When Pastor Short took us all to that fancy steak restaurant near the Staples Center, T got a dick pic from him. She didn’t even have to be that sneaky about it. I often marveled to myself about T’s ideas, her execution, plans that are always so magnificent and far away from my field of vision. I tried not to let her know how much I admired her, little sisters have to keep some dignity. Still, she amazed. Where I saw like an ant she saw like a hawk, a hawk with a treasure trove of penises preserved in digital format for a thousand years.
The week before we had to go to dinner, Mama had been nice to me and T, didn’t order us to do chores that we were doing anyway, stayed relatively sober and quiet, bought juice and eggs herself instead of having things delivered or T pick them up. Then she dropped the news that the three of us would be having dinner out with Pastor on Saturday. Everything became clearer to me and T. Mama bought a whole outfit for me, made me wear the purple bra and a shirt and half tried to get me to wear a ridiculous skirt, but the look on my face must’ve been too much for her because it never made it more than a quarter out of the shopping bag before she turned away from me. I put on my jeans and didn’t say anything else other than ask the name of the restaurant so I could look at the menu in advance.
I wore the diamond studs Daddy got me for my sixteenth birthday. T told me I looked nice and I almost kicked her before I realized she meant it. She’d been getting weird for a while, going all tender in the chest and sentimental, and it was annoying as hell. We all were handling death now in our own ways. I exercised and had poorly developed fantasies about girls, well, one girl. T had sex with our ex–softball coach we’d known for half our lives and catalogued pictures of his junk.
There were protesters outside of the restaurant when we pulled into the valet, wearing red and black and chanting with drums. Maybe they were challenging an immigration law or it was a Native American cultural demonstration. I couldn’t tell. The signs weren’t angled at me. A few people gathered in support or for entertainment.
Pastor Short was a big man but not at all fit. Our father could’ve fit inside of Pastor Short except would’ve busted out at the wrists and ankles. Daddy was long and lean like T. Pastor Short had to adjust the booth some to make room for his middle. He moved the heavy wooden table with ease, so I could tell he was flabby but strong, always slick like something old and oceanic. The restaurant was dimly lit and full of brick, wood, and amber light. Everyone looked like they were in Polaroids half-developed.
The time Mama had spent cultivating my new look hadn’t been for the reasons I thought at first. I realized she didn’t do my hair for me to touch me, to know me, to check the shape of my skull, but to prepare the room for him, for Pastor. Me and T were the set decorations. T wore a long wavy ponytail that week; it came down to her waist. I helped pick it out when she considered going shorter. She wore the diamond necklace she got for her sixteenth birthday, and it rested on her boobs and twinkled. She was pretty there and maybe all the time. I wouldn’t know because she was such a loud, farting, coughing, screaming, arm-twisting taskmaster most of the time. That day she sat like a portrait. Perfect.
Mama had her hand on Pastor Short’s thigh through most of dinner, so ate with one hand only. I ordered salmon, which seemed appropriate if I had to look at Pastor. Eating something that he seemed related to felt the best defense against his very being and a way to claim solidarity with T. Whenever I glanced at T during dinner she seemed far away; it was a look I knew well and I wondered just how the world was opening itself to her. Whenever I glanced at Pastor he was trying to look just left of T’s boobs and back to Mama.
Pastor Short asked us about school and such to be polite. We answered the same, fine, fine. I had been hanging out with Esperanza more, taking more strange fighting classes that were starting to feel good, it was the only physical contact with anyone I had at the time, the legs of that old lady (Barb) and holding a punching bag for Esperanza on occasion. We hung out at her house once too, but that was weirder than rubbing legs with that old lady, Barb. Esperanza insisted I come in through her window and wouldn’t let me use the bathroom. She looked apologetic the whole time I had to hold it while nineties sci-fi television episodes streamed on her laptop for us.
The protesters were getting louder and closer to the windows of the restaurant. There was something angry and desperate in the chanting. I wondered if it had always been like that, the chanting over centuries, all the way back to the beginning. Were the drums ever happy? I wondered what happened to them, to us, over generations that painfully strained the vocal cords into what we heard then. Maybe I just heard it all wrong.
At some point everyone went to the restroom individually, but T timed it just right so that she was able to be alone with Pastor Short away from us in the dungeon-like hallways that led to the facilities. It still baffles me how a man will just share his privates so willy-nilly without lengthy debate or consideration or negotiation. I asked T when we were at home. Pastor refused the offer Mama made for him to stay for a glass of wine, which meant they would just go alone in the bedroom for a few hours before he crept out at around 1:00 a.m. He dropped us all off in a hurry. T told me she asked to see it and he said okay. I fell down laughing.
“Just, Okay!” I said, mocking Pastor Short’s voice. “Like, sure. Thank you very much for the inquiry. You wanna see my dick in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost? And so shall it be given unto thee.”
It was crazy, but I was learning, and the lessons were bizarre. T tried to shush me through her own laughter. She knew it would be that easy, and I felt a little ill and the ground moved under me because of that. Still, we were laughing, and with all this new knowledge and treasure there seemed opportunities.