{"id":64708,"date":"2015-10-28T18:39:33","date_gmt":"2015-10-28T18:39:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=64708"},"modified":"2023-01-05T15:54:01","modified_gmt":"2023-01-05T23:54:01","slug":"soybeans","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=64708","title":{"rendered":"Soybeans"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"woollett1\"<\/a>(Author\u2019s note:<\/em><\/strong> \u2018Soybeans\u2019 was the winner of the 2014 John Marsden\/ Hachette Prize for Fiction, a competition for Australian Writers aged 18-24. It tells the story of a pair of teens navigating sex, love, and faith against the backdrop of Peoples Temple in California, sometime in the early \u201970s. <\/em><\/p>\n

(Reading about Peoples Temple, I\u2019ve felt particularly drawn to the California years\u2014partly because California of the \u201960s and \u201970s is such a fascinating setting in its own right, and partly because (from an outsider\u2019s perspective, anyway) this seems to have been the Temple\u2019s heyday. I\u2019ve also felt drawn to the stories of young people within the Temple, and more generally to the theme of coming-of-age within radical systems of belief. <\/em><\/p>\n

(\u2018Soybeans\u2019 is a story that engages with both these inspirations. Though influenced by countless articles on this site, I\u2019d like to give special mention to Jordan Vilchez\u2019s \u2018Insight and Compassion: Vestiges of Peoples Temple\u2019<\/a>, which so strikingly captures her experiences of being young in the Temple, and from which I borrowed the soybeans motif.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

(First published in Voiceworks #99 (December 2014), \u2018Soybeans\u2019 was more recently reprinted in <\/em>Award Winning Australian Writing 2015.)<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m sitting in the sun eating dried soybeans when I feel Wayne\u2019s eyes slipping over me. It\u2019s a strange feeling, hot and damp, which makes me want to break into a smile and crawl into myself all at once. I look down. I swing my legs on the fence. There\u2019s movement everywhere\u2014light and shadow, little kids riding ponies, bigger kids like us idling with pails and bridles. But somehow, the only movement I\u2019m aware of is Wayne weaving through the tall grass toward me.<\/p>\n

Wayne is black and beautiful. His blackness makes his beauty brighter: the whites of his eyes, his smile, the sweat glinting on his muscles. I see Wayne\u2019s sweat and can\u2019t help thinking how different he looks from Father, sweating at the pulpit. Wayne\u2019s sweat is like crushed violets. Father\u2019s sweat is just like sweat.<\/p>\n

\u2018Lazy ass.\u2019 Wayne swats my leg once he\u2019s close enough.<\/p>\n

\u2018Ow!\u2019 I say, making my face ugly. It feels good to look ugly, after all that admiring. Not that I\u2019m pretty or anything. Wayne\u2019s always teasing me about having a boy\u2019s name and a boy\u2019s face to match. It\u2019s something to do with my chin sticking out and my eyebrows being so much darker than my hair, which is long and yellow and the only pretty thing about me. I rub the place on my leg and keep glowering at Wayne.<\/p>\n

He shrugs and grins. \u2018There was a horsefly.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Yeah, right.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Horsefly for a horse\u2019s ass. You better watch it, or those kids are gonna start ridin\u2019 you.\u2019<\/p>\n

I make a grab for Wayne\u2019s shirt but he\u2019s fast, leaving me with a fistful of air. He touches my leg again, softer this time, inspecting a smear of dried white paint just above my knee.<\/p>\n

\u2018Uh, did a bird shit on you, Bobbi?\u2019 he asks, poker-faced.<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s paint<\/em>.\u2019<\/p>\n

I\u2019m on the painting crew right now, helping to fix up the older cottages. They say it\u2019s because I\u2019ve got artistic sense, but I don\u2019t see anything artistic about slapping white paint on wood. Even if we do get to add some color later, I\u2019d rather be doing Wayne\u2019s job. He\u2019s going to be a veterinarian someday, so he gets to work with the ponies.<\/p>\n

\u2018Paint. Uh-huh,\u2019 Wayne says vaguely. His hand stays on my leg some seconds too long, dark against light. He sees me noticing and drops it, embarrassed. Then he reaches into my crinkled brown bag of soybeans.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t mind sharing my lunch with Wayne. Sharing is what we\u2019ve been brought up with and, besides, crunching on the beans gives us something to do together. Father says soybeans are the best food to prepare us for the nuclear holocaust, since there\u2019s some chemical in them that acts as a force field against radioactive particles. While most American kids are being made weak by a diet of sugar and fast food, we\u2019re making ourselves strong for the days to come. I think of Wayne and me surviving together and it\u2019s a nice thought.<\/p>\n

It seems Wayne can\u2019t go a minute without teasing though, because he nudges me. \u2018You know, the way you\u2019re scarfin\u2019 these, you\u2019d think the nuclear holocaust was gonna be tomorrow.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018So?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019m just sayin\u2019, it\u2019s cool to build up your force field and all, but people still have to live with you, y\u2019know?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018No<\/em>.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018That smell.\u2019 He pinches his nose. \u2018I\u2019ve been around horses all day and you still smell worse\u2026worse than horse ass.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Shut up.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Worse than horse shit<\/em>.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Well, you <\/em>don\u2019t even need a force field.\u2019 I snatch the paper bag away. \u2018You\u2019re like a cockroach that\u2019s gonna crawl out when everything else is dead. An ugly-ass black cockroach.\u2019<\/p>\n

As soon as I\u2019ve said it, I know how racist it sounds, and shut my mouth. Wayne pinches my leg and calls me a horse\u2019s ass again, but I know he\u2019s hurt. I scrunch the bag of soybeans tighter in my hand and turn to look at the ponies, moving slowly through the field like something in a dream. A minute later, Wayne tugs on my yellow ponytail.<\/p>\n

\u2018You even look like a horse with this damn thing,\u2019 he says. His voice is bitter, but I can hear a note of something else in it, forgiveness maybe. It still feels too soon to face him, so I keep looking at the ponies.<\/p>\n

\u2018I thought I looked like a boy.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Not a boy.\u2019 Wayne gives my hair another tug. \u2018Hell no, not a boy.\u2019<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Wayne and I both come from big families, who joined Father\u2019s revolutionary church in its earliest days. Father has watched us growing up more closely than our own parents, whose capitalistic tendencies must be kept in check. There are few things more capitalistic than the nuclear family, and the one-man one-woman attachments that go into making it. Father doesn\u2019t have such selfish attachments and doesn\u2019t preach them. He is Father to us all and we are all his children.<\/p>\n

We are all Father\u2019s children, which makes Wayne and I practically brother and sister. It makes there even more reason for us not to touch.<\/p>\n

It starts innocently enough, with teasing and play-fighting out in the fields. We\u2019re not the only kids who act this way\u2014there are thirty-odd of us living and working on the ranch, so plenty of hormones flying around. Father is willing to look past some flirtation, so long as it\u2019s not too focused on one person and not going to end up in sex. Because sex is what makes our parents weak. It makes most adults weak, distracting valuable energy from the Cause.<\/p>\n

I think I\u2019m more devoted to the Cause than I am to Wayne. On the cross-country bus tour over summer, I wear red shirts and long black skirts like a communist Chicana. Wayne wears black like a Panther. I read the books that Father prescribes for revolutionaries aged fifteen to seventeen and so does Wayne, but often our eyes find each other over the pages.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s thirteen buses in Father\u2019s fleet but many more of us than they can sleep comfortably. The seniors get priority seating near the front and Father\u2019s staff travel with him in lucky bus no. 7. For the rest of us, it\u2019s either cramming into the back and middle sections or squabbling over the luggage compartment, which is the best place for stretching out on your own and sleeping. After all the shuttling from city to city and pamphleting in the heat and long revival meetings, we\u2019re all hanging out for some rest.<\/p>\n

On the road back west from Philadelphia, I win the coin toss for the compartment on bus no. 13. I\u2019m so wiped out I don\u2019t even hear the tires grinding out of the parking lot or feel anything of the road \u2019til our next pit stop. It\u2019s there that Wayne lifts the door and nudges me awake. \u2018Get over, Bobbi. I need to crash.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Nuh-uh.\u2019 I yawn. \u2018No way.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019m not even kiddin\u2019 you, honky. It\u2019s wall-to-wall farts up there.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Don\u2019t call me \u201chonky\u201d,\u2019 I bitch, but I make room for Wayne just the same. He crawls into the compartment and narrows himself to shut us in. There\u2019s an awkwardness as his long limbs brush against mine. For something to say, I ask, \u2018Where are we?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Fuckin\u2019 Ohio.\u2019<\/p>\n

Wayne starts telling me about what\u2019s outside and then some things that happened on the bus, how they were pitching sunflower seeds and blasting Jethro Tull \u2019til one of the seniors made them turn off the music. When the bus gets rolling again, the motion and exhaust fumes soon send us back to sleep. The next thing I know, we\u2019re cuddled together and opening our eyes at each other\u2019s faces. There\u2019s more awkwardness as we adjust our bodies.<\/p>\n

\u2018Sorry,\u2019 says Wayne. The whites of his eyes gloom over briefly, like an eclipse.<\/p>\n

\u2018That\u2019s okay,\u2019 I say.<\/p>\n

For a few minutes, we just lie there, listening to each other\u2019s breathing and the thudding of the road. The awkwardness still hangs over us, but there\u2019s something nice about it, honest. Or maybe it\u2019s the silence that\u2019s honest, so different from Father\u2019s prophesying, Father\u2019s noise.<\/p>\n

\u2018Do you ever wonder\u2026?\u2019 Wayne begins. He stops. \u2018I don\u2019t know.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018What?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Like\u2026when it\u2019s all gonna happen?\u2019<\/p>\n

By \u201cit\u201d, Wayne could mean many things: the revolution, the holocaust, or maybe even this thing between us that I don\u2019t want to name.<\/p>\n

\u2018I don\u2019t know,\u2019 I say, but softly, like I\u2019m really saying \u201cyes\u201d. A second later, Wayne\u2019s fingers are trailing through my hair and I\u2019m not surprised, not really.<\/p>\n

\u2018I like your hair,\u2019 he says. Then: \u2018I like you.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I like you too,\u2019 I say.<\/p>\n

The road keeps rolling beneath us. I don\u2019t know where we are, only that we probably shouldn\u2019t be here.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

When us teenagers were little kids, Father used to read our minds all the time. All he had to do was walk past us and he\u2019d know what was in our heads, every shameful or dishonest thing we\u2019d done since he last checked: using cuss words, cheating at school, hoarding candy, pushing in front of seniors. All those bad deeds would scream inside us and Father would tilt his head like a curious crow to hear them. Then he\u2019d crouch down and tell us what he had heard, in the gentlest voice imaginable, his sunglasses reflecting our faces back at us.<\/p>\n

As we got older, we talked about ways to keep Father from reading our minds. Some of them involved turning our thoughts into gibberish or silently singing over them, as loud as we could. Others involved making our minds as empty as possible. The way that worked best for me was to stare at something nearby, say a wall or a sofa cushion, and think of nothing but its color till Father had passed me by. Of course, he always knew when we were trying to block him, but he seemed to appreciate the effort, and almost forgive us on that principle alone.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m doing my color-hypnosis thing now, staring at the white of the refrigerator, even as I stand listening in the crowded kitchen. Father is on one of his twice-weekly inspections of the ranch and has called in at the cottage I share with Jasmeen, Mary, Louelle, and Louelle\u2019s two foster sons. The report we give him is a mix of good stuff, like our vegetable harvest, and bad, like how one of Louelle\u2019s boys was overheard calling another kid a nigger. For the good, Father praises us, and for the bad, he gently cusses us out, letting us know the ways in which we\u2019ve failed him.<\/p>\n

\u2018\u2026Louelle, honey, I\u2019m not sayin\u2019 it\u2019s your fault, but fact is, it don\u2019t matter when it happened. I don\u2019t give a shit<\/em> when it happened, and the fact you\u2019re blamin\u2019 Mary \u2019cause it happened on her watch? That\u2019s goddamn pettiness<\/em>. You\u2019re killin\u2019 me, sweetheart. It must be a dozen times I\u2019ve told you by now how much I suffer from pettiness\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

Louelle is crying a little and agreeing with Father, and Jasmeen and Mary are nodding their heads, saying how they remember Father\u2019s talk against pettiness. I nod too. I also remember, though my head is still full of the color white. Our reminiscing makes Father laugh.<\/p>\n

\u2018Now\u2019s you three are being petty. I don\u2019t need to hear that you remember. What the hell good does that do me?\u2019 He laughs again and points to his temple, where a sideburn grows thick and raven-black. \u2018I <\/em>remember. It\u2019s all in my psych, uh, psyche<\/em>. Louelle, come here. Dry your eyes. I don\u2019t mean for you to feel gangbanged. You know that, don\u2019t you?\u2019<\/p>\n

I watch Father take Louelle into his arms and for that second my concentration is broken. I remember being in Wayne\u2019s arms not two nights ago, the slender blackness of them branching over me. Father releases Louelle. He adjusts his sunglasses and I see myself reflected in them. I look back at the refrigerator, too late.<\/p>\n

What passes from then to the porch is a blur to me. I know Father\u2019s read my mind, that there\u2019s no use in my psychic defenses. Still, I keep glancing around at colors, trying to hold them in my mind. As he\u2019s taking leave of us at the door, Father touches my arm and asks me to step outside with him a moment. It\u2019s the first time he\u2019s laid a hand on me since Wayne. I wonder what other secrets my flesh is giving up.<\/p>\n

\u2018Bobbi, sweetheart, do you have something you want to tell me?\u2019 Father turns to face me in the afternoon light. Even though he\u2019s not as beautiful as Wayne, there\u2019s something about Father\u2019s face that makes you look: the fullness and the frog mouth and the eyes that only show you yourself.<\/p>\n

\u2018No, Father.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Nothing at all?\u2019<\/p>\n

I shake my head. Father takes his hand from my arm and strokes his chin, wets his lips with his tongue. Then he looks me up and down, like he\u2019s noticing me for the first time: my bare feet, my skirt above my knees, my long yellow hair.<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019m disappointed, darling,\u2019 he says, and sounds it. \u2018It seems to me, and I\u2019m rarely wrong, but it seems to me you\u2019re, uh, maybe not so serious about the Cause as you could be.\u2019<\/p>\n

I say nothing. Father strokes his chin again. \u2018Let me phrase this as a question. Bobbi, do you like it when members of the male\u2026when male members look at you?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2026I don\u2019t know, Father.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Yes or no? It\u2019s a simple question. You know, I can see inside you, so it\u2019s only as a courtesy I\u2019m askin\u2019, to give you a chance to be honest with your leader. If you don\u2019t want to be honest, well\u2026honestly, that\u2019s proof enough that you\u2019re not the revolutionary I thought you were. And that pains me. Right to my heart, that gives me so much pain.\u2019 He touches his heart through his breast pocket and gives a short cough. \u2018So, yes or no, do you like it? An honest answer, Bobbi, that\u2019s all I want.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I guess\u2026sometimes I do.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Hmmm? Sometimes?\u2019 Father cocks his head in that crow-like way. \u2018So, uh, it depends on the male?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I guess so.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I can see<\/em>, remember. Depends on the male. You like them your own age, don\u2019t you? Sixteen, seventeen\u2026?\u2019<\/p>\n

This seems like an obvious thing to me, and I guess my face shows it. Father laughs again. \u2018Oh, you\u2019d be surprised<\/em>. You\u2019d be surprised how many hold a, um, more fatherly <\/em>type up as the standard. Not you? That don\u2019t matter. I\u2019m just sayin\u2019, some do. Some do\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

Father trails off and for a long time I\u2019m left alone with the smell of him: sweat, brylcreem, strong cologne, and a sweet something I can\u2019t pinpoint that makes me feel queasy. Then he looks square at me and says, \u2018Young black males. That\u2019s your depending<\/em>. You want them lookin\u2019 at you. Huh?\u2019<\/p>\n

I know he wants an honest answer but my tongue doesn\u2019t want to give it, furred and tingling heavily in my mouth. Father watches me struggle for some moments then puts his hands on my face, gently closes my mouth. It feels good not to have to talk, to leave the speaking to him.<\/p>\n

\u2018You want to serve the Cause, I see that. But you gotta forget this being looked at bullshit.\u2019 In his glasses, my reflection is small and pale. \u2018If you want to live through this revolution, you can\u2019t be distracted. You gotta give yourself completely\u2026\u2019 His hands move to my long hair, stroking, appraising. \u2018I<\/em> see you, darling. I see what you can be. I\u2019m the only one who\u2019ll ever<\/em> see\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

I feel the night breeze on the back of my neck before I feel Wayne\u2019s eyes, lingering over the delicate bones and shorn yellow. It\u2019s hard to know whether to feel more naked than before or less. I don\u2019t turn to meet his eyes. I don\u2019t look down. I don\u2019t swing my legs on the fence, just sit plain and rigid.<\/p>\n

Wayne says my name. He passes a confused hand through my short haircut. I expect a comment about looking like a boy, but instead he hoists himself up on the fence beside me. He sits for a minute with his head hanging down and his hands folded in his lap. Then he reaches into the bag of dried soybeans I\u2019m holding open.<\/p>\n

\u2018I don\u2019t give a damn,\u2019 he says quietly, pinging a soybean across the field.<\/p>\n

I watch it fly out from his fingertips then disappear in the dark. I think of Father watching us, always watching.<\/p>\n

\u2018I don\u2019t give a damn,\u2019 Wayne says again, louder. He pings another bean.<\/p>\n

\u2018I don\u2019t give a damn.\u2019<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when I realize I don\u2019t either. I don\u2019t give a damn if we survive this holocaust.<\/p>\n

(Laura Elizabeth Woollett is an Australian writer. She recently <\/em>signed a two-book deal with Scribe, an Australian publisher, for her short story collection <\/em>The Love of a Bad Man and her Peoples Temple novel\u00a0<\/em>Beautiful Revolutionary.<\/em> Her other contributions to this edition of <\/em>the jonestown report are the companion articles From Carolyn to Evelyn<\/a> and Life Lessons With Peoples Temple<\/a>. Her guest blog for the Melbourne Writers Festival about her research trip to the United States is\u00a0here<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Author\u2019s note: \u2018Soybeans\u2019 was the winner of the 2014 John Marsden\/ Hachette Prize for Fiction, a competition for Australian Writers aged 18-24. It tells the story of a pair of teens navigating sex, love, and faith against the backdrop of Peoples Temple in California, sometime in the early \u201970s. (Reading about Peoples Temple, I\u2019ve felt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":64525,"menu_order":9,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-64708","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/64708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64708"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/64708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":120838,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/64708\/revisions\/120838"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/64525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}