Week 4 - Voice & Childhood Memoir

Week 4 Voice & Childhood Memoir

“If you’ve got the money honey ~ I’ve got the time.”

Jim, my neighbor, would sing this to me every Sunday on our way home from church after I would relentlessly beg him to stop for ice cream. Occasionally Rita, his wife, would go along with us to the little Pentecostal church in Town Hill. It wasn’t the typical looking church, white steeple - few people, but, instead, a big brown building. I’ve never been a fan of brown; they had brown paneling on the walls, musty brown cabinets in the bathroom and hard brown benches to sit on but this was all upstairs… Downstairs was fun!

Aaah Sunday school; brightly colored rooms, lots of kids, painting, coloring, stories and singing - I was five - the church could have stopped with just the crayons and they still would have had me. It was a break, one day a week that I got away from everything else in my life, when I could just be a kid and have fun.

My mom and dad never took me, they never went. Mum was too busy raising eight kids and keeping house, dad….well, mumma told me churches and dad just didn’t agree. I had to keep it a secret from him that I was going; mum said he would be very angry. I didn’t understand but I also didn’t care - it was fun.

We had a carnival one Sunday with face painting (I had a heart painted on my cheek), bubbles, sack and three-legged races, and balloons! We were even allowed to bring our bring our bikes to decorate with crepe paper and ribbons, I wasn’t able to bring mine but I watched the other kids and it looked like a blast. My Sunday school teacher approached me while I stood back watching the bike race, leaned down and asked me if I was almost six; I excitedly told her that yes it was almost time for my birthday, she straightened up and simply smiled. I didn’t realize that the end was near, the end to the fun.

***

I was in the backseat but not buckled and I leaned up between the two front seats; with my head on Jim’s shoulder, I smiled as sweetly as I could and pleaded with him to stop for ice cream after church (yes after - this time I begged on the way there instead of on the way home - I thought if I started sooner I would have more time to convince him). He just kept driving and sang the usually ditty:

“If you’ve got the money honey ~ I’ve got the time.”

Arriving hopeful and happy I ran downstairs to join the other kids for the regular routine of coloring, singing and stories; but this time I was met at the schoolroom door. My teacher stood tall and with a soft smile she proudly told me I was ready to go upstairs and be with the adults for service; I had graduated from Sunday school. I burst into tears and cried and cried. My world was changing and it took me about twenty years to realize just how crucial that moment in time was to the rest of my life.

We all need to have something to believe in, something to hold on to and to have faith in; something that makes us happy. That was what Sunday school was for me and now it was stopping. I felt rejected, confused and hurt. How could she think this was a good thing! I didn’t want to be with the adults. I was a kid and told her such; I told her what it meant for me to be downstairs with them but she insisted that it was God that I needed to have faith in, to believe in and to find my happiness with - not the room downstairs.

Sadly, I turned from her and took the long walk back up into the big open room; the service had already started so I quickly and quietly found a spot in the back row. The man at the pulpit was shouting so loudly that the chandelier above me was shaking, he spoke of the people who were not there in church and pointed at various people shouting things. When he pointed at me he shouted that my father was going to hell and then turned to tell another that her child was going to hell too. There were women kneeled in front of him with their hands raised franticly mumbling out words (later learned they were speaking in tongue). A feeling was rising from the pit of my belly and something inside of me was changing; somehow, I knew this was the last day I would be coming to this church.

I was feeling the urge to blow chunks and I was looking around for the fastest escape route; I contemplated climbing under the benches or going around them - when I looked towards the isle I saw my Sunday school teacher’s husband (I recognized him because he was the man I had seen being baptized with his wife the previous Sunday at the carnival). His eyes were on the man preaching but his hands were up the dress of the woman beside him. She was wearing stalkings that hooked on her legs just a bit above her knees, she had long black hair and wore a long black dress but at the moment the dress was hiked up like a mini skirt; I liked the lace trim on the top of her stalking and I think he did too because he couldn’t stop touching it. He must have felt me staring because he caught my eye and quickly removed his hand and smoothed down her skirt. I decided I better stay in my seat.

When the service was over I jumped up to leave; the husband stepped in my path, grabbed me by the arm and leaded me out the door. He looked down at me, smiled and said, “we are friends right?” I nodded and he handed me a five dollar bill and walked away.

After the events that followed when I went upstairs, I spent years associating the ‘downstairs’ with hell and the ‘upstairs’ with heaven and believing that hell was a far better place. On the way home, I didn’t speak a word. Jim said to me, “why so quiet? What, not in the mood for ice-cream?” And he started singing the usual tune. I thought for a moment about how I was going to tell him that I didn't want to come to church again - no words came to mind. Instead, I smiled, leaned inbetween the seats, handed him the five dollars and replied:

“I’ve got the money honey ~ do you have the time?"