Playing Hard To Get

The room went still. Kyle’s shoulders raised tensely as he looked at his wife.

“Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, oh Jesus,” someone cried and then prayers were mumbled lowly like ancient chants, but somehow everyone knew that all eyes and thoughts were on Troy.

Kiona’s hand slipped away and Troy felt as alone as she had at birth. What she wanted more than anything, Bigelow-Goode claimed he had, claimed he was giving away. Salvation. New life. It didn’t matter if she was tired or in pain, if he was speaking a Swahili she couldn’t understand or saying a bunch of things she didn’t even believe. She wanted it badly. Wanted to drift off the way Kiona had described. To find herself in God’s hands.

His hand was still raised. Troy looked at it like a child. She wanted to know what to expect. What to feel. What to do when the moment came. She waited for him to say something. She wanted to respond. But then, after he screamed something in another tongue to another someone Troy couldn’t see, Bigelow-Goode’s hand came crashing into her forehead with a slap. He held it there as the deacons took positions around her, waiting for the fall back. And he pushed. And prayed. And pushed again. And prayed. All of this was happening and Troy was still waiting for something. She closed her eyes and tried to pray. Tried to receive it. To feel something other than a sweaty, soft palm on her forehead. But inside there was nothing but her own thoughts.

“Jesusa!” Bigelow-Goode hollered. “Jesusa, release the demons from the woman’s heart. Release the evil of Satan from her soul. Jesusa!” Bigelow-Goode was speaking in English now and Troy understood every word, but she didn’t feel a thing. Nothing. And the harder he pushed at her forehead, the stronger her back seemed to become.

Troy opened her eyes and looked at Bigelow-Goode. He was staring into her. His beady eyes red with sweat. He released her forehead and slapped it again. This time it was so hard, she screamed.

“Ouch!”

?

“Just go wait in the car,” Kyle said without looking at Troy after the service had finally ended when Bigelow-Goode fainted and had to be carried out of the church like James Brown.

Troy felt so empty, so empty and lost, after failing to fall beneath Bigelow-Goode’s hand that she didn’t even bother to be angry with Kyle for the dismissal. She took a folder he handed her holding Saptosa’s mock copy of the next day’s program for his approval and walked, her head low, to the car.

While Tasha and Lionel chose fighting words to perfect the art of their war, silence was proving to be the weapon between Kyle and Troy. After Kyle returned to the car, an hour later, they drove halfway home in a quietness that was only broken by pebbles and glass crunching beneath the wheels of the car.

“I just don’t know why you had to get involved,” Kyle said and he didn’t curse like Lionel but a “the fuck” was felt in everything he said.

“I wasn’t trying to get involved,” Troy said. There was no reason for her to ask what he meant. She knew. “He came to me. I was just standing there!”

“You had to look at him or something.”

“Are you saying I wanted that to happen? That I wanted to embarrass you? Embarrass myself in front of all of those people?” Troy stared at Kyle but he kept his eyes on the road. “Oh, I guess I was supposed to pretend to get the Holy Ghost too! Jump around the church and scream and holler. Is that what you wanted?”

Kyle shook his head.

“I’m getting so tired of this. This whole thing is running me into the ground, Troy,” he said. “My spirit. It’s running me down. I can’t find any peace anywhere.”

“Well, I don’t know what to say,” Troy said. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what else I could possibly do to make this work. I’ve tried to impress everyone. To make everybody happy. To take care of everything. I don’t know what else to do.”

“I told you what to do,” Kyle said weakly.

“What?”

“Take care of me.” He looked at Troy and tried his best to show her everything he was feeling, thinking, missing in his eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re so busy worrying about the people at the church, you’re not worried about me,” he said, “about my needs. We haven’t had sex in weeks. You run away whenever I touch you. We hardly talk anymore. Everything is about this. Everything is about the church.”

“But that’s what you need. That’s what you want.”

“I never said that. Your journey with God needs to be about you. Not what you want to do for me. Every person goes to God alone,” Kyle explained and he felt so much pressure building up in his head he was beginning to see spots on the road. “Look, let’s not talk about this right now. I have to get ready for my sermon when we get home. I can’t do this.”

Wounded, Troy sat back in her seat and looked down at the folder of programs Kyle handed her earlier. To keep her mind off of her anger and everything she wanted to say, she opened the program to read it. Under the announcements and testimonies, she saw a name that nearly snatched her eyes out.

“Myrtle? Myrtle Glover?” She looked at Kyle. “Why is her name on here? Why is she on the program?”

“It’s nothing. I don’t want to talk about it,” Kyle answered.

“Nothing? You don’t want to talk about it? I’m just asking you a question. Why is she on the program?”

“It’s a testimonial. We do it every year. She asked if she could speak. I put her on the program. That’s it,” Kyle said sharply. “I don’t want to talk about it.”