Chapter 6

“Was I not a good Christian?”

At first, Earl Shamus was in a hurry to have sex with Johnnie and get home to his family. His lust demanded immediate satisfaction. He had been coming to the house two, sometimes three times a week. But after a few months of unbridled passion, he began to stay longer and longer, talking to Johnnie about his dreams of running the family business. Eventually, he’d end up telling her how he wished he could leave his wife but couldn’t because he would be out in the cold without a cent to his name. Meredith was an albatross hanging around his neck, he told Johnnie.

Each time Shamus left Johnnie, he placed conscience money on the pillow. Johnnie refused to spend it, believing that the moment she spent it, she would be the whore that Earl Shamus and her mother had made her. She toyed with the idea of putting the money in church, but if she did, she thought it would be like giving money stained with sin to God. So, she just kept putting the money in her dresser drawer, occasionally counting it to see how much was there, and to keep track of how many times Earl Shamus had violated her.

There was no longer any pain when he entered her. Johnnie was feeling pleasure now. She felt ashamed of herself for feeling pleasure with him, albeit brief. She began wondering what it would be like to do it with boys her own age. That made her feel ashamed, too, but the more she tried not to think about sex, the more she thought of it. Guilt consumed her. She felt like a hypocrite for continuing to go to church, singing, and playing the piano.

Everything changed. Nothing was the same. And where was God in all of this? Johnnie wondered. Why had he let all of this happen to her? Was I not a good Christian? Was I not chaste and faithful before Mama sold me? She began to pray that God would stop her from having sexual feelings and thoughts, but the more she prayed, the more the thoughts increased, until finally she stopped praying.

It was bad enough that Earl Shamus was having his way with her, but it was worse when Johnnie realized that everyone in the neighborhood knew her shame. What she found particularly bothersome was that she had put other young girls down for being fornicators. She preached righteousness, and now she was practicing what the elders of the church called “the Devil’s work.” How can this be? To combat these thoughts, Johnnie read the Bible. She read how almost all the great men of the Bible had fallen into some sort of sin from time to time. She read how Joshua spared the life of Rahab, the whore who hid the two spies, and she found solace.

Solace aside, her sexual urges grew as the months passed. In all that time, Johnnie still had known only one man, though she fantasized about others. She had learned to accept her situation and made the best of it. In those months, she became skilled in the art of making love—so much so that she began asking Earl, as she now called him, for more money, which he willingly paid. He had fallen in love with her. In addition to the extra money, Earl bought her fine dresses, shoes, and jewelry. Johnnie decided to continue saving her money so she could leave New Orleans one day. She wondered how Earl would feel if she left, and decided to ask him the next time he came over.