Listen to the Lambs

by Daniel Black

  There was no hesitation in es steps. E arrived boldly, singing something no one in the universe could’ve recognized. Elisha smiled at the magnitude of the newcomer’s presence and stepped aside to make room for one who would soon be irreplaceable. E extended half-frozen hands across the top of the flames and shouted, “Shit! It’s cold as a muthafucka out here!” Elisha laughed. The other two frowned and waited for a formal introduction.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Forgive my manners. Y’all mind?”

  They shook their heads.

  “Good! ’Cause I was ’bout to freeze my ass off. And I got a lot of it!” E slapped es backside playfully, then rubbed es hands together, shifting from one foot to the other in desperate search of heat. Elisha laughed harder. He’d never had a sibling, but he had a feeling he was about to. The newcomer laughed along. They looked to be about the same age.

  “What’s your name?” Lazarus asked.

  “Got a lotta names. Folks been callin’ me different things since I was born. Momma called me one thing; Daddy called me another.”

  Lazarus stared with anticipation. Elisha was simply intrigued. Cinderella whispered, “What do you call yourself?”

  E blinked several times. “I don’t. I just be, honey chile!” Es laughter echoed in the wintry breeze. Elisha nodded knowingly. Lazarus and Cinderella continued to wait. “But y’all can call me Legion—’cause I’m many things.”

  They didn’t understand, but they soon would.

  Legion told what had happened earlier in the day. Es loud, robust voice calmed the angry, frigid wind.

  “I was walkin’ down Peachtree, over by Crawford Long Hospital, mindin’ my own business, when this scraggly-lookin’ man started followin’ me. ‘Oh shit,’ I mumbled. ‘What the hell he want!’ But I didn’t say nothin’. I just kept walkin’. After a while, I noticed he was gettin’ closer and closer, so I started walkin’ faster. Then he started walkin’ faster, too! I shook my head and thought, Hope I don’t have to fuck up this muthafucka, know what I mean?”

  Lazarus admired Legion’s uninhibited theatrics. E spoke as if the four had known one another a lifetime. The shield that protected most people’s personal, private selves had obviously disintegrated from the boundaries of Legion’s heart, leaving e free to sashay around the world without a care. Confidence was es unspoken mantra, although insecurities were never far away. Legion had decided, back when es parents couldn’t figure out who or what e was, that e’d live and not die. The only way to do that, it seemed, was to believe e was exactly what e was supposed to be—whatever that was. At es birth, doctors informed es parents that there was a problem. The child wasn’t normal. “It’s healthy,” they said, “but…” “But what?” es father inquired. “Well … I’m not quite sure how to say this, but … um … your child … isn’t regular.” He’d said the word slowly, as if somehow it made the truth more palatable. “What’s the matter?” Legion’s mother whimpered, imagining what could possibly be wrong with her baby. The doctor sighed. “This child has representative organs of both sexes.” The father shook his head. The mother began to cry. “It’s perfectly healthy, but of course you should know something like this from the start.” They asked if there was anything they could do, and one doctor replied, “Well, in most cases, parents decide what they want the child to be and, through surgical means, we meet that request.” Neither fully understood what he’d said. The doctors stood and walked toward the exit. “We’ll give you a few days to think it over.”

  They took the baby home without saying another word about it—either to the doctor or each other. Days became weeks. The father wanted a boy, so that’s what they decided e was. The blue room, trucks, and football gear were enough to convince others of their decision, so they proceeded with life by simplifying a complex thing. It worked, as far as they were concerned. The father even said, one dark night in bed, “He got a dick, so that make him a man, don’t it? Don’t care what else he got. And it ain’t got to be big. It’s just got to be there.”

  In Legion’s teenage years, e rebelled against es parents’ design for a son—a handsome, hairy, sexy son—and instead wanted to know all of himself, even the part they had denied. As a kid, e knew e wasn’t normal. E’d seen pictures of naked boys, and e knew that wasn’t how e looked. But like es folks, e had been willing to think of emself as a boy, since that guaranteed acceptance. Somewhere between fourteen and fifteen, however, the charade lost its luster. E felt halved, incomplete, fractioned; thus, betrayed. Es mother told e to be emself. Es father said either be a man or get the hell out. “But I’m not a man!” Legion cried. “Not just a man!” Es father was unmoved. “Then you know what to do.”

  E moved in with an aunt, es father’s sister. That worked until she insisted e be saved. Legion didn’t want to be saved. Church was okay, but e had no desire to join it. E hadn’t been raised in the church and couldn’t figure out why heaven required it. Maybe e could go to heaven without it, his aunt said sarcastically, but not from her house. So, once again, e found emself homeless. E’s been that way ever since.

  “So, anyway, I turn around and look at this man and he winks at me!”

  “Winks?” Cinderella repeated.

  “That’s what I thought!” Legion shouted, tossing hands in the air. “So I stopped and said, ‘Do you want something from me?’ and he nodded.”

  Lazarus and Elisha frowned.

  “I stared at him until he said, ‘Five dollars for some head.’ Then I busted out laughin’ like somebody was tickling me. I told him ain’t no way in the world he was gonna give me five dollars for that! ‘What do I look like? Some common ho?’ and I walked away, but he followed me again. ‘All right. What’s your price?’ he said. I turned. He was obviously serious.”

  The others had forgotten the cold. Legion’s voice, antics, and facial contortions mesmerized the trinity and left them wanting more of the story’s details.

  “So we negotiated until he gave me this.” Legion exposed a diamond-studded gold watch that glittered in the light of the flame. “And this.” From another pocket e extracted a wad of cash. “This gonna feed us a long time.”

  It did. They ate well until damn near spring. Every evening Legion brought chicken, steak, or shrimp dinners—fresh and untouched!—from God only knows where, and with the dinners came a story. Always. They could sense es coming, like country folks smell rain, and when they did they’d gather in Lazarus’s area, which they called The Upper Room, and wait for Legion’s loud, rhythmic, pulsating presence, then bow heads and give thanks for a bountiful feast. Like a succulent dessert, the storytelling came last, once they were too full to do anything else, and by late spring the trio had evolved into a permanent, living, familial quartet of souls.

  Chapter 3

  What Lazarus hated most about certain homeless people was that damned grocery cart. Why did they push that contraption? It never carried anything of value. Miscellaneous junk, empty cans, ragged, worn blankets too nasty to use. At least for decent people. Lazarus tried hard, though, not to be judgmental. Some folks were homeless because they simply had no place to live; others were homeless because they did not belong to this world. They were out of place among human beings. These were they, Lazarus guessed, who pushed carts—as if the world were a smorgasbord of rejected goodies free for the taking. He tried to remember that he’d come from privilege to the streets, while most hadn’t had so far to fall. Even then, he often caught himself frowning and sneering at musty, soiled comrades whose apparent lack of shame embarrassed him, especially when they pushed that damn cart! He saw it as the quintessential symbol of poverty and begging, and Lazarus would die stiff on the streets before he stooped so low. There was just something about the way vagabonds looked, Lazarus thought, leaning over the handle of a pauper’s chariot, waiting, hoping to find something no one else wanted. There’s no dignity in it! So, like the privileged, Lazarus avoided those types altogether. They were among the lower caste of his peers, he decided, the ones responsible f
or the bad rap homeless people endured. Whenever brawls broke out at shelters, one could bet it involved one of them. Even without their carts, Lazarus could tell if they owned one simply by the way they carried themselves. Their language was slurred and their gait choppy, as if constantly stomping roaches. Their hair was never combed—how hard is it to find a comb?—and they always spoke as if the world were deaf. Lazarus further hated their merger of “homeless” with “helpless.” Sure, everyone needed a little help now and then, but those folks acted as if they had absolutely no power at all. Can’t a man lift his own hand to his own mouth? Helplessness made others see them as ignorant, Lazarus concluded, so he had little tolerance for cart pushers. If he’d had his way, he would’ve banished them to some remote island—like Kodiak, Alaska—and perhaps then respectable homeless people could enjoy a life of peace and dignity. As it was, he had to live with these bums, knowing that most people considered him one of them.

  No one else in the family pushed a cart, either. Cinderella coveted nothing but her red shoes, and once she heard Lazarus’s critique she wouldn’t have dared align herself with the lot. She’d never really thought about it before, the difference between the carted and the not carted, but her allegiance to Lazarus was far too dear to compromise. She genuinely liked him, even with his idiosyncrasies, and she enjoyed having someone intelligent to talk to. Cinderella was too concerned with appearances anyway to be associated with a homeless buggy. It made people pity you, she said, and nothing incited her fury more. Homeless or not she wanted others’ genuine kindness—not their disdain—and the only way to get that was to be as normal as possible. And of course a cart wasn’t normal.

  As for Legion, well, e didn’t need a buggy. Somehow things came to em without es asking, just showed up when e needed them. The services Legion provided were a minuscule price to pay, e thought, for inclusion in a family. A real family. E often testified that e was “blessed and highly favored”—es aunt had used the phrase—to be part of something so magical, so irreplaceable that even when they had nothing, their spirits rejoiced. So, for Legion, a cart was simply unnecessary.

  Elisha never considered a cart. He didn’t want anything this world had to offer. The things he desired—a mother, a father, a house all his own—a cart couldn’t carry, so he never bothered. All he ever saw in carts were used, discarded items, and he wanted no such association. He liked the illusion of inclusion—the assumption that he was poor but not destitute. He could live with that. What he despised was the public’s smiling disgust when they beheld buggy pushers, and, come what may, he swore never to be one of them.

  The family gathered on Fridays for recreation and prayer. They saw one another throughout the week, but Fridays were their required meeting times. It was nothing formal. Just a meal and an account of each person’s week. Once Legion’s bounty expired, food was once again scarce, but the fellowship was never compromised. Even with stale bread and moldy cheese, having the company was better, Cinderella said, than wandering the world hungry and alone.

  It was during one of these gatherings that Lazarus announced the possibility of a black president.

  “Some cat from Chicago. He’s a senator right now, but from the looks of things, he’s gonna run. Some people think he might actually have a shot.”

  They sat in a semicircle on Lazarus’s hill, shelling peanuts and sharing a jug of Popeyes sweet tea.

  “That would be amazing,” Cinderella said. “It’s time Americans grow up and see someone else lead besides farty, old, white men.”

  Legion wasn’t a believer. “Honey chile, let me tell you this: it’ll be a cold day in hell before these racist white folks vote a black man into the White House.” E looked at Cinderella. “No offense, but the truth is the truth. That’s why they call it the White House.”

  “I don’t know,” Lazarus said. “He seems promising. Harvard grad. Community activist. Family man. Handsome.”

  Cinderella smiled. “That always helps.”

  “Far more than people admit.” Lazarus went on about studies that had proved a correlation between beauty and success in American politics.

  “Will it make a difference for us?” Elisha whispered.

  The others fell silent.

  “If not, I think I don’t care.”

  “It’s still important, though.” Lazarus fought to save the point. “If only in the American imagination.”

  “The American imagination. Can we live there?”

  There was no use. Lazarus had hoped to spark lively conversation, but that was difficult with people who lived on the edge. He sighed and said, “We’ll see what happens.”

  But he didn’t forget. The very notion made him wonder if America really was changing. Of course Jesse had run back in the eighties—Lazarus had voted for him—but no one really believed he’d win. That’s the way it had always been with black presidential candidates, starting with Shirley Chisholm. But folks were talking about this guy differently. Lazarus had read that whites liked him. That was the key, right? If whites don’t like you, you’re doomed in America! That’s where others had gone wrong, he thought; they loved black people too much. Or maybe too openly. Everyone knows that loving black people openly is the quickest way to garner white suspicion. But surely the young senator knows this already.

  Cinderella shared that she’d had repeated dreams about her father. “In one of them, we were walking in the peanut fields holding hands, and he was telling me about his daddy, my granddaddy, and the hard time they had during the depression. I don’t remember everything he said, but I remember his voice. It sounded deep and hollow, like an echo, and I asked Daddy to keep talking ’cause I liked listenin’ to him. He laughed and picked me up and tossed me in the air, and, Lord, I giggled so!” She paused. “I loved my daddy.”

  In another dream, she was older, staring at him in a casket. “Oh, I cried like a baby. My momma did, too. But I couldn’t bring him back. Don’t know how he died. I remember I had on my red shoes.”

  “Is he dead for real?” Legion asked.

  Cinderella tried to smile. “I don’t know. Ain’t heard from him since high school.”

  Elisha’s heart almost overflowed, but he calmed it. Instead, he touched her pale, pink, rough hand. “If he ever loved you, he still do.” That’s how Elisha spoke—in succinct parables—and once he spoke there was nothing more to say.

  “Baby, let me tell y’all what happened to me!” Legion said, reviving the momentum of the moment. “I was scavenging through dumpsters over by Morehouse and Clark—those kids throw away brand-new shit at the end of every semester—when a student told me I didn’t have no right to be there.”

  “To be where?” Cinderella asked.

  “In the goddamn dumpster! She said it was school property and people like me weren’t allowed on school grounds without ID.”

  “People like you?” Lazarus cried. “Is that what she said?”

  “Hell yeah, that’s what she said! She frowned like she smelled me. I told her I’d leave when I was good and damn ready. She went and got security and they ran me off. Ain’t that a damn shame? We ain’t even welcome to the trash?”

  The last family member arrived on a scorching-hot Saturday evening. It was how she came that so intrigued. The sun threatened to disappear, but its magenta light lingered, dancing in cracks and crevices until forced into oblivion. There was no wind at all. Not until she arrived. Then suddenly a deep, warm breeze like God’s sigh came out of nowhere, opening the way for someone unlike any of them had ever known. They shivered, then looked around for the source of the shifting, sensing something strange, something portentous, and beheld one who would make their circle complete. She came from the east, a spiritual omen, with the aura of a saint, walking alongside I-20 as if it weren’t there. She looked like one of them, Lazarus noted, but then again she didn’t. With a smooth, easy stride, she glided along effortlessly, floating, it appeared, slightly above the surface of the earth.

  Lazarus, oh, Laz
arus … Now behold the lamb, dear Lazarus!

  There was nothing specifically beautiful about her, yet in totality she was breathtaking. The lower portion of a floral-print strapless dress hung from her curvy hips and swayed back and forth like window curtains in a light summer breeze. She was neither thin nor obese, a perfect 12 perhaps, with a disproportionately small waistline. A thousand micro-braids huddled tightly into a ponytail that swung from the crown of her narrow head. Without jewelry, makeup, or adornment of any kind she could’ve appeared plain and uninteresting, but it wasn’t so. Everyone saw the glow, resting upon her like an incandescent cloud, so they waved their welcome. She knew who they were. She knew who she was. She knew why she’d been sent. Finally, she was home.

  With hands lifted, she spoke as she approached. Her words carried the tone of a prayer but the sentiment of something far more personal. No one knew quite what to make of it all: “We are not who we think we are. None of us. One day, we shall see ourselves face-to-face. And we’ll stop looking for God.” She smiled and nodded. “This”—her hands twirled—“this world shall vanish away. There is another world waiting. This is only the beginning of the journey.” Here she paused as if inviting a response, but none came. “We’ll be our own gods then.”

  “Amen,” Legion muttered slowly, captured in her spell. The others stared and marveled. Her final words were, “Give thanks for life alone. All material things are sinking sand. Love is the only blessed thing.” Again, she smiled, not at them, but through them, to the being beneath their flesh, then, without hesitation or forewarning, embraced them tenderly, touching their backs, heads, and necks like a nurturing, concerned mother.