The Sacrifice (29 page)

Donations came in checks, frequently in cash. No tax records were made of the cash donations, Byron supposed. Marus made it a point to oversee his assistants at the Care Ministry when they opened envelopes containing donations—“Not that I don’t trust my girls, but it’s cruel for them to be tempted and feel guilt if they succumb.”

Mail donations varied from three thousand to seventeen thousand within the space of a week following the identification of Jerold Zahn, that had caused a small media sensation not only locally, in the New Jersey–New York area, but across the country, with the Associated Press and
USA Today
running detailed articles. Of course, these were figures reported to Byron, by his brother Marus.

When Byron mentioned to Marus that he hoped none of the donations were “disappearing”—(as substantial sums had “disappeared” during Marus Mudrick’s directorship of another non-profit activist organization in the early 1980s)—Marus said coldly, “As the tide rises, all flotsum an jetsum gon rise with it. You workin
pro bono
, Brother Byron. All the world know
that
.”

In the insolent urban-black dialect this was a double slur: a suggestion that, for Byron, reaping publicity meant more than mere money.

Many of the donations were small-denominational bills, fives, tens, twenties. Many contained carefully handwritten notes addressed to Sybilla Frye, expressing concern for her, advice and prayers.
May God be with you Child, take care the Men do not expoit you allso.

This penciled note, with a donation of a single much-folded ten-dollar bill, Byron read with a pained smile, guessing that the donor wasn’t referring to white men.

In the wake of Marus’s tireless campaigning, black celebrities were rallying to the Crusade. Not just donations but pledges of scholarships for Sybilla Frye—“One hundred thousand dollars to send Sybilla to an Ivy League university of her choice. The white man will not dare bar her!” (This was boxing promoter Don King, a longtime friend of Marus Mudrick.)

Bill Cosby, Muhammad Ali, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Esmeralda Mason—through their assistants these celebrities called to pledge support and money for the Crusade.

Esmeralda Mason, a Pulitzer Prize–winning black poet and memoirist, offered her home in Montclair, New Jersey, as a “safe house” for the Fryes. Marus accepted with gratitude: he wanted to move the Fryes out of Red Rock, believing the mother and daughter too easily approachable by (black, ambitious) individuals wanting to make use of Sybilla for their own purposes.

One of these individuals, Byron had learned, was Leopaldo Quarrquan, the Black Prince. Unlike the soft-bodied Marus Mudrick, Quarrquan was an ascetic who prayed and fasted daily; he was rail-thin, with a blunt, shaved head and hollow-socketed eyes; his followers considered him a saint, and a “warrior” in the crusade of the Kingdom of Islam to convert Christian blacks to their true, native-African religion. Rumor was, Quarrquan wanted to meet Sybilla Frye, and had no interest in meeting her through Reverend Mudrick and the Care Ministry.

“He wants to convert this good Christian girl to black Islam. He wants to damn her soul.”

Byron smiled, seeing his brother so incensed. In the matter of
black activist-religious territory, Marus Mudrick considered himself the indisputable leader of east-central New Jersey.

“S’b’lla! My God guess what!”

Seemed like, every other day Ednetta shrieked for Sybilla to come downstairs to hear some good news.

In a Lincoln Town Car, the new young heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson came to visit Sybilla in the Mason residence in Montclair; and to leave with her his Rolex watch, impulsively slipped from his massive wrist and pressed into her hand—“This for you, S’b’lla. You gon be taken care of by good people.” Sybilla had been deeply moved. Sybilla had come close to fainting. She had never seen Tyson box even on TV—she’d never seen a boxing match in her life—but she knew who Mike Tyson was and could not believe that the twenty-one-year-old world-class athlete had traveled some distance, from Catskill, New York, just to see
her.

Mike Tyson was handsome!—what people might say
ugly-handsome
. He was not very tall—probably not more than six feet—with broad muscled shoulders and a very thick muscled neck. His eyes had an Asian, almond slant, not unlike her own. His face was strong-boned, though boyish, untouched by scars or bruising, for the new young heavyweight champion boasted of having
never been hit
. His voice was surprisingly high-pitched, and gentle; his gaze was kindly, though stern with rage against the terrible hurt Sybilla Frye had suffered.

Sybilla stammered something breathy and banal—she’d be embarrassed afterward, recalling!—that she’d never seen any boxing match in her life but when she did, she would see
him box
. And Mike Tyson thanked her and told her a secret he had not ever told anyone
else: “Boxing is what ‘Mike Tyson’ is known for, but not what ‘Mike Tyson’
is
.”

Sybilla would regret afterward, she’d been too awe-stricken to ask about this.
What Mike Tyson
is.

And he’d confided in her, though he had a “white family”—trainer, managers—he hated to look out into the crowd at a boxing match like in Vegas, all those “rich white” people—yelling and screaming for him and his (black) opponent to kill each other.

“Boxing ain’t no ‘sport’—it’s like ancient Rome, ‘gladiators.’ But I’m the best there is, right now.”

Sybilla had no idea what Mike Tyson was saying except she felt the wonderful dark warmth of the young man’s eyes, that were like no other eyes she’d ever seen.

The meeting with Mike Tyson was an emotional one for Sybilla, who would not soon recover from it.

“Oh Mama! Mike Tyson he come to see
me
. He left me this!”

But Marus Mudrick, who’d arranged for the meeting, and had been close by in an adjoining room listening, interrupted to inform Sybilla that the watch was a contribution to the Crusade; it wasn’t a personal gift to Sybilla Frye.

“Rev’end, Mike Tyson give this to
me
. He did!”

Sybilla spoke in a childish whine.

“Sybilla, that is untrue. Mike Tyson’s press agent and I conferred on this issue, and it was agreed, if Tyson saw you, he would leave a ‘donation’ to the fund. And I will take that, now.”

Marus Mudrick held out his hand. Sybilla refused to respond.

Ednetta was summoned. Ednetta slipped the oversized watch off Sybilla’s wrist and handed it to Marus Mudrick.

Sybilla ran off to cry.

Ednetta said, “Rev’end, it a shame, y’know—S’b’lla she so downhearted
all the time, an this was makin her happy. Couldn’t she have the watch? Is it some kind of expensive watch?”

“No. It is not a particularly expensive watch. But it’s a man’s watch, and would look ridiculous and pretentious on her wrist, even if we had it fitted to her size.”

On the phone Sybilla complained to her cousin Martine she missed badly, in this “big old boring house” in Montclair, how unhappy she was. “I hate them all! Fuck them all I wish they would die, this means Mama, too.”

“S’b’lla! You don’t mean that.”

“I do! I do mean that.”

“You don’t mean your mama, don’t say that.”

Martine sounded shocked. Sybilla felt a thrill of nastiness, you had such power over people you loved, or who loved you.

Sybilla lay sprawled on her stomach on “her” bed in this lady-writer’s house, on a fancy silk comforter she didn’t give a damn if she soiled with her shoes. Sucking her thumb and shutting her eyes to see Mike Tyson’s ugly-handsome face drawn close to hers. Wait till Jaycee Handler found out, Mike Tyson had come to see
her
! Left her a present, even if the Reverend took it away again.

“He said I was pretty, M’rtine. It wasn’t any bullshit about ‘justice’ or—anything . . . Just he said I was pretty, and he was lonely too, being so famous like he is, and always made to ride in a limousine with a driver, and not allowed to drive a car himself.” Sybilla paused, stifling a sob. Even as she stared at his face, Mike Tyson was fading.

O
n NJN-TV the man was being interviewed. An older man, white-haired, ashy-skinned, with ravaged eyes and a halting but forceful voice.

Our beloved son has been defamed, desecrated. He was deeply, tragically unhappy and utterly blameless. He was—Jerold was—one of the kindest, most generous and most gentle people . . . It is a horror, it is not believable, that these people should insult our unhappy deceased son, for reasons of race-hatred . . . Jerold was a friend to so many people, who loved him—he had not hurt a single person in his entire life. He’d loved being a police officer, it had been his dream since he’d been a boy.

Quickly, Ednetta switched the channel. Then, she switched off the television set.

Then, she left the room.

“As long as you wish to stay, dear Ednetta and Sybilla! You are always welcome.”

Esmeralda Mason had returned to the house in Montclair. She’d been in Key West, Florida, for a literary conference, she said, at which some of her own work had been discussed.

Ednetta wondered at the word—
work
. Was writing poetry, or any kind of writing,
work
? It did not seem like any
work
Ednetta herself had ever done and its rewards, in Esmeralda’s situation at least, seemed grossly disproportionate to its effort.

Ednetta had been impressed by the many books on Esmeralda’s shelves. Especially, she was impressed by the books with
Esmeralda Mason
printed on the bright covers. She’d never met anyone who was a
poet
and a
writer
, who had books with her name printed on them, and her picture on the back covers. Nor had Ednetta ever met any educated person so kindly, friendly and interested in
her
, in a way the social services people only just pretended to be interested, so they find out some damning fact about you and drop you from their caseloads cutting you off without a cent.

Esmeralda Mason’s house was very special. Kind of house you’d see on TV or in a movie. More than one “living room” and in each room a “fire place” with gleaming brass fixtures—plus a “dining room” with a crystal chandelier—an “atrium” that was like a greenhouse with tangles of lush green jungle-plants, brilliant red flowers big as a man’s head, several antique cages of birds—“finches”—“canaries”—“macaws”—“parrots”—“cockatoos.” You needed a person to just clean up after these messy birds, spreading newspaper on the floor of the fancy cages and scrubbing at the bars to rid them of bird-droppings. The canaries sang so much, they made Ednetta nervous reminding her of females chattering at a distance and none of it adding up to anything. Sybilla complained that even the prettiest birds
smelled
.

Ednetta had tried to read Esmeralda Mason’s poetry which squiggled down the page like trace marks made by some kind of wriggly
insect—but she was too nervous and skittish to sit still. There was something scary about poetry—either it hit too hard, right into the brain and with no warning, or it made no sense at all like a voice you heard through a wall. And most of the time Ednetta was distracted: waiting for a phone to ring, or someone to knock on the door. Seems like, things were always happening in their lives now, like a train with unscheduled stops.

Reverend Mudrick had forbidden Ednetta to call home, to speak with Anis Schutt whom the Reverend didn’t trust—(as Marus Mudrick did not ever trust, on principle, any man with whom the women under his protection were involved: there can be only one dominant male in a female’s life, and Marus Mudrick was that dominant male)—and so when Ednetta tried to call Anis, at her old number on 939 Third Street, she was terrified that the Reverend would find out.

But Anis rarely answered the phone. Since the Crusade had entered their lives, Ednetta was in fear of losing her husband—for always, with a man like Anis, there were other, willing and reckless women.

Esmeralda Mason was warmly sympathetic with her house guests. She had a way of speaking to them while gazing into their faces as if memorizing them, that made them feel both flattered and uneasy. Also, she kept insisting upon making them tea—herbal tea, “camomile,” that tasted to Ednetta like dirty socks soaked in water—which Ednetta was too polite to decline. Sybilla thought it was weird—their hostess had house-servants, at least three they’d sighted coming and going, yet, when they were together, Esmeralda tried to serve
them
. Sybilla wondered if it was some rich lady’s way of behaving? Some black rich lady, wanting you to know she wasn’t stuck-up but had her background like anybody else, doing housework for white folks. Or pretending that. Sybilla laughed saying, if she had Esmeralda Mason’s
money, she wouldn’t ever cook or lift a hand to make anything for herself, just
order in
.

Ednetta agreed. “Some day, we gon be ‘millionaires.’ Rev’end Mudrick promised.”

Ednetta spoke hopefully, stroking her arthritic arm. This cold wet New Jersey winter the
misery
was so awful, she wanted to just lay down and cry or drink up as much as she could out of Esmeralda Mason’s store of fancy wines and whiskeys.

If Sybilla heard, Sybilla only shrugged a skinny shoulder and rolled her eyes as if this kind of Mama-talk was embarrassing to her.

“Rev’end Mudrick did promise that, S’b’lla.
You
didn’t hear.”

When Esmeralda Mason appeared, Sybilla went stiff and slipped away soon as she could, like a feral cat. It was some silly notion of Sybilla’s, Esmeralda made her shiver wanting to put her into some
damn book
.

Esmeralda Mason was a stolid, stocky woman with a puckish elfin face. Her skin was leathery-dark. Her gray-white hair had been buzz-cut. She wore soft drapery-like clothes, elaborately brocaded tunics over trousers that flared like pajamas. Ednetta had calculated she was forty-nine years old—born in 1939. She laughed often, and loudly, at remarks of her own which Ednetta didn’t comprehend. Gold flashed in her teeth. Each evening, Esmeralda came downstairs from her “upstairs study” at 6:00
P
.
M
. to have a drink and “unwind” from her writing, before dinner which was prepared by a Jamaican cook.