Saving Ruby King

by Catherine Adel West

  All their questions and suspicions eat up precious time, time I need to get to church, time I need to get my money, time I need to fix my life and get these detectives out of it.

  “Church is more important to you than helping us find who killed your wife?” Jurgensen says, his tone trying to cut me with each word.

  I meet Cantor’s eyes. “Well, men of faith answer to someone higher. Perhaps, God can give you answers He didn’t give me yet.”

  “You know how this can look to someone like us, Mr. King? It looks suspicious. You look suspicious,” Jurgensen presses.

  “Well, I’ve learned over the years I can’t change how people look at me so I’m not trying now.”

  I close the door, and I know the kind of hell I’ve possibly brought down on myself, but I’m good with fire and fists and bullets and blood.

  CALVARY

  May 2, 1969

  The little boy curls into the smallest ball, almost willing himself to disappear. He wriggles through the opening in my fence and finds my third window ajar. One of the deacons leaves it open so stale water from the previous day’s rain won’t leave such a pungent odor Sunday morning. The little boy pushes and shimmies down into my dank basement and, with featherlight footsteps, walks up the twelve stairs to the first floor and into the worship hall. His steps are sure in the sable embrace of evening.

  The moon provides cool light, casting hideous shapes of the pews and the gold-plated altars spanning the right aisle on one side and the left aisle on the other. The little boy comes here a few times a week and always sits in the same place, the seventh row in the middle aisle. He prays. He’s not scared of the creeping shadows bending around him because he knows real fear.

  I find the place in the little boy’s mind.

  He hides behind a door in the corner of a basement where the dim bulb’s light cannot reach. Most children are afraid of the dark and make-believe monsters, but for the boy shadows and darkness are welcome companions. And the monster in his life is not imaginary.

  She is real. She is looking for him.

  The little boy can hear those elephantine footsteps maiming the silence in the house.

  “Get yo high yella ass out here now!” she’d shriek.

  The little boy prays, “Make me good. Make me righteous. Keep me Lord in thine arms, forevermore. Amen.”

  This prayer. This prayer doesn’t work. It never works, but he thinks maybe this time it will. Maybe She will become nice and tell him why she’s angry all the time. He knows She loves him. It’s beneath the layers. She can’t see it, but he can. Just look harder and find it and they can be a family, the boy hopes. The boy prays. The boy lingers in the blackness.

  The footsteps. The dust from the splintering floorboards showers him and he muffles a cough. He can feel the tightness in his chest from being here too long. He’s going to cough again and She will find him. The footsteps are coming closer, and he knows what will happen. He can already feel the slaps and hits and kicks. He starts to shake.

  The little boy can feel her hate, but he can’t understand it.

  She opens the door at the top of the stairs. The rough thump, thump, thump of rushing movement down the stairs. Water dripping into the stagnant puddle of the dead gray cement floor a few feet away. She is searching for him. Three doors open and shut. He’s the fourth door. The bulb’s light finds him and so does She. The monster.

  She pummels him. He yells. Neighbors ignore the cries, bury themselves deeper in their own shallow tasks. If I had the ability for tears, I’d weep. I can’t give the boy answers, but I give him silence and maybe he can use that as a foundation for peace.

  JACKSON

  “You’ve got quite the nice little church here. Good people,” Senator Sikorska says as he strolls through my office, his compliment sounding forced to my ears.

  “I wanted to come by and show my heartfelt support for someone such as yourself, a leader, a pillar of this community,” he continues.

  My Bible lay just out of reach. Good thing. I’d probably lob it at his head.

  “Mr. Sikorska—”

  “Senator.”

  “Yeah, can we speak a little later? I’m in the middle of finishing up a few things, if you’ll excuse me.”

  The Senator sits down in the chair, unbuttons his jacket, folds his hands and smiles oil-slick.

  “Yes, you’re a busy man. I’m a busy man too, but this is such an opportunity to establish a friendship. Much like the one our lovely daughters have.”

  I cover the check to Lebanon on my desk with my mostly empty notepad.

  “Let’s get down to brass tacks, Reverend Potter. You’re a man these people trust. They listen to you and what you tell them. You have a valuable resource, and I want to urge you to use that resource so these people can choose someone who can help them.”

  “That someone being you?”

  “I could see how the people of this good state and this church sometimes need others to lead them in the right direction come election time. I simply want your help, guiding that choice.”

  “And what if you aren’t what’s best? I can’t say you’re offering anything more than any alderman or mayor or senator has offered. None of whom seem to deliver on anything other than lining their own pockets and serving their own interests.”

  The small muscles in the Senator’s left cheek twitch. “Well, I can’t say we are any different than a pastor or a priest.”

  Reaching forward, I slide my Bible down and pray the Senator thinks long and hard about his next few words.

  “Think of it this way, you do so much for the community, and I can help you continue to do that. Black men in power are something this community needs, right? I mean look at that Obama! I admire him a great deal, a great deal. Look, all I’m saying is I can be a valuable resource to you. Robust social programs for a blighted community, new construction for low-income housing, expanded funding to law enforcement to put these low-life gangbangers in prison where they belong.”

  “You sound like a political ad.”

  He laughs heartily. “Hazard of the job, I guess. Look, your church is nice, but I see it. I see the crumbling steps, the paint covering up the water marks from rain and snow. I know you’re a man under a lot of pressure. Wasn’t one of your members recently murdered?”

  “Yes,” I whisper.

  “I saw you on the news. Tragic, just tragic to lose someone like that. That’s what I want to help with. These kinds of problems can be solved with someone like me at the helm with your support. I can help direct communities like yours toward better days, usher in some of those better days now.”

  He reaches into his suit, retrieving an envelope and laying it out on my table. “If you were to look in that envelope right there, you’d find enough to start repairing that roof, or those steps. I almost broke my neck coming up them a few minutes ago.” He laughs again, the sound empty.

  “Are you seriously offering me a bribe for my support?”

  “This is my own money, from my own bank account. It’s a donation, a tax deductible one actually. Just think of it as, what do your people call it? Tithes and offerings.”

  I imagine Jesus fielded the same temptations from the Devil alone in the desert. I imagine he entertained it, but he told Satan to get behind him. He discovered a resolve and a character I search for at this moment. I glance at the check hidden underneath the notepad.

  The money I could give to Lebanon. I could replenish the church’s account. Make those repairs. But at what cost, what true cost? To be his puppet, just as I’m sometimes Lebanon’s. Finding myself beholden to someone against my will is something I’ve lived with and it’s torn me apart, shredded my dignity and tainted my honesty. And I can’t bear that anymore.

  I slide the envelope back toward the Senator.

  “I thought you’d want to be part of t
he solution. Change is coming to these neighborhoods, Jackson. Progress.”

  “Gentrification,” I retort.

  “Progress has a lot of different names.”

  He places the envelope back into his jacket pocket, sighs and stands, buttoning his jacket, and extends his hand. I shake it with the sole intention of washing my hands after he leaves my office. He grips it a moment longer and applies the slightest added pressure. “You’re a smart man, Jackson. I want to urge you to think, really think, about friends and enemies. We need protection from enemies. All of us. Think of me as a friend, and I’ll think of you as a friend. That envelope will be here whenever you want it.”

  He lets go and places a card on my desk with his name etched in expensive gold lettering, his personal address and a handwritten cell phone number.

  “Do whatever you think is best Senator, and I promise you I’ll do the same.”

  Whatever lingers in his gaze is lost on me, but he finally leaves my office. As I try to gather my thoughts, Elder Alma Locke bursts through the threshold with unsigned papers in hand, a list of orders to dictate and appointments to keep. I take Sikorska’s card and shove it in my desk.

  “Morning! Now I got a couple little things here. Pastor Alman’s church is celebrating their anniversary and that starts at three o’ clock...”

  I know these appointments and the obligations I have to keep, the hands I have to shake, the favors I have to exchange, and I wonder if I’m all that different from the Senator. He peddles unfulfilled change. I peddle a God for prayers.

  Alma waves her hand in front my face. “Where you off to?” She chuckles.

  “Just got a lot of things on my mind, Elder.”

  “Yes, yes. The Man of God doesn’t get a day off and what did I tell you about that Elder stuff?”

  She prefers Alma. She likes being an elder, but she faults people in church for being hung up on titles and not paying more attention to the Lord’s business.

  An inch or two shy of six feet with a full-figured frame, Alma runs her finger the length of my desk and looks around with a subtle disapproval of what she perceives to be disarray, but I believe to be a reasonably well-organized space. “I’ll be by to tidy up later on.”

  Alma unconsciously hunches her shoulders taking careful steps toward me, not wanting to hit or bump into anything. She moves like the office and the world are too small for her. She lays the gas and property bills on my desk. Opening the envelopes, the amounts cause me to go cold in my very bones. The combined total with Lebanon’s check barely leaves enough for the rest of this month.

  “We have that other monthly donation to the Lazarus House. I sent that check off yesterday.”

  That tithe I give of my own accord every few weeks like clockwork. That amount further drains the church’s coffers. The dwindling resources, the pressure and need to appear as if things are fine and that I have more to offer those around me: more love, more funds, more meat and bone. The Senator flashes through my mind. ...think about friends and enemies. We need protection from enemies. The Senator’s help, his ability to bestow grants to a struggling church and community, that’d resolve my mess, fix the stairs, fix my life and my lies. It’d also create a host of new problems.

  “Don’t look so worried, Reverend Potter. Jehovah Jireh. God the Provider,” Alma consoles, her beautiful, snow-white, short-cut afro complementing the soft wrinkles in her face which fold themselves into the corners of her mouth and eyes.

  I nod in affirmation, but not one part of me believes God can magically put money into a bank account thin on funds and heavy on debt. My secrets drag me down, and this church, the church my daddy once shepherded, down with them.

  I hand Alma the check for Lebanon. I try to keep my tone even, not let my voice waver. I try to sound like the pastor of a church. “You need to sign off on this expense for the King family.”

  The easy smile on Alma’s face gives way to an expression of light panic. “How do you expect me to justify to the board giving Lebanon this amount of money? We’ve already gone above and beyond for him—”

  “I don’t care how you justify it, Alma. Call it mercy!” I wish I knew the depth of that word, mercy. I know regret. I know shame. I know fear. I know fear so damn well.

  “Mercy?” Alma’s brow furrows in defiance. “You can’t help that man with everything! Other things, other people in this place demand your attention, too!”

  “It’s not just about Lebanon. It’s for medical expenses, for his mother, Sara, she’s sick. It doesn’t look good and her being in the hospital during this time, after Alice, it’s only right we help them in any way we can.” I rise from my desk and walk over to Alma, placing my hands on her shoulders. “Alice was your friend wasn’t she, Alma?”

  “You know she was, Jackson.” Her breath catches, and she dabs at her eyes. She walks to the small window that lets in no light and stares at trees with no leaves and the garbage that the wind rolled into the lot next door.

  “It’s really about helping Alice, giving her family some relief with what they’ve been through these last few and terrible days. Mercy.”

  “I know Alice,” Alma says. “What she gave up. What she begged me and Joanna to never talk about.”

  She walks back over to me. “You know, too. You know what he did to her, and you still help him. You don’t blink. And now you wanna talk like you have some direct line with Alice in Glory, and she wants you to help the man who beat her down and brutalized her? I mean he could’ve been the one to kill—”

  “Enough!” I didn’t realize how loud I was or how I must’ve looked, but it was bad. I know it was bad. Alma shrinks back the tiniest bit. Shocked I raised my voice. I’ve never done that. I’ve never disrespected her, but this is not a normal day. I can’t fake normal anymore.

  “We all stood by, Alma, and there’s another side to the story,” I say, softening my tone, pouring as much honey into my voice as I’m capable of at that moment. “There are things they both suffered. Things that don’t go away with love or prayer or good intentions.”

  Alma takes my hands and gently squeezes them. Her onyx eyes bore through mine trying to reach the answers I have locked away. The ones I want to share, that will surely bring down not only me but this entire church, everything I’ve built, and while that’s something I deserve, it’s not something right now I can abide.

  “If you believe him to be such a monster, then why would he ask for money to help his family? He wants to help Ruby, Sara, too,” I say without much conviction.

  “Now you’re just lying to yourself,” she scolds and releases my hands. “Whether it’s supposed to be for Ruby or Sara, only Lebanon is spending that money. I know that like I know there were eleven disciples.”

  “Twelve, Alma.”

  The sharpness of Alma’s glance cuts me. “Judas wasn’t a disciple. He was a betrayer. I never counted him.”

  “Just sign the damn check, Alma. This will be the last thing I ask you. I swear.”

  “God is not a man that he should lie, Pastor. Numbers 23:19. You shouldn’t be that man either.”

  I repeat, “Sign the check, Alma. Please.” I give her the same look I did when I wanted an extra piece of cake at one of the church bake sales. I didn’t need another slice of cake. It wasn’t good for me, but she’d give in, like she was giving in now. I can tell. I know defeat.

  “I don’t know about you and Lebanon. You’re supposed to be friends, but you’re not how you were. Not like when you were younger. Not like before Lebanon went away. Y’all are both locked up somehow. Alice spent her life trying to free him, now she’s gone. What’s gonna happen to you?”

  Alma signs the check in bold, scripted cursive. “I know it’s not my place to say.”

  Standing up, Alma walks to the door and opens it.

  “You’re right, Alma.”

  She turns arou
nd and smiles.

  I return to my desk and sit down. “It’s not your place. Please help Layla with the programs. Thank you.”

  Alma’s hopeful smile fades. She shakes her head and leaves my office. The way she looked at me, shaking her head. It’s the act you’d bestow upon a child who can’t seem to grasp the simplest lesson. And I realize it’s pity. She feels pity for me.

  I push and shove the entire contents of my desk onto the floor. I walk to my door and leave the mess for Alma to clean up later.

  RUBY

  I don’t ask myself why those men showed up at the door. They’re the same ones who passed in and out of the house the night Mom died. They presided over the dusting of prints, the cataloging of evidence and the collecting of my mother’s body. My mother was placed in a black bag and loaded into a white van while I sat in a police car covered in her blood.

  The door slams shut. I’m relieved. Lebanon is gone and I am left alone. That’s the best way to be.

  My neck still throbs when I think about it, and I’ll have a bruise on my left hip from where I hit the edge of the table before I crashed to the floor. Lebanon always looks the same way when he hurts someone—surprised. Like he didn’t know he was capable of such harm. It’s the closest thing to sorrow or regret he feels. I think that’s why Mom forgave him the many times he hurt her. Maybe she believed it wasn’t really him who did it. Not his true self. It wasn’t his fault. It was something she could pray away.

  She probably thought she failed him. She probably thought she wasn’t strong enough, or good enough or deserving enough to change him. She couldn’t own up to her defeat and he couldn’t hold himself accountable because no one else did. So we all suffered. Mom was a failure. Lebanon was a monster. I was a prisoner.

  Save yourself, baby.

  Layla called nine times.

  Turning on the shower, I undress and notice blood on my shirt. It looks like raindrops. The water feels good on my body. It’s my own kind of baptism. Christianity has to be the only religion where you can attempt to drown someone three times and call it salvation.