It wadn’t long ’fore Miss Debbie and Miss Mary Ellen started askin me would I sing in their chapel service. I would, if they was smart enough to catch me. I’d sing some spirituals I brung with me in my heart from the plantation. Other times, I’d sing some songs I made up on my own. Like I said, I know plenty a’ Scripture.
It didn’t take long, though, ’fore Miss Debbie started gettin bossy again. She got a burr under her saddle ’bout somethin she called a “retreat.” Said her and a bunch of her Christian friends was goin up to the woods to “hear from the Lord.”
“I’ve been praying about it, Denver,” she’d say whenever she seen me, “and I believe God’s telling me that you should go with us.”
I asked some of the fellas round the mission if they knowed what a retreat was and not a one of em had any idea, ’cept Mr. Shisler. He said a retreat was some religious thing where you go off someplace lonesome and talk and pray and cry all weekend. I knowed for sure I didn’t want nothin to do with that. But Miss Debbie wouldn’t let up. I just shined her on, though, ’cause wadn’t no way in the world I was fixin to drive up in no woods with no carload a’ white women.
Well, then I guess she put Mr. Ron on the case. One day at Starbucks, he started in, talkin ’bout “retreat” this and “retreat” that. Said it wadn’t gon’ be just women. Men was gon’ be there, too.
“Think about all the nice folks you’ll meet,” he said. “And all that free food!”
“Not from Jump Street!” I said. “I ain’t goin! I ain’t goin nowhere to no retreat to meet nobody! And I ’specially ain’t goin to no retreat with no white lady that’s somebody else’s wife!”
Just so we’d be clear on the whole thing, I eyeballed him like he was crazy.
I ain’t real sure what he told Miss Debbie after that, but the very next time I went through the servin line, she blowed out from behind that counter like a streak a’ lightnin. And here come that skinny finger in my face again. “Denver, you are going with me to the retreat, and I don’t want to hear you say anything else about it!”
Now here I is, six feet, 230 pounds, a mean sixty-two-year-old black man, and this skinny little white lady thinks she can make me mind. Not even Big Mama talked to me like that. There was fixin to be a problem—a big problem.
Finally, the day come for the retreat and Miss Debbie drives down to the mission lookin for me. I was doin my best to hide out, but some helpful fellas spotted me and told her where I was at. She convinced me to at least come on out to the car and see who all was goin. I didn’t want to be ugly to her ’cause we was gettin to be friends and all. So I walked on out in front of the mission.
I looked in Miss Debbie’s Land Cruiser and sure ’nough, there was four other white ladies sittin inside. In my life, I had bad enough luck with just one white lady. And here was four, all smilin and wavin at me. “Come on, Denver! We want you to go with us!”
Right about then, one of the street fellas sittin on the mission steps started sing-songin like a little girl: “Yeah, Denver, you go right on!” and busted out laughin.
Then his friend piped up and started singin’: “Swing low . . . sweet chariot, comin for to carry me home . . .” And they both busted up.
I didn’t think it was funny. But I had to make up my mind. There was all them white ladies in the car tryin to be so nice to me, and there was them fellas sittin on the steps singin me a funeral song. I guess I knowed I was takin my life in my hands when I got in that car, ’cause it was a cold day in January, but I was sweatin like a hog in August.