South Street (54 page)

“Mr. Brown gets whatever Mr. Brown wants,” Willie T. chanted. “Free protection. He wants to play, he wins three times outa eleven. Free girls—”

“That’s fine,” Leroy said quickly. “You see, ’Nessa? Any friend a Gino’s is a friend a mine.”

“Gino,” Vanessa said.

“Oh, but that’s not important,” Leroy said. “We just want to be sure that Mr. Brown is happy. You tell him if there’s anything he needs, we’ll be happy to supply it.”

“Yeah, well,” Vanessa said. “He ain’t gonna be needin’ no girls.”

“Of course not,” said Leroy, shooting a glare at Willie T. “But you tell him the bar at the Elysium is always open to him. Does he play pool?”

“No,” Vanessa said, “he don’t play pool.”

“Pity,” Leroy said. “Anyway, as I was sayin’, if he needs anything, furniture, stereo, you tell him I got some a the baddest boosters in the
world
, an’ I’d be honored to get him anything, even if I got to send somebody out to Mount Airy to steal somethin’ special. You too. Willie, you take down ’Nessa’s size. I got me a line on some mink, ’Nessa, truck ain’t even got a tailgate.”

“You already gave me a mink, Leroy,” Vanessa told him. “I wore it one time an’ damn near took a fall for receivin’ stolen goods. Had to tell ’em I was a hooker ’fore they’d believe I could afford it.”

“Oh, yeah,” Leroy said, “I do recall. How about air-conditioning? I’m gettin’ in some great units.”

Vanessa looked at him coolly. “Brown’s got you pretty shook, ain’t he?”

“I just want to be friendly.”

“That’s what the snake said when he screwed Eve.” Leroy smiled tightly but said nothing. “I don’t know what you’re after, Leroy,” Vanessa said, “an’ I don’t much care—”

“Peace,” Leroy said serenely, “just peace.” Vanessa shook her head and went to the door, turned back as if to say something. “Peace,” Leroy said, making a V with two fingers.

“Jesus Christ,” Vanessa said. She hurried out onto the street, shades on, feet tapping the pavement. Sweat sprang up on her back as she half ran back to Brown’s place, up the stairs into the oven heat. She sank into a chair, shaking her head in bewilderment. A smile stole across her face, and suddenly she was laughing loudly, almost hysterically. The chair creaked as her body shook with laughter. “‘Mr. Brown,’” she giggled. “Oh my Jesus, ‘Mr. Brown.’” She laughed until her ribs began to hurt and then she sat there thinking of Brown and looking around at the barren room, smiling at the dirty corners, smiling at the dingy walls. She imagined the walls painted, the corners scrubbed. She imagined Brown sitting where she sat, pen in hand. She smiled and opened the drawer where Brown kept his poems. The smile died on her lips. The drawer was empty.

Brother Fletcher stood sweating into his clerical collar on the hot sidewalk in front of The Word of Life Church, graciously accepting the congratulations of the departing parishioners on his ascension to the pastorate. They had always, they assured him, preferred him to the Reverend Mr. Sloan. It was, they were certain, God’s will that Mr. Sloan be removed and that Brother Fletcher replace him, and God’s will would, of course, be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Amen. Those members who had held positions of power in Mr. Sloan’s administration hastened to assure Brother Fletcher that they were just as willing to serve under him. Those members who had not held positions of power hastened to apprise Brother Fletcher of their ability, availability, and approbation of his assumed intention to inaugurate a new order. Those members who neither held power nor desired it hastened to surround him because everybody else had. Brother Fletcher was the only one who was not hastening anywhere; he stood amidst the hastening hordes, giving the appearance of attention to every petition, nodding his head, and occasionally smiling as the account of the first game of a doubleheader between the Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Mets came to him through the earplug that all the parishioners, who had never really paid much attention to Brother Fletcher before, assumed was connected to a hearing aid. Brother Fletcher had moved only once—to fight his way through the maelstrom to shake the hand and kiss the withered cheek of Sister Lavernia Thompson, who had been standing beyond the edge of the inky whirlpool surrounding Brother Fletcher gazing at him hopelessly, as if he were somehow beyond her reach.

The crowd thinned slowly. The Phillies were leading, three to two in the third. Brother Fletcher’s thoughts were turning to the iced tea and roast-beef dinner that Mrs. Fletcher would be preparing when he saw Leo coming down the street. Brother Fletcher advanced to meet him. “Afternoon, Reverend,” Leo said as they met on the corner. “Special duty today? I don’t recall seein’ you out here before.”

“Well, the Reverend Mr. Sloan is indisposed,” Brother Fletcher said.

“Tut, tut, tut,” said Leo, shaking his head. “I hope it ain’t nothin’ that’s gonna be fatal right away. He can use this heat to get in shape for Hell.”

“He’s not sick. He’s in jail. Turns out Mr. Sloan is an escaped convict. He’s already on his way back to California.”

“Do tell,” Leo said. “That means you the big man now, I guess. Make lotsa changes.”

Brother Fletcher shook his head. “No,” he said, “no, they don’t want any changes. They want circuses. Who knows, maybe it does some good.” He shrugged and smiled. “But there’ll be religion here for anybody that wants it, and help for anyone who needs it. Sloan’s circus is gonna pay for it. You tell Jake I said that any wino needs a place to sleep—Leo! What’s wrong?”

Leo raised his head and wiped a tear from his eyes. “Jake’s gone home, Rev. Passed away late Friday night.”

Brother Fletcher stared at him. Leo lowered his head again. “I’m sorry,” Brother Fletcher said. “It’s hard to believe.”

“Yeah,” Leo mumbled. He looked up again, smiling around the tear streaks. “You know, I was halfway up here this mornin’, comin’ to let him outa the bar like always, ’fore I remembered.” Leo wiped his face with the back of his hammy hand.

“When’s the funeral?” Brother Fletcher asked.

Leo looked surprised. “You know, I never even thought about that. You think we oughta have a funeral for him? Will it hurt him if we don’t?”

“Hurt him how?”

“You know, gettin’ into heaven an’ all that.”

Brother Fletcher smiled. “I don’t think so, Leo, but then I’m not even sure there is a heaven.”

“What?”

“Nope,” said Brother Fletcher. “But I do know if there is a heaven an’ they don’t let him in, there’s somethin’ wrong with the management.”

Leo nodded. “You’re right, there.” He shifted his weight. “Lord, it’s hot out here. I was on ma way down to the bar to watch the ball game. Too hot up to home. You wanna come along? That bar’s real cool when there ain’t nobody much there. Me an’ Jake useta watch the games all the time.” Brother Fletcher hesitated. “On the other hand,” Leo continued, “I guess maybe now that you’re in charge maybe you can’t be goin’ into bars no more.”

Brother Fletcher laughed. “No, it’s not that. God knows what happens in bars is nothin’ compared to some of the things these Christian folk can do in the name of Jesus. No, I was thinking you could come on home with me an’ take a piece of dinner an’ watch one game, then we’d go on down to the bar for the second.”

“That sounds all right. If you’re sure it’s not gonna be no trouble.”

“Lord, no! Just let me call ma wife. She’ll want to yell at me for a minute.”

“Well if she’s gonna be mad—”

“Nah,” said Brother Fletcher. “She’s not gonna be mad except because she won’t have time to make a big fuss. She complains about all the trouble she goes to, then looks for more. You wait right here.” Brother Fletcher disappeared inside The Word of Life and Leo lounged against the wall, basking in the warmth, not all of which radiated from the sun. In a few minutes Brother Fletcher reappeared, grinning. “Man, you shoulda
heard
that woman! ‘What you mean, Fletcher, callin’ me to tell me you bringin’ somebody home? Don’t you know this house is a mess an’ we ain’t got nothin’ for dinner?’” Brother Fletcher chuckled. “She was up this mornin’ gettin’ that roast ready, an’ that place is so clean the cockroaches starve. Come on.” Brother Fletcher and Leo ambled up South Street, the volume of Brother Fletcher’s transistor turned to high. Just after they crossed Nineteenth Leo stopped and waved to someone on the far side of the street.

“Brown,” he bellowed. Brown looked over, checked the traffic, and crossed.

“Leo,” Brown said.

“Brown, this here’s the Reverend. Rev, this is Brown.”

Brown smiled and nodded.

“Mr. Brown,” said Brother Fletcher.

“Brown,” Leo said, “I been thinkin’. Seems to me we oughta have a funeral for Jake. I think we oughta get together an’ finish off that bottle a wine I kept for him. Terrible stuff, but it’s what he used to like.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Brother Fletcher said.

“This afternoon, ’bout five?”

“Well …” Brown said. Leo looked at him. “I’m on my way somewhere, an’ I don’t know if I’ll be back. …”

“Exact time don’t matter,” Leo said. “We’ll be there watchin’ the ball game. Where you off to?”

Brown jerked his head toward the Schuylkill. “Other side a the river.”

“You’re headin’ the wrong way,” Leo said.

“Yeah, well, I just wanted to walk down the street, you know.”

“In this heat?” said Brother Fletcher.

“Sure,” Brown said.

Leo shrugged. “It’s your brains. We’ll see you later.”

“Sure,” Brown said. “Nice meeting you, Reverend.”

“Mr. Brown,” Brother Fletcher said. He and Leo resumed their stroll. “Brown’s a strange man,” Brother Fletcher’ observed.

“Oh yeah, he’s strange all right. I ever tell you ’bout the night Brown fronted off Leroy Briggs?”

“Who?” said Brother Fletcher.

“Never mind,” Leo said. “Turn that radio up ’fore we miss all the action.”

Brown watched them go, shadows swallowed by the loud blaze of white air that shimmered over South Street, then turned and wandered east. Brown’s feet burned with reflected heat, scuffed a concrete sidewalk marred with grassless cracks, tripped on pebbles, kicked at trash, carried him deeper, beyond Broad Street, into the blocks where no one lived, where building shells stood raped and gutted, where lean dogs prowled in boneless alleys, where tomcats howled over tuna cans that were emptied days, weeks, months before. Brown’s legs moved through the strip of heat that hovered just above the ground, sweat swiftly soaking his inner thighs and making his body sticky-warm. South Street passed before his eyes, a knife cut slicing across the city, a surgeon’s incision, oozing pus, stitched with numbered streets. Brown walked along it until the playgrounds of Society Hill intruded. Then he turned north, to Lombard Street, and waited in the shade of an ancient oak.

A bus came rumbling up Lombard Street on a jet of hot, dirty air. Brown stepped into air-conditioned coolness, paid his fare. The doors closed but the bus idled, waiting for the light to change. Brown looked around. An old lady dressed in black was seated on one of the front seats. She looked at Brown with a disapproving gaze, clutching tightly at her purse. Brown moved on by her. Toward the other end of the bus a thin, well-dressed black man sat reading
The New York Times Book Review
. Brown took a seat next to him. “How you doin’, Earl?” Brown said.

“Hey, Adlai, how you makin’ it, brother?” Earl folded the book review and tucked it under one arm. The bus pulled away from the curb, trundled across the trolley tracks on Fifth Street, and picked up speed.

“Not so bad,” Brown allowed.

“Solid,” Earl said. “Hey, brother, I hear you been way down in the jungle, as the sayin’ goes.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, man, Alicia, she been tellin’ everybody ’bout how you decided that the only way one can be with the People is to be with the People, you dig? She says you been hangin’ out on South Street, right in the
middle
a the shit.”

“Oh,” Brown said, “yeah.”

“’Course I know better. Soon as I heard that shit I said to myself Adlai has got himself some stuff down there, that’s why he’s there all the time. Pokin’ himself some real jungle fire. Indeed. How you run that number, Adlai? I mean, don’t Alicia get a little bit upset, you not comin’ home at night?”

“I don’t live with Alicia any more,” Brown said shortly as the bus stopped for another light. “I got my own place.”

“You mean you left that foxy broad behind? With all that bread? Damn, I heard a sacrificin’ yourself to your art, but that, brother, is takin’ that shit too far. Uh, excuse me, brother, but does the sister realize that you are, as the sayin’ goes, no longer in residence? The reason I ask is she’s been layin’ the story, at least to me, that you been on what you might call a sabbatical. Like I do believe she expects you to come to your senses an’ haul your little ass on home.”

Brown looked out the window, caught a glimpse of South Street through a gap between two expensively restored townhouses.

“This, ah, new place you’ve acquired, is it on South Street?”

“Yeah,” Brown said.

“Heavy,” Earl said. “Uh, excuse me for askin’, but I heard you was kinda, well, what you doin’ for bread, brother?”

“I work for it.”

“Umph. I didn’t know they were hirin’ poets these days.”

“Sure they are,” Brown said. “If they can tend bar.”

“Umph,” Earl said. “You must forgive me, brother, but I do believe you have got to be the craziest thing since that black astronaut thought they was gonna send him to the moon. I mean, there you are with a foxy woman, a fancy pad, a bad car—”

“Yeah,” Brown said, “an’ I didn’t even have to push dope.” He looked out the window.

“It’s your life,” Earl said. He started to unfold the book review. “Ah, where you goin’ now?”

“Alicia’s,” Brown replied absently. He hitched himself closer to the window. The bus eased across Juniper Street, stopped at Broad.

“Well you’ll have to excuse me, brother, if I sound a little confused, but I thought you said—”

“I did.” Brown turned away from the window. “I’m going to Alicia’s little party. You wanna see my invitation?”

“Easy, brother.”

“You want me to explain it to you?”