Blood and Oranges

by James O. Goldsborough

  Angie knew it was coming from the first day in the soda shop. Preacher or not, he’d seduced her with his eyes just like the others did. She’d been wary, tested him and he’d made good. What’s more, she’d grown fond of him, even come to like the idea of being seduced by a preacher like her daddy, older even than her daddy, she imagined. The problem was not Willie; it was Gil. He’d disappeared, but she’d have to see him again if only to divorce him. If he found out she was with another man, he would kill her, she had no doubt about that. Kill her and the man, too, if they were together. Maybe she would get lucky and he would fall off a derrick, but she knew he wouldn’t. He could dance up there like a ballerina.

  “Where will you go?” asked Willie.

  “Bel Air.”

  “It’s late.”

  “It’s not even eleven.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  He did not go to Bel Air. He stopped at the front desk and called Lizzie. Lizzie and Maggie lived together in Westwood, just down from the UCLA campus. Maggie was a fifth-year senior in engineering, and Lizzie a senior majoring in English literature. With Maggie at his place, he could sleep in her room until Harold was gone. Lizzie was up writing when he called, as he knew she would be.

  She was not physically fearless like her sister, but she was a talented writer and she was tenacious. By all rights she should have been editor of the Daily Bruin, the student newspaper, except that the boys who voted for editor didn’t think a girl should get the job. She was the only one on the staff who’d published anything outside the Bruin itself—including a piece in the Times on the Ku Klux Klan in Los Angeles. She also had the most story ideas, was the best editor and best rewriter for breaking stories on deadline. But she was a girl. She knew she had no chance but ran anyway to embarrass them, and when they offered to make her number two said no thanks and went back to writing.

  She met him at the door of the apartment, upstairs in a long two-story stucco affair on a leafy Westwood street named Tiverton.

  “Uncle Willie has a guest? What do you mean a guest? What kind of guest?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  “But he’s a preacher,” she said. “Aren’t preachers supposed to be better than the rest of us?”

  He didn’t answer. “Can I get a beer?”

  “Get two—I’m done for the night.”

  The sisters were as different as ever but had never been closer. The major change was that Lizzie no longer copied Maggie. If anything, it was the other way around, Maggie coming to appreciate her sister’s composure. Lizzie had decided early on that if she copied Maggie she would die for she lacked her physical skills and fearlessness. She’d never been an equestrian, never climbed an oil derrick or into the cockpit of an airplane. She didn’t drive fast or challenge men to physical contests. She was not as striking as her sister, but she was attractive. She was also talented, focused and gritty. You could not bully Lizzie Mull.

  He opened two Eastsides and returned to the living room where she’d moved from desk to couch. She wore shorts and a T-shirt, and her bangs looked more like a boy’s cut than a girl’s.

  “Who is she?”

  He sighed. He hated gossip. “Sister Angie. Do you know who that is?”

  “With that name I suppose some old bag in black high-buttons and chignon singing contralto in Uncle Willie’s choir.”

  He laughed. “Not quite. Your age but sexier.”

  Her eyes doubled in size. “No! And they are . . ?”

  “Reading scripts.”

  “At midnight?”

  “I suppose they’ve finished reading scripts by now.”

  Now she laughed. “I never saw Uncle Willie as the type.”

  “What type?”

  “As someone who fooled around.”

  “You haven’t seen Sister Angie.”

  “My goodness. What is that I hear—envy, jealousy, desire?”

  “Moving on. So, tell me, are Maggie and Harold finally going to tie the knot?”

  “He wants her to go back to Honolulu with him.”

  “And?”

  “No way she’ll quit school ahead of finals.”

  “Tough choice.”

  “Not really. Maggie has her priorities—though I know she wants to try marriage someday, try children.”

  “Has to try everything, right?”

  “If not Harold with someone else.”

  “I imagine she can have her pick.”

  “And do better than Harold.” She smiled nicely. “So here we are, dear cousin, thrown together once again while everyone else out there is making love. Uh oh.”

  They heard the key and saw Maggie at the door.

  “Don’t tell me.”

  “Cal, you might as well go home.”

  “What happened, Mag?” said Lizzie.

  “Just who does that guy think he is?”

  “You mind if I stay?” said Cal. “I imagine my place is a mess.”

  She laughed. “Broken plates everywhere.”

  “There’s always the couch,” said Lizzie.

  “First I’m going to get one of those,” said Maggie, slipping into the kitchen for a beer. “Why exactly are you here, Cal?” she called out. “I thought you were staying with Uncle Willie.”

  “It seems Uncle Willie has a girlfriend,” said Lizzie.

  “No!” she cried, coming back.

  “I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Look, I don’t even know if she is a girlfriend. She works at the temple. They brought scripts home to work on.”

  “At eleven at night,” said Lizzie. “Cal wasn’t supposed to be there.”

  Maggie sat down next to her sister, Cal in an easy chair. He looked from one to the other. Though they didn’t look alike, a keen eye could pick up similarities—shape of the head, line of the mouth, little mannerisms with the hands. Maggie was taller and more athletic, generally more spectacular. Her hair was darker and her skin more olive—more genes from her father’s side, Nelly liked to say. She turned heads wherever she went. In UCLA’s engineering department, no one had ever seen anything like her. Lizzie had a softer appearance, lighter, less commanding, eyes more hazel than her sister’s almond, more of her mother’s farm girl solidity. More introspective, less spontaneous, she’d always been more popular because she didn’t have to beat everyone at everything. The sisters didn’t have the same friends or interests, didn’t talk alike or dress alike. Maggie wore Levi’s to school at a time when girls were never seen in anything but skirts; Lizzie dressed like the other girls. Maggie was a talker and Lizzie a listener.

  “Shouldn’t the question be,” said Cal to Maggie, “why are you here?”

  “It is over.”

  “Over over?” said Lizzie.

  “Over, over, over. He gave me an ultimatum.”

  “Ah, big mistake.”

  “You’re taking it well,” said Cal.

  Maggie leveled her dark eyes on him. “I got what I wanted. I know how to fly. He got what he wanted. We’re even.”

  “Didn’t you both want to get married or something?”

  “So, we’ll marry someone else.”

  Hair still mussed, she drank her bottle half down with a few large swigs. “Now, back to Uncle Willie: Who is this script reader?”

  “Sister Angie,” said Lizzie. “Cal says she’s sexier than I am.”

  “What? How old is she?”

  He laughed. If Maggie could laugh about breaking off with Harold, he ought to be able to laugh about Willie and Angie. He was still thinking about Angie. “How would I know?”

  “Don’t be coy.” Said Maggie. “How old is she?”

  “If I had to guess I’d say she’s about your age—maybe a little younger.”

  “Oh my God!” said Maggie
. “Poor Uncle Willie. Who is she?”

  “She’s a preacher—quite good, too, I must say.”

  “Since when did you start attending services?”

  “Sometimes I watch rehearsals.”

  “Uncle Willie wouldn’t do anything stupid, would he?” said Lizzie.

  “Like . . . ?”

  “Like ‘Taking a Ride,’ remember that show?”

  “I don’t,” said Maggie.

  “Girl got drunk and got pregnant,” said Lizzie. “Mother and I listened.”

  “That was Sister Angie before she was Sister Angie. Anyway, what do I know about anything,” he said, feeling suddenly disloyal. “Maybe they are reading scripts.”

  “Come on, Cal. Who are we going to tell?” said Maggie.

  “Whom,” said Lizzie.

  “Nelly for one,” said Cal, “who would tell everyone, starting with Eddie.”

  “Cal,” said Lizzie, annoyance in her voice, “haven’t we trusted each other just about forever? When has any one of us ever blabbed—name one time.”

  She was right, of course. A hundred times one of them might have said something that could have hurt the others. No one ever did. Trust was their bond.

  “If you want my uninformed opinion,” he said, “I think Dad is in love. First time since my mother died.”

  “Their generation still believes in love,” Lizzie said. “And marriage. Imagine.”

  “The trouble with love and marriage,” said Maggie, “is that the men are in control. They get you pregnant to stay in control.”

  “So, don’t get pregnant,” he said.

  “That’s what was wrong with that program of Uncle Willie’s” said Lizzie. “We talked about it at the Bruin—at least the guys talked about it. The girl was stupid, they said—should have brought her diaphragm.”

  “Why would she have a diaphragm?” said Cal. “She was a virgin.”

  “Exactly my point: that’s the male mind for you.”

  He turned to Maggie. “So, what do you do now that marriage is out? What do you both do after graduation, which if I’m not mistaken, is around the corner.”

  “The Times asked me in for an interview,” said Lizzie. “They’re looking for women reporters.”

  “Well, hallelujah! Why didn’t you say something to somebody?”

  “Let’s see first if it comes through—and they don’t put me on the society page.”

  “And you, Mag?”

  “I’m going to fly. Where and what, I don’t know yet.”

  “Breaking barriers.”

  “Of all kinds,” said Lizzie. “And you, Cousin Cal. What barriers will you be breaking—or are you going to be your father’s bookkeeper forever?”

  “As a matter of fact, I’m working on something.”

  “Which is?” they said in unison.

  “To quote Lizzie: ‘Let’s see first if it comes through.’”

  Chapter 13

  Both men wore dark suits and fedoras, the common dress code for downtown businessmen in Depression-era Los Angeles, summer or winter. Willie stood at the door of his second-floor office to greet them, smiling as Miss Shields led them across the reception room, greeting them as he greeted benefactors every Tuesday, which was their day. He didn’t know these men, just as he didn’t know most people who phoned seeking an appointment following a particularly uplifting Sunday evening show. Tuesday mornings were for benefactors, Tuesday afternoons for Soldiers. The hungry and destitute, alms-seekers of all kinds, were always welcome, routed to the first-floor commissary at the rear of the building.

  Miss Shields, his secretary, was good at screening people with legitimate interests from cranks and frauds, for the temple attracted all kinds. When she wasn’t sure, she referred the petitioner to the Rev. Marcus Wynetski, the robust associate pastor in the adjoining office, a man who could see through any fake. Most of Willie’s Tuesday morning visitors ended up contributing something to the temple. Jesus was served.

  He led them into his office and invited them to be seated. From their chairs they could look over the pastor’s head through large picture windows to the blessed San Gabriel Mountains in the distance, a view, in Willie’s opinion, that inspired visitors to greater generosity. He turned a business card over in his hand: “John C. Porter, Used Auto Parts.”

  Was there something familiar about him? A clump of silver hair rose in a pompadour over a large head resting on shoulders too narrow for the bulky body. The tailoring was first class if the body was not. Both men were businesslike, to the point, crisp.

  “There are poisons, here,” said John C. Porter, whose suit, unlike his friend’s, was pinstriped. It was one of the stranger opening statements Willie had heard, but his expression never changed. He was there to listen to whatever his petitioners had on their minds. Confrontation was not the path to contribution.

  “This is not the Los Angeles we have in mind, Reverend Mull. Since no one in our community has greater moral influence than you, we wanted to bring the issue to you directly.”

  His voice was wheezy, sign of a heavy smoker. Porter had reached into his pocket for what was surely a pack of cigarettes, stopping when he noticed the absence of ashtrays.

  “Toxics,” said the second man.

  Leaning back in his swivel chair, Willie glanced at the second card: “Fred W. Gilmore, Real Estate.”

  Willie, too, wore a dark suit, as he always did during the week. They could have been three businessmen discussing insurance rates or stock prices or the real estate market rather than two men calling on a preacher on an unspecified matter involving something toxic.

  Miss Shields intervened with coffee, and for a moment the visitors were diverted from poisons and toxics to take sugar and a little milk with their coffee and bite into biscuits up fresh from the commissary. No doubt they were craving to light up, Willie thought, but abstinence would do them some good. Gilmore commented on the beautiful view of the mountains, bringing a smile to the pastor’s face. They returned to business.

  “Los Angeles,” said John C. Porter, his heavy face straining to look benign against its natural tendency, “is the only Anglo-Saxon city left in America.” He paused. “Did you know that, Reverend? I want you to think about that. We are the only ones left, the last bastion, the last pure city in America.”

  “And why is that?” added Fred W. Gilmore quickly. They’ve rehearsed this, Willie thought, rehearsed it or done it before. “It’s because the people who come to our fair city, who come as a result of what they hear about it—hear about because of the work we do, we, the promoters of this city—are our kind of people: family people, God-fearing people, educated people, working people . . .”

  “. . . white people,” said John C. Porter.

  Ah, thought Willie.

  “Ours is the only city in America not dominated by foreigners,” continued John C. Porter, shifting his portly body in the chair. “The only city where American values—Protestant, white, moral values—still reign. Think of that, Reverend.”

  “And we aim to keep it that way,” said Fred W. Gilmore. He was a lean man, knife-faced, with a healthier but meaner look than his partner. “You can help us.”

  “I’ll need your help when I’m elected mayor,” said John C. Porter. “I am running and there is no doubt in my mind but that I will win. I have the support.”

  It’s coming back, thought Willie: article in the Times about Porter—Midwesterner, Republican, Methodist, if he remembered. There’d been something else in that article, too . . . something about . . . his mind jammed and it wouldn’t come. Typical immigrant to Los Angeles: opinionated, self-educated, intolerant, ready to remake the city into his Chicago or Kansas City image. Probably listens to Bob Shoemaker, not KWEM. No chance to be elected, he thought. Porter’s hat had slipped to the floor as he talked, and he left it lying there, upside down, ann
oying Willie.

  They kept at it for a while, Willie listening, nodding, occasionally glancing at the hat trying to suggest telepathically to Porter to pick it up or at least turn it over. He rarely said anything during these sessions unless asked directly. For him they were confessionals where citizens came to unburden themselves. He could have objected or disagreed for he’d heard some strange things in his time, but that would interfere with the process. They came with a need of some kind. His job was to listen and understand. Open the spigot and see what came gushing out. See if there was room in there for Jesus.

  There was never a quid pro quo. The Temple of the Angels and Church of the New Gospel were supported by those who understood the value to the community of the Rev. Mull’s message of love, faith, and salvation in Jesus Christ. Willie listened to all his visitors, not just for their support, but for the ideas they brought. Sermons, even Sunday evening shows, had grown from these meetings. It was not uncommon for him to usher someone out on Tuesday morning and sit down immediately to comb through scripture preparing his Sunday sermon. A seed had been planted and was growing before his visitors even reached the street.

  The check written by Fred W. Gilmore was for two hundred dollars, drawn on the Farmers and Merchants National Bank of Los Angeles, Fourth and Main. Willie accepted it humbly as he accepted all donations, as the due of his church. He would endorse it, route it to the business office whence Cal at some point would carry it to Security Trust at Spring and Fifth. It was a modest first-time offering, but its value was enhanced by the words spoken by Gilmore as he placed it in Willie’s hand:

  “Reverend, let this be just the beginning of our association. I have to tell you: my whole family gathers around the radio every Sunday evening to hear your splendid broadcasts. You, sir, are God’s gift to our community.”

  Willie smiled modestly and shook hands with his visitors. He stared into John C. Porter’s broad Midwestern face one last time, searching. It came to him, finally, as he bid them goodbye at the door: How could he have forgotten?

  Porter and Gilmore were the Klan.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  This would not be one of the days when Willie was at work on his sermon before his visitors left the building. For this, he needed time and reflection. He’d heard of the Klan’s growing presence in Los Angeles, which it made little effort to conceal. Honest citizens like John C. Porter and Fred W. Gilmore never announced they were from the Klan—any more than another visitor would announce he was a Republican or Freemason or Odd Fellow. People came to him as individuals, on personal business. But the Klan expected you to know who they were, and their message didn’t leave much doubt.