“Aaaw, man,” Leroy said with an angry wave of his hand, “you are a drag—you know that? You’re a faithless drag! You got no vision and can’t even think from breathing all that hair and concentrated funk!”
“Yeah,” Ivey said, “I’m a drag because I want you back in my chair so I can finish with your butt! But now you better git moving, or else I’ma drag you over to St. Elizabeth’s and see to it that they give you some attention! I mean it, Lee-roy, so git moving! It’s either that or the cops—and you know you don’t want that to happen again, not after they caught you with your britches down orating and quoting the Constitution to your rusty pecker. And just look at the mess you’re making of that neck-cloth! You trying to look like some kinda A-rab or something? Come on!”
“Chief, you hear that,” Leroy said. “You try to bring our people a life-saving message and show ‘em the way out of all their confusion and they call you crazy! What the hell do I care about what those jokers at St. Elizabeth’s think! What the hell do they know?”
“… Come on, Lee-roy!”
“… Shit! Black people are the most complicated folks in the whole fucking world, but when those damn St. Elizabeth doctors come up against a man like me all they can do is put him down as a motherfucker! They think all the trouble in the world comes from some simpleminded crap like that! Hell, if that was the case all they’d have to do is round up all the motherfuckers and they’d have a perfect world—which they sho in hell don’t want—and if they did they’d still blame us when things went wrong….
“Anyway, Chief, it’s been a pleasure to see a truly great leader again and make my confession. Keep up the good work and I’ll keep doing my part in spreading your message!”
And now, turning to Ivey and moving away, Leroy frowned.
“Come on, man,” he growled, “and this time forget those moth-eaten Afros you been peddling and make sure you give me a true feather-edge!
“And yeah, Chief,” he said, turning back, “here’s something else that needs your attention! These young dudes of ours are being messed up, down, and straight through the middle by wearing these Afros and platform shoes! They think they look proud when in fact they’re getting rump-busted and stoop-shouldered from carrying all that weight on their ignorant heads! Why is it that so many of our folks keep trying to substitute hairstyles for political action? Hell, after slavery was ended the old folks grabbed for the ballot. But today these young dudes grabbed the Afro like it was some kind of freedom. But while they swagger and strut and admire themselves the crackers just laugh and grab for more power! Hell, Chief, these young folks of ours are into magic and don’t even know it—hey! Watch it, man!”
And suddenly thrown off balance by Ivey’s yank on his arm, Leroy danced around the corner with a swaying, camel-walk wobble.
[CHRIST]
WATCHING THE BARBER’S NECK-CLOTH disappear with a snap and a billow, Hickman turned, grasping the guardrail through a dream-like haze.
Hickman, he thought, what on earth did you do to deserve all of that? And with hundreds of big Negroes wandering around this town, why would he pick on you? Man, if I weren’t fully dressed and in my right I’d swear you’re dreaming!
Which was impossible, because the same brassy automobile horn was blaring as before Ivey snatched Leroy away, the street facing the building still filled with window-shopping people, and the odor of Leroy’s Mum and bay rum still clinging to his jacket. Yes, and his hands were clutching the brass rail from which Leroy had relieved himself of his wild confession. Yet something seemed missing, some teasing segment of reality lost in the wild encounter.
Then in a flashback he was dangling again in the air, but now through the translucence of Leroy’s tricolored skin he saw himself standing in the pulpit of a crowded church holding a Bible while conducting the funeral of a prominent minister. Then the scene fell apart, and as he stared down at the features of the corpse in the coffin the man’s face twitched with a sarcastic smile and became that of a child. Whereupon he felt himself being raised even higher and the scene was taken over by two women mourners who leaped from their seats in a whirling, veil-snatching, hair-pulling brawl. And as he stared at the blur of their air-flailing arms the coffin’s lid flew shut with a slow-motion fall….
Then through a crescendo of street sounds he was staring at the windowless wall of the building which towered beyond and above the guardrail. And with the disrupted funeral still vivid in his mind he recalled that the man dead had been a highly esteemed minister and the brawling women his girlfriend and wife. Then in a flash he realized that the man was not the minister. And struck by the incongruity of a dead man smiling and shrinking to a child in an adult’s coffin struck home he flooded with sweat, reached for his panama to wipe his brow, and felt it slip from his fingers. And before he could move the hat teetered on the guardrail like a bird taking flight and swooped down to the area below him.
Grasping the guardrail in perspiring hands, he looked down to where his hat lay white in the shadows; and with a sigh of disgust followed the guardrail around to the steep flight of stairs that led down from the street, and with a sigh began making his descent through an updraft of cool air.
Now, reaching the bottom, he stood in the empty loading area of a courtyard that lay two full stories below the street and surprisingly larger than it had appeared from above. Against a nearby wall garbage cans humming with flies stood in the angle of nearby walls that were part of a vast open space, and to his right he could see ranks of white pillars that ended at a wall which loomed in the shadows; and to his left the open roofless space through which his hat had sailed extended to yet another wall that appeared to support the sidewalks which flanked the building’s side street and frontage.
What a waste, he thought as he looked around, what a waste! And in stooping to retrieve his panama he looked up to find himself facing a massive bronze door.
Tarnished green from neglect, the door might have graced the entrance of a prosperous bank, but now [it was] tightly closed, with its handles missing, its bronze laurel wreath dangling off center, and its panels scarred as though battered by John Henry’s hammer.
Thinking, But what an odd place for such an elegant door, he stared. Then, repelled by the odor of garbage and humming of flies, he jammed on his hat and turned to leave—but not yet. For, suddenly catching sight of a copper-clad structure projecting from the wall to his left, he took an impulsive step to its front and found himself facing a wide, plate-glass window of the type usually found in busy shopping areas.
But why down here below street level? he thought, and, stepping closer, saw what appeared to be a badly splashed house-painter’s drop-cloth that covered the enclosure’s rear wall. Then, in a flash, the confusion of brushstrokes and splashes sprang to form, becoming a large, unframed painting.
Then came a chilling shock of surprise. For here, in the last place in the world he would have expected, he was staring at a depiction of Christ marching to Calvary. And with the disappearing legs in the Longview’s tapestry springing to mind it was as though he were staring into the window of a storefront church.
For now, through the clouded glass, he recognized the painting as a type of religious folk art familiar to Negro neighborhoods—an association of style and place immediately confirmed by the heavy symbolism of the scene’s faded colors. For while the jeering, spear-wielding soldiers were unquestionably white, the skin of the thorn-crowned, cross-bearing Christ was unmistakably black. And with a gasp he asked himself, But why in a Southern town like Washington, D.C., would one of our churches be down here in the basement of a white business building?And appalled by the rush of implications released by his question he pressed his forehead to the clouded glass and was struck by a feeling of dread.
For immediately, something about the cross-bearing Christ seemed out of place—and it was not Christ’s blackness, which he recognized as a traditional symbolism by which a people whose enemies had made their very skin tones a cross to
bear asserted their most human yearnings and spiritual needs and allowed them to identify more intimately with the transcendent image of Christ. Nor was it the incongruity of the painting’s location. For, years ago, hadn’t he played for a dance in a South Carolina town in which a Negro confectioner and ice-cream-maker’s store had faced the church in which John C. Calhoun’s family had worshipped? Therefore, his anxiety sprang not from the painting’s location but from something out of place in the depiction of Christ’s fateful march … some flaw in its painter’s conception which was so obvious and yet so elusive that it baffled his searching eye….
Then, drawn to the impression made in Christ’s naked shoulder by the weight of the cross, he began to understand: For some two feet above the point where the rough-hewn upright of the cross knifed into the bruised flesh of Christ’s straining shoulder, the artist, suddenly improvising on his theme like a jazzman on a familiar tune, had placed what on first sight had appeared to be the travel-soiled bundle of a hobo. There in the angle where the upright joined the sky-pointing arm of the cross it rested, a bundle consisting of red-white-and-blue cotton which was depicted as having become partially unrolled in the painful march and ended up trailing and distorting the footprints of Christ. And with eyes flying back to the point from which the striped cloth trailed he saw distorted white stars spring into focus and exclaimed, “Good Lord!” And the cloth showed forth as a bundled-up flag….
For a moment he gazed, totally unsettled by the painter’s crude updating of the biblical scene as he thought, What on earth is happening? First Leroy’s craziness and now this!
And exasperated by his inability to confront or deny the painter’s eye-assaulting scene-within-scene, time-past-in-time-present depiction, he whirled in outrage toward the battered door, asking himself in an attempt to escape, Why on earth would even an insane pastor try to establish a church down here in a storefront so far below the street? And how did his flock get to their place of worship? Was it through that beat-up door—past storage bins, air-conditioning ducts, and more garbage cans like these behind me?
And with a sudden burst of outrage he rushed to the door and gave it a pounding blow from his shoulder. Then, bracing himself for a reaction from the other side, he prepared for a fight. But except for a single clank of metal sounding through the booming echo of his blow there was only an eerie, heart-thumping silence….
Still straining for the sound of footsteps, he stood immobile while hearing the swarming of flies. Then, seized by a mounting feeling of unease he stepped backwards and whirled, giving the painting a sweep of his eyes that flashed from Christ’s thorn-crowned head to the dishonored flag and ended at the reflection of his own tense face staring back from the grime-stained glass. Then, sprinting for the stairs, he pounded upward, leaping two steps at a time for the street.
Where, now, breathing hard and squinting against the sudden assault of brilliant sunlight, he turned and stood looking over the guardrail with a feeling of having barely escaped an invisible inquisitor whose intent was to oppress him with insidious questions of a kind he had neither the will, wisdom, nor courage to answer…. Then he was pounding the sidewalk to the front of the building, where, now, he stood in the middle of the steady flow of curious sidewalk traffic inspecting the building’s façade from sidewalk to roof.
But here, except for the absence of Leroy and the white man who had looked down from above, things appeared to be as before. And with his sense of disorientation increasing, he backed away. And adjusting his hat with a look into the questioning eyes of passersby, he headed on foot for the Longview.
[DECISION]
UPON REACHING THE LONGVIEW Hickman went immediately to his room with the intention of calling Wilhite. But after dialing the number he replaced the reciever.
If there’s any news he’ll call me, he thought, and, feeling tired and still shaken by his wild encounter, he stripped to his shorts and lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling.
When I tell Wilhite he’ll swear I’m lying, he thought, but when that man lifted me into the air it was like he was performing some kind of ritual…. It was like a devilish laying-on-of hands. Then he insists that I’m some sort of a underground leader known as Chief Sam whose movement he confesses to betraying. And as though that wasn’t enough, he glorifies Chief Sam for being a rapist! And the next thing I know I’m down in a cellar having my sanity challenged by that outrageous painting. If it had happened to Janey she’d call it a sign of warning….
Well, he thought as he reached for a pillow, I don’t believe in signs, but maybe that’s what it was. And even though my brain was fairly rattled I don’t need that kind of sign to remind me that I still have the problem of reaching that boy—not after I wasted all that precious time looking for Millsap only to get myself put through a cross between a living nightmare and a wringer! So now I have nothing hopeful to tell the members, and somewhere out there that little man of Janey’s is on the move and preparing to act…. Hickman, instead of wasting more time chasing after the man maybe you should try to find his stalker—but where would you start? You don’t even know the name he’s using, whether he’s reached town or still on his way…. So why switch from chasing the man to chase his shadow? The problem is how do we find him?…
Closing his eyes he thought, Only three years old and already asking more questions than a crossword puzzle:
Daddy Hickman, Who killed Cock Robin, was it really the sparrow?
Probably, Bliss; isn’t that how the story goes?
Yes, sir. But did he really do it with a bow and arrow?
Watch it, Bliss! Be careful, or you’ll ruin your book with that lemonade—that’s how the sparrow said he killed him, didn’t he?
Yes, sir; but…
So I guess we’ll have to give him the benefit of the doubt. But then, on the other hand, it’s well known that sparrows don’t always tell the truth. So he could have used a slingshot—or even a double-barreled shotgun….
A shotgun?
Why not? If he could handle a bow he could handle a gun….
Now you funning me, and that’s not fair!
No, Bliss, do I look like I’m laughing? I’m just reminding you that when a sparrow starts talking he’s capable of all kinds of amazing things. Like pulling a lion’s tail and getting away with it.
A real lion?
Oh, no, Bliss; I meant a baby lion. Grown lions are much too dangerous for sparrows to fool with. But Cock Robin? Now that’s something different….
How come?
Because in the first place he didn’t know exactly from what direction ole Sparrow was coming at him, and in the second he made the mistake of being so overconfident that he thought nothing could harm him. And besides, maybe he was so busy with other matters that he didn’t let it bother him. You know how it is with robins: They have to search for worms, bawl out the cats, hold choir practice—not to mention all those solos he has to sing….
So why didn’t his friends tell him what that mean ole sparrow was up to?
I don’t know, Bliss. They probably tried, but maybe they simply couldn’t get to him in time. Or maybe he was just so cocky that he wouldn’t listen….
But why would the sparrow want to kill him?
I don’t know, Bliss. Maybe he was simply jealous of Cock Robin’s musical ability…. And like the Bible says, pride is a sin, but envy is dangerous….
Amen, Daddy Hickman, but do you really believe that the sparrow shot Cock Robin?
Probably, Bliss, but remember that the story you’re reading is a kind of poetry. So by saying that the sparrow used an arrow the writer was making it sound more musical and heroic. You know, it was like the sparrow was outdoing a hero like Robin Hood. And besides, while “arrow” rhymes fine with “sparrow,” “gun” falls flat on the ear. Would you like it if his friends had said, “Hey there, Sparrow, who killed Cock Robin,” and he came up with something like, “Well now, pard’ner, I blasted him with my shotgun”?
No, sir! Be
cause like you say, “arrow” goes much better with “sparrow.”
That’s right, Bliss, and I’ll tell you something else: Ole Cock Robin had a much better chance against that arrow than he would have had against bird shot—yes, sir!
Yes, he thought as the memory faded, but this time whatever weapon he chooses let’s hope that he misses—and was jolted awake by the phone….
Maybe, he thought, as he picked up the reciever, we got to him after all….
“So you finally made it back,” Wilhite said. “I’ve been waiting to hear from you.”
“I knew you were,” he said, “but I decided to relax a bit before I bothered you. What’s happening with the members?”
“I guess by now they’re grabbing a little after-dinner rest.”
“Do you mean that they’ve already had lunch?”
“Since it’s too early for supper and ‘lunch’ is what folks up this way call ‘dinner,’ I guess that’s what we had.”
“Good, and was there any word from our boy?”
“Not a word. How’d you make out?”
“Wilhite, I’m sorry to report that I drew another blank; and from the way things are going I’m beginning to feel that his secretary told him about our visit and he’s on the run.”
“I hope not, because if he has any idea of why we’re trying to see him he’d see us. What happened to you?”
“Man, nothing! Not a single productive thing! No sooner do I step into the lobby than I run into that guard—the one Brother Provo wanted to choose—and got myself thrown out of the confounded building. The man made me wish that I’d let Provo go ahead and butt him a few times. It might have knocked some sense into his head—or into Provo’s. Anyway, after that I went looking for a fellow I used to know hoping that he might be able to give me a line on our boy.”