South Street (24 page)

His wig framing his face like a wooly halo, the Reverend Mr. Sloan flung open the door of his dressing room and stepped out into the wings. Sister Fundidia Larson, who had been conferring with the organist, saw him emerge and crossed to him, her face glowing. Mr. Sloan met her with a chilly, wry smile, enfolded her with his left arm, his fingers trailing down across her left breast.

“Sister Larson,” said Mr. Sloan, “I have matters to discuss with you. I was hoping you would join me for dinner some evening soon.”

Sister Fundidia’s features were transformed by a wave of pious joy. “Oh, Reverend …”

“Tut, tut, tut,” said the Reverend Mr. Sloan. “Really, I think we can dispense with some of these formalities. You needn’t call me ‘Reverend’ when there’s just the two of us.”

“Oh, ah, what should I call you?” asked Sister Fundidia.

“Oh, ‘sir’ or ‘m’lord’ will do nicely,” replied Mr. Sloan.

“Yes, m’lord,” said Sister Fundidia.

Deep in the bowels of The Word of Life, in his cubbyhole office next to the boiler room, twisted in the unfamiliar throes of a post-hangover depression, sat Brother Fletcher. Brother Fletcher was not at all fond of his office—it was too tiny, too square, too isolated, too hard, altogether far too reminiscent of a cell in some ancient monastery—but fond of it or not, Brother Fletcher could not help thinking that it was a very appropriate place in which to have a crisis of faith. Far higher than it was wide or deep, the room seemed like the barrel of a giant microscope and Brother Fletcher was a bug on a slide. From far above, personified by the single round fluorescent fixture, the eye of God peered down upon him. He had been drunk. Brother Fletcher was aware of the elaborate rationalizations that had permitted him to enter Lightnin’ Ed’s Bar, and that awareness didn’t bother him half as much as the inescapable fact that he had enjoyed himself. Sitting before Leo’s big color TV he had experienced a fellowship that he had never found within the walls of any church. It had been a long time since Brother Fletcher had watched a ball game with people who groaned and cheered and complained as loudly as he did. He knew that sooner or later he would once again shed his collar and enter Lightnin’ Ed’s.

He doubted that he would go to Hell for it. His faith had been shaken by the simple, frightening realization that all his days in the church had been directed toward leading and working for the salvation of others, and while it had made him feel useful and occasionally important, it had never brought him the happiness and contentment he had found watching a baseball game in a beer garden. To Brother Fletcher that seemed like heresy.

In the well-equipped kitchen of The Word of Life Sister Cozie Bacon put the final touches on the trays of communion elements, checking the crispness of the wafers, tasting the grape juice to make sure the grain alcohol lacing was sufficient. Sister Cozie Bacon smiled and tasted the wine one more time. “Amen,” she pronounced solemnly.

His sermon completed, the Reverend Mr. Sloan left the stage. He never remained to celebrate the Love Feast with the congregation; the Reverend Mr. Sloan preferred his own, more intimate feast. He gave one anticipating look at Sister Fundidia’s robed form, then entered his dressing room to prepare himself for the ride back to Trenton.

Brother Fletcher stood alone on the stage. Brother Fletcher wore a plain brown robe of coarse heavy material. His feet were bare. He stood before the congregation, sweating not solely from the heat, seeing the sea of celebrants approach and recede at the curving edge of the stage. Brother Fletcher’s toes curled and wriggled as if trying to dig into the floor. He pronounced the words of the ritual; the crowd roared responses that they knew by heart. Volume increased as anticipation grew. Brother Fletcher signaled the choirmaster, and the organ began a slow gospel throb. The sea waved toward Brother Fletcher, waved and clapped its hands. “Amen,” intoned Brother Fletcher.

“AMEN!”

Suddenly Brother Fletcher wished that it were real, or that he could once again believe it was real, not just engineered sham. “Amen,” said Brother Fletcher. “Let the church say amen.”

“AMEN!”

“We’ve come this far by faith,” said Brother Fletcher. He said it quite gently, but the microphones caught his voice, the amplifiers puffed it up, the speakers cast it out, a deep basso rumble that shook the walls.

“HALLELUJAH!”

“Jesus saves,” whispered Brother Fletcher. The sound system took it and boomed it out like the Voice of God announcing Armageddon.

“JESUS SAVES!”

A signal from Brother Fletcher and the band raised their instruments and began to honk slow, jazzy gospel. Sister Fundidia rose and began to croon softly. The stage manager turned a knob on his console, and the reproduced version of Sister Fundidia’s croon altered slightly in timbre.

Mrs. Fletcher sat in the front row watching the glistening sweat roll down Brother Fletcher’s face. She thought to herself that he moved oddly, like a man going through motions. She knew that Brother Fletcher’s heart was not in it. But he was good. God, was he good! He spoke to the crowd with his hands; soundlessly, he spoke to them. A fat woman in the second row leaned over, stretching straining fingers toward the stage, her armored breasts banging the back of Mrs. Fletcher’s head. Mrs. Fletcher took no notice. On the stage, Brother Fletcher moved with the music. Arms outstretched, hands cupped, he dipped into the ocean before him. His fingers found hidden strings. He pulled, drew them out, felt the tension increase. Face slack, eyes screwed shut, as if he were searching by touch alone for a particular cord in the invisible net of emotion and frenzy, he stood before them. He nodded his head and, as if by miracle, the communion elements appeared throughout the sanctuary. Hands formed whirlpools about the laden trays as they reached for bread, wine, the body, the blood. Organ and horns were joined by thudding bass drum, and Sister Fundidia’s croon became a wail of pain and ecstasy. Suddenly Sister Lavernia Thompson rose from her seat in the fourteenth row and began to sing in a high screeching nasal voice. The people around her looked at her. Ushers moved to restrain her so that the established order of worship might proceed. Brother Fletcher waved them off.

Brother Fletcher moved to the extreme brink of the stage, his features set and intense, his eyes hard and tender. Sister Lavernia’s cries echoed throughout the church. The band stopped in confusion. The organ stopped. Brother Fletcher impatiently waved Sister Fundidia into dumbness. He stood silent and still and straight while Sister Lavernia wailed on alone, her voice like a cat’s screeching in a darkened alleyway. Flecks of foam appeared at the corners of her slack mouth, and she began to babble in some unrecognizable tongue. The ushers stirred uneasily.

Brother Fletcher moved out still farther, hung on the edge of the stage almost beyond the point of balance, his toes curling over the wood in search of purchase. He stretched out his hand, palm up, fingers spread. Sister Lavernia foamed and ranted. Brother Fletcher raised his hand slowly, deliberately, and Sister Lavernia seemed to shrink into herself for a moment, gathering herself, before exploding into renewed wailings. The loose sleeve of the robe slipped down, exposing Brother Fletcher’s arm, shining with sweat, the muscles standing out in sharp relief as he raised his hand slowly, higher, and higher, and higher. Brother Fletcher’s head began to nod and the drummer picked up the rhythm with gentle bass beats that were felt more than heard. Brother Fletcher stood with his body turned sideways, his arm outstretched toward Sister Lavernia. Sister Lavernia wailed on, her eyes focused on him, eyes that were startlingly calm in the contorted face. As his hand reached the limits of its upward journey Brother Fletcher twisted his wrist so that his palm faced downward. Sister Lavernia jerked in tight little spasms. Brother Fletcher began to lower his hand, and as he lowered it Sister Lavernia began to subside. Her fingers, which had been grasping desperately at the seat in front of her, began to loosen. Her body sagged. Her face lost its tension. She became, by slow degrees, a woman possessed by nothing more than old age. Brother Fletcher stood firm as she dropped to her seat, his hand hanging limp and dead at his side. His fingers twisted slightly, then tightened into a fist. Brother Fletcher abandoned the ritual and stepped into the wings. The faithful murmured, but the organ swelled and the horns took up their jazzy blare, so the shoulders shrugged and the hands reached, the mouths opened up and gobbled their wafers and gulped their wine. Mrs. Fletcher stood up and wormed her way back through the crowd, back fourteen rows to the shrunken shape of Sister Lavernia. She placed a hand on the old woman’s shoulder, but Sister Lavernia did not notice—she remained a quiet huddle of old black dress, smelling of weariness and age, of greasy cooking, of camphor balls. Her eyes were open, staring at nothing, but they were filled with a strange light.

He left the bank early, because it was Friday and the work week was over, because it was payday and he had money in his pockets, because he worked alone, and he could not stand to be alone any longer. In the heat of the afternoon he had gone home, opening the door and closing it behind him, finding Leslie draped over the faded material of the overstuffed chair he had long ago liberated from a rubbish heap, one leg propped on each armrest, wearing one of his work shirts and a pair of torn black underpants, mouth working on a wad of gum that made a bulge along her jaw, reading a back number of
Vogue
. “Whadyoubringme?” she had said without looking up, reaching out a hand toward the lipstick-smeared Winston that lay in the cracked saucer she was using as an ashtray.

The sharp corners of the box of scented soap he had bought for her poked into his thigh. He looked at her, at the litter on the floor, and felt something inside him break. “Why the hell don’t you ever clean up in here?”

“What?” she said incredulously.

“I said, ‘Why don’t you ever clean up in here?’”

“What you think I am, the fuckin’ upstairs maid?”

Rayburn opened his mouth, closed it. “Never mind,” he said. Leslie had sniffed and returned to looking at pictures. Rayburn went out into the kitchen and began to empty groceries out of the paper bag he carried.

“You get paid?”

“No. I run into Santy Claus out there in the goddamn street, an’ he give me this here sack. Said to hold onto it till Christmas.”

“What the hell’s got into you today?” Rayburn heard a rustle of paper and a flat slap as she threw the magazine down, turned to see her standing in the doorway, her bare feet spread apart, hands on hips, shirt hanging down, the shirttails swinging and brushing gently against her taut thighs.

“Maybe I’m tired all the sudden a lookin’ at this goddamn
mess
every goddamn time I come home.” Rayburn waved a hand toward the tower of greasy plates rearing up out of the sink, the coating of blackened grease on the stove.

“Well maybe that’s just too goddamn bad. You so fussy, why don’t you clean it?”

“I do clean it, an’ you dirties it, an’ maybe I’m just gettin’ sick a all that. Maybe I’m thinkin’ I oughta get the hell out an’ leave you right here with it.” He turned his back on her, fixed his eyes on a brownish stain above the sink where a hapless cockroach had long before met his end. “There’s plenty a women in this city. Plenty.”

“Then why don’t you go get you one? Huh, baby? Why don’t you go on an’ get you one?”

“I don’t know,” Rayburn mumbled. “I’ll be damned if I know.”

“You know. You know all right.”

“’Cause I’m a damn fool, that’s why.”

“That ain’t why,” she said, and he had felt her move closer to him, place her hands, cool, against his neck, had felt his blood begin to pound. He fought her. He had moved away, pressed himself tight against the edge of the sink until the hard edge of the white porcelain had cut into his belly. “That ain’t why,” she repeated, pursuing him, insinuating her body against him, pushing, pressing. Rayburn had felt her breasts against the back of his sweat-soggy shirt, feeling, or imagining he felt, the hardening of her nipples. He had tried to keep himself cold, thinking of mountain streams and ice, but he felt her cheek against his shoulder and her hands, one slipping between the buttons of his shirt, the other fumbling at his belt buckle and, finding the edge of the sink a barrier, moving around and down. “That ain’t why.” Rayburn had gritted his teeth, stiffened his spine, had tried to push away, but the hands, slow-moving, gentle hands, had stayed. In spite of himself he moved away from the cover of the sink, and her other hand, swift as a snake, captured his belt, slipped inside his pants, and began to fondle him, squeezing him tightly, too tightly. Slowly, hating himself, he had turned and gathered her to him. She undid his fly, guided him. Rayburn clutched the back of her thighs, raised her, brought her savagely downward, feeling her panties rip and part before him. She moaned and wriggled like a speared fish, hurting him, but he had felt the molten juices flow, near to boiling, near to eruption, and he had held on looking down into the glowing hot darkness, and then he did boil, and burst, and subside, lowering her, gasping. Her feet found the floor. He felt warm peace roll over him while her head lay against his chest, while his eyes gazed unfocused at the water-stained ceiling, while he knew that this time, by God, there was no smile on her face. The sound of honking horns had reached his ears. He felt himself slick from her juices and his own, felt her warmth and weight against him, felt a little bit triumphant, a little smug. And then he had felt the movement, tiny, like a scurrying bug, and had looked down to see her jaws working on the wad of gum. Rayburn put his tools away and left the bank.

The night was getting cooler. The furnace breath of noon was now a baby’s sneeze, feeling almost cool as it brushed across his sweat-damp skin. He moved quickly, straight down Seventeenth Street and along South, climbing the stairs, turning the key. Leslie was not there. He shucked his clothes, stepped beneath the shower, washing himself roughly, forcing the soap to lather in the cold water. His body felt slimy and weak; he scrubbed it.