A Taste of Honey

by Jabari Asim

  On the fifth day, she dreamed of the handsome stranger with flake-gold eyes. In her dream, she was with Paul. They were leaving church when the man appeared in the aisle, blocking their path. The two men stared at each other.

  Her husband frowned. “Problem?”

  “No, brother,” the stranger replied.

  Paul snorted. “I’m not your brother.”

  On the sixth day, she was in the church office singing softly to herself while watering the plants.

  “I’d know that voice anywhere.”

  “Oh, I didn’t realize—” Rose turned and saw him. Bright eyes blazing in the afternoon sun.

  “Stand still,” he said. It was clear that he was talking to himself. “And consider the wondrous works of God.”

  Rose felt a warming sensation zoom straight from her toes to the top of her skull. She thought her head might take off and soar into space. Blushing, she wondered if he could see what she felt. He was staring so intently.

  “You really shouldn’t talk that way,” she said when her voice returned.

  “It’s from Job.”

  “I know where it’s from.”

  “Since when does a woman of the Word discourage a man from talking about it?”

  “You talk about it, but do you believe it?”

  “Every time I see you my faith is confirmed.”

  Nice. But Rose refused to smile.

  “How did you—What are you doing here?” She was mad at herself for sounding so flustered.

  “I live here. I might ask you the same.”

  Rose narrowed her eyes. “You live here.”

  “Did I stutter?”

  “What do you mean you live here?”

  “My work requires the good graces of men like Reverend Washington.” He paused to let that sink in. “Plus, I’m a youth counselor at the church community center. I stay in the rectory.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a long-term job.”

  Gabriel chuckled. She’s interested, he thought, but trying not to let it show. “Reverend Washington wants me to work at the new boys’ club going up. But I’m not so sure.”

  “You live in the rectory.”

  Gabriel shrugged. “Reverend Washington has his own home, and a wife. I’ve got no wife. I’m alone. All alone.”

  “Watch yourself, Mr. Patterson.”

  His smile was as dazzling as his eyes.

  “So you remember my name.”

  Miles Washington’s Sunday sermon was on virtuous women. He talked about Abigail, “a woman of good understanding and of a beautiful countenance” who was married to a man “who was churlish and evil in his doings.” He went on to discuss Proverbs 31 in detail, warning his male listeners that any man who mistreated a woman would never “be known in the gates.” He went on like he does, and Pristine, sitting next to Orville, Gloria, and Roderick in the third row, loved every minute. Casting her practiced eye over the saints, she easily noted the slender newcomer two pews over. He had been passing out leaflets the day of Curly’s funeral.

  Rev. Washington’s typical homilies were mix-and-match blends of jazz, prophecy, celebration, and loving chastisement. He could take things as disparate as a bit of Scripture, a newspaper headline, and a snatch of overheard conversation, and turn them into something inspirational and memorable, a pulpit performance you could dance to or revel in, depending on how you felt. As he half-shouted, half-sang, the scar on his neck pulsed like a warning beacon. His regulars recognized the pulsing as a sign that he was getting revved up.

  “More precious than rubies,” he thundered. He was in full voice now. “Only a fool casts a ruby aside. Hah! Only a fool declines to cherish a jewel. Hah! I’m not talking about pimp clothes and shiny cars and pinkie rings. Hah! That means nothing—hah!—in the eyes of God—hah!—and shouldn’t mean anything—hah!—to godly men. Are you hearing this?”

  Pristine hardly missed her husband beside her. Getting Reuben to show up more than once a month was a dream she had all but given up on, and so the fault was hers. Like everything else, it came down to a matter of belief: “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.” Pristine knows the book of Matthew as well as anyone, but still.

  Rev. Washington wasn’t talking about Matthew or Proverbs 31 either. He had moved on to Psalm 82.

  “It says in that psalm that we are all children of the most high. But that doesn’t mean we should walk round with our heads in the clouds. Quite the opposite. It means, beloved, we must never fail to recognize God in ourselves and all around us. God is in all places and at all times, for all time. God is on the ground, beloved. Say that to your neighbor: God is on the ground.”

  The congregation obeyed, and Gabriel found himself exchanging the words with a friendly man sitting next to him. The man was with his wife, a sweet-looking woman in a clean, modest dress. In other times, full of withering contempt, Gabriel had dismissed such men as simpletons, unthinking dupes all too willing to buy into values that weren’t even theirs. But there in the church, while the eloquent pastor sang his truth—“He who findeth a wife findeth a good thing, hah!”—all he felt for such men was envy.

  Rev. Washington moved on to James 1:22—“Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves”—but what, Gabe asked himself, was he doing? Men like his church neighbor were quietly building families and communities—exactly what the Man didn’t want them to do. Maybe they were the real revolutionaries.

  Gabe’s head was swimming. He stirred in his seat, craving air.

  Then Rose began to sing. She stood in the choir loft, eyes closed, one hand on her breast. From her lips the sound flowed into something stirring, something profound. Gabriel was transfixed. Around him, others were captivated, transported, shaken. With tears silently falling down her cheeks, Pristine stood and waved her handkerchief. Gloria Bates got to her feet and began to dance in place until her hat fell off. They were among the first to feel it: The Spirit rose up and raced through the gathering of souls, raising the hairs on forearms and the backs of necks. Holiness hit in waves, taking hold of nearly all in its path. It began with a stomping of feet, the syncopated click of heels on the wooden floor. Soon the staccato stomp was punctuated here and there by a whoop, a cry, a ha-ha! Arms began to flap, hips swiveled, and hands thrust straight up in the air. Around and around God’s children danced and shouted, shook sweat in every direction, elbows jutting at odd angles but striking no one. A collective moan seemed to emanate not from any human throat but from the air itself, an energy older than pain and stronger than time. And Rose’s voice was all in it, thoroughly praising, summoning, raising the roof. Rev. Washington gripped the podium like a desperate lover and rocked his head back and forth so violently you feared for his life if you didn’t know any better.

  In time, the unfettered ecstasy gave way to a familiar, reassuring stillness. The saints returned to their bodies. Rose’s voice grew soft, then stopped. She opened her eyes and saw that the man with the flake-gold eyes was leaving the sanctuary.

  He returned later, popping up on Mrs. Garnett’s front porch that same afternoon. “Claims he’s here on church business,” her skeptical hostess announced.

  He was holding roses, but Rose pretended not to notice them.

  “How did you find me?”

  “I went door to door. All over the North Side.”

  “Stop lying.”

  “Oh, come on, don’t be so harsh,” he protested. “The North Side’s only so big.”

  “For real. Tell me.”

  “Okay, Mrs. Garnett’s in the church directory. I knew you were staying with her and, believe it or not, I also know how to read.”

  “Yet there’s so much you don’t know.”

  “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,” Gabriel said.

  Rose frowned, or tried to. “You think you’re charming, but you’re going t
o get enough of mocking me.”

  Gabriel shook his head. “I’ll never get enough of anything about you.”

  He stood as close to Rose as he dared, soaking up her aura so deeply that he lost track of time and missed a meeting of the Warriors—a meeting that he himself had scheduled. The phone in his room at the rectory went unanswered. At the community center, PeeWee and the others shared their fear that Gabriel was losing interest in their cause. “This is some bullshit,” PeeWee said.

  Gabriel and Rose sat on Mrs. Garnett’s porch until evening, talking and punctuating their conversation with so much laughter that any passerby would have assumed they’d been lovers for a long and happy time. Finally they said nothing and found comfort in the quiet.

  At first she wouldn’t let him leave the flowers with her, but he made her promise to give them to Mrs. Garnett. Their fingers touched when he placed the bouquet in her hands, and a spark—electric and undeniable—passed between them. Gabriel looked to see if Rose felt it too. The expression on her face made it clear that she did.

  “Nothing more to say tonight, is there?” Her lips were right there. But he didn’t want to ruin his chances.

  She looked away. “No, I guess not.”

  “Good night, Rose. Thank you for—Well, just thanks, that’s all.”

  “Good night, Mr. Patterson.”

  Rose went inside and knelt by her bed. “Please, God,” she said. “Send me a sign.”

  The next day, when she had put away her final file, emptied out and washed the coffeepot, and straightened the papers on Rev. Washington’s desk, it occurred to Rose that she needed some things from her old house. Against her best judgment, she asked Gabriel to accompany her. Just in case.

  “Just in case what?” He seemed amused.

  “In case he’s up there and just hasn’t been looking for me. In case he’s up there with some other woman.”

  Rose knew Pristine would have alerted her to either of those scenarios, but she still wanted him to come.

  Sullivan Avenue was still bright and quiet. Two doors over from Rose’s old flat, a shirtless Mr. Collins was cutting his lawn with a rotary push mower. Across the street, Mrs. Cleveland was trimming her shrubs while a bottle of Coke sat nearby. Next door, Crispus was still breaking in his first baseman’s mitt. Gabe, waiting outside for Rose, watched him toss a tennis ball against his front step. Without trying very hard, Gabe could see himself on a street like that, cutting his grass, playing catch with his son.

  The ball rolled past the boy and over to Gabe. He tossed it back.

  “Thanks,” Crispus said.

  “No problem. What’s your name?”

  “Crispus.”

  Gabe smiled. “Wow, like the revolutionary.”

  Crispus squinted up at the man. Although his eyes were hard to read in the glare of late afternoon, Crispus could tell they were the most unusual he’d seen besides Mr. Burk’s. But they were different somehow, not like a zombie’s at all.

  “Not many folks know that.”

  “He gave his life for a cause,” Gabriel said. “We should never forget him.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Gabriel.”

  “Like the angel,” Rose said.

  Gabriel and Crisp turned and looked at her. Smiling, she held a shopping bag in either hand. Her expression told Gabriel that she was relieved, that she’d found nothing disturbing inside. He sensed that he was getting closer to her, easing past her sturdy defenses. He just needed to bide his time.

  “Gabriel Patterson,” he continued. “I work at the community center.”

  “And you’re with the Warriors. I saw you in the paper.”

  Gabriel moved closer to Rose. “All is well, Mrs. Whittier?”

  “All is well,” Rose replied.

  They walked off arm in arm, giggling slightly. Crispus, puzzled, stared after them.

  The Justice Singers were the headliners at the community rally, but they were hardly the only acts on the bill. The rally was a fund-raiser for both the community center and the Coalition Against Police Brutality, for which Gabriel and Rev. Washington served as committee members.

  Rose was blown away by the singers, a quartet consisting of two men and two women who were also frontline activists in various Southern campaigns. Rose loved the ease with which they turned gospel fervor into political urgency. Their capable harmonies made calls for action as right—and righteous—as calls to the altar.

  She also enjoyed seeing Gabriel in such a public light. He shared emcee duties with Rev. Washington and was nearly his equal. He came off as angry but committed, and appeared frustrated when the crowd’s solid intensity didn’t seem to match his own. He reminded his listeners that patience could easily decline into dangerous passivity. “We can’t afford to let outsiders feel as if they can come into our communities and trample our children,” he warned. “Trample our rights, trample our lives.” Pigs who tried, he said, would do so at their own risk.

  Afterward, Gabriel introduced Rose to the Justice Singers. He asked the group’s lead tenor if they had any plans to expand. “We’ve been singing together for a few years now,” he replied. “We like the sound we have. But there need to be justice singers everywhere, don’t you think?”

  “That’s you, Rose. Gateway City’s very own justice singer.”

  They were on the steps of the church, still winding down from the rally’s fever pitch.

  Rose smiled. “Look who’s talking. You’re pretty good at moving the people yourself.”

  “But it takes time, paragraphs and paragraphs of words. You can do it in a single note.”

  Rose remembered Curly’s funeral, her first public performance in years. Rev. Washington had persuaded her to do it, and Paul had figured he had too much to lose if he denied her. She’d had the crowd as soon as she opened her mouth. And last Sunday? That had been her best singing ever. And the most satisfying part about it was how easy it had been. She took a breath and the Spirit took over.

  They left the church and headed toward Mrs. Garnett’s.

  “You were pretty hard on Reverend King,” Rose said.

  “Not too hard, I hope. I respect the man.”

  “I couldn’t always tell.”

  “I’m just wary of making our movement about just one man. I suspect that’s what the oppressors want. Cut off the head and the body dies.”

  “That’s an ugly image.”

  “The truth is that way sometime.”

  They walked in silence.

  “Look,” Gabriel explained. “All I’m saying is nonviolence clearly has its limits. Is that what we make babies for? To give them up to our enemies?”

  “Something tells me you don’t have much experience with violence,” Rose said. “How truly awful it is.”

  Unconsciously, she touched her loose molar with the tip of her tongue.

  “So we just keep turning the other cheek. Rose, I’m more of an Old Testament kind of brother. You know.” Gabriel lowered his timbre dramatically, as if speaking in the voice of God. “I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down.”

  Rose clucked. “Mocking me again.”

  Gabriel grinned brightly. “Just having a laugh is all. He that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast.”

  Suddenly growing serious, he stopped and held Rose by her shoulders. “Listen. Please don’t take this the wrong way. And please don’t jump up and run after I say what I have to say. When I was talking about babies earlier, I wasn’t just talking about children in general. I actually was being quite specific.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “I had a vision. I’m not a man given to visions, mind you. But I heard you before I ever saw your face. And then, when you walked down the steps of the church, a vision of the future overcame me. I saw my children yet unborn—”

  “Enough, Gabriel. Stop right now.”

  “Don’t you believe in visions, Rose?”

  “I believe
you don’t know anything about me. Or maybe you’re not hearing me. And you keep trying to get me to forget that I’m married.”

  “Not even a kiss, then?”

  “Not even that.”

  “But—”

  Rose put her finger to his lips. For them it was an extraordinarily intimate gesture. Neither of them breathed, letting the contact linger. With great effort, she pulled away.

  “Do you want me to start calling you Mr. Patterson again?”

  “Rose, you’re torturing me.”

  “At least I’m not lying to you. I feel what you feel. But I do things the right way.”

  “I’m sick of Paul.”

  “He’s my husband. He might be—”

  “Churlish and evil?”

  “I was going to say he might be absent but he’s still my husband. I made a vow.”

  Gabriel had put out feelers regarding Paul’s whereabouts but had come up with nothing. He’d vanished just like Detective Mortimer. Gabriel said nothing to Rose, but he wouldn’t have been surprised if there was a connection between the two disappearances. Not that he would waste a single breath looking for one. Although it would be good to know where that fool Whittier was. They needed to talk man to man.

  The tension had deflated by the time they reached Mrs. Garnett’s house. Rose had even allowed Gabriel to buy her a cone when they passed by Horack’s Dairy. Little by little, he began to tell her about his childhood, about his hopes and dreams.

  “I’m not saying I’ve ever wanted a picket fence and all of that. Just a little space like my dad and I had. We only had a front stoop really, no yard, but we made it work. I worry that I’ll never be the man my dad was. Compared to his, my hands are like pudding. He had palms like leather, and those thick, nicotine-stained nails that looked strong enough to pull up railroad spikes.”

  Rose watched Gabriel closely. He often spoke candidly about the desire he claimed to feel for her. But he seldom had much to say about what he’d experienced or where he’d been.

  “Like I say, all I need is just enough to do right by mine. Enough to make sure little Marie has everything she needs. But sometimes the struggle—”