A Red Death

13

Towne was out in front of the church with Winona, Melvin, Jackie, and a couple I didn’t know. The couple were older and they looked uncomfortable. They’d probably shaken the minister’s hand every Sunday for twenty or more years and they weren’t going to stop just because Towne gave one sour sermon.

“Easy,” Melvin said. We knew each other from the old days back in the fifth ward, in Houston, Texas.

“Melvin.”

Jackie was wringing his hands. Winona was gazing at Reverend Towne. It was only then that I noticed Shep, Winona’s little husband, standing in the doorway. I hadn’t seen him in church.

“That was a powerful and brave sermon, minister,” Etta said. She walked up to him and shook his hand so hard that his jowls shook.

“Thank you, thank you very much,” he replied. “It’s good t’have you up here, Sister Alexander. I hope you’re planning to stay for a while.”

“That all depends,” Etta said, and then she stole a quick glance at me.

Winona stepped up and said something to Towne, I couldn’t make out what, then Etta asked, “How is that boy’s folks? You think I could he’p ’em?”

I had to laugh at those women fighting over the minister. I think Etta was doing it just because she didn’t like to see Winona flirting there in front of her own husband.

I saw Jackie and Melvin move to the bottom of the stairway. There they began to argue. Jackie was waving his hands in the air and Melvin was making placating gestures, holding his palms toward the handsome man as if he were trying to press Jackie’s anger down.

I would have liked to know what they were fighting about, but that was merely curiosity, so I turned back to EttaMae.

She had linked arms with the minister and they were walking away. Etta was saying, “Why don’t you introduce me to the poor woman, I could maybe do the cooking on some days.”

I got to look over my shoulder to see Melvin and Jackie still arguing at the bottom of the stair. Melvin was stealing glances up at me.

“Go get the car, Shep,” Winona said, casual and cruel.

“Okay,” he answered. Then little brown Shep, in his rayon red-brown suit, went away to the parking lot.

“Etta with you, Easy?” Winona asked before Shep disappeared around the building.

“Say what?”

“You heard me, Easy Rawlins. Is EttaMae your woman?”

“Etta ain’t rightly nobody’s, Winona. She don’t hardly even like t’think she belongs t’Jesus.”

“Don’t fool with me,” she warned. “That bitch is givin’ the minister the eye, an’ if she free it’s gonna have t’stop.”

“He married?” I asked, shocked.

“ ’Course not!”

“Well, Etta ain’t neither.”

I shrugged and Winona gnashed her teeth. She went down the stairway in a huff.

I looked down at the bottom of the stairs, but Jackie and Melvin were gone, so I turned to enter the church. I found myself at about chest level with a brown suit that had goldenrod stripes. He was standing on a higher stair but even if we stood toe to toe he would have towered over me.

“You Rawlins, ain’t you?” he asked in a voice that was either naturally rough or husky with emotion.

“That’s right,” I said, taking a step backward so I could see his face and move out of range.

His brown face, which clashed with his suit, was smallish, perfectly round, childlike and mean.

“I want you t’take me to yo’ boss.”

“And why is that?” I asked.

“I got business with’im.”

“This is Sunday, son. On today we s’posed t’rest.”

“Listen, man,” he threatened. His voice cracked. “I know all about you…”

“Yeah?”

“You di’n’t lift a finger.” He was quoting someone. “She tole me ’bout how he used her, how he took her fo’ money an’ then he just let her slide when she got sick. She could just die an’ all you care ’bout was yo’self.”

“What’s your name, man?”

“I’m Willie Sacks.” He puffed up his shoulders. “Now let’s go.” He put his hand on my shoulder but I brushed it off.

“You Poinsettia’s boyfriend?” I asked. I wasn’t going anywhere.

He threw a punch at me that would have put a hole in a brick wall. I crouched down under it though, grabbing his wrist as I did, and came up behind him twisting his arm and wrenching his giant thumb.

Willie said, “Oh!” and knelt on the stair.

“I don’t wanna hurt ya, boy,” I whispered in Willie’s ear. “But you make me damage this suit an’ I’m a do some damage on you.”

“I kill you!” he shouted. “I kill all’a you!”

I let him go and moved down a few stairs.

“What’s your problem, Willie?”

“Take me t’Mofass!”

He stood up. In that shade I felt like David without his slingshot.

It’s hard for a big man to throw a punch downward. I let his fist snap somewhere off to the west and then I gave him one and two in the lower gut. Willie folded like a peel bug and rolled down the stairs.

He got right up though, so I ran down and hit him again, on the side of his head that time. I hit him hard enough to hurt a normal man, but Willie was more like a buffalo. I hit him as hard as I could and all he did was sit down.

“I don’t wanna hurt you, Willie,” I said, more to distract me from the pain in my hand than to worry him.

“When I get up from here we gonna see who gonna be hurt.” There were patches of bloody flesh on his face, scrapes from the granite stairs.

“Poinsettia ain’t nobody’s fault, Willie,” I said. “Let it go.”

But he lurched to his feet and came shambling up the stair. I lost patience and broke his nose. I could feel the bone give under my knuckle. I was considering his left ear when I felt a blow to my back. It wasn’t hard, but I was tensed for a fight, so I swung around, only to be hit in the face with something like a pillow. A tiny woman in a frilly pink dress was swinging her woven string purse at my head. She didn’t say a word, saving all of her energy for the fight.

She might have kept it up, but when Willie yelled, “Momma!” she forgot about me and ran to his side.

He was cupping his hands under the bloody faucet of his nose.

“Willie! Willie!”

“Momma!”

“Willie!”

She pushed him until he was up off his knees and then dragged him away, down the street.

Twice the pink-and-brown woman glared at me. She was tiny and wore white-rimmed glasses. Her lips caved inward where teeth once held them firm. Mrs. Sacks couldn’t lift her son’s arm, but I was more frightened of those killer stares than I would have been of a whole platoon of Willies.

“Sit down on the couch here next to me, honey, not way over there.” Etta patted the green fabric next to her.

We were in her new apartment on Sixty-fourth Street. It was a nice six-unit apartment building. Her place had two bedrooms, a shower, and blue wall-to-wall shag carpets. LaMarque was with Lucy Rideau and her two girls. They had all gone to Bible school and now they were having Sunday supper.

“I should really get on to work, Etta.”

“On Sunday?”

“I’ma be doin’ some extra work fo’ the church so I gotta make up my time on the weekend.”

“Now what you gonna be doin’ fo’ the Lord, Easy Rawlins?”

“We all do our li’l piece, Etta. We all do our li’l piece.”

“Like you makin’ so LaMarque an’ me ain’t gotta pay no rent to that terrible man?”

“Mofass ain’t so bad. He lettin’ you stay here, ain’t he?”

“He give me this furniture too?”

“We had an eviction last year an’ this stuff been in my garage. I tole’im I’d haul it off to the dump.”

“You coulda sold this stuff, Easy. That bed in there is mahogany.”

When I didn’t answer she said, “Come here, baby, sit down.”

I did.

“What’s wrong, Easy?”

“Nuthin’, Etta, nuthin’.”

“Then why you ain’t come by. You got me a house an’ furniture. You must like us t’do all that.”

“Sure I like you.”

“Then why’ont you come over an’ show me how much?”

Her hand was on my neck. She was much warmer than I was.

Etta’s dress was silken and flimsy under her jacket. The bodice was low-cut and her breasts bulged upward when she leaned toward me.

“I thought you didn’t wanna see me no mo’,” I said.

“I’s jus’ mad, honey,” she said as she leaned toward me. “Thas all.”

For some reason I imagined what Wendell Boggs must have looked like on his deathbed. There was fresh blood on his half-face and a whitish scab where one of his eyes should have been.

“Easy?”

“Yeah, Etta?”

“I got the papers to my divorce in the other room.”

She shifted slightly to bring her left knee over her right one, nudging my leg. Her dress looked very tight, like it wanted to burst.

“I don’t need to see ’em,” I said.

“Yes you do.”

“No.”

“Yes, Easy. You need to see that I’m a free woman and that I can have what I want.”

“It ain’t you, Etta, it’s me,” I said, but I kissed her anyway.

“You got me all riled up though, honey.” She kissed me back. “Gettin’ my house an’ my bed, takin’ me t’ church, mmm, I love that.”

We didn’t talk for a little while then.

When she leaned back, and I got a moment to breathe, I asked, “But what about Raymond?”

Etta took my hand and put it on her chest, then she gazed at me with eyes that I dream about to this very day.

“Do you want me?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

She pressed a finger against my shirt, where my nipple was.

“Then I tell you what,” she whispered.

“What?” Just that one word drained all the breath out of me.

“You don’t talk about him now an’ I won’t say nuthin’ ’bout him when we wake up.”