When he’s too young to understand the nuances of metaphor but old enough to read he begins picking up slivers of understanding. Purchased from a corner store on discount the pages of his children’s bible are filled with large text to be conquered by little eyes. Its his Mama’s bible edited to easy passages with fun quizzes and trivia at the end of every chapter. Mama’s said he and she are going to become better Christians together and has given him strict instructions not to color in the pages – “This is for church, Joseph, not for scribbling in” – and he doesn’t think to argue. Not because he is known for minding his mother but because the Bible people are already colored in.
As he meters out every word with his finger, sounding them out with nearly audible murmurs, he comes to know characters with brown eyes and almond eyes, dark skin and darker skin. Moses with his full lips and iron gray beard, looking powerful but humbled on the glossy pages he picks and picks over. Samson with dreadlocks that remind him of their next door neighbor Wes.
In the basement classroom of the children's ministry, a fan cycles the hot air around into some semblance of cool breeze. The entire class is wild off of Teddy Grahams and fruit punch. Miss Gracie, left to wrangle the lot of them, promises Bible stickers if they fill out their Sunday school activity pages. Up until then she’s begged the Lord for patience as much as seven times. Joey's counted. So maybe the Almighty Father means to give her a break. Or her oversugared wards consider the possibility of getting still more sweets. Whatever the case, once given something to do they mostly quiet and settle and fall to their tasks. The work is simple. Open their bibles, find the verses, fill in the words. He's eager to be the first one done with all the right answers on every page but he pauses when Michael beside him barks laughter.
"What?" Defensive and wary he's already prepared for a fight. Michael with his carefully pressed Sunday pants and ever present clip-on ties is not really a friend. Hasn't been since he laughed just like this at his mismatched socks. The only reason they coexist in the civility of this tiny Sunday school is so as not to tire their already tired mothers.
"You have a Black people's bible. Why you have a Black people's bible?"
"It's not just a Black people bible. It's my bible. And I like it."
That a better answer escapes him annoys him. That his face burns with embarrassment he doesn't understand bothers him even more. Even though Michael returns to his work and ignores him from then on out he stews. He doesn't even finish the activity page that he meant to tear through.
On the walk back home from the bus stop he's sour-faced and moody. His goodie bag of fruit snacks and pretzels have gone untouched. His juice box unopened. He wasn't even thrilled when Miss Gracie gave him stickers just for reading. Usually at this time his mind would be on whipping off his Sunday clothes and installing himself in front of Sunday morning cartoons. Not today. This morning there is an intensity to the grip he has on his mother's hand.
"Mama?"
"Mm?" A woman with hair much darker than his own but the same blend of hazel eyes, she always looks calmed when they return from service. Too blessed to be stressed, Sister Burgess pointed out one afternoon. Today it's like that too. Her face softer because she's not worried about money or telling him to not leave his damn toys in the floor. He likes her this way. Untouched by all those adult troubles and open to tickle fights and taking him to McDonalds for ice cream cones. Those things will have to wait, of course. They reach the front gate and happen up the cracked in places driveway. He forgets his usual jump up the front porch steps but it's there they pause. By grandma and grandpa's patio chairs as she looks for her housekey.
"You think God really made everybody to look like him?"
"'God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.' Genesis? I think that he did, yeah."
"If he did that then why're some of us one color and some of us other colors? And why did stupid Michael Travis laugh at my bible?"
She's found her key now but she doesn't rattle the screen door open. Instead she looks at him. Not in her distracted barely seeing him way but her puzzling him out way.
"Where God made us like him is the way we think and how we feel. How we talk to one another and how we feel bad when somebody else feels bad or good when somebody else feels good. We're not all the same color, no. But it's still important to try and understand how other people think and feel and what they go through whether they're the same color or a different one." She smiled then, light and quick tapping his chin with a finger. "I think Michael Travis laughed because it was different to see but it's not bad. If you love your bible you keep your bible and use it often as you want to. You don't worry about Michael Travis, Joejoe."
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