I pulled up in the lot and parked.
Leonard said, “I see a church and I get to thinking how black folks are mostly taught how to accept their misery through God. It pisses me off.”
I didn’t say anything. We got out of the truck and Leonard looked at the church sign, said, “Never can figure that ‘Primitive’ part out. What’s that mean? Everybody carries spears?”
“Leonard,” I said. “You got a bad attitude. We find the Reverend, maybe I ought to do the talking.”
“A white guy?” Leonard said. “I don’t think so. Trust me, I know how to warm a guy like the Reverend up. I grew up here, remember. I can play the game, I have to.”
We walked alongside the church and on toward the house out back. Back of the church was green grass and a playground that broke into the side yard of the house. The air smelled like mowed grass and floral perfume.
We could hear a sound coming from the back of the church, a thumping sound, so we stopped to listen to it and to the sound of the sprinkler sputtering, and within seconds we both knew what the thumping sound was because we had both made that sound before.
It was the sound of fists striking a speed bag, quick and rhythmic, sweet and sure.
16.
The sound came from an elongated, low-roofed addition to the back of the church, and from where we now stood, we could see the church was much larger than it appeared from the street. We walked toward the sound.
The back door was propped open, and we went in and down the hall, following our ears. We came to a closed door on the right, and the sound came from behind it. I opened the door and looked inside and felt the air-conditioning and liked it.
It was a small but nice gymnasium. The floor was smooth and shiny and there was a basketball goal at one end, and against one wall some pull-out bleachers. In a corner of the gym was a speed-bag prop, and striking the bag was a bare-to-the-waist black man wearing blue jogging pants and black boxing shoes. He was fortyish, about five-ten with thick shoulders and sweaty skin and close-cropped graying hair. He looked strong, if a bit thick in the middle, but the middle was solid as a truck tire, and the muscles in his arms and chest coiled and released as he hit. He moved quickly and expertly and the bag sang to him as he did.
We stood there for a moment, watching him work, admiring it, then he paused for a moment, caught the bag with one hand, blew out some air, turned his head and saw us.
“I do something for you gentlemen?” he asked, and started slipping off the bag gloves.
We walked over to him and he tossed the gloves aside and we shook hands and introduced ourselves. He turned out to be the Reverend Fitzgerald, his own sweet self.
“You look pretty good,” I said.
“Golden Gloves when I was a kid,” he said, but not to me. He was studying Leonard. “I teach some of the neighborhood boys. I know you?” he asked Leonard.
“I don’t think so,” Leonard said.
“Mr. Fitzgerald,” I said. “We’re looking for a man we’ve been told works here. Illium Moon.”
“Illium?” he said. He used his hands to wipe sweat from his chest, then wiped his hands on his pants. “Haven’t seen him in days. Does a bit of handy work around here now and then. He’s retired, so he doesn’t want anything steady. Sort of chooses his own hours. I pay him a little. He helps run some of the children’s programs from time to time. Assistant-coaches volleyball and baseball.”
“Drives a bookmobile too,” I said.
“That’s right,” he said. “But not for the church. That’s his own project. He’s got all manner of projects.”
“When did you see him last?” Leonard asked.
“I don’t know,” Fitzgerald said. “Week or two ago. You men don’t look like cops.”
“Aren’t,” I said. “We just need to find him on a personal matter.”
“Serious?” Fitzgerald asked.
“He was a friend of Leonard’s uncle. We’d just like to talk to him. Know where he lives?”
“Out in the country. Somewhere off Calachase Road. To be honest, I’m not entirely certain. Here, let’s step into my office.”
We followed Fitzgerald out of the gym and down the hallway and into a small paneled room with a desk and the expected religious paintings: Jesus on the cross. Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist. Some guy wrestling with an angel. On his desk Fitzgerald had one of those old clay ash-trays like get made at camp. It was gray-green and cracked and I had an idea about it and thought I’d warm him up. “Your kid make that?” I said.
“I’m not married,” he said. “Actually, I made that when I was a kid. For my father. Sit down.”
So much for warming him up. There were a couple of leather chairs in front of the desk, and a similar one behind it. Fitzgerald took his position behind the desk, and me and Leonard manned the remaining chairs. Mine had something wrong with the swivel and wouldn’t move, but Leonard’s worked just fine. He was turning slowly left to right. He always got the best stuff.
We sat for a moment listening to the air-conditioning hum. Fitzgerald clasped his hands together. He had a friendly face. The kind of face you’d tell your troubles to. He said, “Just as part of the job, may I ask you boys a question?”
“Sure,” Leonard said, “but would it be OK not to call us boys? It’s not that I’m overly sensitive, but I’m getting a little long in the tooth to visualize myself in short pants.”
Fitzgerald smiled. “All right. It’s a habit. We preachers get so we can’t help calling every one boy, or son, or daughter. But the question was, are you fellas Christians?”
“Well, you’ve put us on the spot,” Leonard said. “And the answer is no. For both of us.”
Fitzgerald looked at me for agreement. I nodded, said, “Yeah. And no offense, Reverend, but we didn’t come here to discuss religion. We just need to find Illium Moon.”
“I’ve told you all I know about where he lives,” Fitzgerald said. “I’ve never been to his place. I just know generally where it is.”
I didn’t believe that. I felt he didn’t trust our motives, and that he wasn’t about to give out Illium’s address to a couple guys he didn’t know, and infidels to boot. I respected that, but I still wanted to know where Illium Moon lived. I was considering an approach when suddenly Fitzgerald waved a finger at Leonard. “Wait a minute,” he said. “I didn’t think I knew the face, but something was bothering me. It’s the name. Pine? You the nephew of Chester Pine?”
Leonard assured him he was.
“I’ve heard about you,” he said.
“Word gets around,” Leonard said. “And so do newspapers.”
“Yours is a family with problems,” Fitzgerald said.
“You might say that,” Leonard said. “But not of our own choosing. Actually, far as family goes, taking or leaving—let’s make that leaving—a few not-too-close and boring cousins, I’m all the family I care about. ’Cept Hap here.”
“He appears to be a very distant relation,” Fitzgerald said, and smiled when he said it.
“We couldn’t keep him out of the bleach,” Leonard said.
Fitzgerald looked at me and I grinned, way you do when you’re trying to let a third party know you know the guy with you sees himself as a real card, but you merely tolerate him.
Fitzgerald turned back to Leonard. He said, “Your uncle had a quick mouth too. Like you. I didn’t like him.”
“That’s honest.”
“He came around with Illium from time to time. I had a few unpleasant conversations with him.”
“About what?” Leonard asked.
“About God and religion,” Fitzgerald said. “He had a kind of cavalier attitude about the subjects.”
“That was Uncle Chester, all right,” Leonard said.
“I assure you I wish no one ill,” Fitzgerald said, “but the Lord seems to have made his statement with your uncle.”
“That didn’t have quite the Christian ring I’d have expected,” Leonard said. “You
sound a little too goddamned happy.”
“I prefer you not use the Lord’s name in vain,” Fitzgerald said. “Especially in His house.”
“And I’d prefer you not malign my uncle,” Leonard said.
“Sincerely,” Fitzgerald said, “I didn’t mean to put it that bluntly. I apologize.”
Leonard didn’t respond. He just studied the Reverend’s face. I said, “Reverend. We didn’t come here for a fight, and I don’t see how we’ve gotten into one. We got a couple questions to ask. That’s it, and we’ll be out of your hair.”
“You’re not in a fight,” the Reverend said. “I’m suggesting, respectfully, that you don’t use that kind of language here, and I’m apologizing for what I said. I’m overly zealous sometimes. You see the things I see, hear the stories I hear, you get so you want to crusade, do something about the badness out there. Open the world up to God.”
“All right,” Leonard said. “Apology accepted. And I apologize for my language. Not because I think it matters, but because it is your church.”
“However you prefer to see it,” the Reverend said. “Listen, about your uncle. Let me say a little more. I’m not happy about what happened to him. I merely meant to point out that we all face judgment in the eyes of the Lord. Not just your uncle, you and me as well. I’m suggesting only that we should all strive to stand in the Lord’s light without blinking. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. Or perhaps there was some bitterness there. Your uncle was a witty man, and quick with a quip. He seemed to have a special hatred for religion.”
“Hypocrisy is what bothered him,” Leonard said. “Not religion.”
Reverend Fitzgerald refused to be baited. He was very pleasant when he said, “It’s unusual that your uncle and Illium Moon were such good friends. Mr. Moon is quite religious. Very involved in church activities. Especially those dealing with youth. And considering what I’ve read in the papers . . .”
“Don’t believe everything you read in the papers,” Leonard said.
“Very well,” Fitzgerald said. “I’ll keep that in mind. You know, I’ve been sitting here trying to recall what I’ve heard about you, Mr. Pine, and now it comes back to me.”
“I hope it’s flattering,” Leonard said.
“You’re a homosexual and you flaunt it,” Fitzgerald said.
“I don’t wear Easter hats and high heels and study floral arrangements, that’s what you mean,” Leonard said, “but I don’t hide out in the kitchen under a chair either.”
“You take pride in it,” Fitzgerald said.
“You’re no one I have to answer to,” Leonard said.
“No,” Fitzgerald said. “You don’t have to answer to me. The Lord is who you answer to. I’ve nothing against you. I’m merely saying, your way is not the way of the Lord. Are you acquainted with your Bible, Mr. Pine?”
“Me and Hap here were just quoting Bible verses on the way over.”
“Are you familiar with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah?”
“Yep,” Leonard said. “It’s a favorite Baptist queer allegory. I just get cold chills all over when I hear it. Which is pretty often. I especially like where Lot’s wife gets turned into a pillar of salt.”
“You know the story, then learn from it, sir. Lot met the angels of the Lord at the gates of Sodom and took them to his house for a feast, and the house was soon surrounded by homosexuals who wanted to know them.”
“‘Know them’ means ‘fuck them,’ right?” Leonard said.
Fitzgerald batted his eyes a couple of times but pretended not to hear and plowed ahead. “And the homosexuals gathered around Lot’s house and demanded that he bring the angels out and give them to the crowd, and the angels struck the crowd blind. Does that sound like tolerance for homosexuals, Mr. Pine?”
“All right,” Leonard said, “you didn’t get to the pillar-of-salt part, but you left out some good stuff. Like how Lot, wanting to protect these angels who needed no protection, offered his daughters to the crowd. Now there’s the exemplary father I’d like to have. ‘Hey, girls, we got these guests the queers want to screw, but, well, hell, they’re angels and they haven’t finished their chicken-fried steaks, so I’m gonna give them you instead. Shuck your panties and hit the porch.’”
“You have an unfortunate turn of phrase, Mr. Pine,” Fitzgerald said. “The problem you have is not dissimilar to that your uncle had. And for that matter, I’ve had. Yeah, even preachers can have a crisis of faith. But in time it came clear to me. What you’re doing is what I was doing. You’re looking for God to operate on human levels. Forget that. God lays down the law, and the law is there, and it’s not for us to question. It makes no difference if it seems just in our eyes or not. It is the law, and that is the long and the short of it.”
“Religion’s not the question here,” I said, “and we didn’t mean to get off on it.”
“It’s always the question,” Fitzgerald said. “Mr. Pine, be proud now, for when you leave this world of the flesh and meet your Maker and you are cast down into the fiery lava pits of hell, your pride will fail you. Rationale will fail you. The law is the law.”
“Now I know why you call this church primitive,” Leonard said.
I thought: That’s warming him up, Leonard. That’s playing the game. Only way we could have made a worse impression was if we’d come in with our pants off swinging our dicks.
“Sin is a primitive act,” Fitzgerald said. “Our beliefs here are as basic as I’ve stated. They’re not to be debated, because they are the law and the law is made by a Judge wiser and more powerful than we. In time, in the hereafter, we’ll understand His judgments. And if not, that is not ours to consider. It is our job to obey the law of God. It’s that simple. And if there was ever a time we needed the laws of God, it’s now. Look what this world is coming to. Forget the world. Look right here. We have a tremendous drug problem right here in LaBorde, Texas. Especially right here in the black sector. Kids sticking poison in their veins. Children prostituting themselves for money and dope. Did you know that many of the mothers here in our black community are unmarried? Their children are illegitimate?”
“I’ve heard that rumor, yes,” Leonard said.
“They don’t see that as sin, Mr. Pine. The world says that’s OK. Fornicating is acceptable. These girls, children really, as young as thirteen and fourteen, have produced baby boys conceived by lust and born of the bile of sin. And who is to take care of these children? The children who bore them? What sort of future will they have? The children of children.”
“What you need here is something practical,” Leonard said. “Not more religion. Lessons in birth control and disease prevention are the ticket.”
“That doesn’t stop the sin,” Fitzgerald said. “The act itself. Sex out of wedlock. Abstinence is what’s needed.”
“That’s all right too,” Leonard said. “But for those who don’t plan to abstain, they need rubbers.”
Fitzgerald took a deep breath, but when he spoke, he was as patient as ever. “That’s exactly the problem, Mr. Pine. Tolerance. Too much tolerance. There will be punishment for those who sin against God. That includes you. Homosexuals will not enter into the House of the Lord. Ask God to forgive you for the perverse things you’ve done with other men. Turn your life over to Him.”
“I ain’t gettin’ down on my knees for nobody,” Leonard said.
Fitzgerald turned his attention to me. “What about you, Mr. Collins?”
“Hey, I didn’t do anything,” I said.
“You have to believe to be saved,” Fitzgerald said.
“I’ll think it over,” I said. “Who knows? I might be back.”
Fitzgerald smiled politely. “Well, it doesn’t seem I can be of much aid to you gentlemen, in the areas of the spiritual, or with directions. I’ve told you all I know about Mr. Moon’s address. Somewhere off Calachase Road.” Fitzgerald put his hands on his desk as if to rise. “I’d really like to get back to my workout, now.”
* * *
Outside, where the church lawn met the lawn of the little blue house, a huge man stood in the yard. He was over six feet, wearing gray cotton work clothes and his skin was black as sin and everything about him was big and tight and round, as if he were made up of boulders carefully stacked. In fact, there may have been enough of him there for a mining claim.
He was moving the sprinkler and hose, and when he did, little boulders ran up his arms and crunched and ran back down again. His mouth was open and he was studying us. From a distance, he seemed to have very small teeth. He wasn’t concerned that the water from the sprinkler was spraying all over him. He watched us as we went, and may have watched us after our backs were turned.
Out in the parking lot, I said, “That went well, don’t you think? Seldom have I seen two people warm to each other so quickly.”
“Yeah,” Leonard said. “Bet me and Fitzgerald ride together to the next Baptist convention.”
17.
East Texas weather, being the way it is, by the time we got back from the church to the house, ready for lunch, it changed. Before we could get mustard plastered on our ham sandwiches, the hot, blinding sunlight was sacked by hard-blowing clouds out of the west. They swept down black and vicious and brought with them Zorro slashes of lightning and lug bolts of rain.
The rain fell cool and solid for two days, hammered the house, churned pea gravel out of the driveway, broke loose the packed red clay beneath, and ran it in bloody swirls beneath the porch and on either side of the house to collect in the sun-burned grass like gore in a crew cut.
The rain was so constant the birds quit hiding. You could hear them singing and chirping between flashes of lightning and rolls of thunder. Not a good sign. It meant the rain would continue, and most likely for some time. Outside, except when lightning zippered open the sky, it was black as the high stroke of midnight on a moonless night.
On the second day of the rain, late afternoon, I glanced up from reading The Hereafter Gang by lamplight and looked at Leonard’s hard profile framed before the living-room window. He had pulled a hard-backed chair there and assumed the position of The Thinker, elbow on knee, fist under chin. He was observing the rain, and I watched as a snake tongue of blue-white lightning licked the outside air above and beyond the bars and strobed his skin momentarily blue. Inside the house, the air became laced with sulfurous-smelling ozone, and I could feel my hide and hair crackle like hot cellophane.