Lola on Fire

by Rio Youers

  Text from Eddie the Smoke to Blair Mayo. 11:09 p.m. 10/08/19.

  Chapter Twelve

  It was 10:10 on a Wednesday morning. Church was not in session, but the New Zion Gospel Choir was in full, rapturous swing.

  * * *

  They heard the singing from half a block away and looked at each other like thirsty travelers within earshot of running water. The corners of Brody’s mouth lifted. Molly nodded and thonked ahead. She’d been dragging her crutches since they’d left the motel but now the rubber tips came down with a clear and determined rhythm. Brody followed. He walked not faster, but straighter, his energy like a brightening coil in his chest. They ascended broad steps outside the church. A sign above the doors declared where god guides he provides. Molly threw her shoulder against the left door while Brody took the right. The doors swung inward. The singing cascaded.

  It was rehearsal but the choir was nonetheless in its raiment of service: blue and white gowns, flashed with orange trim. Their voices boomed to the accompaniment of a slightly out-of-tune piano. A large and beautiful woman led them, one hand to the heavens, singing from the deep well of her solar plexus. “His divine glory, His love, His mercy,” she bellowed. “Trust in the Lord and He will set you free.” The New Zion Baptist Church was in a low-income neighborhood. Brody and Molly had passed boarded-over stores and crime scenes and thin, mistrustful children to get there, but there, throughout the choir, from baritone to soprano, every face was incandescent.

  A cool tear tickled Brody’s cheekbone. He scuffed it away, proceeded down the aisle on loose legs. He was not religious—God had not factored deeply in Brody’s twenty-four years—but if nothing else came from this, then this moment, surrounded so profusely by song and faith, made the journey worthwhile.

  The song ended in a crescendo of hallelujahs. A tall man with a smooth brown head stood up from the piano, took three strides toward his choir, then noticed the weeping white man and crippled woman standing wearily in the aisle.

  “Brothers and sisters,” he said, and even talking he had melody to his voice, “let your mercy fill this house like your song. Open your arms, your hearts, for the wretched are among us.”

  * * *

  The hall was simple and elegant: white walls, plain doors. There was no stained glass or polychromed statues. The most elaborate aspect was the design: semicircular, with a sloping glass roof that shared views of the trees and sky from every angle. The pews faced a wide stage, a modest pulpit, and an altar overlooked by a thin, shimmering cross.

  “We knew Karl,” Molly said, then added, so there’d be no doubt which Karl she was referring to, “Your stepbrother.”

  “He was a friend of our mom’s,” Brody said.

  The Reverend Wendell Mathias regarded them expressionlessly, as if waiting to hear more. Several seconds passed, then he pushed a hand across his shaved skull and flicked his eyes in a follow-me gesture.

  “Florence,” he called to the large woman on stage, “you’ll have to do without my dazzling piano for a beat or two.”

  “A cappella for the Lord,” Florence said, and chuckled. “Oh, we can do that.”

  Brody and Molly followed the reverend through a door behind the pulpit, into a windowless, utilitarian space annexed by a crowded office. There was a computer on the desk, files, papers, a stack of prayer books, a lamp that blinked and buzzed. A calendar pinned to the wall displayed Jesus, black and radiant, and a verse from Micah: You will again have compassion on us; You will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.

  Reverend Mathias pushed aside paperwork and perched himself on the edge of the desk. Molly took the only chair. Brody leaned against the wall.

  “You should know,” the reverend said, “that I saw Karl only once in the years before his death. Our lives went in very different directions.”

  “We’re aware of that,” Molly said.

  “So you’ll excuse me for asking . . .” Reverend Mathias joined his hands, perhaps out of habit. “What exactly do you want from me?”

  “To be a friend,” Brody replied. “That may sound sad, or crazy, but you’re about the closest thing we have.”

  “I don’t even know you.” A cry rose from the church proper: a holy high note. It was followed by baritone bass lines and percussive hand claps. Reverend Mathias listened for a moment, no doubt wishing he were out there, then looked at Brody and asked, “What kind of trouble are you in?”

  Brody and Molly glanced at each other. Molly shifted uneasily. Brody ran a hand across the back of his neck.

  “The long version,” he said, “begins when our mother walked out on us. The short version begins when I decided to rob a convenience store.”

  It was the reverend’s turn to shift uneasily. He separated his hands and raised one eyebrow.

  “It wasn’t even a real gun,” Brody began in a dejected tone. “It was a replica. I bought it for sixty bucks.”

  * * *

  The choir bounced joyously from “Break Every Chain” to “For Your Glory,” then into something improvised and entirely sweet. Brody recounted the events that had spiraled them from Rebel Point to the New Zion Baptist Church. He spoke honestly and left nothing out. Reverend Mathias listened in silence, and Brody soon sensed a change in his demeanor, one of empathy. As such—and with the exception of his bald head—he looked hauntingly similar to October’s depiction of Jesus Christ.

  Molly swallowed a painkiller. The lamp hummed and flickered. Brody finished speaking, then joined his hands without thinking, as if in prayer.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he said after a moment. His tone was still miserable. “I’m the kind of bad news you could do without.”

  “I’m not thinking that at all,” the reverend said. “And there’s no such thing as bad, only misguided.”

  Brody nodded. “Even so, I’m sorry to drop this on your doorstep.”

  Molly said, “We had nowhere else to go.”

  * * *

  The stack of prayer books had wobbled precariously as the reverend shifted his butt along the desk’s edge. He took a few seconds to arrange them into stable piles, then turned again to Brody and Molly.

  “My father married Karl’s mother in 1977. Karl and I were the same age—eleven, only three weeks between our birthdays—but different in almost every other way.” His eyes fogged as he regressed forty-two years. A smile touched his lips. “Heck, we shouldn’t have gotten along as well as we did, but I think, in some ways, our differences made us closer.”

  “No sibling rivalry,” Molly said. “Makes sense.”

  “Sure. Could be.” The reverend nodded. “We grew up together. We went through a young man’s rites of passage together. You know . . . bumbling into adolescence, discovering girls, dabbling in cigarettes and alcohol.”

  He blinked away the memories and smiled again. Molly looked at him with a fondness Brody recognized. Her posture, her body language, were at ease. She liked this guy. He was, in fairness, easy to like.

  “I wanted to be a corporate accountant. Can you imagine?” The reverend looked to the low, dusty ceiling—what passed for heaven in this part of the church—as if to say, What was I thinking? “I got into Penn State and Karl followed me out a few months later. Not at the university; Karl wasn’t of the academic persuasion. A job opportunity, he said. I welcomed having family so close, but it was clear our lives were bound for different points of the compass. Karl had started to get into trouble for petty crimes. Trespassing, disorderly conduct, possession of marijuana. I was concerned that his . . . misdemeanors might reflect negatively on my studies, so I put a little distance between us. He was my brother, though, and we still hung out from time to time. We watched the big college games together—Penn State all the way. We went to a few parties. We even went on a couple of double dates. But it wasn’t like it used to be.”

  “Did you have mutual friends?” Molly asked.

  “Sure,” the reverend replied. “Not many
, but yeah. Three or four.”

  Brody pushed off the wall, squaring his shoulders, like a man readying himself for a punch to the gut. “Did you know our mom?”

  “What was her name?” the reverend asked.

  “Natalie . . . Natalie Ellis.”

  “Her maiden name was Myles,” Molly said.

  “Natalie Myles?” Reverend Mathias cut a deep frown. “Doesn’t ring any bells, and I’m pretty good with names. It’s possible Karl met her while I was doing time.”

  The silence was awkward but blessedly brief, broken by the choir, all voices, full of glory.

  “Karl was the problem child,” the reverend said, feeling the need to clarify, “but the longest he served was twenty-six months for aggravated assault. I, on the other hand, served eight years for a murder I didn’t commit.”

  Molly sat up in her seat, wincing as she shifted her weight. Brody looked from Reverend Mathias to October’s Jesus, again struck by a likeness that went beyond the color of their skin.

  The reverend continued, “The police picked me up three blocks from the scene of a fatal stabbing. A witness had seen a black man in a red jacket fleeing the area. Now, I wasn’t wearing a jacket, but that was a minor consideration. Like the good officer said, it’s easy to take a jacket off, even when running from the scene of a crime. Things went from bad to worse when the same witness IDed me in a lineup the following morning. And that, friends, was all it took. Thirty to life at SCI Graterford.”

  “Talk about wrong place at the wrong time,” Brody said.

  “That’s some of it,” the reverend agreed. “But most of it . . . well, let’s just say that, for black Americans, it sometimes seems that the only place justice comes before prejudice is in the dictionary.”

  “I’m sorry you went through that,” Molly said.

  “Don’t be sorry,” the reverend said. “It’s true what they say about God: He is everywhere, and I found him at Graterford Prison. He lifted me up—shone His light into some dark places. But God’s tests are never easy. Faith, like everything, is worth more when you have to work for it.”

  Brody thought he’d give anything for a shot of faith. Faith that he and Molly would find a way through. Faith that the real killer—Blair—would be brought to justice. He didn’t think it would come from God, though, but rather from an oversight on Blair’s part. That, or a lightning strike of good fortune.

  “I was pardoned by the governor of Pennsylvania in 1999, after the real murderer confessed, not only to the crime I was convicted of, but to several other serious misdeeds. He’d found God, too, apparently.” The reverend’s eyes rolled to the low ceiling again. Another smile touched his lips. You sure work in mysterious ways. “Anyway, I was out. I had nothing but a bachelor’s degree I had no use for, and a few dollars in my pocket. By way of compensation, the state funded my re-education. I got my master of divinity degree, learned to play piano, and landed here in 2006.”

  “No looking back,” Brody said.

  “Oh, I look back often. And this may sound crazy, but I’d do it all again—”

  “That does sound crazy,” Molly blurted, then pressed her fingers to her lips. “Sorry. No offense meant.”

  The reverend waved it off. “I could have been an accountant working sixty-hour weeks, kissing corporate butt, never seeing my family. Now I live in God’s light.” He made a single gesture that encompassed his faith, his church, everything from the prayer books stacked behind him to the belief in his soul. “Furthermore, I know how it feels to be so low that you can taste the dirt when you breathe. And empathy is a valuable resource when it comes to forgiveness.”

  Silence from the hall as the choir closed out another timber-shaking number.

  “What I don’t know,” Reverend Mathias said in that ominously still moment, “is how I can help you, other than through prayer.”

  Molly said, “That sounds like a good place to start.”

  “The man who’s after me, Jimmy Latzo . . . he’s well connected, merciless.” Brody dragged a hand across his eyes. “I won’t turn down the prayers, Reverend Mathias, but what I—we—really need is to get under the radar. To disappear. We were hoping you might still be in contact with some of your brother’s acquaintances.”

  “His criminal friends?” The reverend pressed a thumb to his chin and frowned. “Someone who might provide you with forged paperwork?”

  “Whatever it takes,” Brody replied. “I’m not asking you to collude or break the law. Just point us in the right direction.”

  “The right direction is that way.” The reverend pointed at the ceiling. “God is the answer.”

  Brody lowered his head despondently.

  “He’s the answer you need,” the reverend said, and there was a different note in his voice, one of quiet resignation. “But I can see He’s not the answer you want.”

  Brody lifted his eyes.

  Reverend Mathias sighed. “I didn’t know many of Karl’s delinquent friends. Being in prison, ironically, distanced me from that side of his life. On the occasions he visited, I urged him to find distance, too. But he never did.”

  “Maybe he couldn’t,” Molly said.

  “Maybe,” the reverend said, nodding. “Some things have of a way of catching hold, and not letting go until they’ve dragged you all the way down.”

  “Tell me about it,” Brody said wearily.

  “Less chance of that happening”—the reverend dropped a wink—“when your focus is heavenward.”

  Brody realized there hadn’t been any singing for a while, only muffled voices from the hall. The choir must have concluded their rehearsal, which made him wonder how much of the reverend’s time they had used up. He was about to suggest to Molly that they hit the road, when the reverend stood up straighter. His expression cleared. He clapped his hands once, crisply.

  “You look like you need a good meal. And Florence—my, she makes the most delicious soul-smothered chicken. Serves it with gravy and white rice. Mmm-mmm.” All melancholy had left his voice. “I’ll have her take you home, feed you up some—”

  “Oh no,” Molly said. “That’s really not—”

  “Hush, now. You’re friends of the family. And you’re not leaving here on empty bellies.”

  Brody and Molly displayed their identical smiles. Tired, but still lovely.

  “That’s very kind,” Molly said. “Thank you.”

  “I can’t help you beyond food and prayer,” the reverend said. “But I do have some of Karl’s possessions—cleaned them out of his apartment after he died. A small boxful of things. Photographs, old vinyl records and mixtapes, letters to his ex-girlfriend. I’ll bring it over to Florence’s house later. You’re welcome to look through, see if you find anything that . . . points you in the right direction.”

  “Thank you,” Brody said. “I guess you never know.”

  “You’re in a dark place. I know how that feels.” The reverend’s voice was somber, but kindness sparked in his eyes. “A little light goes a long way.”

  “I hope so.” Brody indicated the door behind him, the indistinct voices beyond. “We can come back later, if you need to finish up with—”

  “I do, but you’re not going anywhere yet.” The reverend pushed himself off the desk, took Molly’s left hand and Brody’s right. “Now we do what you should have been doing all along. Now we pray.”

  * * *

  Florence lived with her sister and mother in a small two-bedroom house, which seemed larger on the inside, despite the clutter. It boomed with personality, like Florence herself, so that the walls, with all their pictures, and the surfaces, crowded with figurines and curios, drew the eye and expanded, like a broadly detailed painting.

  Tamla Motown flowed from the kitchen. Florence browned chicken and sang along, matching the greats—Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson—note for note. Crockery rattled as she danced. Every now and then, Florence’s sister—younger, smaller, louder—dueted from elsewhere in the house. Conversely,
Florence’s mother sat rocklike in the living room with Brody and Molly, watching them with a gaze that managed to be both discerning and comforting.

  Brody ventured, “She may have smothered too much soul on the chicken.” Molly cracked a smile, while Florence’s mother retorted in a melodic voice, “Ain’t no such thang as too much soul.”

  Family and friends joined them for dinner, a host of faces, all with cheerful voices. They filled their plates, found a spot at the table. They prayed, ate noisily, hummed along to the stereo still playing in the kitchen. Reverend Mathias arrived when a single piece of chicken and a spoonful of rice remained. He asked if everybody had eaten enough. Assured that they had, he gave thanks to his friends and to his God, then he ate.

  When most of the company had left, and with Florence busying herself with the pots and pans, Reverend Mathias retired to the living room with Brody and Molly. He had the box of Karl’s possessions in one arm—it was not a large box—and set it down on the coffee table, having to first clear a landslide of magazines and flyers from Kroger.

  “I have memories,” he said, pressing his finger to the side of his head. “But everything else is inside that box. Everything Karl left behind.”

  “Not much of a life,” Molly observed.

  Brody tightened inside, thinking that, if he were to die anytime soon, all he’d leave behind was a dusty leather jacket—one that had originally belonged to his old man. Twenty-four years of life, and all Brody had to show for it was a hand-me-down item of clothing. He sighed, dragged the box toward him, and fished out half a dozen vinyl albums and 45s—the kind of music college kids played while they smoked weed.

  “I listened to Janet Jackson and Lionel Richie,” the reverend said. “Karl listened to Pink Floyd and The 13th Floor Elevators. One of the many ways in which we were different.”

  Brody pushed aside dog-eared paperbacks, a signed baseball, a broken wristwatch. He found an old wallet with nothing inside.