underneath

shane combs

IS THERE A MUCH WORSE SOUND THAN the basement door closing behind you, locked? If you are astute, you might ask, how do you know it’s locked, Taylor? After all, a locked door closing makes no more sound than an unlocked one. Trust me on this one. I don’t have to check the door to know it’s locked.

I’m seventeen, and it’s the week of graduation. Outside it’s a perfect May day. Those two words—May day—sound funny together, don’t they? But I mean what I say. May is the end of spring in Eden, and the beginning of uncomfortable. But this. This is a breezy April day packed right smack in the middle of May, if I’ve ever seen one.

My best friend, Jeremy, would read too much into that, like it’s God’s blessing or a sign of our transition from high school into college. Codswallop, I’d say. Rolling my eyes. And no sooner than my response hit his ears, he’d be rolling his eyes, too. I think he hates one-word responses like I hate sermons masquerading as small talk. But Eden is awash in it: sermons and metaphors. Every time I hear people ascribe a second meaning to events that barely contain one, I don’t know whether to feel sorry for them or the event. Either way, something’s gonna end up disappointing and someone disappointed. Why put yourself through that? For me, weather’s weather, and it’s purely physical. It’s a rush to the bones, from the outside in. It’s the wind hitting your hair and clothes that hang off the body rather than sticking to it. I’d say it’s freedom, but I’d have fallen into my own trap.

Freedom, if you’re outside, of course. Not locked in a basement knowing there’s nobody to call. Everybody is gone by now, off to break loaves and fish at Catch & Release. They’re just waiting on you. And if you were there, you’d wonder why they’d pick a fish restaurant for a vegetarian, or why anyone picks anything for anyone else if the point is to celebrate that person. They’d say, What’s the matter? Not hungry? And Birdy would say, She doesn’t eat meat, to which they’d say, That’s why we’re ordering fish, and everyone would laugh and you’d wonder if anyone thought it was funny.

Worse than celebrations, though, are surprise celebrations. You’re not supposed to know, but someone always tells you, and then they say the worst two words in the English language, paired together for an always-failed attempt at inauthentic authenticity: act surprised.

Well, right now they’re looking over their shoulders, at the door, or at that one picture on the wall where the Smith and Dan rivers converge upon each other, and the guest of honor is nowhere to be found. She’s locked in her grandmother’s basement, telling stories to pass the time to nowhere in particular.

        Surprise.

I CAME TO THIS BASEMENT TO DIE.

That’s what I want to say, but I know how dramatic that sounds.

This is the moment I wish I could evoke metaphor, but seventeen years of mocking it on the back pew of Eden Pentecostal strains my reach.

It’s a blessing reserved for a preacher and his son, I guess. If there is one. Able to do to whosoever will, whatsoever they will with language—bend it, mold it, make it—and everyone’s best response is, Just let them.

I thought about it once, you know. Becoming a preacher. In the Pentecostal church, it’s one of few luxuries for a young girl. I even pictured myself up there, on the platform, behind the sacred desk, as the Pastor calls it. I’d say, Whoops, I forgot my Bible. Let’s see what books we have in my bookbag, and I’ll preach from one of them. Then I’d start digging, ever so slowly, watching the terror etched upon each face at what I might bring forth.

I say I thought about becoming a preacher. But I knew they’d all say, You, Taylor? Are you even a Christian? And I’d be stuck on how they said the first part, but I’d speak to the second, Christian? I’d say, stroking my chin. (Older men love it when they see a young person being earnest.) Then I’d say, Funny how we use that word, Christian, to dictate so much, but did you know that word came after its namesake and was never once used in his presence? And they’d just walk away, shaking their heads, unconvinced of my claims but forever agnostic on the chin stroke going forward. And I’d realize too late that I hadn’t wanted to be a preacher. I’d only wanted that encounter.

But those words—“I came to this basement to die”—were the words that came to me down here, and because I felt them I thought them and because I thought them I said them. And I do mean them as a metaphor. Maybe even a Christian one at that.

But I’m too unpracticed and I’ve poked too much fun, so I’m locked in a basement, rather than pretend-eating fish with the ones who seek to celebrate me.

IT’S DARK AND DANK AND MOLDY IN THIS BASEMENT, and it smells like the aftermath of rain. Not the refreshing kind, either, but a kind of mildewed odor that comes from a too long neglect.

I may not have thought this out too well.

What would Birdy say if she saw me? What will she say?

She’d probably look around at the dark and the stains and the spider webbed corners of the room and say, Like attracts like, my dear.

And if Jeremy saw me, he’d say something like, Three letters is your only key out of here, Taylor. And I’d say, Shut up Jeremy, because agreement might unlock doors, but it doesn’t mean we’ll like what’s on the other side. And he’d say nothing to that, because somewhere two friends who built their whole relationship on conversation got too old and too afraid to talk about what comes after.

But I have to admit, I am wondering, What is on the other side?

Not just of this basement door, which I know is locked, but on the other side of high school, or, even, the other side of that greasy door at the Catch & Release.

It’s only here, in this basement, that I find myself wondering what a scholarship looks like. I mean, in my head, I now see one of those silver dishes, like I’ve only seen in movies. You know, the ones with a top, and a butler with gloves lifts the lid, and there’s never food underneath.

Maybe that’s how you present a scholarship. Would it be underneath? Or would it be like one of those giant checks the overly generous guy in the commercials brings to the door?

Or, maybe, like so much that’s significant in our lives, it wouldn’t have a physical form. Would they simply talk about it, like a guest who couldn’t make it there in person? And what face do you make when someone offers you unearned money that you know about but aren’t supposed to know about and are supposed to accept but aren’t going to accept?

They don’t make faces for reactions like that.

But they do make basements.

So, I go strumming my fingers on this old worktable in front of me that is seldom used now, circling its square body, as if the touching and pacing might just conjure something.

How selfish that even now I’m wondering how much they were going to offer.

When I asked Birdy, she said, a lot. That we wouldn’t have to worry about a single dime for a year, if not two.

My face lit up when I heard, and she saw it do as much. Hers went dark as if a counterbalance.

I said, What, and she said, It’s not in Eden. I said, We’ll make it work. For you, if not me. She said nothing, so I said more. Is it Raleigh? Durham? Chapel Hill? They say it’s a triangle, but we’ll find a way to navigate it.

You’re rambling, she said.

You’re saying nothing, I said.

It’s in Florida. And that’s final for them. It’s in Florida, Taylor, and it’s a very Christian college.

I MIGHT HAVE BEEN IN THIRD OR FOURTH GRADE when two little girls, Mary and Susie, came running up to me. Not the most popular kid in Eden Christian Academy, I think they saw the shock, and curse it, the delight, on my face, and I thought I saw smirks on theirs. Each one grabbed an arm, and I stood braced, not of my own doing.

Their tone was kind enough, but it was the confidence that got me.

Guess what about your grandma, one of them said.

We call her Glinda.

You know, like The Wizard of Oz.

They smiled their toothless smiles, and before I could say anything, they skipped away.

It would be another year before I understood the source of their confidence. Unbeknownst to me, but never to Birdy, there had been a whole conversation, in the schools and at the dinner tables, about what kind of witch my grandmother was.

I can only imagine those conversations now, with pieces of the puzzle I’ve gathered along the way. At six feet tall, she towered over grandpa, who stood five seven in padded shoes. Not knowing better as a kid, I had a picture of them in show-and-tell, and told the class that grandpa called her big bird, and she called him her tweety bird.

A woman ain’t supposed to be taller than her husband, my classmate, Jack, blurted out. He was the shortest kid in the third grade but had the biggest mouth.

After grandpa passed, Birdy never seriously courted another man, and not-so-little Freddy told me his dad said it’s because Grandma was married to the government now.

In the midst of all of this, Birdy carried herself like Birdy. She sent her little girl to the Christian school but never once darkened the door of Eden Pentecostal Church. When the prayer warriors saw her in the grocery store and told her they were praying for her soul, she’d happily thank them and return whatever Buddhist quote or chapter from The Secret she’d been reading that week.

In our front yard, she ran something akin to a never-ending yard sale, and down in the basement, she did palm readings for extra money or items, somehow always attracting an out-of-town audience, usually from Greensboro and the like.

Still, whether it was for Birdy’s sake, or because her granddaughter befriended the pastor’s son, or if it was just to help the children sleep at night, someone must’ve told those little girls that Birdy was a good witch. So, it was, they came to me with confidence, thinking it was good news they brought.

When I told Birdy what they’d said, if she felt anything, it never crossed her face.

That’s our situation, she said. Everybody’s got one.

Nu-uh, I retorted. I’ve never been able to see anyone’s sitch-a-ation, but all of them can see mine.

And why does that have to be a bad thing, she asked.

We stayed up half the night making a vision board because, of course we did, and she had me design my situation, like we were painting a lunchbox, so that it could look how I wanted it to look.

For maybe three days in school, I walked around imagining my situation in yellows and pinks and ribbons and dragon wings. For a moment, it brought with it a confidence I hadn’t had before and haven’t since.

Like my situation could be greater than the conditions placed upon it.

But from what I’ve seen, and maybe it’s just my view from the basement, every situation comes with conditions, especially when people think they’re helping you, and what looks one way on the surface is always accompanied by an underneath.

AN HOUR OR TEN LOCKED IN A BASEMENT and I’ve discovered a winner for worst metaphor in this town. And it’s not close.

It’s when the pastor starts preaching about those first few chapters in Genesis. You know, the garden of Eden, from a pulpit in a town called Eden.

Talk about low hanging fruit.

Supposedly, human beings lived in an ideal state.

Can you imagine?

Two humans. Walking in a garden. Perfect eternity.

Were you able to see it?

‘Cause I have a theory.

There’re two kinds of people as far as I can tell.

The ones who close their eyes, grit their teeth, make a wish, and still can’t see it.

And the ones who don’t have to close their eyes, grit their teeth, or make a wish. Not only can they see this ideal state, they’re waiting for it around every corner. And if they don’t see it around one corner, it’s only because it’s coming around the next.

It’s kind of screwy when you think about it. Half of us walking around town, unable to appreciate where we are because we can’t imagine things getting better, and the other half unable to appreciate where they are, because they imagine better as someplace else.

It wasn’t even a month ago that the pastor preached about the garden of Eden. But it wasn’t in his usual way. You know what I’m talking about. As a judgment. A punishment. A warning.

He preached about it like an opportunity.

He called it the new Eden, and I guess he was talking about heaven.

I wanted to lean over to Jeremy, ‘cause it made me think.

Goodness, I wanted to say, using an exasperation fit for the sanctuary, people already had a place that was supposed to be perfect, and that wasn’t enough. Now we need an even better version of what was already ideal? I wanted to say this to you, Jeremy, ‘cause I wanted to make you think. But I turned to you, and you turned to the ceiling. You jumped slam out of your seat, waving your hands over your head like the room was on fire, shouting and worshipping in a way I thought reserved only for preachers and white-haired deacons.

And, curse it still, my next impulse was to turn my head over my other shoulder and find the other you.

I wanted to nudge him and say, Check out this guy. Trying to get a Guiness World Record for the first Pentecostal to openly worship from the back pew of the church.

I wanted to say this, but even in my head it sounded more mean than witty. Like our inside jokes were no longer between us, but about us.

It made me defensive, so I imagined you the same.

I saw us standing, arms crossed, like two guards, doing 24-hour duty, with everything each other needs locked behind inaccessible doors.

I wanted to scream at you, that since your father pulled you aside and told you that you were called to preach, all you do is walk around talking about God. I wanted to say that whatever you were seeing, standing there with your eyes closed, was anything in this whole world other than what was already beside you before you closed them.

I was willing to concede that, of course, one time I said it’d be great if we could both go to that stupid Christian college together, but I only said it because you started talking to Mary, who sits on the front pew, and no doubt she entered this world with her own scholarship just for being named Mary.

I wanted to remind you that when we met we were back pew buddies, and that was good enough for both of us. That we were gonna go to Rockingham Community College, where we would forecast the downfall of the four-year institutions. We’d wait patiently for them all to crumble (but hopefully within our two years there), and then we’d say something like, looks like the back row strategy is finally paying off.

I wanted to ask you if you remembered that, and then I’d reiterate it before you had a chance to respond.

Well, do you?

And you’d say, in a too-even tone, that I just wanted to fight. And I’d say, Somebody’s got to.

And then I’d push and push because I need you to say the thing I cannot. You know the one, and with enough prodding, you’d look away from me to do it, permitting me a portion of minister’s grace I probably don’t deserve.

You’d say, “You know, Taylor, you can talk all you want about my call to preach. Maybe it’s everything you say it is: desperate, people pleasing, little boy lost and doing the predictable. But what about you? Do you see yourself? This whole anti-church-in-the-middle-of-a-church shtick that’s now a decade old, isn’t that identity just as dependent on this place as playing preacher’s son? When you leave here, do you think all that confidence and identity will go with you? And when it doesn’t, what’s going to be left of you without it?”

Then we’d sit in silence for a while, our vault doors broken and mostly emptied. When we did speak, it’d be in those soft and delicate voices people save for just after a fight.

You’d say something about people getting older, growing apart. That we both grew up on the Bible whether we like it or not, but the difference is now you believe it and I don’t.

But that’s the thing, I’d say, not even as retort.

I’ve been sitting on the same pew as you for as long as you.

I know the sermons, the scripture, how it all goes.

My fear is not that I don’t believe the Bible.

My fear is I believe it too much.

And correct me if I’m wrong, Jeremy, but I think the garden of Eden goes something like this. There was a girl named Eve and a guy named Adam, and they lived in an ideal state. But the condition placed upon them was they only had this ideal so long as they weren’t aware of it.

And these two people, no matter what they do after becoming aware, no matter what they say, or how many times they read the damn scripture, they’re going to be expelled from their home, and nothing will be the same between them after that.

AROUND AN HOUR INTO MY BASEMENT BANISHMENT, the doorknob turns, and my hands fly to my face like windshield wipers in a sudden downpour.

The door creaks, as basement doors are wont to do, and I catch the briefest glimpse of everything I’ve avoided in the shapes of everyone I’ve avoided: Pastor, Jeremy, a long line of church members with full fish bellies, stumbling down the stairs with their giant scholarship check in tow. They’re laughing and using preacher voices, making it all sound official. As if to say, let’s pretend you didn’t skip dinner and do it right this time.

I look away and look again, seeing a single shadow at the door this time, so large it casts itself all the way down the stairs, and I let out a sigh as long as her shadow.

Birdy descends the steps in Birdy fashion. Which is to say, in her own pace and style. As she moves toward me, I move away from the palm reading table, an object redundant between us.

She tilts her head to me, a bird to her worm.

And as much as I hate it, I’m scanning her face for anything that looks like shame, or anger, or embarrassment.

I imagine she’s found me, in the garden, in the cool of the day. She sees me, and I’m naked. And I know she knows I know. And for the first time, I’m wondering how Eve and Adam and that stupid apple reflected upon God. Like, was he unable to go into rooms in heaven where the angels were hanging out, because of the secondhand shame put upon him by his children?

Unsure of the moment, of myself in the moment, I form a singular goal.

To get out words before I give out snot.

“It’s just…”

‘I know, child.’

“They…”

‘Were sent home.’

“I have to…”

‘And you will.’

That’s all there is before I fall into her arms, like I’m not about to turn eighteen and head out all alone. I know there are conversations to be had and choices to be made. And I know she knows I know. But right now there’s quiet in the basement, save one-and-a-half women weeping freely. There are no preachers here. No altar calls. But sufficiently consumed within Birdy, my eyes make to the ceiling, like those white-haired deacons, and I let out a string of gratitude’s: for my six-foot sanctuary, for this moment, my first and my last. She seems to hear me, ‘cause she strokes my head in return, and just before turning off my inner voice, I say another thank you.

For a moment in Eden, between two people, where no words have to be said.