The Power of Thought

Chapter 3

    The next morning in church was torture. I sat there and listened to a white man tell me what God thought about the world. This is pretty standard, but from my perspective it felt like trying to claw my way out of a pit of quicksand in which my family gladly kept dumping more sand. It was a slow death.
    The pastor talked about the afterlife, where we go when we die and all that. If I were to tell him how I heard other people's thoughts in my head, he would tell my parents to take away my internet privileges, and most likely refer me to some psychiatrist that had no business probing my mind. One time a few weeks ago, he told us that we had to watch out for liberal America and to pray for some woman named Kim Davis. I looked her up on Tumblr, using the two-generation-old ipod touch my parents got me for christmas, and found the one and only gifset I needed to understand that the woman just wasn't doing her job. He acted more like a politician than a pastor, and my parents gobbled it up.
***
    After church I always went to eat with Connor's family. They normally went out to eat, while my parents stayed at home, or picked up fast food on the way home. My parents were always pissed when I left them after church. They loved to just hang out even if the day was filled with arguments about whose turn it was to get the groceries or who was going to wash the windows. I normally ended up sat in a corner minding my own business being bored and trapped in the apartment. I chose to avoid that situation all together.
    In the restaurant, Connor's family sat all around four tables the staff had to put together to accommodate all of us.
    "Justina!" Connor's great-aunt, Gracie, called me over to her at the end of the table. She was elderly, and her skin had age spots and wrinkles all over. She hugged me around the waist.
    "Did I ever tell you how happy I was when Connor told me he was dating a girl like you?" She asked.
    "No, ma'am," I replied, smiling.
    She turned to her husband, who had a hearing aid in his ear. Gracie trained her husband to lean towards her when she needed to say something, and he never forgot. She didn't have to yell, and he let his wife do all the talking.
    "Much better than a girl from across the tracks, right Frank?" she asked. He smiled at his wife's remark, but stifled any laughter once he knew I wouldn't find it funny. Frank appreciated that his wife's tongue was sharp and loose at the same time.
    They were old and couldn't harm a fly, but their words were like hot iron that no one was allowed to touch. What was even worse was how perfectly the town I lived in fit the stereotypical geography where there was a predominantly black neighborhood just across the railroad tracks.
    Connor's mom obviously heard Gracie's comment and decided to chime in.
    "I was just glad to know that Connor was interested in girls," Connor's mom said. Connor's dad then looked down at his plate for a moment and then gave Connor's mom a look that said don't go there.
    His family enjoyed themselves and had no knowledge of consequence. They said what they wanted to say. This is why I liked to be with Connor's family. Sometimes, when I was really stressed about a paper or something, and I was at Connor's house printing another version off, I could hear his parent's thoughts. His mom thought about her work day and I heard all the conversations she had with her coworkers and her boss.
    What amazed me was how Connor's mom never once felt the need to act a certain way with certain people. She just was. She said what came to her mind, and the only time she refrained from saying anything was with her boss. Connor's mom figured yelling the word bullshit to her boss wouldn't be appropriate. Otherwise, Connor's mom was like the rest of his family, blunt and honest.
    Comments about how I was the best "hispanic girl" Connor could find, as if I were some rare jewel, really upset me. At least with Connor's family I was an individual. The only members of Connor's family who made comments about my race were the older ones. It was a small price to pay? All I knew was that I was a lesser member with my family. They didn't care about what I thought and they definitely didn't entertain me by listening.
    I knew I couldn't count on Connor or his family to be a space to voice my opinion or to be independent, but it was all I had. Every time Connor's family was racist, however, I made a point to find an apartment that Connor and I could live in together and away from his family.
    Frank gently pulled me closer to him after Gracie was distracted by Connor's mom across the table. He rarely talked much, let alone to me.
    "Don't listen to her, Justina, you're too good for Connor anyways," he said, slipping a few bills into my hand. "Eat some zebra cakes for me." Frank was diabetic and hadn't eaten what he calls "real food" for ten years.
    I thank him and go back to my seat at the other end of the table. I smiled back at him once I sat down, and started to get emotional once I saw his hand shake trying to pick up his cup. No one talked to him. The people on either side of him led their own conversations. He was essentially alone.
    I imagined my own future. Would I be Frank one day? Would I keep my opinion quiet and defer to Connor to comment for me? I saw a twisted and aged version of my face replace Frank's. I was the one at the end of the table that no one talked to. Connor's aged face replaced Gracie's. He talked and talked while I sat there and watched. I wondered if I would even have the money to tempt a grandchild to talk to me. For me, Frank was simultaneously the proof and warning that silence is gender-neutral.          The problem with that is I don't know if I would have noticed the silence if it were Gracie sat at the end of the table with no one to talk to. 
    Under the table, I fanned out the money that Frank gave me.
    Two hundred dollars.
    I almost dropped it on the floor, feeling like I stole candy from a baby. Five twenties and two fifties. One of the twenties had the number forty-seven written in pencil on the corner edge.
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