"Ah prayin' for yuh."
I used to take great comfort in receiving lines like this. Even at my moments of religious ambivalence, I'd be warmed. The thought that someone would intercede with their supreme being for my benefit often made me speechless with gratitude.
- not everyone is quite so kind-minded.
As I got older, i came to appreciate the line, and some of its other iterations. The inflections that "mean more than they mean - y'know whaddamean?"
Sitting in church right with you, I am in the mid region pew. You know, the 'not-so-much-a-saint-I-can-pull-off-the-front-row-but-certainly-not-to-be-in-the-back? Yeah. There. Minding my business, dropping two or three harmony lines in the hymns, praising just like you came to do (ha). End of service and sermon comes, and just before I awkward side step to my house (or, to be real, to head to a performance), you corral me into conversation. It often happens that you are right in front of me at church. No morning greeting did I warrant, no sign of peace at mass. But here you are. Post church and just before you slip off the pious face for something more...comfortable? Roadworthy? Real?
"How you doing? How is *insert grandmother, father, uncle, aunty, cousin, sister...personal favourite: Girlfriend* ?"
Like a dog whistle, the saccharine voice has triggered me, and I shake off my distracted attempts to leave. Your smile widens. I respond politely, and I calm down; maybe you are simply asking after them.
You are never simply asking after them.
"So why you not looking to carry her to meet your church family?" My mind reels from the open blow of the question. In the silence that you ensured with my surprise, you press on. " Or she in here already and the two of you hiding the dealings?" Your smile is simply feral now. Your glare is predatory, sure that you have caught me out.
Unfortunately for you, Sister, I stopped playing this game long, long time.
"I am gay. By the look on your face, you know that I am gay. You are aware I am not single. He is not a member of this church, but I will certainly take him along one day when we are both in town." I now smile. "You would like him." I watch you all but sputter. You never thought I would be so blatant.
"Oh yes, well you should bring him." Then, to reclaim the situation: "I will keep praying for you." Of course you will. But right now another church sister/the pastor/Father/ brother/Elder and you need a word.
Bye.
Now a friend of mine once said she felt her urges to be petty or dismissive were because somewhere in her DNA is a 'Steups' (a kiss teet; a caribbean/African gesture of impatience, upset or annoyance). I can confirm that this "gene" is probably Caribbean region universal. I feel it every time I have to jump out of my mild mannered self to address the particular brand of foolishness (read: fuckery) that is Caribbean people of a certain generation and/or "(non)sensibility."
A similar kind of invocation occurs when they are trying to assure you they are ameliorating the blight that surrounds you from being related to someone who offends their or the community's (still their, but with an invisi-majority backing them) sense of decency/morality.
Church fully forgotten, and the mid-week is upon us. Enter another well meaning neighbour.
"Hey, how you doing?" You are disarmed. She living right down the road, and everyone knows her daughter have 3 children with 2 awarded (but 3 - 5 potential) last names. You engage in some small talk. You laugh a bit. There is an undercurrent of the yet-to-be-said, but you assume it's something inane, like a concern that your father taking too long to deliver something, or at most, borrowing money.
And then she drops it.
"Careful how them see you in the road with *insert name here.* we might know him and you is relative, but we know you not playing them things, and we don't want you going down with him." Now, the person discussed is a relative. One with whom you are not only closely related, but genuinely close to. You are confused as to what could warrant the warning. Then you remember the current neighbourhood scandal: cuzzo has decided to move in with his partner, and they are raising his child in their un-holy, un-recognised union. You are unsure how to process the judgement that is coming from she of the flexi-morals. Responding with amicable rejection of the notion of anything wrong, you begin to part ways as warmly as you met - if a little off kilter.
"Well you just be careful. You soft hearted 'bout these things. I hope it don't burn you. I praying for you, that him judgement don't fall on you too."
You swallow back the DeoxyriboNucleic-STEUPS response that bubbling and waiting to jump out. Nah. She can't be real.
The last one I will touch on, is the summons of revenge and retribution.
We are all raised, for the most part, with the mantra "God not sleeping." Every perceived slight or injustice is postluded with this phrase. This weaponising of the otherwise all benevolent God can strike in the most arbitrary situations.
"Ah going to take you to God in prayer!" Is the shouted parry of a church sister who was glaringly cut off by another driver at an intersection.
And we celebrate her restraint. How, you ask, has she shown such? Why, she avoided curse words! She refused to cuss out the other driver, and instead (with her spectacularly triggered Steups gene) put him before her Lord to mete out judgement (the "as she the victim sees fit" is as silent as the 'k' in knight).
I have more I could say, but I am here triggering my own kiss teet' response
Selah, til' we chat again,
Carl-Anthony
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