A Red Death

11

I lamented Poinsettia’s death. She’d come down in the world, but that was no reason to wish her ill. It was a senseless and brutal death whether she killed herself or somebody else did it. But if it was suicide I dreaded the thought that she did herself in over the threat of eviction; an eviction I knew was wrong. I tried to put that thought out of my mind but it burrowed there, in the back of my thoughts, like a gopher tunneling under the ground.

But, no matter how I felt, life had to go on.

I picked EttaMae up on Sunday morning. She was wearing a royal-blue dress with giant white lilies stitched into it. Her hat was eggshell-white, just a layered cap on the side of her head. Her shoes were white too. Etta never wore high heels because she was a tall woman, just a few inches shorter than I.

On the way I asked her, “You talk to Mouse?”

“I called him yesterday, yeah.”

“An’ what he say?”

“Just like always. He start out fine, but then he get that funny sound in his voice. Then he talkin’ ’bout how he will not be denied, like I owe ’im sumpin’. Shit! I’ma have t’kill Raymond if he start comin’ ’round scarin’ LaMarque like he did in Texas.”

“He say anything to LaMarque?”

“Naw. He won’t even talk to the boy no more. Why you ask?”

“I dunno.”

First African Baptist Church was a big salmon-colored building, built on the model of an old Spanish monastery. There was a large mosaic that stood out high on the wall. Jesus hung there, bleeding red pebbles and suffering all over the congregation. Nobody seemed to notice, though. All the men and women, and children too, were dressed in their finest. Gowns and silk suits, patent-leather shoes and white gloves. The smiles and bows that passed between the sexes on Sunday would have been scandalous anywhere else.

But Sunday was a time to feel good and look good. The flock was decked out and bouncy, waiting for word from the Lord.

Rita Cook came with Jackson Blue. He probably sniffed after her and moved in when Mouse got bored. That’s the way most men do it, they let other men break the ice, then they have clear sailing.

Dupree and his new wife, Zaree, were there. She had once told me that her name was from Africa and I asked her from what part of Africa. She didn’t know and was angry at me for making her look foolish-after that we never got along too well.

I saw Oscar Jones, Odell’s older brother, on the stairs to the church. Etta was saying hello to all the people she hadn’t seen yet, so I moved toward where Oscar stood.

As I suspected, Odell was there standing in the shadow of a stucco pillar facade.

“Easy,” Oscar said.

“Howdy, Oscar. Odell.”

They were brothers, and closer than that. Two men with slightly different faces whose clothes hung on them the same way. They were both soft-spoken men. I’d seen them talking but I’d never heard a word that one said to the other.

“Odell,” I said. “I got to talk to you.”

“Why don’t you come over here.”

I waved at Oscar and he bowed to me, that was about a year of conversation for us.

Odell and I walked around the side of the church, down a narrow cement path.

When we were alone I told him, “Listen, man, I got some business with a white man work here.”

“Chaim Wenzler?”

“How you know ’bout it?”

“He the only white man here, Easy. I don’t mean here today, ’cause he a Jew an’ they worship on Saturday-or so I hear.”

“I need to get next to ’im.”

“What do you mean, Easy?”

“I gotta find out about him fo’ the law. Tax man got me by the nuts on this income tax thing an’ if I don’t do this he gonna bust me.”

“So what you want?”

“A li’l introduction is all. Maybe something like workin’ fo’ the church. I could take it from there.”

He didn’t answer right away. I know that he was uncomfortable with me nosing around his church. But Odell was a good friend and he proved it by nodding and saying, “Okay,” when he had thought it out.

But then he said, “I heard about Poinsettia Jackson.”

We stood before a small green door. Odell had his hand on the knob but he was waiting for my reply before he’d open up.

“Yeah.” I shook my head. “Cops wanna chase it down, but I can’t see that somebody killed her. Who’d wanna kill a sick woman like that?”

“I don’t know, Easy. All I do know is that you talkin’ ’bout all kindsa trouble you in an’ the next thing I see one’a the people live in your buildin’ is dead.”

“Ain’t got nuthin’ to do with me, Odell. It’s just a crazy coincidence is all.” That is what I believed, and so Odell believed it too.

He led me down the stairs to the basement of the church, where the deacons gathered and suited up before the service. We came upon five men wearing identical black suits and white gloves. Above the left-hand breast pocket of each jacket was sewn a green flag that said First African in bright yellow letters. Each man carried a dark walnut tray with a green felt center.

The tallest man was olive brown and had a pencil-thin mustache. His hair was cut short but it was straightened so that he could comb a part on the left side of his head. He smelled of pomade. This man was handsome in a mean sort of way. I knew that the women of the congregation all coveted his attention. But once they got it, Jackie Orr left them at home crying. He was the head deacon at First African and women were only the means to his success.

“How ya doin’, Brother Jones?” Jackie smiled. He came over to us and grabbed Odell’s right hand with his two gloved ones.

“Brother Rawlins,” he said to me.

“Mo’nin’, Jackie,” I said. I didn’t like the man, and one thing I can’t stand is calling a man you don’t like “brother.”

Odell said, “Easy say he wanna do some work fo’ the church, Jackie. I tole’im ’bout Mr. Wenzler, you know how you said Chaim might need a driver.”

It was the first I’d heard of it.

But Jackie said, “Yeah, yeah, that’s right. So you wanna help out, huh, Brother Rawlins?”

“That’s right. I heard that you been doin’ some good work wit’ old people an’ the sick.”

“You got that right! Reverend Towne don’t believe that charity is just a word. He knows what the Lord’s work is, amen on that.”

A couple of the deacons seconded his amen.

Two of the deacons were just boys. I guess they had to join a gang one way or another, and the church won out.

The other two were old men. Gentle, pious men who could hold a jostling, impetuous baby boy in their arms all day and never complain, or even think about complaining. They’d never want Jackie’s senior position, because that was something outside their place.

Jackie was a political man. He wanted power in the church, and being deacon was the way to get it. He might have been thirty but he held himself like a mature man in his forties or fifties. Older men gave him leeway because they could sense his violence and his vitality. The women sensed something else, but they let him get away with his act too.

I said, “I got a lotta free time in the day, Jackie, and I could get my evenings pretty free if I had t’. You know Mofass an’ me got a understandin’ so that I can always make a little time. An’ Odell says that’s what you need, a man who could make some free time.”

“That’s right. Why’ont you come over tomorrow, around four. That’s when we have the meetin’.”

We shook hands and I went away.

Etta was looking for me. She was ready for the word of God.

I could have used a drink.