Jimmy’s Revival
—from a work-in-progress
by Lyndsey Ellis
Sugar called the day after my trial visit with Jimmy at the Revival Complex. As usual, she wore her granny hat for the first half hour, buttering me with small talk, like Eudal’s fickle weather and what she was baking for her neighbors. I didn’t mind since she’d caught me at the laundromat, desperate to pass time while my clothes dried.
I used the glass door of my dryer as a mirror to pluck rogue gray hairs from my afro while Sugar caught me up on the lives of my aunts, uncles, and cousins, in the order they moved out of her house: Sylvia, Tyrone, Pooh, Spencer, Tamar, Ken-Ken, Brick, Lenelle, and Jonah. She hated the nerve of some kinfolk resettling in Hell – Sugar’s word for The South – after her own grandparents worked hard to migrate north in Eudal.
Out of respect, I never shared with Sugar my real thoughts on Eudal and how it was becoming its own version of Hell. No jobs, housing, or healthcare. Record-high OD rates. Lousy dating pool. A tragic Midwest mess that she refused to see.
“So,” Sugar said, finally getting around to me, “how’s my Miranda?”
“Same ole,” I said. “Can’t complain.”
It was the best, and only, response I ever gave. Sugar knew my story, but she stayed down my throat for leaving Eudal, in hopes that I’d change my mind and return. In other words, pretend parting ways with Barstone Middle School twelve years ago hadn’t left a dent in me.
“You can always come home.”
“You say that every time, Sugar.”
“And, I’ll keep saying it. How’s Pierre?”
“Haven’t talked to him.”
“What TV shows have you watched lately?” I asked. “Any recommendations?”
“Childlessness is a plus these days.” The smile in Sugar’s voice was loud over the phone. “Little boogers have no manners and zero drive. Always got their faces in these phones. Most times, the parents don’t make them mind. Eudal or not, I’m glad you don’t have to be in the classroom full-time anymore, being somebody’s part-time mama on a piss-poor salary.”
“Right.”
“Speaking of the classroom,” Sugar said, “You hear the latest on that former student of yours, Jimmy Matting? Turns out he didn’t assault or kill anybody. Ask me what happened.”
“What happened?”
“They found his accuser’s diary after her murder. Long story short, the girl wrote about her husband losing it over her fling with Jimmy. Turns out she was pregnant with Jimmy’s baby when she died. Of course, the DNA results on her body didn’t surface until after Jimmy’s lethal injection, and it was a match for the husband, not Jimmy! So, they took Jimmy’s body up there where you are, in Cypress. Ask me why.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re bringing him back from the dead with some new government-backed drug called Epsinollam.”
“Wow.” I pretended to sound surprised.
“Yeah, wow is right. You hear what I said, Randi? I’ve been around a long time, seen and heard lots of things—lying syphilis studies, church bombings, folks getting beat in the street like dogs. But I never thought I’d witness something this diabolical and disrespectful! Got the nerve to call it a revival, like it’s righteous. Ain’t nothing holy about this.”
Sugar’s heavy breathing hung between us. On the other end of the phone, I heard an ice cube clink against glass, followed by the swish and glug of what I knew was Paul Masson, her favorite brandy.
“And, get this,” she said. “The other night, I heard a secret somebody is being paid to make sure Jimmy resettles into society after he’s brought back. What fool in their right mind would help with this charade for a few dollars? Damn Judas. Shameful.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I kept quiet. There wasn’t an easy way to admit being the fool in this charade of Jimmy’s revival. Sugar wouldn’t stand for it, and I didn’t need her judgment. Plus, if I got specific about my involvement, it would only lead to questions about boundaries and what I allowed when I was Jimmy’s teacher, which would loop us back to her point on why I needed to be back in Eudal.
“Well?” Sugar said. “I would’ve thought you’d blow a fuse over them messing with Jimmy, the way you tried to go to bat for him as a child.”
I opened the dryer door before my clothes stopped spinning. Someone had left a lollipop in the lint trap.
“What do you want me to say?” I held the phone between my cheek and neck while I scratched the dried sugary substance off my favorite jeans. “Yes, it’s awful, but at the end of the day, I guess they’re doing what they’re going to do.”
“Not if we raise hell about it. We need to let the powers-that-be know this isn’t acceptable. They keep breaking a basic rule. Don’t mistreat anybody. You never know what God’s vengeance will bring to reverse the harm. Or karma, universal justice—whatever they want to call it these days.”
“No, Sugar,” I said, “How about you don’t mistreat folks because you don’t mistreat folks?”
“When’d you get so self-righteous? I didn’t raise you like that.”
I resisted the urge to have the last word. It was a losing game, with Sugar’s famous scathing clapbacks. My energy was best left for this new reality. As Jimmy’s only safety, I’d agreed to the task of re-teaching him. Of comforting. Of mothering. Regardless of how it looked, I wasn’t going to leave him again. Not ever.
“Call you back when I get home,” I lied.
My pants were a red, sticky mess from the stain remover I’d sprayed. After hanging up with Sugar, I turned them inside out and hurled them into a washer for a second round.
Lyndsey Ellis is the author of Bone Broth (Hidden Timber Books, 2021), and her writing also appears in The New York Times, Kweli Journal, Literary Hub, The Rumpus, and Electric Literature. She has been the recipient of the San Francisco Foundation’s Joseph Henry Jackson Literary Award, Barbar Deming Memorial Fund, Kimbilio Fiction Fellowship, and Voodoonauts Black Speculative Fiction Fellowship for her fiction. A fan of outdoor Zumba and 1980’s horror films, she teaches fiction at Gotham Writers Workshop and lives in St. Louis, Missouri.
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