanhood.

Edie raised her head abruptly. “You know, I don’t know if it was just hers.” Her voice became almost animated. “It could have belonged to her mother, my great grandmother, Edith Bramley.”

He walked around to the sofa abutting her chair and sat down. “Remarkable. That it’s still here, I mean.” Remarkable that one would hold onto something so inconsequential for so long.

She bit off the thread and then searched through the sewing basket on the floor. It was an orgy of spools, yarn, and bits of fabric. She shoved it all to one side and felt on the bottom for something. He couldn’t understand how she didn’t get stabbed by loose pins. Finally she straightened up, a pair of scissors in her hand. She snipped the thread close to the lace and threw the scissors back in her basket. He watched them spear a ball of yarn.

She raised the handkerchief to the light, holding it on two corners. Even he could see that the fabric was thin to the point of translucency in certain areas.“

Are you well satisfied with it?” he said.

She tilted her head slightly to one side. The handkerchief floated to the floor. Immediately, she bent over to retrieve it and placed it on her lap. Almost without touching it, she smoothed out its creases. She started to fold it but her hand fell to her side. The handkerchief lay inert, fragile, and tired, and she stared at it as if trying to make up her mind whether she was satisfied or not.

Finally, she looked up. “It hasn’t fallen apart.” With deliberate slowness, she placed the handkerchief in her pocket.

“It is admirable that you take such good care of it.”

Her jaw muscles flickered. “Good care is necessary, Reverend.”

He winced. The Reverend was a dead giveaway. Patently unfair, he could have said. There were two of us here. One of us could have kept her in the fold. Instead, he nodded slowly.

Edie stood up, brushed her skirt, and started walking away. In front of the fireplace, her gaze fixed on the mantel clock. She stopped and turned stiffly.

She looked beyond him. “It’s time to go.”

He noticed her feet were awkwardly juxtaposed as if she couldn’t quite manage a complete turn. He rose and stepped toward her. Before he could reach her, she was in motion again. By the front door, she paused to pick up her purse. Only inches behind her, he reached around her to open the door with his left hand. His right palm rose as if to guide her through, but he let it drop.

Literary Lab interview with Judith Mercado:

Tell us about you.
Born in Puerto Rico to evangelical ministers, I moved at a young age to the U.S. That immersion in Latino and religious cultures preceded later experiences as a businesswoman and trawler live-aboard. My short stories have been published in literary magazines. My novels await publication. I blog at http://judithmercadoauthor.blogspot.com./

Tell us about your story.
“Asunder” emerged from asking the question, “How would a minister and his wife feel about their atheist daughter's rejection of the belief system that had defined their lives?” The story is not autobiographical though my parents were evangelical ministers, and I also left their church, albeit not to become an atheist. The central issue of a clash of beliefs is still the same, but the story’s characters and plot bear no other resemblance to my family’s story. I found that creating fictional characters freed me to address a question I often ask myself about my parents’ probable pain and dismay at my abandonment of their church. Had I been trying to write a memoir about that, I might have felt inhibited. That said, the question’s resonance for both the fictional and also the real-life families led me to care deeply about how the story’s characters resolved their situation. As I came to know them, though, I also became aware that their issue went far beyond their daughter’s rejection. I realized that these characters already had a history of not connecting with each other on a meaningful level. This was a family torn asunder on many levels, not just the specific issue of whether the daughter showed up or not for a dinner honoring her father.

Tell us about your future.
My literary plans and hopes include completing my work-in-progress novel, continuing to write for my Pilgrim Soul blog, finding literary agent representation, and—starry-eyed hope of starry-eyed hopes—getting my novels published and read by book buyers!

Between The Amen And The Hallelujah – A Short Story

2009-11-18T15:13:00.002-05:00

This is what happened between the amen and the hallelujah. It was a stormy Sunday morning, not one for venturing out to church, certainly not in a foreign country where we didn't even know where to go. It's not that we were faithful about attending services back home. We went barely once or twice a year, but it became a church morning despite the inclement weather.

The amen came in a thunderclap. I was still in bed, half asleep, not quite awake when the skies split open and spewed out damnation.

"Amen!" my father would have said.

He was a Pentecostal minister, the kind who breathed fire and then salved the pain by the laying of hands. He was a dancing preacher man. Got up in that pulpit and, Lord, he was gone. Something took him over—I won't say the devil got to him because that's what he was preaching against—but his voice strummed like a bass guitar strutting out a beat or a howling banjo stringing out a scream. It was all jumbled up together and in between came the hush. Like a singer dropping to pianissimo, he pleaded with sinners to come up and fall on their knees.

"God is forgiving," he sang to them.

"But don't tempt God's fury!" he was quick to shout, and if you didn't run up to the altar, oh Lord Almighty, then came the blast from hell. It was the hell he was trying to save you from, but which you knew you were destined for if you didn't get up to the front and let the preacher anoint you and bring you back to Jesus.

So when I heard the morning's thunderclap, I knew instantly I'd been a sinner and needed redemption and needed it fast. Fast, before the devil could get to me.

First, I had to get myself to a church. I couldn't just fall on my knees where I was. I had to get sanctified. Anointed by the hand of God's messenger. And for that I had to find a preacher in the shortest time possible.

I didn't bother telling all this to my well‑bred, New England Episcopalian husband. He couldn't be expected to know the precise etiquette for rinsing sin from one's life. His version of good living was being a sober citizen who did well by his family and neighbors. That's how he earned salvation. He couldn't begin to comprehend the calamitous consequences of not responding to an altar call. He'd never felt that kind of sin. Sin like that was too vivid. It was an assault on the cultured senses. And maybe that's why I'd been so attracted to him. He seemed civil and sane compared to what I'd gotten used to as a child, when sins were expelled and sinners were saved and redemption came from loud, holy living with no pastels and ahems.

But every now and then, I had to find my own kind. Never mind that I hadn't been a churchgoer, really, for twenty‑odd years. Didn't matter. It was in my blood. Had gotten in there before I was even born, when I was bouncing around in the belly of my mother who'd been struck by the Holy Spirit and began speaking in tongues and dancing around church and jumping up and down. You don't get over something like that. Not in one lifetime. Maybe not even in the next. Maybe my children have a chance because they've been bred by a sedate New England father and their mother hasn't danced with the Holy Spirit since she became a sinner and left the holy brethren of the saved.

Which didn't do anything for me right now. I'd become brethren the instant my own father immersed me in a tank of cold water and baptized me in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. From that moment forward, the faithful owned my blood, even if they failed to hold on to my mind.

That must be why the thunderclap made me think church had started. I must have thought I'd heard a tambourine and a cymbal, a horn and all the shouts that are part and parcel of a Pentecostal service because I got up that morning and announced to my husband that I had to get to church. Any church, it didn't matter. I just had to be on hallowed ground. I couldn't explain why. I couldn't make sense of it myself. The brethren had held on to my blood and by extension my heart and entrails. That was enough for me to know I had to get saved.

So I dressed quickly, which wasn't easy because we were on a boat. We were cruising through the islands and things like dresses for church hadn't been assigned a high priority. I had to dig down deep for a proper dress and dig even deeper for proper shoes.

And then I didn't know where to go. So I told my husband that he just had to go with me. I wasn't about to set off by myself in a strange country where I didn't know anybody and nobody knew me. Churches I knew they had to have. There is not a place on God's earth that doesn't have a church, even if it's just a rock cairn by the roadside. It's just getting there I didn't trust. Especially being in this mood I was in, feeling like a sinner, thinking the devil was waiting, lurking, ready to pounce. And if I was wasting time on figuring out if the cabdriver was honest or even in trying to find a cabdriver, I'd have to relax my vigilance against the evil Lucifer, and that just couldn't be done.

Had I lost my mind? Well, yes, in a manner of speaking because this church business of mine had nothing to do with the mind. When I got to feeling this way, it's because I had lost my mind. I wasn't surprised when my husband looked at me like I was crazy. I was. But he—tempered, sane, measured person that he was—decided not to comment. He just went in there and dug himself out some clothes that might be passably appropriate for a church‑going excursion.

We left our boat—easy enough to do since we were at a dock and not at anchor. Thank God for small mercies. Imagine if this had happened while we were at anchor and in some secluded spot.

But we were at a dock and all we had to do was to jump down and walk to the end, find a street, and hail us a cab. At least, that's all I thought we had to do. I'd forgotten we weren't back home. There was no cab. We were on a little island with two roads, both of them hilly, and, as far as I could tell, there were no cabs. At least none on a stormy Sunday morning.

So we looked left and right and thought maybe left looked more promising. Maybe the road was wider in that direction, I don't know. Left we turned and began climbing a small incline, and we walked and walked and walked and walked and still found no church. Couldn't even hear a church. I mean, the churches I'd grown up in, you couldn't miss them a block away. Well, we couldn't hear a single soul so we kept going and sometimes the hills went up and sometimes the hills went down and nowhere was there a church, but we had to keep walking. My dress was plastered to my thighs. My feet slid in my shoes, but we had to keep walking!

I kept saying this to my patient, now long‑suffering husband who couldn't understand how church could call so viscerally. He hadn't grown up with the fire, hadn't known the fire until he met me, and even then he hadn't known it because I'd made it so opaque with the camouflage of my mind. He thought my shrieks and squeals were passion, but he hadn't seen or heard real passion. He hadn't rolled on the floor yelling, glory! Nor danced to the heavenly beat pulsating in his veins or sobbed while singing hosannas. He thought he had seen passion in me, considered me quite colorful, in fact, had been enchanted by that color. He had no idea how washed out it had become by the time he came to know me. It had been dimmed by my mind, the books, the learning, all the polite discourse of orderly society. He had never seen the real me, the one left behind more than twenty years before. He had never met the one who screamed, here I am, Jesus! and knew she was saved.

So if he was patient and understanding now, it was because he was not really being tested. What would happen if the church we finally came across was a Pentecostal church? Would he still love me when he saw me leap from his side and shriek hallelujah! and twirl and jump and dance and laugh and weep because I'd finally come home?

Published in Rosebud
Copyright, Judith Mercado, 2005

La Vida del Pastor - The Pastor's Life

2009-11-11T13:59:00.001-05:00

Rev. Miguel Angel Mercado

The following is a poem-in-progress discovered after my father's death. When words are bracketed, it means he had x'ed out the words.

Cuando a tus puertas llegue el desaliento
When discouragement shows up at your door

y la tristeza minar quiera tu vida
and sadness wants to undermine your life

recuerda del Señor, su buen ejemplo
remember the Lord’s good example

cuando la embarcación estaba pereciendo
when the vessel was about to capsize

serenó a la mar embravecida.
He calmed the tumultuous seas.

Tu vida cual la mía va navegando
Your life like mine sails

con rumbo fijo a la eternal orilla
with sure direction toward the eternal shore

si en alta mar te asalta el desencanto
If disenchantment assails you on the high seas

no temas: persiste ante el quebranto
fear not: persist in the face of heartbreak

acude al Capitán de tu barquilla.
call for help to the Captain of your small boat

Si la duda nublare tu esperanza
If doubt should cloud your hope

y al parecer tu rumbo está perdido
and your course seems to be lost

clama al Señor, pidiendo su guianza
call on the Lord, asking for His guidance

Él te dará valor y confianza
He will give you courage and confidence

y te será cuan bonanza en tu camino.
And will be like great riches found on your way.

Arrecifes, tormentas, y huracanes
Reefs, storms, and hurricanes

hay en el mar por dónde va el Pastor
appear on the sea the Pastor traverses

corrientes de peligro y fuertes vendavales
Dangerous currents and strong windstorms

querrán hundir tu nave de sueños pastorales
want to sink the vessel of your pastoral dreams

pero no olvides que en ella va el Señor.
but don’t forget that the Lord is there with you.

El viento de dónde sopla
The wind from whence blows

El viento cesará, la mar estarase quieta
The wind shall cease, the sea will calm

habrá fuerte bonanza y a puerto llegarás.
You will have great success and arrive in port.

Podrás decir cuan Pablo, Acabado he mi carrera
You will be able to say, like Paul, I have finished the race

[Por lo demás me está guardada, una corona bella]
[Furthermore, a beautiful crown awaits me]

y una corona de vida que Cristo me dará.
and a crown of life Christ will give me.

Los [fuertes] grandes desalientos, las luchas y las [pruebas] tormentas
[Strong] Great discouragements, struggles and [trials] storms

Incomprensiones muchas, [encuentras por doquier] jamás han de faltar.
Many misunderstandings [you find everywhere] you will never lack.

Muchos [no entienden del Pastor sus] no saben tus lagrimas, tus quejas
Many [do not understand the Pastor’s] do not know of your tears, your complaints

[Pero Dios que conoce tu vida y tus problemas]

[But God who knows of your life and its problems]

[te dará la Victoria, como Pastor que]
[will grant you Victory, like a Pastor who]

[cuando estalla el huracán de los problemas]

[when the hurricane of problems erupts]

[resolviendo los multiples problemas]
[resolving multiple problems]

[que estallan] ante ti, [con furia de huracán] cual huracán
[that erupt] before you [with the fury of a hurricane] like a hurricane

ante el rugir de múltiples problemas
facing the roar of multiple problems

que amenazan [cual] con la furia de huracán
which threaten [like] with the fury of a hurricane

Gózate en éste día, de pie, ante la bandera
Rejoice today, standing tall, before the banner

La Guerra será tuya, cuan vencedor
The War will be yours, as the victor

No hay que temer, la vida del Pastor
Fear not, the life of the Pastor

es vida puesta en aras [del] de la fé.
is one dedicated to the cause [of the] of faith.

Es
It is

Translation by Judith Mercado who is fully aware of the difficulties inherent in translating poetry and furthermore is not a professional translator. If you have any suggestions, please share them in a comment.

A Roundup of Lamento Borincano Interpreters

2009-11-06T10:57:00.005-05:00

Bronx Latin Jazz All-Stars

Son Guajiro - Herencia Antillana

Laúd

Piano

Renato Pérez Guitar

Marc Anthony

Thanks to Lars Johnson, I have discovered a good rendition by a female vocalist,which is in the música típica tradition rather than in the operatic vein. It can be downloaded for a fee here. You have to scroll down through the album selections to find "Lamento Borincano." I have not figured out how to make it available as I have the above selections, but it is worth a listen.

Preciosa by Rafael Hernández Marín

2009-11-03T10:22:00.000-05:00

Yo sé lo que son los encantos
I know the enchantments

de mi Borinquen hermosa.
of my beautiful Borinquen.

Por eso la quiero yo tanto.
That’s why I love her so.

Por siempre la llamaré Preciosa.
I will always call her Precious.

Yo sé de sus hembras trigueñas
I know of her dark-skinned women

sé del olor de sus rosas.
I know of the scent of her roses.

Por eso a mi tierra riqueña
That’s why my Rican land

por siempre la llamaré Preciosa
I will always call Precious.

Isla del Caribe
Island of the Caribbean

Isla del Caribe
Island of the Caribbean

Borinquen
Borinquen

Preciosa te llaman las olas
Precious, you are called by the waves

del mar que te baña.
of the sea that bathes you.

Preciosa por ser un encanto
Precious, for being enchanting

por ser un Edén.
for being an Eden.

Y tienes la noble hidalguía
And you bear the noble standard

de la Madre Espana
of Mother Spain

y el fiero cantío del indio bravío
and the fierce song of the ferocious Indian

lo tienes también.
you also have.

Preciosa, te llaman los bardos
Precious, the bards call you

que cantan tu historia.
who sing your history..

No importa el tirano te trate
It matters not that the tyrant treats you

con negra maldad.
with black wickedness.

Preciosa serás sin bandera,
Precious you will be without a flag,

sin lauros, ni gloria.
without laurels or glory.

Preciosa, Preciosa,
Precious, precious,

te llaman los hijos de la libertad
the sons of liberty call you.

Preciosa, te llevo dentro
Precious, I carry you inside

muy dentro de mi corazón
deep inside my heart.

y mientras más pasa el tiempo
And as more time passes

en ti se vuelca mi amor.
My love turns on you.

Porque ahora es que comprendo,
because now I understand

porque ahora es que comprendo
because now I understand

que aunque pase lo que pase,
that happen what will happen,

yo seré puertorriqueño.
I will be Puerto Rican.

Yo seré puertorriqueño
I will be Puerto Rican

por donde quiera que ande, o,
no matter where I roam, oh,

por que lo llevo en la sangre
because of what I carry in my blood

por herencia de mis padres.
as inheritance from my forebears.

Y con orgullo repito
And with pride I repeat

yo te quiero, Puerto Rico.
I love you, Puerto Rico.

Yo te quiero, Puerto Rico.
I love you, Puerto Rico.

Y por eso es que me nace hoy
And that is why I am inspired today

dedicarle este canto
to dedicate this song

a ese noble jibarito Rafael
to that noble jibarito Rafael

y a mi isla del encanto.
and to my island of enchantment.

Yo te quiero, Puerto Rico.
I love you, Puerto Rico.

Yo te quiero Puerto Rico.
I love you, Puerto Rico.

Translation by Judith Mercado. Please comment if you have suggestions for improved translation.

Lamento Borincano by Rafael Hernández Marín

2009-11-02T19:56:00.001-05:00

Sale loco de contento con su cargamento
Ecstatic with joy, he leaves with his load of products

para la ciudad ¡ay! para la ciudad
for the city. Oh! for the city.

lleva en su pensamiento todo un mundo
carrying in his thoughts an entire world

lleno de felicidad ¡ay! de felicidad.
filled with happiness. Oh! filled with happiness.

Piensa remediar la situación
He thinks of bettering the conditions

del hogar que es toda su ilusión, sí.
of the home representing all his illusions, yes.

Y alegre, el jibarito va pensando así,
Happily, the jibarito goes along, thinking,

diciendo así, cantando así por el camino:
saying, singing along the road:

“Si yo vendo la carga, mi dios querido,
“If I sell my products, my dear God,

un traje a mi viejita voy a comprar.”
I’ll buy a dress for my old lady.”

Y alegre, también su yegua va
Happily, his mare trots along

al presentir que aquel cantar
sensing that the song

es todo un himno de alegría.
is wholly a hymn of joy.

En eso les sorprende la luz del día
About then, daylight surprises them

y llegan al mercado de la ciudad.
and they reach the city market.

Pasa la mañana entera sin que nadie quiera
The whole morning passes and no one wants

su carga comprar ¡ay! su carga comprar.
to buy his products. Oh! to buy his products.

Todo, todo está desierto, y el pueblo está lleno
All, all is deserted, and the town suffers

de necesidad ¡ay! de necesidad.
from necessity. Oh! from necessity.

Se oye este lamento por doquier
This lament is heard throughout

de mi desdichada Borinquen, sí.
my unlucky Borinquen, yes.

Y triste, el jibarito va pensando así
Saddened, the jibarito goes along, thinking,

diciendo así, llorando así por el camino:
saying, crying down the road:

“¿Qué será de Borinquen, mi dios querido?
“What will become of Borinquen, my dear God?

¿Qué será de mis hijos y de mi hogar?”
What will become of my children and my home?

Borinquen, la tierra del Edén
Borinquen, Edenic land

la que al cantar el gran Gautier
which, in song, the great Gautier

llamó la perla de los mares.
called the pearl of the seas.

Ahora que tú te mueres con tus pesares,
Now that you drown in your sorrows,

déjame que te cante yo también. Yo también.
let me sing to you as well. As well.

Borinquen de mi amor
My beloved Borinquen

Yo soy hijo de Borinquen
I am a son of Borinquen

y eso nadie va a cambiar.
and no one will ever change that.

Yo soy hijo de Borinquen
I am a son of Borinquen

y eso nadie va a cambiar.
and no one will ever change that.

y el dia en que yo me muera
And on the day I die

en tí quiero descansar,
in you I wish to rest.

yo te adoro, Puerto Rico,
I adore you, Puerto Rico,

y eso nadie me lo va a quitar.
and no one will ever take that from me.

Translation by Judith Mercado. Please post suggestions for alternative translations if you wish.

The African Yoruba Religion and its Influence on The New World

2009-10-19T13:54:00.001-04:00

The following talk was presented at Palm Beach Community College:

I will be reviewing Yoruba religious concepts presented in The Handbook of Yoruba Religious Concepts by Baba Ifa Karade. I also use as additional reference Harvey Cox’s Fire from Heaven as well as numerous anthropological studies about the Yoruba religion in The New World.

The Yorubas are an African people whose empire until the nineteenth century was centered in western Africa where Nigeria is today. From the Yoruba nation came the largest percentage of the millions of Africans forcibly transported across the Atlantic in the slave trade. This diaspora brought with it a Yoruba culture that came to dominate the subculture of the slave societies in The New World, with an important distinction in the way this occurred in Protestant versus Catholic countries. Catholicism, as I will discuss later, lent itself to being used as a covert front for the ongoing practice of their Yoruba religion by the slaves. In the U.S., this proved more difficult, but aspects of Yoruba worship entered the Protestant religious practices of African Americans.

Today, the Yoruba religion, called Ifa, is practiced not only in its original form, but also in its syncretized form, i.e. in a blend of Catholicism and Ifa. The original form of Ifa is practiced today primarily in Africa, though a small number of African Americans have recently also started practicing it here. In Cuba, Haiti, Brazil, and other Latin American countries, the religion is practiced by substantial numbers in its syncretized form. Immigrants from these countries to the U.S. also practice the syncretized Yoruba religion here.

The influence of this African religion, however, does not end there. The roots of the ecstatic form of worship of today’s fastest-growing religion may also be traced back to the Yorubas. This new religion, which began about 100 years ago in the U.S. and which now numbers more than half a billion people worldwide, is growing at 20 million per year. It already comprises the largest non-Catholic Christian denomination. I’m talking about Pentecostalism, which Harvard professor Harvey Cox says is taking the world like “a spiritual hurricane.”

So what is the Yoruba religion? What are its origins and what are its beliefs and practices, both in original and in syncretized form?

“The origins of the people and culture known as the Yoruba are so wrapped in antiquity that to say exactly where and when it all began is impossible.” [B. I. Karade, p. 1] The oral tradition of the Yorubas maintains that they are practicing the original religion of humans on earth. We also know from their oral accounts that the Yorubas are thought to have lived in antiquity in the mid-Nile region or what is now knowm as Egypt. They then migrated west across Africa sometime between 2000 and 500 BCE to the area now known as Nigeria. Their religion came with them.

That religion, Ifa, embraces the concept of a single supreme god, called Oludumare. This god is believed to have created angels, called orishas, who are emanations of the One Source and whom Oludumare sent to Earth to assist in the spiritual evolution of humankind. In addition to the angelic forces, there are also demonic beings, the ajogun, who are forces whose destructive intent is to waylay the evolution of humankind’s salvation. Finally, the Yorubas believe in the egun. ancestral entities who after having distinguished themselves on the moral plane while on Earth are now guardian spirits. They are held up as models for the living to emulate and have left behind a set of codes for social conduct and individual behavior. These ancestral beings are also believed to reincarnate.

The Yoruba belief in reincarnation is not the Hindu belief of reliving on and on through karma, but one of a constant reliving of morals and values. In fact, reincarnation of good ancestral souls is desired because by returning to Earth, they strengthen the lives and spirits of their descendants. And this leads to another of the Yoruba central concepts, that the family and community take precedence over the individual.

The Yorubas also believe that when Earth was very young, sixteen heavenly prophets, called The Ancients or The Elders, were sent here by the Heavenly Council. Their mission was to elevate the consciousness of the people on Earth. These sixteen prophets also revealed themselves later to a Yoruba man, Orunmila, who is thought to have lived sometime between 4000 and 2000 BCE; that is, while the Yorubas were still in the Nile area. Born of humble parents, Orunmilla became the great spiritual teacher of his people and is now considered by them to be a deified person, comparable to the Son of God in that he is both human and divine. Orunmilla reformulated for his people a system of ethics, religious beliefs, and mystic vision that had already existed eons before his birth.

What are these teachings? In addition to the belief in a single deity with multiple angels, they include beliefs in:

· an earthly versus heavenly consciousness.
· that humans have the means and potential to reach alignment with the divine and reach a state of divine oneness,
· that the endeavor to reach the divine is arduous but that it is our destiny to return to our divine nature and live upon the Earth as a reflection of that divine state,
· and that this destiny can be fulfilled by following a system of moral ethics, by practicing certain rituals and sacrifices, and by divination.

I will speak of the divinatory, ritualistic, and sacrificial elements of the Yoruba religion later. For now, I will focus on its code of moral ethics. Handed down orally from The Elders is a body or work containing over 439,000 verses which express religious life through mythological, historical, and social development terms. It is the job of the Yoruba priests (who are both male and female) to learn and apply this knowledge and wisdom to facilitate transcendence and salvation for spiritual seekers. One example of these verses is the following:

No matter how powerful wickedness is, righteousness overcomes it in the end. The power of falsehood is transient and ephemeral. Truth although seemingly slow and weak overcomes falsehood in the end.

In addition, handed down from their revered ancestors is the Yoruba equivalent of the Jewish Ten Commandments, except that theirs are thirteen in number.

There is to be no:
1. no practice of wickedness.
2. no stealing.
3. no selfishness.
4. no covenant breaking or falsehood.
5. no hypocrisy.
6. no act of atrocity committed against one’s neighbors.

There is to be:
7. honor and respect to the Elders.
8. protection of the women.
9. truthfulness and uprighteousness.
10. kindness and generosity.
11. sensitivity in respect to person-to-person relationships.
12. chastity in respect to the vows of mates.
13. hospitable directives.

Prayer is also an essential aspect of Yoruba worship. It is done for three reasons: supplication, purification, and elevation of base human qualities. Prayers are often sung or chanted in rhythm or harmony with music. The setting can include candles, incense, water in bowls, and fruits.

Ritual music and dances are also a defining aspect of this religion. Much of the ritual revolves around the belief in the orishas. In some ways, these resemble the angels of our Judeo-Christian-Islamic culture, but they can also be called lesser gods who form a bridge between the human and the divine. Through specific dances and songs, devotees believe they can call upon the orishas to take possession of their bodies, thereby enabling the human to experience the divine. These ritualistic dances and music can also be considered to be a form of prayer.

The Yorubas have identified many orishas, but there are eight who predominate, almost equally divided between male and female deities. A devotee usually identifies predominantly with one of these eight entities, so that all their lives they are considered a “daughter” or “son” of that deity. Each deity has distinguishing characteristics. For example, Oshún is described as the goddess of unconditional love. She is associated with the rivers as a symbol of clarity and flowing motion, but has may manifestations ranging from short-tempered to calm and fluid. She is also the divinity of fertility, and women appeal to her for child-bearing and alleviation of female disorders. Brass, gold, and shining gems are often used in the rituals of her worship.

Divination is at the heart of the ritual ceremonies to the orishas and also of a devotee’s character development. Divination in essence is an attempt to understand the mindset of the gods. It is performed by male and female priests and has three specific objectives: to understand and control the forces in one’s life, to inquire what offerings are expected by the orisha, and to enquire if the offerings have been accepted by the orisha. The priests and priestesses use different implements to aid their divination process, including cowrie shells, kola nuts et al.

Animal sacrifice and other offerings are part and parcel of Yoruba worship. To our Western minds, the nonanimal offerings of fruit, flowers, tobacco, cloth or foods may not be much of a stretch, but the sacrifice of animals perhaps is. The thinking behind this sacrifice though is as follows: the essence of primal power must be replenished and, apart from air, blood is the single most powerful representation of life’s essence. To describe it in an analogy more understandable to us today, when we eat meat, through a transformation of energy within our bodies, that meats coverts into and replenishes our life force. To the Yoruba, blood sacrifice accomplishes this on a more global level.

Finally, Ifa is a nature-based religion. All of nature is viewed as a manifestation of God Essence and as such is revered. But it is not the tree or rock itself that the Yorubas “revere and worship, but the deep energy that brought about its being.” [B. I. Karade, page 21] Think of this concept in terms of our American flag. When we pledge allegiance to the flag, we do so because it is a symbol of something greater, our nation; and that nation, in turn, is a symbol of something else, our sense of the importance of community.

We might better understand the Ifa religion if we accept that “it is through rituals and initiations that the essence beyond the intellect is awakened. That essence is spirit. [But] the culture of the religion must be accepted, for culture and religion cannot be separated.” [B. I. Karade, page 109]

I have described briefly the religion of the Yorubas as it is practiced in the homeland. What happened when this African religion was transported to The New World? The newly arrived Africans were not permitted to practice their native religions. In the Catholic areas, they discovered that Catholicism with its Trinity, the many representations of the Virgin Mary, and its canonization of humans into saints provided them with an opportunity to practice their religion, just with new names. In fact, to this day New World ceremonies are performed in the original African language and in much the same way. However, in the Middle Passage, as the crossing of the Africans is called, the religion suffered one important change in that “the mysticism [of The Old World] has been overshadowed by occultism.” The New World forgot that “the aim of the mystic or priestly powers is not to dwell upon occult powers but to seek that divine essence.” [B. I. Karade, pages xi-xiii]

In the Protestant U.S., the Africans were also not permitted to practice Ifa. Unlike those transported to Catholic lands, however, they found no easy way to disguise their religion. In addition, a greater emphasis on inbreeding rather than on importing slaves minimized the renewal of religious fervor and purity via the newly arrived Africans. Just as importantly, however, the religion of their oppressors lacked the numerous patron saints and the deification of women of the Catholic religion. The lack of a tropical environment also made it difficult to maintain the integrity of their rituals. Even so, slaves maintained the Africanness of their religious expression through spirituals, shouting, intense preaching, etc.

Which leads me to Pentecostalism. This religion is a very experiential one. It believes that each person can directly and personally experience God through receiving the Holy Ghost. In its more demonstrative form, this is manifested through “speaking in tongues,” also called glossolalia. To the extent that Pentecostalism has a theology, it is one that is often sung. It would startle many, including perhaps the majority of its practitioners, to find out that the roots of its ecstatic worship possibly could be traced to the Yoruba religion. The elements of trance, ecstasy, visions, dreams, and healings were very familiar to the Yorubas, and certainly dancing, jumping, and speaking in tongues have many parallels with orisha possession. So how was the link made between the Yorubas and Pentecostalism?

The Pentecostal religious movement began in 1906 in a former stable on Azusa Street in Los Angeles. Under the leadership of a black American, William Seymour, a community of humble servants and tradespeople—black, white, Asian, and Latino—joined in unprecedented equality to worship God in a new way. Principally, but not exclusively, that new way incorporated the direct experience of spirit through speaking in tongues. According to Harvey Cox, “At Azusa Street, a kind of primal spirituality that had been all but suffocated by centuries of western Christian moralism and rationality reemerged with explosive power.”[H. Cox, page 101]

The mission’s leader, Seymour, had grown up in the enthusiastic milieu of Southern black religion. Led by this descendant of African slaves, the multiracial Azusa community sparked an international spiritual revival. Word spread out quickly about the exhilarating and unorthodox Azusa Street revival, and visitors came from all over the world to observe. Within two years, the movement had fanned out to fifty countries. About this, Harvey Cox says, “[The] resurfacing of archetypal modes of worship, elements that lie close to the surface in some cultures but are buried more deeply in others, helps explain why the movement raced across the planet with such electrifying speed.” [H. Cox, page 101]

Yet even in the early days, seeds of dissension emerged in the movement. Among the mission’s early visitors was Seymour’s former theology teacher, a white man. Upon visiting, he was shocked to discover a highly exuberant atmosphere marked by songs, testimonies, spontaneous sermons, joyous shouts, prayer punctuated by sobs and tears, intercessions for the sick, and speaking in tongues. But he was even more appalled by the mixing of the races. He went away vociferously condemning the mission for being too much of a ‘darkey revival.’” [ibid. page 61] Sadly, a movement that had begun in a spirit of racial equality soon divided in the U.S. along rigidly racial lines. But the fire of that revival would not go out completely, and today the spirited expression of an enslaved people whose soul would not die dances across the globe in the Pentecostal movement.

Copyright Protected, 1995, 2009

The Cry of Lares

2009-09-25T19:40:00.000-04:00

My father never stopped talking about la plaza de Lares. It had the only two details of Puerto Rican history he thought important. First there was the church, a colonial Catholic relic anchoring the plaza at one end. Then, in front of it, a monument commemorated El Grito de Lares, an ill‑fated nineteenth‑century insurrection against Spanish rule. I’d never actually seen the plaza. In their faraway Chicago projects, papi and mami never rubbed enough chavos together to take us back to their homeland before they died. Yet here I was, after an overnight sail from the Dominican Republic with three prep school buddies, serving as their guide to Puerto Rico, about which my older sister, Aida, used to say, If that stupid Lares was so frickin nice, why papi and mami leave it then?

“But, Angie, you don’t look Puerto Rican!” one of my friends had said when he overheard me speaking Spanish easily to the Customs agents. I was exhausted and almost blurted, “What the hell’s a Puerto Rican supposed to look like?”

I caught myself in time, aware I might not have recognized me either. My fair skin, slender features, and height had long since been my uneasy passport into an Anglo world. It didn’t surprise me that some of my friends had no idea I was Puerto Rican. At the prep school where I’d met them nine years ago as a scholarship student, I had stopped letting anyone know. I’d gotten fed up with the startled looks I got from teachers and classmates alike, especially when, not infrequently, those looks were followed by a stiff smile and change of subject.

Serve you right, I could almost hear my sister, Aida, saying. You think you can get rid of that stain of plantain on your forehead so easy?

Now in Puerto Rico, first thing my friends wanted to know about was the local food. “Where’s a good place to eat?” they asked.

How would I know? I had just gotten into Boquerón harbor myself. And I had been a baby when papi and mami left Puerto Rico. For all I knew, the cheap arroz con gandules that mami used to make, here in Puerto Rico it was served only in the shacks of farmworkers, like papi used to be.

At the Boquerón restaurant I chose because it was the first one we came to, I found the same pasteles and mofongo, tostones and plátanos maduros my mother used to feed us. I took a bite of mofongo, served in its traditional wood mortar, the mashed plantain and pork redolent of mami’s favored garlic, and I practically closed my eyes and moaned.

“Wow, this is delicious,” my friend Sally said.

What the fuck she know?

Yeah, I could hear Aida saying that. I also knew what she would say about these güeros I was sailing with through the Caribbean.

They just using you, girl.

I knew perfectly well that for my friends, this restaurant was a titillating excursion into a primitivism absent from the upper classes that had sent them to a place like Andover. So I was not surprised when they followed up with, “You have to tell us what’s really different to see in Puerto Rico.” My boyfriend, Gene, was not the least of those who insisted.

Eugene, my father had said, pronouncing it eh-oo-jing when he first heard about him. ¿Eugenio? he then said, the hope in his voice almost brimming over the telephone line.

I didn’t blame him for thinking I’d hooked up with the namesake of one of his Puerto Rican heroes. He didn’t realize he was asking about Eugene Fields, scion of an old Martha’s Vineyard whaling family. But then I’d have to explain what scion meant, where Martha’s Vineyard was, and what an old whaling family was. Worse, I’d have to admit to my ninth-grade-educated father, a hard-pressed janitor and part-time waiter, that Gene’s father had never sweated a four-to-twelve shift in his life. That the only work he did was to pull himself away from tennis to make stabs at overseeing the generous portfolio inherited from several generations of Fields. Or that, other than a sailing instructor job at the Edgartown Yacht Club, his son Gene had never worked a real job either.

It was just as hard to explain now to my sailing buddies that I didn’t know central Puerto Rico from coastal, that I knew the capital was San Juan and that somewhere in the central highlands was a plaza de Lares, but that was about it. Yet I didn’t want to disappoint them either. Our two yachts had sailed together since leaving the States six months earlier on the one-year adventure their respective trust funds had made possible. While underway, we had supplied each other with critical spare parts, laughed and eaten together every night, and even defied the brutal Mona Passage to get to Puerto Rico. I owed them a good time. They were paying for this adventure. The $593 left in my savings account sure wasn’t.

Mami and papi should have been the ones making a trip in a rental car through Puerto Rico’s mountains. Instead it was I, who had never claimed Puerto Rico as mine, who knew more about hamburgers than about bacalaítos, who now led us toward my family talisman, la plaza de Lares.

You really going to take them to that jíbaro town?

Well, I wasn’t stupid. They didn’t know yet that’s where we were going. If Lares was really a hillbilly town, we’d just pass on by.

We left behind Boquerón’s urban patina and began climbing well-paved but narrow winding roads. To our left on the hillside were bursts of gigantic ferns. The other edge cascaded down into green slopes. Every now and then, we passed cement‑block houses clinging to the side of a hill or gaily hued wood plank houses raised on concrete blocks or stilts, their roofs corrugated metal.

Mami and papi would have felt lucky to own one of those shacks, I thought, barely aware of the others in the car as I imagined my parents’ joyful faces taking in every sight.

But after two hours of steep winding roads and hair-raising switchbacks, I stopped thinking about my parents and started to get nervous. We should have arrived in Lares already. I kept checking the map but couldn’t figure out where we were. I could sense Brad and Sally in the back, sliding impatiently across the seat. So when we came to a small plaza on one of the infrequent plateaus of the central highlands, it didn’t surprise me that Brad blurted, “Okay, let’s stop here.”

I noticed immediately there was no monument. This was not Lares, thank God. I didn’t have to feel badly about making them travel for hours to get to such an ordinary rural town.

We parked on a side street abutting the plaza. From the back, Sally leaned forward between the two front seats. “Look!” She pointed through the windshield to the old stucco church at one end of the plaza. “It’s got stained-glass windows.” She opened her door and got out. “I’m going to go see those windows.”

Sally’s art history thesis had been about medieval stained-glass windows in France.

Caramba, friggin art history. The girl obviously never had to worry about how she was going to make a living. What was I doing with these people?

I could a told you that long time ago.

Gene got out of the car with the other two and was about ten feet away before he noticed I was not with him. He doubled back and leaned into the front seat where I sat and stared through the windshield.

“You coming?” he said, placing his hand on my shoulder.

I shook my head and pointed to the map.

Why you doing this for papi, hon? If he wanted to come back he could a done that. We weren’t that poor. He had a credit card.

Gene tilted his head to one side and frowned. “You okay, Angie?”

I smiled crookedly. “Oh, sure. I’m just trying to figure out where I am.”

He straightened up. “Okay, but don’t take a lifetime. It won’t be as much fun without you.”

Why? So I can guide you through the foreign territory most of your parents’ social class views with smug disdain? More than once, at their cocktail parties, I had overheard someone snicker about niggers and spics. And these were mostly liberal families whose ancestors had once been active in the Underground Railroad and who, themselves, may have participated in the Civil Rights marches of the sixties. In the safety of their own cloister, though, the veneer was stripped off and they could spill their guts.

And I watched it happen like a flyspeck on the wall. It was easier than dodging bullets in a high-rise project.

Cut the crap. You there ’cause you like their goddamned money.

No, I’m here because I like having the wheel-watch at dawn while Gene sleeps below and it’s just me and the sails and the wind on my face and for once I don’t have to think about who I’ve left behind versus who I’ve taken up with.

I followed Gene’s progress across the plaza. I’d never taken him to the housing project my parents moved into in my sophomore year. For all I knew, Gene might have stepped into my parents’ living room with all the naturalness of a born gentleman, but I never wanted to find out otherwise. It didn’t matter that he had known I was Puerto Rican almost from the moment we met. If anything, he had cajoled me into teaching him how to dance salsa long before Ricky Martin introduced the mainland to Living la Vida Loca.

Then again, did he think that’s all Puerto Ricans were good for? To have fun and dance?

I inhaled sharply and turned to my map, but it didn’t become any clearer the longer I stared at it. Suddenly I became aware of music playing somewhere in the distance. I looked up and noticed a bar at the opposite end of the plaza from the church. Its exterior wall of olive‑green wood panels was folded to the sides, exposing the bar completely to the street. I didn’t recognize the tune, but pretty soon my hand started striking my thigh. I leaned back and closed my eyes, almost sensing the pavement below the car quaking with the salsa rhythm.

I remembered those long-ago sweaty house parties my parents used to take me to. I’d stand at thigh level, my face close to the thrusting, swinging hips, my eyes following the dancers gliding across the linoleum of the cramped living room. I could still smell the raw cheap cologne, the whiff of rum, the oppressive cigarette smoke hanging over everything like a blanket, and the odor of onions coming from somebody’s bacalao encebollado. I used to pretend to slurp the onions and codfish.

I stowed the map back in my purse and got out of the car, one hand still striking my thigh, the other placed flat on my midriff. My hips began a slow swing. Then I blinked and glanced around me.

No one had seen me. Gene and the other two were heading up the steps into the church.

So much for you being their guide. They don’t even notice the damned music.

Why should they, Aida? They hadn’t awakened each morning to a radio blaring Celia Cruz or Tito Puente.

I stared at that bar across the plaza. All I could see were the dim outlines of strangers sitting or standing inside. “¡Oye, coño!” somebody shouted over the blaring salsa.

A fight?

Maybe. That was the other thing about those house parties. Eventually somebody got pissed off at somebody else or drank too much and then all hell broke loose and mami and papi hightailed it out of there, laughing. That is, until drugs arrived big-time on the scene and fights started getting settled with guns. And not the least of those settling scores was my sister’s boyfriend Chucho, who now found himself settling scores behind barbed wire.

¡Caray! Why’d I have to go and think about that now?

Gene didn’t know about Chucho, just as he had never met my sister, who would have marched right into that bar and asked for directions to Lares. Aida had the biggest cojones of anyone I’d ever known.

Cojones hadn’t saved her from her boyfriend’s needle.

Yeah, there were worse things than bigoted in-laws.

In-laws? Get real. Remember that time Gene’s grandmother wanted to know what city in Spain your grandparents came from?

Right. Like it was a historical accident that I just happened to be born in Puerto Rico instead of Sevilla. Not even my grandparents had been born in Spain. I was Puerto Rican!

What kind?

I cut across the plaza, muttering to my sister. You’d at least better lend me some of your cojones, Aida, because I’m going to that bar to ask for directions. I’m going to find that damned Lares and scream my own shout of independence.

I stood across the street from the noisy bar. About a dozen people sat at the counter and at tables, their backs to me. Except for the occasional outburst, they didn’t seem to be affected by the salsa music that made me want to close my eyes and sway on the arms of a partner who carried the rhythm in his bones. It had been so long. So long. Not since I got on that plane to head east when I was sixteen years old. Not since then had I closed my eyes and given in to the yearning to dance merengue for hours until even the sweat expired.

Muchacha, contrólate. I could just hear mami hissing in my ear to get ahold of myself.

That was the thing about mami. Country jíbara that she had been, she still had plenty of expert advice about what a good girl should do in Chicago. And after we stopped chortling, Aida and I, each in our own way, made mincemeat of those instructions.

Aida would tell me now in that throaty voice I’d not heard since she entered Hospice the last time, You go in there! And if they even look at you funny, tell ’em to stick it up their cul-- Oh shit, Angie, don’t you go get all correct on me. Just move your tight ass and get into that bar and ask those creeps for directions. Mami’s not here.

Aida was right. If I could just catch the bartender’s eye, I could find out how to get to Lares and be out of that bar in a couple minutes. That’s all I needed. Two minutes. Not a lifetime.

I waited until the slender bartender raised his head and looked in my direction. I smiled wanly and started crossing the street. He never took his eyes off me. Perhaps he whispered something to his customers because a handful turned around when I was almost at the threshold. I stopped short, instantly aware that they were all men staring at me with half‑open mouths. My snug knit top and shorts felt like two postage stamps.

¡Mujeres decentes no entran en un bar! My mother’s hissed words slithered in amid the thumping salsa rhythm.

But, hey, mami wasn’t here to lay down her rules about decency, learned by her in a rural town like this one.

Step over the edge, the eyes of the men in the bar seemed to say. Define yourself.

I remained standing on my side of the threshold.

The salsa turned into a slow, sensual bolero, and still I remained where I was.

Fuckin’ books, girl. They confused the shit outta you. Relax! Have a toke.

No, Aida. Not then. Not now.

Then, niña, get on with it!

Neither was I about to go inside that bar. Never mind that I’d never hesitated to enter a bar in a reputable neighborhood back in the States.

The bolero sang of the perfume of gardenias on a lover’s lips. All the bar’s patrons now faced in my direction, poised for my decision. I could smell their cigarettes, the yeasty smell of whiskey. When I made no move to come in, a man at the counter put his beer bottle down, slipped from his barstool, and headed toward me.

Oh God. Was he going to ask me to dance?

¡No te atrevas bailar con ese hombre!

Mami, puh-leeze, I’m not going to dance with this guy.

I held my ground, hearing the melancholy harmonies thickening the air around me, missing keenly my wonderful Aida who would have laughed and snapped her hips from side to side before sashaying over to this stranger. ¡Ay, Aida! Gene should have met you. You would have shown him what an authentic Rican was like.

The oncoming man was about my age, his skin color the same as mine, his features similar.

Was he a relative?

It was possible. We couldn’t be that far from Lares. So how would I explain to him my being at a bar? I noticed his rolled‑up sleeves and long pants and felt chillingly naked under his expectant gaze, the same gaze I saw on the other men who watched silently, their breath shallow like mine, their skin transparent to the blood pulsing underneath.

It was too late. Without ever crossing the threshold, I had failed mami. My near nakedness had already broadcast a particular truth to these strangers. Had my hips also undulated to the salsa beat as I’d approached the bar? Had my eyes dimmed when the bolero’s guitars first strummed? Is that why they were staring at me like that?

¡Muchacha, salte de ahí! That would be mami insisting that I get out of there.

My knees felt wobbly as I watched the stranger coming toward me, his intentions unclear. Aida had always fought my battles while I crawled into my beloved books. Everybody knew that if they messed with Aida’s little sister, eventually they’d reckon with Aida or her boyfriend Chucho, leader of the bad-ass Caritainos.

Then I went and abandoned her for the East Coast.

Don’t you forget where you came from, she said at the time. And I don’t mean that fucking Lares shit.

The man stopped in front of me and smiled. Shyly? Or was he coming on to me?

“Joo nid elp?” he said.

I froze and then almost burst out laughing. He thought I was American! American. I did not have to live by his rules.

Oh, Aida. He agrees with you.

In a rush of Spanish, I said, “Yes, yes, thank you very much, I do need help. I wonder if you might tell me how to get to Lares.”

The astonishment on his face was obvious from the first word I uttered. “But you speak Spanish so well! Where did you learn it?”

“From my parents. They were from Lares.”

“You’re Puerto Rican!”

I nodded, fighting the sadness filling me with weariness as I looked into the face of someone who could be my cousin but who had seen my disguise instead.

He stared at me for a moment and then stated flatly, “You want directions to Lares.”

I nodded.

“Okay. Desde esta plaza . . . .” Waving his arms, he launched into a detailed explanation of where I was to turn next and where after that and that afterwards I was to follow a road which seemed to go south but would really head north.

“Just a moment. Just a moment. Let me get my map.” I dug into my purse and pulled it out and then handed it to him. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Gene and the others now headed across the plaza toward me.

The man took the map with him to the counter, unfolded it and bent over to examine it. I started to follow him in and stopped abruptly, having hit the invisible wall of the solid magnetic force of the men’s eyes on me. I shivered and stepped back, knowing full well what those eyes were saying: your instincts were to come in, weren’t they? You don’t fool us. I pivoted toward Gene and waved for him to hurry up.

“He’s the driver,” I announced to the entire bar when Gene finally arrived. I already stood taller in front of those too male eyes.

“I can’t go in there,” I whispered in English to Gene. “Bring him out here if you can’t understand him.”

With sign language, Gene somehow managed to convince the man to come out of the bar, which was just as well. I could not have said it out loud. Admitting to those men that going into a bar was not appropriate behavior for a decent Puerto Rican woman missed the point. I demonstrated my proper rearing with my actions, not my words.

Guess that’s why you still around and not me, hey, Angie?

It didn’t have to be that way. You could have gone clean and--

Yeah, right, don’t start.

The man came out and with the map pressed against an outside wall showed us how to get to Lares. I caught his eye as we said our subsequent good‑byes. I swear there was an added note of respect there. I could recognize that look, too.

So go ahead and find that stupid Lares for papi, Angie. Lay a wreath or something. You the only one left now can do it.

The roads we took next were just as steep and winding as the ones behind us. They might have been entirely forgettable except that once, we cleared a switchback and gasped collectively. Downhill, about twenty caballeros trotted toward us on paso fino horses, the entire cavalcade silhouetted against the valley behind them. In their wide‑brimmed hats, dark moustaches, full white shirts, and fitted black pants, they transported us into nineteenth-century Spain. None of us made any comment as the horses danced by us, but I could barely keep myself from grinning. At last, I’d given these güeros something memorable. We didn’t really have to go to Lares.

Angie, what you got to prove to these people? What’s up with that? You better than they are!

Only when the clip clop faded behind us did we move on. Not long after, rain began to fall, spreading a blanket of mist over the gigantic hillside ferns and lush green valleys. I glanced at the backseat. Brad had nodded off. Sally smiled vacantly at me. At the wheel, Gene frowned as the rain fell steadily. Maybe we should head back to Boquerón. I’d hate to get caught at night on these challenging mountain roads. Anyway, what did these three güeros care about Puerto Rican history?

I was about to suggest we call it a day when we came to what could almost be called a highway. Flamboyant roadside signs announced shriekingly urban businesses like Lares Sandwich, Colmado El Grito, El Lareño Reparación de Autos.

This was Lares? Surely papi wouldn’t have gone on and on about something as ordinary as this?

She-e-t, Angie.

But famous songs and poems had been written about this town! Papi didn’t make that up.

Maybe the closer we got to the center of town, the more quaint Lares would become?

I looked over and saw a Chevy dealership by the side of the road, the Puerto Rican flags hanging limply in the rain.

When you ever pay attention to what papi said?

I sighed. I’d give anything to hear his soft-spoken broken English right now. Joo nid elp? Yeah, that’s where I’d heard that pronunciation before, papi standing over a table at his second job, pad and pen ready to take a customer’s order for arroz con pollo.

Suddenly, my heart started pumping hard. “Oh my God, that’s it! That’s it!” I’d seen the belfry of a distinctly colonial church at a distance. “That’s the plaza we’re headed for.”

“Where?” a visibly relieved Gene said.

“See the belfry?” I pointed through the windshield, which was occluded by the persistent rain.
He peered through the window and nodded. “You know how to get there?”

Papi would have known. “No, but we could turn into a road near it and see what happens.”

But the closer we got to the belfry, the harder it was to see over the rooflines of nearby buildings. What’s more, the highway descended into a valley, and we could no longer see the belfry from above. When the road ascended again, I turned to look through the rear window, and sure enough we had passed it by. We doubled back and turned into a narrow, hilly street lined with vintage, narrow stucco buildings, painted pastel pink, blue, or yellow, their tall slender windows topped by elegant cornices. I breathed easier. Maybe papi had been right after all. Maybe beautiful historic Lares did exist.

Except that now, without the belfry as a beacon, we were truly driving blind. We made turn after turn to find it. Occasionally, one of us caught another glimpse and yelled, “Turn at the next corner!” Each time, the peculiar twists and turns of the narrow colonial streets thwarted us. We even ended up back on the highway once.

“It’s almost as if that plaza doesn’t want us to find it,” Gene said.

Got that right. Think about it, Angie. If that plaza was so damned important, papi would a found a way to get back. Besides, I thought all you ever wanted to do was to erase la mancha de plátano that screamed that you was Puerto Rican.

No, all I ever wanted was freedom of choice.

“Can’t you ask someone for directions?” Sally said behind me.

And of course she was asking me. But when I did see someone, he or she was running to get out of the rain, disappearing before I could call out. Or perhaps I hesitated until the last possible moment, afraid it might be one of my relatives. Though how in the world they’d recognize me, I don’t know, but I knew they had to be around here. Was I afraid I’d be embarrassed by my family?

You don’t owe those rich asshole friends of yours nothing.

Truth is, being invited to the homes of my jíbaro relatives was exactly the authentic local color experience my companions kept seeking in their travels. In fact, now that I had explained to them that this is where Puerto Rico had declared its independence from Spain, they seemed to be more frustrated than I that after twenty minutes of driving in seemingly endless circles, we couldn’t find that plaza.

We kept glimpsing the belfry, getting closer and closer, until finally it looked as if it were at most a couple blocks away. It was then the sky opened up and emptied gigantic calderas of water over us. Visibility dropped to a couple feet. We had to stop by the side of the road while thunder and lightening crashed all around us. Nobody said a word, especially me who was acutely aware, physically so, of the proximity of that belfry. It seemed to imbed itself in my side, not with a sharp poke, but with a dull ache.

I told you, girl. You don’t have to do this.

Even with the car’s air-conditioning, steam rose from the upholstered seats. I could tell from the now doubtful faces peering out through the flooded windows that the desirability of exploring yet another colonial town was beginning to lose its luster.

Maybe they wondered if this storm with its fierce winds was also lashing Boquerón harbor because at one point, Brad drawled, “Think our anchors are holding?”

“I hope so,” Gene said through tight slim lips. “If not, I hope some good Samaritan hops aboard to keep us from ramming into somebody else’s boat. Or worse.”

Then they didn’t say anything else. For more than fifteen minutes, I could hear us shifting in our seats and sighing deeply as the storm raged unabated. In all probability, the others were trying to recall whether they had closed all the hatches and portholes tightly. Or whether the dinghies left at the town dock were secure or if in our haste to be under way, we had tied them loosely and now they were on their way out to the Mona Passage, never to be seen again.

Gene looked at his watch a fourth time. I glanced at my friends, at those smooth profiles untouched by gunshots and eviction. Or by choosing between paying this month’s light bill or buying medicine.

I knew it was up to me to free them from their obligation to me.

“Let’s head back,” I said with relief. “What’s one more Spanish colonial plaza?”

That’s right, girl. You don’t belong here. You just a Chicago Rican.

Yeah, like I belonged back in the Chicago barrio.

Published in Nassau Review
Copyright protected

Below

2009-09-21T18:47:00.000-04:00

His vomit was the color of the sea--turbid gray with flecks of white. It emptied over the side just ahead of the wave arched high above us. To keep him from tumbling overboard, I grabbed a fistful of his shirt. With my other hand, I gripped the wheelhouse doorjamb. I might be left holding torn cloth when the wave hit. Or he could pull me down with him. I released some of his shirt. It billowed and flapped in the unlucky air swirling around us. He turned his head toward me, his face ashen with contrition. He had lied to us and realized I knew it.

The wave exploded over us in a torrent. My fingers slipped off the doorjamb. My feet slid toward the toe rail. I managed to hold on to his shirt but couldn’t tell if it had a body in it. I pulled on the cloth. He was still inside his shirt. The bow leapt up. I lost my grip on the shirt.

Through a waterfall haze, I saw his hand yearn toward me. But I couldn’t save him. I had to get inside. Almost kneeling on the deck, I grabbed the doorjamb. A wave detonated against the bow and sprayed upward. My knees flexed against the unforgiving sea rushing by me ankle-deep. I had to get inside the wheelhouse before I got sucked toward the stern, before the next wave cleared the bow and finished off what strength I had.

I scraped myself across the threshold, then lunged toward the captain’s chair and wrapped my arms around its fat stanchion. One hand at a time, I pulled myself upright, halting each time a wave pummeled the boat. When high enough to look out the window, I looked for Percival but couldn’t see him anywhere. Why had he not come back inside and shut that door? Was he still out there gripping the railing and throwing up overboard?

Water puddled at my feet. Forget Percival. I had my husband, Brian, to worry about. If God was merciful, Brian was sleeping through all this after eHopefuight bruising hours of hand-steering the boat. It was his first sleep in three days. Four hours, I promised him. You can sleep four hours.

If I can last that long, I didn’t tell him.

I had to last that long. It was either me standing watch or Percival, that seasick, lying specimen of humanity passing himself off as crew. Forget about feeling more exhausted than I had ever felt in my life. Forget about the queasiness slithering in each time the boat leapt and plunged and scrabbled sideways. I was not allowed. One hour still remained on my watch.

I glanced through the windshield lashed by wind-propelled rain. The only clear sight was of spray. A boat shoe squeaked on the wet deck behind me. I turned to look. Percival stood hunched in the starboard doorway, his arms braced high against the doorjamb. Long stringy hair lay plastered against his skull. His eyes burned feverishly, as if he knew I’d almost released him to his eternal damnation.

You lied to us.

I shivered. As if his lies mattered now. The two of us somehow had to keep this boat afloat so the captain could get some sleep and we could all live.

I nodded to him. Percival, a fanciful name, as fanciful as his stories. Water cascaded off him as he slid the door shut. He leaned like sackcloth against the bulkhead and caught his breath, his eyes in some distant, parched land where his heart must wish his lies had taken him.

Hold on to something, I scolded silently. Don’t you know that by now?

I turned toward the GPS plotter to see if we had been driven far off course since I’d left the helm.

“Thank you.” I heard his voice scratch out above the whistling wind and creaking boat.

I nodded, but only barely. Thanks for what? For standing his watches as well as mine? For saving his ass when I could barely take care of myself, let alone the boat? Hell, I was seasick, too, but I was functional.

“Is there something I can do?” His feeble tone managed to whine.

“You can figure out where between limbo and hell we are,” I spat out before I thought better of it. Sleep deprivation did that to you.

“Look, I know I haven’t—”

The voice grated. I whirled around. His face crumbled. A grown man, close to thirty, and he had been caught. A coward and a liar. Couldn’t stand up to the sea. Couldn’t own up that he’d never even been to sea.

I don’t get seasick, he had said when he presented himself as crew back in Tortola. We, eager to leave and not finding any other prospects, hired him, taking on faith his claim that he had crewed on boats heading north for the season. Yeah, he’d never been on a trawler before, but all we needed was someone to spell us on the overnighters of the seven-day trip to Bermuda.

Percival showed up, whether like an eejit or by God’s grace, we didn’t know at the time.

We knew now.

“Go lie down,” I said. “I can handle this.” Never mind that I had not had more than three hours of sleep a day since starting out four days ago. At least I was attuned to the nuanced laboring of the diesels. I knew when they were in distress and when they were merely riding the troughs and swells. Get out of the way, I meant to say to Percival, but didn’t waste my time.

He raised his febrile eyes, blinked hard, and swaggered toward me. I couldn’t bring myself to look away from the spittle on his lips and the stubble on his haggard skin. Brian, below, would not hear me yell above the obliterating racket of the engines. I was on my own, Percival only a foot away.

Up on the flybridge deck, I could hear the dinghy scrape across its cradle each time the sea banged into us. Would the lines holding it in place snap? Percival stopped scant inches from the helm chair. Not taking my eye off him, I slid to the other end of the seat, my shoes now touching the deck. Above me, the heavy dinghy continued to scrape. How long before the weight of that restless dinghy tore off the wheelhouse and laid me bare before this raging storm?

Percival gripped the arm of the helm chair with both hands. The salt water soaking him couldn’t mask the smell of vomit and old sweat and something acrid I couldn’t identify. He might just be bracing himself against the violent sea, but I was not taking any chances. What did I really know about this man? Only that a fellow yachtsman sort of knew his brother. And that he got seasick when he swore he never did and that he knew next to nothing about boats, hardly even knew forward from aft.

A body, Brian had said. That’s all we need. A body that can alternate watches, someone who can read gauges and alert me when he notices a variance. I can teach him everything else.

Simple enough if we had not encountered these horrendous seas.

Percival’s knotty fingers bit into the cushioned chair arm. I had to check the fuel flow. We were consuming too much fuel. That’s what I had been about to do before his burning eyes fixed on me. I grasped the edges of the console and recorded the solitary darkness around us. The ship’s clock was in the saloon. I couldn’t tell if it was closer to ten or to eleven. The storm had blurred the edges of night and day.

Percival leaned toward me, his lips ringed by green. The boat rolled heavily from one side to the other. His lips contorted. He lost his grip on the seat and lifted an arm toward me. I twisted away and got ready to swivel the helm chair to unbalance him.

His head snapped back, and he lurched to the door and yanked it open. The wind roared in.

Vaguely I sensed the bow pitching upward.

Stop going out there! I wanted to yell. I can’t keep leaving the helm to follow you. Christ, where is there a bucket he can use?

I waited. Percival did not return. The darkness outside had swallowed him. And the damned door was still wide open. Spray coated everything with grimy salt. I dropped down and held on to the console’s raised edges. What would Brian do? The seas now came from all directions--on our nose, on our starboard beam, our stern quarter. All the more reason not to leave the helm.

The boat slid into a trough. The engines bogged down. I waited to hear if they would correct themselves. The sea lifted the boat and we surfed forward. The engines accelerated.

Okay, I sighed. The engines are okay. I can check fuel consumption later.

I slid one foot in front of the other and headed toward the side door. Each time a wave slapped the hull, spray flew in. The closer I got to the door, the louder my shirt flapped against my wet skin. The boat creaked and grumbled with each pitch and roll. The bulkhead leaned closer, then further away from me. Dishes inside the galley cabinets crashed like cymbals. At least the cabinet doors still held and flying disks did not spew out. But I heard nothing from Percival.

The boat rolled out of rhythm to starboard and then heaved high before up righting herself. I grabbed a bulkhead molding and still almost fell to the ground. Someone leaning over the outside rail might have flipped overboard on such a sudden move.

When the boat steadied herself, I peered out the door into a gloom where only demons and dervishes should thrive. I couldn’t see Percival. I jerked the door closed and rushed through the wheelhouse toward the other side, knocking a knee against the bulkhead in my haste. A movement on the console caught my eye as I passed by. Why was that engine tachometer needle flailing from side to side? I stopped and listened to the engines. Over the shrieking wind and sea, I isolated the engines’ throbbing and droning as they struggled to resynchronize themselves. Please stay together, I begged. You have to get us to Bermuda. You must stay together.

The engines whined and gulped but always fell short of resynchronizing. The starboard engine’s tachometer kept fluctuating. No damn way around it, I had to wake up Brian. I pivoted toward the companionway to go below and get him. A wave crashed against the hull with a loud bang.

Where was Percival?

Forget about that fool. The engines came first. They were our only shields against this bully sea.

I groped my way down the companionway and ran aft between the engine compartments, assailed by blistering hot air. Waves thrashed the hull, and I was keenly aware that I was now below the water line.

I pulled open the door to the stateroom. Brian already stood by the bunk, putting on his glasses.

“I heard it,” he said and rushed past me.

“Brian,” I called to his receding back. I meant to tell him about Percival.

By the time I caught up with him, Brian stood before the wheelhouse console, scanning the gauges, his skin the same blue cast as the darkness. “A fuel problem,” he said soon after and shut down the starboard engine.

We’re okay, I told myself. We still have another engine to get us into Bermuda.

Brian throttled down the other engine, turned off the autopilot, and headed us directly into the waves. “Hold it on that course,” he said through barely moving lips.

I took the wheel and watched his head disappear below the companionway railing. Four days at sea without a break. Muscles so tired his hands shook. And now he had to change fuel filters in the middle of the worst storm I had ever seen. Lord help him. Help us.

Us. Percival. Where in the hell was Percival? He should be helping Brian.

“Percival!” I shouted, and that’s all I could do. I couldn’t leave the wheel now.

“Percival!” I yelled again.

I heard nothing. I looked behind me through the saloon windows and saw only a cloud of darkness.

My God, I did not tell Brian we might have a man overboard. Should I leave the wheel now and alert him?

What? Endanger Brian and me to go after someone who had endangered us? Where was the justice in that?

Don’t let this storm reduce you to its level.

“Percival!” I screamed until my throat was raspy. At momentary respites from the sea, I held on to the wheel with one hand and flapped my other one high above my head. If he was still aboard, he might notice and come back in.

He didn’t. Jesus, what if Percival was out there in the water? Why hadn’t we installed an intercom system so I could ask Brian what to do?

The remaining engine worked overtime, but it couldn’t make up for the loss in power. I barely kept the boat headed in the right direction. My muscles ground against each other each time I pulled the wheel from one side to the other. On this heading, the waves pounded constantly on the nose. I stared at the radar, noting peripherally the compass and console gauges. No rear-view mirror here to see if someone was being tossed around in the foaming sea behind us.

“Percival!” I yelled.

Could he be on the afterdeck? Or maybe he’d crept into the saloon while I was below alerting Brian? I craned my neck to look behind me. The back of the sofa hid whatever might be lying on its cushions. If Percival was there, he either didn’t hear me or wanted to ignore me or he was too damned sick to care.

If he was already in the water, it might be too late.

It might not be. If we doubled back, we might find him. People survive. That’s what they seem peculiarly equipped to do.

I was by myself, damn it! How was I to turn the boat around, search for Percival, and rescue him all by myself? Brian couldn’t help me. He was in the middle of changing filters. The unexpected course change might even compromise his delicate maneuvering to change the filters. Or injure him.

God bless it, Percival, where are you? You should be below helping Brian! Be a man, for goodness’ sake. Show up!

If he was bobbing out at sea, he couldn’t very well do that, now could he?

You must find him.

Not in these seas. Not by myself. Just let me worry about what I’m supposed to be doing, not about saving somebody.

A needle swung in my peripheral vision. I turned immediately to look.

Oh, no! The other engine! Our remaining engine now alternately suffocated and gasped to maintain its RPM. And we were still 300 long miles from Bermuda.

Stay with us, Engine. I bumped up against the console as if it were a pinball machine. Each bump said, Come on. Be good. Be kind. Stay with us. Be nice. But I felt as if I couldn’t get the quarters in fast enough.

The needle free-fell to zero.

No engines.

Immediately, I sensed the loss in vibration. Amid the roaring and surging around me, the boat felt becalmed. I waited a moment to see if the needle shot up by itself.

It didn’t.

I tried to restart the engine.

It wouldn’t start. That would not happen until the fuel filters were replaced.

I dropped down from the helm chair. For a moment, I just stared at the radar. The driving rain made the screen look like snow for miles. If a boat were about to collide with us, I wouldn’t be able to tell.

Percival.

Damn. Percival. On top of everything else.

Well, Percival, if you’ve dropped overboard, we can’t save your sorry ass now.

I inched my way back to the saloon to see if he was on the sofa. The boat tossed around as if her tons weighed no more than a tin can.

No one slept on the sofa. No one lurked in the galley.

I opened the door to the afterdeck, surprised again at how much more deafening the noise was outside. If Brian couldn’t get the engines running, how long would we last out here? How long before the batteries lost power? Maybe I should call on the radio now, before the batteries died, to alert someone, anybody, that we needed help. Maybe I should get out our survival gear.

Percival was not on the afterdeck. I let my eyes become accustomed to the gloom and stared out at the tumultuous sea. No man plunged and surfaced. No human body surfed on those thirty-foot waves. I went back inside.

At the top of the aft companionway to our stateroom, I bent over and yelled, “Percival!”

No answer.

“Brian, is Percival down there?”

No answer.

I couldn’t waste time going below to ask Brian. Not if there was a chance of finding Percival.

Maybe he was hanging by an arm from a stanchion, banging repeatedly onto the side of the hull.

I fumbled through the saloon back to the wheelhouse, looking constantly through the side windows to see if I could find his skinny silhouette, but I couldn’t see it. In the wheelhouse, I poked my head out the port door. No one was there. I opened the starboard door. The rain lashed my exposed skin as I looked in both directions, but I saw nothing.

I have let a man drown. On top of everything else on this godforsaken trip, I’ve let a man drown.

No! He had to be somewhere on this boat. Maybe on the bow?

Now why would he go out there when that’s where the waves were the worst? Was he that stupid?

This guy might be. And all I could think was, of all the bodies we could have picked, why did we have to choose this particular fool as crew?

I couldn’t answer that. What I needed to know now was, do I venture out on the forward deck and expose myself to the waves? One of them could easily swipe me away.

“Percival!”

Each syllable trailed off into nothingness before I uttered the next one.

A lifeline. I could do it with a lifeline.

I went back inside and found a line in the companionway locker. My fingers shook as I tied one end around my waist and the other around the helm chair. I tugged on the line to make sure it was secure, then glanced uneasily at the screws affixing the chair to the deck. They, more than the line, were my lifelines now.

I stepped out onto the port deck and thought about how a sane person would not do this. A sane person would put on foul weather gear. A sane person would get help. But the only help on board was otherwise occupied. Brian couldn’t be distracted. The engines were our deliverance out of this storm. They needed fuel. To get fuel, they needed clean fuel filters. This one was on me. If I wanted to save a human life, remote though the possibility seemed, unworthy as that life might be, I couldn’t waste any more time.

I held on to my lifeline, grasped the cold, wet railing, and looked aft. Percival was not curled up in a fetal position against the house. Nor was he hanging from the side holding on. I stepped back inside the wheelhouse, held my breath for a moment, and then headed for the starboard side. I looked aft. No one was on the starboard deck either. Or suspended over the side.

I edged forward toward the bow. The wind whipped and lacerated. The boat creaked and moaned in submission. My nearly numb hand slid along the steel railing to keep a sense of direction. The lifeline abraded my other hand as I released it. I should have worn gloves, I realized. My foot felt in front of me for any obstacles, maybe a prone, possibly inert body. The sea rumbled and crashed. Each time the bow surged and then plummeted with a slap, I almost lost my footing. Water flooded my deck shoes regularly. Don’t you dare fall off!

Even before I reached the bow, I could hear the anchor chain clatter in the below-deck chain locker. We’d lost our spare anchor two days before to a monster wave. It had been lashed down better than I was at the moment.

Did Brian wonder why I had not gone below to help him? I should have let him know I’d ventured out. How reckless was that? Because Percival was not on the bow, I could see now.

And I should have known better. Who was the bigger fool now?

A wave thundered against the starboard side. The boat was hurled onto her port side. I crumpled to my knees, bumped my shoulder on the deck, and started sliding downhill to port.

Grab the line! I screamed to myself. Grab the line!

The line sliced through my fingers. I rolled over and over before I caught it. My left leg hung over the port toe rail in deep water until the boat finally lifted. I scraped myself up into a kneeling position and worked my way back along the line. Salt and fiber burned my lacerated hands, but I didn’t care. I had to get back to the wheelhouse. There I could collapse. But I had to get there first.

I wrapped my arms and hands around the rough line and, on all fours, hauled myself aft. I knew that if another wave catapulted me across the deck, the taut line might snap my bones, but I didn’t care. My knees were skinned badly and probably bled. I couldn’t allow myself to care.

The way back ordinarily took no more than six or seven steps, but I crawled scant inches at a time. I yearned to give up, to admit that no matter how hard I tried, I might not make it back.

My knees hurt too much. My head throbbed too much. The sea had won. Percival had beaten me. The sin of calumny had done me in. And I didn’t know which had been the greater arrogance, refusing to help someone or thinking I could save somebody.

The bow pitched upward. My arms flew out from under me. My chest hit the deck and knocked my breath out. I lay there stunned, the clamor around me suddenly far removed. It was as if the rise and fall of the deck had entered the stillness at the heart of the storm. The tension in my muscles leached into the teak beneath me as I allowed myself to enter that stillness. Then I stiffened. I couldn’t do this to Brian. Imagine if he finally changed the filters and came up to find me mauled on the foredeck. Or worse.

I lifted my chest slowly and waited for a pause between waves to begin inching my way aft.

Whenever the hull sighed into a trough, I fought the temptation to just lie down and forget I was ever so stupid as to venture out the way I had. Every muscle, every tendon, every ligament said, stop right here, exactly where you are. Close your eyes. But when the boat lifted, I forced my knees to move one more inch and then another.

I’m doing okay, I thought as I managed to cross over two feet of deck. Then excess line caught my ankle. I kicked the line away, lost my balance, and slid across the deck as if it were an ice patch. Stanchions, bulwarks, cleats, and decking streaked by me before a railing stanchion punched me on the side and halted my slide. My arms now bled badly, and I thought about letting go of the line altogether. It was bound to entrap me again. Or snap my bones. Maybe I could take my chances without it.

Now that would be stupid.

The individual planks of salty-wet teak impressed themselves on my scarred knees as I started inching aft again. I willed my knees into numbness. The wheelhouse had to be close, even if I couldn’t raise my head to figure out just how close. It took every remnant of energy I had just to hold myself in place each time another wave collided with the boat.

Had Percival made it back?

Forget Percival! Head toward that wheelhouse, I droned like a rosary. Head toward the wheelhouse.

The doorjamb was at my head when I felt a pull on the line. I tensed against the impending roll of the boat. A stanchion will catch me again, I told myself. Just hold on to the line. A stanchion will stop you from plunging overboard.

I felt a hand try to uncurl a finger.

No! I can’t let go of the line.

The hand insisted. I looked up.

Wet strings of hair leaned toward me. Percival extended his scrawny arm and grabbed a fistful of my shirt.

You! I pulled away.

He did not meet my eye but brooked no resistance as he lifted me up.

Where was this strength when we needed it earlier?

“I’ve got her!” I heard him yell as he carried me into the saloon, his back sliding against the bulkhead to stay upright. My nostrils bristled at his stale, bitter odor, but I was too weary to fight the repugnance I felt at being in his steel-rope arms. Why did it have to be him and not Brian who rescued me?

He placed me on the sofa.

“Where in the hell were you?” I sputtered as his face moved away from mine.

He nodded in that meaningless way of his and released the line from my waist. Only when he was through did he mumble, “Below.”

Published in North Atlantic Review