Dark Series, The Color of Seven and The Color of Dusk (Books We Love Special Edition) (46 page)

Joshua didn’t think his private theology would endear him to any church’s congregation but in this case, what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. He could use a church as a base. And from that base, he’d move outward and onward.

The church could have a shelter, a place for those to go who had nowhere else to turn. That shelter could have a school. And that school could teach. And with those teachings, the people, his people and their future generations, would never follow false prophets like Cain again.

Joshua walked the streets of
Boston
in the evenings. He stood in the slums and watched the immigrants. He met the second generation Irish refugees from the potato famines. He heard their stories of the signs greeting their parents:
No Irish need apply
.

He moved into the streets where
Italy
’s accents echoed from the corners and mixed and mingled with the accents of
Spain
and
Germany
and
Russia
. He watched the lines of workers move in and out of the sweat shops. During his visits home, he moved around the streets of
Macon
. He watched the textile workers empty out of the mills. He saw the children, black and white, pour out the doors and disappear. To where? Despair and hopelessness had no geographical boundaries.

The whites weren’t the only race with prejudices. Joshua knew that for a fact. The black population where he would, of necessity, build his base, looked down their noses on the ‘po white trash’ that formed the bottom of the pyramid in Southern society just as much as did the whites.

I’d rather live next to a decent nigger than po’ white trash, any day of the week.
How many times in his life had he heard white folks say that? Too many to count. He couldn’t do everything at once. But he could make a start. And in his church, in his shelter, no one’s color made him an outcast. No child would ever be turned away. Not even if they were plaid.

But he had to start somewhere. Where? Three months before he came home for good, he got a letter from his mother. Joshua’d been raised in St. Barnabas Episcopal Church. St. Barnabas hadn’t been fortunate in its ministers after Isaiah Gorley’s unfortunate and unexplained demise in the summer of 1888. Isaiah. Unsung hero. Man of God who’d died trying to help Paul end Cain’s rule. The church was looking for a new minister. Again.

Joshua wrote letters and made inquiry. When he stepped off the train that June day in 1892, he was the new minister of St. Barnabas. He could almost see Isaiah smile.

He returned from his musings and spoke to his brother.

“First sermon’s Sunday. Sunday night.”

“Sunday night? You forget about Sunday morning?”

“’Course not. But my first Sunday’s special. The morning’s going to be a big homecoming type picnic. You don’t go to too many morning picnics. The sermon’s Sunday night. In case you wanta sort of—hang around? Over in a corner.”

Paul laughed. “You’ve come a long way, little brother.”

“Not as far as I intend to go. Does Mama seem, well, different, to you, Paul?”

Sadie’d never fully recovered from the successive shocks of that summer, but she’d pulled herself back together for three reasons. Paul needed her. Joshua needed her.
Everett
needed her.
Everett
didn’t need her any more. He’d suffered one more heart attack in the months following Paul’s transformation and a third one the prior October. He hadn’t recovered from the third one, and now lay beside his first and only legal wife, Paul’s mother, in Rose Arbor.

Paul hesitated in his reply. He worried about Sadie a good deal. But Joshua was home for good now. And he was the mainspring to keep Sadie going.

“She’s had a hard time adjusting to Papa’s being gone,” he said finally. “But I think you coming home for good ought to pull her over the hump.”

“Paul, I’d like to sell the house.”

Sadie now occupied the Devlin family home on
College Street
alone and had since
Everett
’s death. Town gossip soared into the stratosphere over the terms of
Everett
’s Will. That house belonged to Sadie for as long as she wanted to occupy it. After that, it belonged to the foundling
Everett
took in off the street and gave his name to so many years ago. Joshua Devlin. Everybody knew Everett Devlin’d been downright peculiar when it came to the blacks anyway. More than a few folks suspected for years Sadie wasn’t just the housekeeper and Joshua hadn’t been found. They actually appreciated the obvious confirmation of those suspicions evidenced by
Everett
’s Will.

“Won’t bother me any but I don’t think Mama’s goin’ be too pleased.”

Seeing as how Sadie was the only actual mother Paul really remembered, he’d decided long ago it was stupid not to call her what she was, and she was as much his mama as she was Joshua’s.

“There’s no hurry, naturally. It’s just, I’d like to buy a house—or build one—a big one, nearer the Church.”

“Big enough for your shelter.”

“Yes.”

“I wouldn’t tell her about it just yet, Josh. I’m sure it’ll work out.”

The brothers sat a while longer and finally parted, planning to meet shortly within the walls of the
College Street
house. Sadie took a lot of reassurance. She never slept well unless she inspected her boys, singly or together. Sadie’s peace of mind died during Cain’s reign, another of his casualties.

Chapter Seven

Sunday night, Paul hovered, invisible, in the corner of St. Barnabas’ main sanctuary. He watched with pride as Joshua strode to the pulpit.

Joshua greeted the congregation with the practiced ease of a minister with years more experience than he actually had. But Joshua’d learned from the best. Or the worst. He guessed it all depended on your point of view. And Cain could damn sure work a crowd, even without the aid of his hallucinogens.

“My people!” he called in greeting. He raised his hand high. “The proverbial prodigal son has come home!”

“Praise the Lord!” The congregation responded with less than its usual enthusiasm. There was something different about their new minister tonight. He didn’t sound like he’d sounded when he moved among them during the morning social gathering. He didn’t even walk the same way. Damned if he didn’t look and sound white.

“I see y’all looking at me a little funny,” he continued, resting his hands against the podium. His speech was more casual, but it was still white.

“Wouldn’t be ‘cause you notice I’m speaking a little different, would it?”

The congregation shifted uneasily. In her seat on the front pew, Sadie went rigid. What was the boy thinking?

“’Cause I am. You know why? I want to illustrate for you the text of tonight’s sermon. Know what that is? ‘Course you don’t, I ain’t told you yet.”

That did elicit a small chuckle from the crowd.

“Well, tonight, people, we’re going to talk about the most important thing in this world. The truth. Now, we all know about truth. Know the truth and it will set you free! And the truth is, I’ve spent years, not just the years up north, but years before that, getting something that always leads to the truth. It’s called an education. This is the way I talk. Most of the time. And I can’t stand before you tonight and talk about the truth and tell you a lie just by the way I speak. Especially not when I want to get rid of a lie that’s cast its shadow across this congregation for the past four years.”

Many of the people sitting in the pews had attended Cain’s services. They’d fled in terror before the sight of the Blood Drinker. They knew who they were, and they knew Joshua knew who they were. The members of the congregation who hadn’t been part of Cain’s entourage weren’t exactly ignorant, either. Something that big didn’t have a prayer’s chance in hell of staying secret.

“Do I need to tell you what lie I’m talking about?” asked Joshua, his tone still conversational. “I doubt it. But just in case, I’ll tell you anyway.”

He moved in front of the pulpit and dropped the cloak of casualness.

“I’m talking about
Cain!
How long’s it been since any of you thought of him? You, Abe, or you, Eulises?” He moved around the pews. “Or you, Silas, or you, Jeremiah? Not long, I hope. I hope you think about him a lot. All of you. The ones of you who know first-hand what I’m talking about and the ones who only know from the stories. And folks, if you only know from stories, you don’t know how lucky you are! ‘Cause I know about him first hand. Like you do John, and you do, Betsy, and you do, Clara! And I think about him a lot! And how he used us, and how we listened to his
lies
because we weren’t strong in the
truth
! We followed false gods because they offered us things we didn’t have, pleasures we couldn’t imagine. And what did it cost us?”

Joshua dropped his hands and lowered his voice. “It cost us our integrity, our pride, our self-respect. Who among you have been proud of yourselves since that summer?
Who
? Not me. ‘Cause it cost us even more than that. Is there anyone sitting in this room, anyone, who doesn’t know how Isaiah Gorley died?”

The crowd hung its head in collective shame. Nobody in that sanctuary didn’t know Cain had beheaded Isaiah and lobbed his head through Paul’s front windows, even though his murder was still an unsolved and forgotten question mark on the white police records.

“I guess not,” said Joshua. “But Isaiah didn’t come to that riverbank alone. Did he?”

The crowd looked up again. They remembered Paul Devlin. They never spoke his name.

“No, he didn’t. He came with a white man. A man who tended your cuts and broke your fevers and in the end,
died
delivering you from Cain’s prison. That man and his father, between them, they gave me my name and made me who I am. His name was Paul Devlin. Is there anyone here who doesn’t remember that?”

Another murmur went through the crowd.

“I didn’t think so,” said Joshua. “And none of you know exactly how he died, do you?
Because you broke and you ran
. Finally, you ran, away from Cain and his false gods. And you left Paul Devlin behind. He went down to that riverbank to free you from Cain! And he did. He did. And you know what that cost him?
His life
. Is there anyone here doesn’t feel a debt for that? I hope not.”

Joshua surveyed the crowd, judging its mood.

“I told you this was about the truth and it is. You can’t move forward till you leave the past behind and you can’t leave the past owing old debts. And there’s a way you can pay that debt. To Isaiah Gorley and to Paul Devlin. You can make sure that the
truth
is the most important thing in your lives and in your children’s lives. Sometimes, it’s hard, oh, Lord, it’s
hard
, to judge the difference between truth and lies. But there is one thing that will always help you judge. It’s called education. I want to build this church, people!”

Joshua began to pace again, moving into the free-flowing rhythm of worship his congregation expected.

“I want to build this church to a church Isaiah Gorley would be proud of! Are you with me?”

“Yes, Lord!”

“Will you
help
me?”

“Yes, Lord!”

“Will you
help me
move this church
out?
Out into the streets, to be the source of light and truth for all the folks that don’t got nowhere else to turn?”

“Praise de Lord!”

“That’s right!” exclaimed Joshua, moving freely now with the swaying rhythm of the crowd. “And to praise the Lord we have to
know
Him! And we have to teach our children to
know
Him!
We have to teach our children the truth!
”

“Amen! Amen!”

“And more than that, we have to
educate
our children so they can
judge
the truth,
see
the truth, for themselves!”

“Yes, Lord!”

Joshua, breathing heavily, stood in front of the altar.
Mission
accomplished, groundwork laid. The rest would follow as the day followed night.

“It’s good to be home, people,” he said.

* * *

Paul materialized within the walls of the College Street House and waited for his brother’s return. He expected to wait for a while. Judging from the crowd’s enthusiasm, it’d take Joshua some time to clear the church out. Paul turned his head as the door opened.

“You, little brother, are a dangerous man.”

“Well,” said Joshua with a sigh, as he helped Sadie slip off her summer shawl. “Personally, I prefer not to use all that swaying and chanting but I got to say, it gets their attention.”