The Sky Beneath My Feet

Chapter 5


Rent-a-Mob





Given the job description on his business card, I was expecting Chas Worthing’s address a few blocks from the Towson University campus to be some kind of multi-unit slum dwelling. How much money can an activist-poet be pulling down, after all? To my surprise, the hilly, tree-lined lane is home to a series of largish bungalows with peaceful, shrub-cloistered yards. I drive past a line of Subarus, Priuses, and old Volvo 240s, park at the tail end, and walk up the slope toward Chas’s house.

The hedge hides my approach. On the other side, I hear Johnny Cash playing on the radio and smell meat on the grill. There are people talking, laughing. I catch a whiff of aromatic smoke too—charred vanilla? I stop in my tracks.

Confession: I’m a chicken in social situations. My palms sweat and I get self-conscious about my body, my clothes, my hair. I can’t think of what to say, afraid that anything I do say will make me seem idiotic and uninteresting. I want desperately to be interesting. Don’t we all?

“Are you looking for Chas’s?”

I turn to find a young woman at my elbow, a fine-boned, pale-skinned girl with light freckles and a prominent nose ring, her hair a tuft of dirty-blond dreads and complicated braids. She can’t be much older than Jed. My first thought, quickly suppressed, is what a shame it is to hide such a pretty face under all those piercings and dreadlocks. How suburban of me. How soccer mom.

“Oh,” I say, struggling for words.

“I’m Marlene. You’re . . . new?”

“Yes,” I say. “Beth. I’m Beth.”

“Good to meet you.” She ushers me toward the gap in the hedge, her touch light on my elbow. “Chas told me you might be coming.”

“Oh,” I say again. “Are you his . . . are you dating?”

She gives a crooked, charming smile. “Um, no. Chas must be, like, thirty.” She says thirty like it’s the same as a hundred, and I laugh nervously at my own stupidity. “No, he told me because I’m kind of the organizer. I help with the planning.”

Through the hedge and into the front yard. Chas stands at the grill on the front porch, dressed in a striped apron. He waves at us with a shiny spatula. On the lawn, there’s a ring of folding chairs, half of them empty. The other half are occupied by some of the older ladies I saw on the median. A pile of cardboard sheets, paint buckets, and brushes anchors one side of the ring, but no one has gotten started on the signs. Instead, they’re chatting in groups of twos and threes.

“This is Barber,” Marlene says, leading me up to the nearest man.

Barber takes a briar pipe from his lips to say hello. The charred vanilla I smelled through the hedge is from his smoldering tobacco. Though he’s not much older than Marlene, in addition to the grandfatherly pipe, Barber sports a waxed Victorian mustache that curves up at the corners. All he needs now is the monocle.

“You’re the lady with the Jesus fish,” he says. “Chas told us all about you.”

I wilt a little. “Yeah, that’s me.”

“The Quaker thing, I’m down with that. If I had a religion, pacifism would be it. But I like the pipe weed and the microbrews too much to give them up.”

“Quakers can drink,” I say. “And smoke.”

“That’s cool.”

“Come on,” Marlene says. “Let me introduce you around.”

Too many names in too short a time. I can’t keep track of them all. There are several younger people like Barber and Marlene, most of them in the tribal dress of whichever social faction they hail from. There’s a guy in bike shorts and a green-and-white jersey. A girl in tight black jeans and a black tank top, her arms a pair of tattooed totem poles. A pudgy woman with a crew cut, the sleeves of her white T-shirt rolled all the way up. Then there’s a missing demographic—people my age. The parents of the younger set, the children of the older. Where are they? The fiftysomethings make a strong showing, though, with a few wizened retirees.

There’s a lanky, gray-haired man named Vernon who wears pleated khakis and a plaid sport shirt. He comes over and shakes my hand, letting me get a good look at the lapel pin dangling from his chest. Around a green marijuana leaf, the words read LEGALIZE MY MEDICATION. He seems sharp-witted and vivacious. If he’s suffering from a debilitating illness, Vernon gives no sign. After chatting with him for a moment, Marlene leads me up the steps to where Chas is grilling burgers.

“Is Vernon sick?” I ask her under my breath.

“He’s not sick,” she says. “He’s a doctor.”

“Oh.”

Chas flips a patty before turning. “Well, what do you think?”

“I was expecting more vegans, to be honest.”

“There’s some salad if you prefer,” he says, cracking a smile. “We’re a motley bunch, I admit. We’re for a thousand different things and against a thousand others, but the thing we have in common is that we insist on being heard. How about you?”

It feels like a sales pitch. “I’m not ready to sign on the dotted line or anything. But I appreciate the invitation.”

Again he smiles. “No pressure. Why don’t you show her around inside, Marlene?”

She opens the screen door and motions me inside. The interior comes as a bit of a shock. The bungalow has been stripped to its bones, the wood floors polished to mirror finish, the trim and the walls painted sterile white. The furniture looks like it’s straight out of the Design Within Reach catalog (a more accurate title would be Design Out of Reach), steel-and-leather chairs and sofas known best by the name of the designer. They’re arranged more like museum displays than objects meant for sitting on. I can understand why Chas entertains in the yard.

“What does Chas do?” I ask.

“His family is loaded. They’d have to be—to name their son Chas, right?”

“I guess so.”

The dining room has been converted into a library, the books perfectly aligned at the lip of the shelves. I’d be afraid to take one down for fear of ruining the line.

“How did you meet him?”

Marlene shakes her head. “This takes some explaining. He was protesting at a pro-choice rally. Protesting against the rally, I mean.”

“Chas is pro-life?”

“He’s not pro-anything. Or anti-anything. He’s just . . . Chas. He was holding this sign he’d made. A WOMAN’S RIGHT TO KILL, it said. Screaming at the top of his lungs, but clearly he wasn’t with the other pro-life people. They seemed kind of scared of him, to be honest. And somehow I got into a shouting match with him, and he started cracking up. We talked for a couple of hours, and I only realized toward the end that he didn’t care at all about the cause. It’s the experience, that’s his thing.”

“The experience of being pro-life.”

“The experience of being anything. I’m not like that, don’t get me wrong. Most of us aren’t. But for him, that’s all it is, a release. He says he doesn’t understand how people can get so worked up about things, so passionate. He wants to, though, which is why he does this.”

Glancing around the room, what she’s saying makes sense. This is the lair of someone who doesn’t get passion. So squared away, so cold. But still . . .

“You don’t feel like he’s mocking you?” I ask. “I mean, he’s basically faking it.”

“To him, it’s like creative nonfiction. He’s after an artistic truth rather than a literal one. And to be honest, seeing it through his eyes, I kind of understand. Everybody in the world is pro-choice, basically, but not everybody is out there marching. The experience adds something. Even if you don’t believe in the cause.”

“That’s a little hard to get my head around.”

“Yeah,” she says. “Some of us go with Chas and try it. We made a bunch of NRA signs and went to a big Second Amendment demo. I thought I’d throw up at first, but if I tuned out the words and just felt the emotion . . . I don’t know, I kind of fit in.”

“I can’t imagine protesting something I wasn’t against.”

“Neither could I. It’s weird, I know. But if you stick around Chas, that’s the kind of thing that happens. He opens your mind to things in a strange kind of way.”





Once the burgers are gone, along with most of the beers in the Igloo cooler, I install myself in one of the folding chairs to see what will happen next. I’m determined to see the afternoon through, even if coming here was a mistake. What was I thinking? My life needs less crazy at the moment, not more.

Chas stations himself on the edge of the ring of chairs, motioning the stragglers forward, making sure everyone has a seat. Marlene sits on the ground next to my knee. Sucking contemplatively on his pipe, Barber sinks into the chair beside me.

“The question is,” Chas begins, “who’s actually going with us to the Big Demo? I was hoping we’d have more people here, and it makes me worry that if we go through with the plan of renting the bus, it’ll be half empty.”

Marlene turns to me, whispering, “There’s a peace demonstration in D.C. the weekend after next. With all the troops pulling out, this could be our last chance.”

“They’re not going to stop having wars,” Barber says.

After some hemming and hawing, Chas asks for a show of hands. The results disappoint him.

“Vernon, you’re not going? Come on, man, you’re the backbone of this thing.”

The elderly doctor waves away the suggestion. “What’s the point? I only have so much effort to give, and I want to invest it where it’ll make a difference. You’re not going to stop them going to war, like Barber just said. We should be focusing on something achievable, something that’ll make the world a better place to live. Without legalization—”

“Not again.” The girl with the tattooed arms rolls her black-rimmed eyes. “Legalization is fine and everything, but it’s only going to drive the prices up. As it is, nobody’s having trouble getting what they need, right? Anybody hard up for weed?”

One of the grandmotherly types raises her hand, and the others giggle.

“Medical marijuana isn’t enough,” Vernon continues, ignoring the others. “As long as they’re still arresting people for possession—a disproportionate number of those people being African American—I don’t see why we should focus on anything else.”

“Okay, so Vernon’s not going.” Chas turns to the tattooed girl. “But what’s your excuse?”

“I have to work that weekend. We don’t all have trust funds.”

“Ha, ha. Marlene, you’re going, right?”

“I’m in.”

“What about you, Beth? I know you’re new to this, but if you’ve never been to the Mall for one of these things, it’s a mind-blowing experience, I can tell you that.”

I shrug.

“Seriously,” he says. “You really ought to do this. Bring that son of yours too. It’s the ultimate civics lesson. You’ll open his eyes to a whole new reality.”

“With any luck,” I say, “we’ll be in Florida.”

“In two weeks? That’s a pretty long vacation.”

“My husband has the month off.”

“Sweet,” Barber says, exhaling a puff of smoke. “What’s he do for a living? That’s the kind of job I need.”

Deep breath. Come right out with it. “He’s the Men’s Pastor at The Community.”

Blank stares.

“It’s a church down the road in Lutherville.”

Vernon’s face distorts into a frown of consternation. “The big one? The one that bought the old plastics factory?”

“That’s the one.”

And just like that, I’ve killed the conversation.

They’re all looking at me like I’m a plant from the Establishment. If they’re looking at all. Marlene, I notice, is staring at the clasped hands resting in her lap, probably replaying every moment since my arrival.

“The Life Chain,” one of the grandmothers says. “They’re the ones that sponsor the Life Chain every year. That . . . abomination.”

I’d forgotten about the Life Chain, thousands of suburbanites standing hand-in-hand along the highway out in front of the shopping mall on behalf of the unborn.

“That’s the one,” I repeat. Own it. There’s no other choice.

Chas tries to save the situation. “Still, you should come. Like I said, it’ll be eye-opening. And if you’re already out there protesting, then . . .”

The women across from me are muttering to each other while Vernon drills me with laser beams from his eyes.

“So that’s a Quaker church?” Barber says. “I had no idea.”

Before I can untangle his assumptions—something I should have done from the start—Vernon gets out of his chair and wanders off, prompting an exodus. My cheeks are burning, and though I hate to confess it, my feelings are hurt. A few moments ago I was thinking of them as crazies, the way Rick would, but now I’m hungry for their acceptance.

Shouldn’t they be more tolerant and accepting?

Marlene gets to her feet, brushing imaginary grass from her jeans. No, I can’t expect them to be any more tolerant than my own tribe would be if one of them turned up. Imagine bringing Marlene to the ladies’ book club, watching the girls swallow the ice in their tea when she drops the bomb about everybody in the world being pro-choice. She’d be lucky to get out of there alive.

“I’m sorry to break up the party,” I say, putting a brave face on the situation. I make my way toward the gap in the hedge, Chas trailing in my wake with a confused expression.

“You don’t have to go,” he says.

“I think I probably should. But thanks for inviting me. I enjoyed it. Really.”

On the sidewalk, hidden once more from their scrutiny, I feel myself shaking with anger, maybe self-pity. I should have fudged when the question came up. At the very least, I shouldn’t have mentioned where Rick works. The Community is too high profile not to have rubbed some of these people the wrong way. But no, I am who I am. There’s no point denying it. There’s a Jesus fish on my bumper, and that’s all you need to know.

I pause at that bumper, staring down at that fish. He’s looking a little dim and dirt-speckled. Part of me wants to kneel down and wipe him clean. The other part wants to pry him off.

“Beth, wait.”

Marlene comes up behind me, tentatively, her earlier confidence gone.

“It was nice meeting you,” I say.

“You’re not mad, are you? Don’t go away mad.”

“No, I’m fine. I knew there was some potential for culture clash. It’s not a big deal.”

“Good,” she says. “Anyway . . .”

“I’d better get going.”

I open the door and pause. She’s standing on the curb, hesitating, wanting to say something.

“What is it?” I ask.

“I used to go there,” she says. “To your church. My parents made me when I was in high school.”

“Oh.”

“I remember your husband, I think.”

“You do?”

“I always thought he was nice. The youth pastor, some of the others, I always thought they were full of themselves. But he was different.”

“Thanks for saying that.” She’s probably confusing Rick with someone else. But no, that’s unfair. He is different, only I lose sight of it sometimes. I mean, there’s nobody else on the pastoral staff planning to spend his vacation in a shed waiting to hear from God.





I drive home in a cloud of pipe smoke and guilt. As judgmental as it sounds, implying her life is off the rails, the words keep repeating in my head: We failed that girl. I failed her. And I didn’t even know who she was. She’s a college student now—at Towson, she told me—but a couple of years ago she was in the same youth group as my son Jed. They might have known each other, or at least recognized each other by sight. And now, going soccer mom again, I’m reinterpreting everything about her—the hair, the piercings, the pro-choice advocacy—as a reaction against her experience with us. The Community.

I want to talk to Jed, see if he recognizes her. I want to talk to Rick too. It can’t be a coincidence, me running away from church and straight into Marlene. I want to tell him what she said, in case it might encourage him. Remembering him on that stage this morning, so different from the man he used to be, I want to encourage him.

Eli is in the driveway with his bike standing upside down on its handlebars. He looks up from tinkering with the new wheel, waiting for me to park.

“Where’s your brother?” I ask.

“He went to the movies with some kids from church.”

“Okay. What about your dad? His car’s gone.”

“He said he was going to Sports Authority. He needs a new sleeping bag.”

“I see.”

He spins the bicycle wheel, watching the chain dance around the hub. “So, Mom . . . how was your afternoon with Chas? I bet he was surprised to see you.”

“Chas thinks I should bring you to the big peace demo in Washington DC two weeks from now. It’ll open your eyes, he says.”

“It sounds lame. Maybe Jed should go instead.”

“Maybe so. All fixed?”

He rights the bicycle and throws a leg over the top tube, rolling back and forth to test the weight. Satisfied, he kicks forward, rolling down the driveway and into the street, where he circles once or twice before waving good-bye. I stand there and watch him disappear.

Then I turn toward my empty house. I walk in.