Chapter 3: The Act of Getting It

Chapter 3 of my novel God Wears Camo

Chapter 3: The Act of Getting It

 

“Hello Marnie!”

“Marns, good to see ya.”

“Ms. Matthews, what a pleasant surprise.”

As a minister, I feel somewhat Jesus-Christ-Superstar when greeted down the lines of shoppers.

Most of my congregation shops at the same God-friendly market in Staten Island (God-friendly meaning all patrons are friends of God). Us devout Christians accept everyone of course, but happen to accumulate in the same place. Much of this isn’t an accident, since we are close-knit, loving -- a sanguine chosen group God insists to gather together each Sunday. We join in worship and… gossip, but besides the point, showing off our legion of bound-togetherness is the summa of it. Many heads are better than one, except we worship one head: God.

I wave, but also shield my eyes in-between waves because -- holy ticks on a log -- this stinging assault of fluorescent light bleeds my eyes onto produce--a well-known part of grocery shopping, but impossible to get used to. I stop and pick up a lemon--which I never buy--but smirk at the newly discovered yellow hue. The waxy inedible garnish is transformed into something cart-worthy.

A natural reflex promising me future freedom led me here (a quick chore to cut out of work early) an instinct of familiar attribute, a light-filled ending of a tunnel (heaven maybe?)--the instinct that led me to God. Hardly comparable to grocery store lights seething my tunneled space, aisle to aisle, but He is everywhere in one of those interminable, almighty, chilling, fluorescent way of being so �" stalkerish too. I honor his holiness like a shrine built for someone who follows me under punitive lighting, grocery store lighting--he looks for my wrongs like these bulbs do on my pores, and I praise his rights like I do the pores on a lemon.

A small army of wooden spoons invades my cart, only wooden spoons, my shopping progress is shameful in quantity, but solid so in quality--when I make my macaroni and cheese I love the systematic trick of placing a wooden spoon over boiling water to stop an overflow. This isn’t a cute gesture or idiosyncrasy of mine; it’s an emotion.

“Good day Beatrice,” I bid well to my favorite and oldest member of my congregation.

Her cart, chock-full of kid-friendly snack foods, buttresses her adoration for her grandchildren--the ones I’ve heard about a million times--and I’m ready for the purse-whip out, an illustration of her obsession colored-in with the same pictures I’ve seen ten million times (they don’t age much from week to week).

“And Marnie look at Joshua’s soccah photo, he’s like a young Beckham.” After the fourth or fifth display of awkward, Italian pubescent children, I smile and nod. Her thick Staten Island accent makes her endearing--the don of the Beatrice mob.

“He is, you better watch out for that one,” I say.

“I know, a lady-killah I tell ya, ugh, they just grow up so fast. Do you know of any produce that stunts growth? I heard coffee does, but I don’t want to wire them up, then I’ll be seeing God sooner than planned. I guess I just have to accept God’s natural way, that’s what you would tell me to do Marns,” she says and beams thickly outlined dentures glistening under the market’s high beams, infectious, I can’t help but reciprocate in a less graphic way. Suddenly, she jumps up to reach my towering height, feeble arms anaconda my neck for a hug, an unprovoked hug without care of how much energy it will expend. I have a necklace on with an old lady dangling from it. She says, “I can’t wait for Friday when you marry my oldest grandson, what a dream come true!”

            When freed from her hold I say, “I know, I can’t believe how time flew, I’ve been counseling them for so long--they seem more than ready. God will bless their marriage.”

            “That’s a delight to hear, just a delight, I’m the proudest grandmother I tell ya. I even chipped in a few pennies for this one, I believe it will be good. I’ve been seein’ signs, signs I tell ya Marns--like the other day when drivin’ to get money out for the wedding, I was thinking about the two of them, and I hafta admit I had a little doubt, just between me and you. They are too young to bicker like they do! But then I was at a stoplight and this man screamed at me ‘Get it! Get it now!’ and I goes ‘Who me?’ and he goes, ‘Yeah, you!’ and I stop and see he’s not sellin’ anything. He’s one of those gay-haters with a cross. So I ask, ‘Get what?’ and he looks me and says ‘The grace of God.’ And I don’t know what he meant, but I thought, okay I’ll get it! And I got the check out from the bank that was right behind him, my bank of all things holy.”

            “Wow that’s an amazing story.” I’m not much for signs, even though I should be, but God doesn’t place signs on Earth for all earthlings to interpret, God directs the compass within you--what’s in your heart. That’s what I believe anyway.

            “Well gotta go, gots more shoppin’ to do see ya Friday Marns!”

            “Bye Sweet Bea.”

“Hey Marns?”

“Yes Bea?”

“I don’t mean to pry, but that cheddah cheese frozen dinnah will clog all your heart holes.” Heart holes?

“Okay, you’re right, thanks Bea.”

I see in their eyes that my congregation notices my weight-gain; the reflection of plump me glimmers off their gossip-concocting brains. Parading bloat, I am the float, and I don’t how why. I have rolls now, rolls that are close, touching, in constant communication, humping when I walk, I hear them: hey, we’re here now, we weren’t before, but this chaffing, yeah that’s us, so you should probably get rid of us--us signs of God.

I go home, eat half of my rubber-meat meal, and toss a splayed piece to my cat Joseph who then rejects it too--Joseph who drinks my toilet water.

 “Dear God,” I begin my ceremonial, nightly prayer after watching The Bachelor, “I want to thank you for all of your blessings and being the most important person in my life. I know you’re solving some world crises, taking care of humanity, but can I just bother you for one thing…”--I almost can’t bring myself to do it--“can I just not be fatter tomorrow? Like even hitting even would be great--a sanctification. I know it sounds unimportant, but I can be a better leader to the people who worship you if I can fit into my clothes and have confidence. Thank you. A men.”

In a happy mood, I wake up on stretched-out silk sheets with room to sprawl, to be a bit large, to stretch with the sun, delicately, warily--my weight takes some effort to get use to--and I walk into my small kitchen-nook to make herbal tea with my new lemon. I like to be quiet in the morning, even though there’s no one to wake, I like to think of delicate souls being peaceful at my dining table, but I still hum to challenge the maybe-there-could-be around me, in case of angels or dead ancestors or an imagined family, I like to hum tunes and make dainty shuffles while getting ready, nevertheless, quietly for make-believe company.

It’s been a hot summer, and still climbing up the hump of it, I feel the love I have for my faith more than ever, except such love doesn’t register on my face because lately, everyone asks me if I’m okay.

I’m running early after a delicious moment of waking up energized hours before my alarm--a sign from God? No, just God-given strength for me to love a new day.

With hours to spare, a corrupt thought is born in my head, a thought to hit up my favorite downtown bakery. The small, angelic pastry shop is the opposite way from my church, but idle time is the devil’s… I don’t know I’m hungry.

I had, until now, spent the past twenty-six years rejecting clear-cut, external-world signs, but in my smelly-hot Suburu with an air-conditioner you have to hit on the side of to breathe normally, the traffic I got stuck in was sweating me out of whatever pastry-mission I was on, and I pull over after seeing a massive sign: Grand Opening: Rodney Frier’s Gym! As Seen on TV! Get It Now! and a picture of man, yes a man, who looks exactly like me; fudge-brown coiled hair hiked up in an outdated scrunchie (I wear those too) with blue, acid-washed eyes, but he was fit.

My entire existence was a perfect setup, preplanned by God, he never muddled my brain with illusory curve balls, sure I’ve deviated from my path many times, but I (me) did so, not Him. Get it.

My first brain-engraved childhood memory is from when I was six, my father threw a Bible at me and said, “Read this, live by it, and don’t ever, ever have sex.” He smelled of whiskey, and hated that I was a girl--the other two children came out as planned (boys), but I was the first to come out, the first disappointment, the first life he needed to orient.

I listened, not because this Bible-throw-down was a sign from God, but because I read that large shin-bruising book, and got brain-sparked, revived, enlightened. Thanks to the up-side of growing up (an intermeshing of added intellect and tougher skin) I gained more and more perspective and read it over and over again with my family’s acceptance budding like a freckle in the sun, and soon, as a putative spiritual leader, a galaxy of freckles grew from our sun; I was the grace-saying guru every night at dinner, the one who announced proverbs to rationalize certain conundrums (not that we had any real conundrums). I felt free from my gender, which before seemed like a burden on my family, of course my sex would never change--I’m a girl--but my gender role was lifted as I obeyed my father (my heavenly one and the one who made me) in every way. My father, the one who made me, was pleased, but there was one thing he didn’t know: I had sex. God of course knew, maybe a lightning bolt will hit me one day, but I had sex--a good amount of it.

In high school, I wore jeans and button-ups clipped up to the very top, was the volunteer student chaperone at dances and the youngest member of MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving)--I liked the crowd like a non-alcoholic going to AA for the support and experience.

Losing my virginity rattled a sleeping beast inside of me, awoken, it wanted more, but I didn’t advertise it--I was the last person anyone would expect to have sex with. My elusive hunger made me more enticing--I never got turned down.

My father and his work buddies were drunk off scotch--a celebrating smell. My dad had all of his business partners over (about five of them), and one always got drunk and said inappropriate things to me. He was married.

This whole to-do started when I was fourteen, home for holidays and summer from prep school, he would be over, and say things to me in ghostly whispers that slivered through my bedroom door. “I see you Marnie, I see you and want you.”

Then I turned sixteen. Again, they were celebrating, I never knew what, but something. I went downstairs for a glass of water, and he winked at me. “Let me get you some ice Marnie,” he leapt up and brought me over the brass bucket.

“Thanks Stan,” I smiled sweetly and batted my eyelashes.

My father ignored out rapport.

“Marnie you are growing into quite a woman.”

When I went to bed he came upstairs to whisper again, but this time I pulled him into my room by his tie. “Marnie I cant,” he wanted to back out, but I grabbed him, felt he was ready, and I was too.

As he left my room, Armando, our cleaning lady’s son, saw him, and saw me, but never said a word.

Stan never came over again.

Is this billboard tempting me? My doppelganger is clearly gay--something I see as unnatural--but I get out of the car in my work attire and enter the super IKEA-like commercialized building, bustling with meatheads. Techno blasts, flashy colors exude from people’s outfits and the gym is draped in bad-80s-chick-flick embellishments, including lightning bolt wall decals with Get It plastered on zigzags--a scene I’d never be caught in, fit in, or find joy in, but in it I am.

Rodney Friers turns out to be a flashy-droll sort of creature, a funny little concocted figure made from Peter Pan’s dreams and happy thoughts. He speaks on stage in a flamboyant voice, strident in a tambourine-stinging pitch, my ears cave-in their cavernous openings by shriveling up as he shouts, “Hello everyone and welcome to my very first gym! You may have seen my videos, your fan mail is overwhelming I fee blessed from God!” --blessed from God? This fairy-tale of a character? No, God is real. “I just want to say that beautiful you is in you, you just have to get it!”

Now he was speaking my language. He was made up of some kind of virulent hope, everyone looked eager and on-edge to hear what he would say next, applauding and cheering intermittently to a outrageous man, no doubt, but a peculiar, outlandish made-from-the-sky outrageous man.

As these handfuls of people adulate, I haven’t a clue of their thoughts or feelings, but know they are positive, cheerful, so I pray to God on their behalf, bartering for them and their sins, but I am energized, like the moment when I woke up, like I woke up to feel this way--fiery on a wick of a collectively burning candle, a candle that smokes out hope and drips malleable wax that will harden again later, to forever be wax, to be always alive and with purpose much the same way that manure makes plants grow--serving a purpose just when you thought you were s**t, just how you would be s**t on your own until someone says, “Hey, you can make plants grow you know,” and they lift you, carry you, and settle you on the ground over a struggling seed.

 “You!” He points at me. The music stops. Cheering stops. Everything stops besides my throbbing heart, leftover vibrations from heavy electronic music. All eyes are on me. An ostentatious minion of his darts over and shoves a microphone into my face. Everyone awaits my response.

“Me?”

“Yes you! You’re not dressed for super-body-success!”

I look down at my bland, gray, off-balance pantsuit and Dr. Scholl’s loafers and wonder why I subjected myself to such humiliation. Already standing out from others who were camouflaged in this jungle of leopard print, I am the only one not. You would think a bare part of a wall would blend me in, but there are none.

“Oh, I, uh, was just checking things out,” I say, searching the room for people who have pitchforks and flaming lanterns, ready to hound me for not being inspirational. I begin to wheeze, which I do when nervous, and the microphone echoes it.

“Don’t you want to be checked out honey?” Rodney Friers gets on his knees to become eye-level with me, in his squatted stance I can see the outline of his package.

“Um, what do you mean?”

“Don’t you want men checking you out, don’t you want to check-out of bad, unproductive diets, don’t you want a bigger check out of your workplace?” Everyone applauds his witty play on words, and he stands (thank God my eyes burn from the penis confrontation) to accept the attention, circling around the stage. He doesn’t think he’s blessed by God--he thinks he is God. My sin alarm rings: these people worship a false prophet.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Don’t guess! Know!” He and everyone else screams with a united intonation--an added chant to the many on their cult list.

“Yes, I do.” I just want him off my back.

“Perfect! Get it girl! Get it!” He points at me again and air-jabs his pointed finger harshly as if to mimic stabbing me over and over to wake me up. “Here’s a free series of my DVDs and a pair of Rodney Frier’s custom sneakers!” It’s a parody of Oprah’s Favorite Things, sonorous cries of the crowd escalate with fierce roars. Brought to me by the minion, heads explode when seeing my leopard print, hot pink with neon green laces. I will never wear them.

I’m not used to crowds of positive affirmations, of game-show-like attitudes and prizes--I’m used to being passionate about wrong-doers, such as MADD when we’d get heated over harsher punishments for underage drinking, or church were we get heated over how God will punish sinners if not redeemed. Not embracing happiness, happiness like this where you get a prize for being distinctively dissimilar from the rest.

“Isn’t he inspirational?” a woman comes out of nowhere wearing what is clearly the Rodney Frier’s collection, contrasting my attire. We are… different.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Don’t guess, know!” she screams joyfully, joyfully for being spot-on in catching me say “guess” again. I guess she is right, I mean, I know she is right--inspiration can be disinterred from anywhere, faith can be put into anything, and I am fat. My lonely life has rendered me so. “I’m Gretchen,” she smiles and shakes my hand, “oh my god, let’s be gym buddies! Rodney says it’s always better to go with a buddy.”

I wasn’t much for buddies, or signs, or someone calling God theirs, but okay, whatever did the trick, and she didn’t exactly ask me, she told. Whatever checked me out.

When walking out of the gym, it rains, which no one saw coming, pedestrians make makeshift umbrellas out of newspapers and paper bags--the sun was so heroic this morning. I drive out of the shopping plaza and see the man with a cross, yelling to “Get it” as well, just like Bea did. I see he is protesting Rodney Frier’s gym with a small sign staked in the muddy ground beside him, something Bea’s old eyes probably overlooked. He is using Rodney’s slogan to protest him. The sign says Get it, the grace of God, homosexuality is a sin, we must not let it be celebrated.

The man spits on my window as I’m stopped. I roll it down.

“Marnie! I am so sorry, I thought you were Friers, my dear lord, I cannot apologize enough. Care to donate to the cause?” the man recognizes me from church.

“No, thank you.”