Dominion (46 page)

“Some. Ever meet Ollie Chandler? Homicide detective?”

“Big guy? Always eating?”

“That’s him.”

“Yeah. I helped him out once, and he’s thrown a few things my way. Cops—especially detectives—aren’t big fans of Pls, but it’s different when they’re ex-cops, like I am. That gives you credibility, opens the door.”

“What kinds of cases you working on, Ray?”

“You name it. Missing persons. Deadbeat dads. Suspicious people having me trail their spouses. That’s the worst kind. But, sometimes you can’t be as picky as you’d like. You see some of the seedy side of life. That’s why church and Bible study are a breath of fresh air.”

Clarence grabbed two pieces of Geneva’s fried chicken, a slice of ham, and some turnip greens. He didn’t know who brought the greens, except he could narrow it down to the Edwards or the black man named Sal, who was married to Diane, a white woman. He looked at some vegetarian and fruit dishes and gourmet health food. Health food, he was convinced, was thought up by some bored white person wanting to make everyone miserable. He reached for a pork rib.

“Clarence,” Ray jabbed, “I notice you’re passing by all the stuff that’s good for you. What’s the problem?”

Clarence looked at Ray’s plate. “I see you’re doing the same. My theory is that high cholesterol is God’s way of saying, ‘This is real food.’”

“Indians are a disenfranchised minority,” Ray said. “We figure, you can take our land, but don’t take our food.”

They sat around the room eating, talking, and laughing. After a half hour, John asked each person to share something unique about themselves.

A lot of interesting stories surfaced. Keo had been a champion skier, an alternate for the Japanese team in the 1968 Olympics. Duane, one of the white guys, had been with the Peace Corps two years in India. Karen, Duane’s wife, said, “My ancestors came over on the
Mayflower.
” Jarod said his family immigrated from Sicily. He relayed his grandfather’s stories about coming toward Ellis Island and catching his first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty.

Sal was next. He looked at Jarod and Karen and said, “Well, my ancestors came over on a big ship too. But they didn’t come on the
Mayflower
, and they weren’t welcomed at Ellis Island. They came in chains—kidnapped, beaten, and starving, to be sold like animals.”

Sal’s wife put her hand on his thigh and squeezed hard.

He looked at her. “I’m just tellin’ the truth. That’s the way it was.”

Well, at least this group isn’t going to be boring.

After everyone had shared, John took the floor. “Pastor Clancy and I have talked about doing a Bible study like this for a long time. Sharla and I are from Jackson, Mississippi, and we were involved in Voice of Calvary Church down there. We built some great interracial relationships and got really excited about reconciliation. We really want to get to know each other in this Bible study, to learn from each other. To get us going, I want to throw out a question: What needs to happen for Christians of different races to be reconciled to each other?”

“I think we’re starting it right here tonight,” Karen said. “To tell you the truth, all my friends have always been white. I’m looking forward to making new friends.”

“I know what you mean,” Sharla said. “Before we got involved in Voice of Calvary, all our friends were black.”

“One thing we have to do is admit there’s a problem,” Sal said. “I guess Diane and I are aware of it all the time, with this chocolate and vanilla marriage.”

“We call it Neapolitan,” Diane said.

“Do you get hassled about it?” Duane asked.

“Sometimes you hear it up front,” Diane said. “More often you just hear the whispers. We always see the looks, get the vibes. Neither of our families ever accepted our marriage. We don’t even spend the holidays together anymore. It’s just too hard.” Diane’s eyes looked heavy.

“Our kids aren’t fully accepted as blacks
or
whites,” Sal said. “I mean, we’re glad we got married. Wouldn’t have it any other way. But it hasn’t been easy.”

“We found that out eight years ago,” Duane said, “when we adopted two black children.”

“You’ve got black kids?” Sal asked.

“Yeah. They’re the best. But you get the looks. Some white neighbors thought it was terrible. A black social agency stepped in and tried to take them from us and put them back in foster care because they thought no parents were better than white parents. Then there was my father. He wouldn’t even hug them for the first few years. Finally I said, ‘Dad, I love you, but if you can’t accept my children, I can’t be around you anymore.’ In time he fell in love with them. Now you can’t find a prouder grandpa.”

“Maggie,” John said, “you’ve been kind of quiet. What do you think about all this?”

“I grew up in Atlanta in the fifties and sixties.” Maggie spoke with a deep southern drawl. “Talk about a racially charged atmosphere. My parents didn’t blame blacks as much as white Yankees.”

“Liberal civil rights agitators from the north, right?” Clarence asked. She nodded.

“Yeah, I’ve been in Georgia,” Sal said. “I visited the capitol building in ’85, and they were still flyin’ the Confederate flag. I couldn’t believe it. Remember, baby?” He looked at Diane. “Somebody should tell them they lost the Civil War. It was in all the papers.”

Diane moved her hand to Sal’s arm as if she were a pilot ready to press her copilot’s eject button if a crash seemed imminent. Right now, it did.

“On the Fourth of July,” Maggie said, “Mama used to hang out a Confederate flag. I’ve never thought it was wrong to be proud of my heritage. Do you?”

“Well, it depends on your heritage.” Sal looked at her incredulously. “If you’d won that war, I’d still be pickin’ cotton for you. When you fly that flag, it says to me you wish I was still your slave.”

Maggie teared up. “I don’t think that. Not for a minute.”

“The white Southerners I’ve known,” Sal said, “watch
Gone with the Wind
and long for the good old days when white folk owned everything and black folk were subservient nincompoops.”

“That’s enough, honey,” Diane said.

“Sal,” John said, “Stop beating around the bush—we all want to know what you
really
think.” Everybody laughed, including Sal. “Okay, let’s call a truce,” John said. “It’s a good discussion and I’m sure we’ll get back to it. But let me throw out another question: Are race relations getting better?”

“In the sixties I was one of those northern agitators,” Bill said. “A liberal ACLU civil rights boy, the kind Maggie’s dad blamed for the problems. Back then I had dozens of black friends, good friends, at least I thought so. With all the laws changing, all the civil rights victories, I really believed in another twenty years we’d have a racial Utopia. But from my perspective, things are worse. Maybe opportunities for minorities are greater, but instead of a racial melting pot, this country is more like a pressure cooker, ready to blow up. The irony is, and it really hurts to say this, I had many more black friends in the sixties and seventies than I have today.”

“Several years ago,” Clarence said, “for an hour or two I thought racial relations had really turned around. I was in Detroit, doing some interviews, going to some ball games, writing some columns. The last day I was wiped out. I just laid back in my room and did some reading. Didn’t watch television or anything. I get up the next morning, catch a cab, and the cabdriver was a white guy, real friendly, extra nice. I thought, this is different. Then I get to the airport and there’s no place to sit in the terminal, and a white guy sees me looking and gets up and offers me his seat. I go, wow, things really are getting better. Then I get on the airplane and the flight attendant offers me a pillow and a blanket. She’s a white gal, but she’s oh so sweet. The guy sitting next to me, he’s really nice too. I think, hey, what Dr. King dreamed about, it’s really happening.

“Then the plane takes off and I see the guy in front of me reading the newspaper. The headline says ‘LA Blacks Erupt into Violence.’ See, it was the morning after the police who beat up Rodney King got acquitted and the riots broke out. Then I realized what was up. All these white folk figured they’d better be nice or I might pull a tire iron out of my briefcase and beat the livin’ crud out of ’em!”

Everyone laughed.

“Well, next week,” John said, “we’ll start our Bible study. But I think it was good getting to know each other. And raising some issues too.”

Clarence and Geneva stayed another hour, chatting with new friends. They walked hand in hand to the car. “That was fun, wasn’t it?” Geneva asked.

“Yeah, it wasn’t that bad,” Clarence said. “Aren’t you glad I talked you into coming?”

“You had some awfully hard times on earth, Grandma,” Dani said.

“Terrible times. The worst was when the marsers and overseers would come at night, force themselves on me. And other times when I’d jus’ think one of the mens was comin’, even if they didn’t. I’d lay there and weeps. Of the eleven chillens I bore, three was fathered by marsers, the first when I was thirteen years old. But I tell you I loved those chillens as much as the others. And don’t you ever tell me it’s a chile’s fault what his father done and that the chile don’t deserve to live or that he’s any less precious to God. You know, if we hadn’t had those chillens and loved ’em, lots of our precious grandchildren and great-grandchildren, some of them powerful servants of Elyon, they wouldn’t never have been.”

Ruth sounded stern for the first time. Dani remembered herself arguing on earth that it was all right to abort children conceived by rape. She wondered if Ruth had been listening. Of course she had.

Ruth looked through the portal of current events on earth with an expression of distaste. “I swear, there’s mo’ folkses bein’ fools down there now than ever. I tells the Master he should just close up shop and get on with the kingdom. Things ain’t gettin’ better down there, that’s fo’ shore. But Master, you know, he gots a mind of his own, and I gotsta admit he always be right. Stands to reason, he bein’ the Almighty and all.”

Dani and Ruth observed through the portal pictures of injustice, including those who gained their wealth from the suffering and unrelenting toil of the poor and needy. She saw people beautifully dressed, warm, and celebrating, other people shabbily dressed, cold, and shivering.

“Does it make you bitter?” Dani asked her.

“Bitter? No. The story don’t never end in that world. Ends on the other side.” She looked at Dani. “The brightest days in that world always had their sunset. The darkest nights in that world always had their sunrise. Those who live in hell’s eternal night can’t hardly remember the bright days on earth—only enough to torment them, so I’s told. Those who lives in heaven’s eternal sunrise can remembers the dark nights enough to fill their hearts with gratitude for the sunlight of this world. We live in the sunrise, chile. Ain’t it wondrous?”

“Tell me more about your family—
my
family,” Dani begged.

“Well, I jumped the broom with yo’ grandpappy just before the war was over, when I was fifteen years old. He was a kind man and a powerful good father. It was hard bein’ a man those days, the only rest bein’ sneakin’ a good leanin’ on a hoe when the overseer was liftin’ a whiskey jug or somepin’. Wasn’t easy bein’ a woman neither, but I was always glad that’s what the good Lawd made me. Besides havin’ three of marse’s, eventually we had eight more chillens, Elijah and yo’ daddy the last of them. Miracle babies I called them, ’cause God gave them to me ten years after I should have been barren. Now, when my first babies was young, they brung the marser’s and mistress’s chillens to suck with me. I loved ’em like my own, their color never mattered one way or t’other. But I always thought it strange marser never admitted three of my babies was his, even though they had his eyes and nose. Never could understand how I wasn’t good enough to step foot in the big house but I was good enough to bear his chillens and nurse and mother the chillens of he and his proper wife. Seems like raisin’ chillens be a lot mo’ important than where you puts down yo’ foots.”

Dani sensed someone coming up behind them. Together she and Ruth turned, both delighted to see the favorite face of heaven.