South Street

by David Bradley

  Brother Fletcher wished that she had stayed.

  He opened the Bible, his hands moving absently over the thin rice-paper pages that rustled softly in the breeze. His eyes picked out a word here and there, and from the glimpses of words whole verses took shape in his mind. But the verses did not blossom, as they usually did, into larger and grander understanding; something cackling in his mind made the verses sound irrelevant.

  Brother Fletcher wondered if he were not irrelevant.

  There had been a time, years—not that many, but enough—before, when Brother Fletcher had been committed to saving the world and convinced that he would eventually succeed. After he had realized that he wasn’t going to do that at all, there had been a time when he had still wished that he could. And then there had been a later time when, reconciled to his impotence in greater matters, Brother Fletcher had wanted only to save the people who clearly needed it, those he saw and pitied. But then he had realized with a shock that some people felt he needed help, that some people, often the same people whom he pitied, felt sorry for him. So Brother Fletcher had gone back to wanting to save the world, but with the certain disturbing knowledge that most of it did not want to be saved. He did not try to force salvation. He wanted only to save the people that he loved. Sometimes he wanted only to save himself, and in those guilty moments he wondered if Carleton T. Fletcher was capable of saving anybody from anything. But while Brother Fletcher had often doubted himself, he had never before lost faith in the power of his belief. The fault had, to Brother Fletcher’s mind, lain with men, men who sinned, or who forgot, or who failed in their purpose. But now, sitting before the window with the hot breath of the city blowing heresies in his ear, Brother Fletcher wondered if what he had thought was salvation was anything at all, if life on earth were really just a prelude to glory, if Mumbo Jumbo, God of the Congo, were not to be preferred to invisible Jehovah and his enigmatic Son. Brother Fletcher had ventured out into the Land of Nod and found, much to his surprise, that he liked it better than the Garden. He had entered the den of lions and discovered that, while there were perhaps no lambs, the lions themselves were capable of a lamblike innocence. He had emerged, paradoxically drunken and sobered, recognizing for the first time that there was a difference between lambs and sheep. Sitting before the window, the white lace curtain slapping gently in his face, the black-backed Bible in his dark brown hand, Brother Fletcher felt himself slipping into doubt. Perhaps the Reverend Mr. Sloan had the right idea after all: all you needed to do was to give them a little music, a lot of wine, and a manufactured miracle or two. It kept them happy, which was more than you could say for the Gospel according to Matthew. It convinced them they were safe and saved and right and good in a world where safe meant dead and right often meant dead, too. It assured them that God heard their prayers for a color TV or a hit on the number. It let them think it was always summer because it kept their backs to the wind. It let them consider the lilies when the alternative in too many cases was to consider the poppies. Part of Brother Fletcher realized all that, recognized the right of people to hide, and even shared the desire, but another part of him longed to grasp the great Christian congregation by the throat and shake it until it wanted what it should want. As if, Brother Fletcher thought, smiling to himself, he knew.

  Brother Fletcher sighed and picked up his glass of iced tea. He thought about his wife, the things he could have bought for her, the time he could have spent with her had he not had such passion for his faith. He could have given her a house in the country instead of an apartment in a smog-ridden city. He could have given her a husband who came home at night instead of one who was always attending an endless succession of committee meetings, services, teas, luncheons, and fried-chicken dinners. He should have stayed with the denomination instead of staying with The Word of Life; in time he would have been assigned to a decent church somewhere in the south, in the country, where life was easier and more pleasant. But he had chosen to stay with The Word of Life. Brother Fletcher would have felt a lot less guilty if Mrs. Fletcher had questioned and complained a little, but she never had. She deserved everything that Brother Fletcher knew she didn’t want. He had thought that what he was doing was worth the price, but now he didn’t know. He felt certain there was no salvation in The Word of Life; it was a three-ring circus complete with funny costumes, colored lights. Brother Fletcher felt dirty and stupid every time he looked down from the stage at the fat stupid sweaty faces, and he felt guilty thinking of them that way, but that was what they looked like. They loved the prancing, and they took the praying like children eating their spinach so that they could have ice cream later on. They flocked and paid through the nose and clapped and shouted and Brother Carleton T. Fletcher, assistant magician, second-degree mesmerizer, deputy dispenser of pabulum and pureed prunes, was sick unto death and wanted out. And yet he could not be sure it was meaningless. He could not be sure he wasn’t helping somebody. Maybe he did not know what meaning was: God moves in mysterious ways and who was Carleton T. Fletcher to say that The Word of Life wasn’t one of them? Perhaps all he could do in true humble Christianity was to give them what they asked for, let them sing and shout and feel themselves washed in the blood of the Lamb, and then sit in front of the window inhaling the halitosis of the city, Bible in hand, and try to cleanse his own soul, to try to find the peace for himself that The Word of Life seemed to give to others. In Lightnin’ Ed’s he had had a glimpse of it, but to bring himself to accept that fact would be to upset all his years of belief.

  Brother Fletcher stared out the window, over South Street’s softening tar, watching the winos line up in front of the barred windows behind which the state dispensed oblivion. Brother Fletcher felt suddenly helpless. He took a sip of iced tea, frowned because he had forgotten to stir it. Then he opened the Bible and tried to read.

  Rayburn signed his name on the back of the check and joined one of the lines of people waiting for the attentions of a teller. Rayburn chose the line which seemed the longest and waited comfortably, glancing around at the well-dressed women and business-suited men in the other lines, smiling to himself as they noticed the rapid advancement of Rayburn’s line and compared it with the snail’s pace of their own. Rayburn’s line included several members of the bank’s nighttime cleaning staff, cashing their weekly paychecks. Rayburn nodded to one or two of them, but his eyes were on the teller. The teller’s name was Victoria Bender, and she was the fastest bank teller in the world. She stood proudly at her window, her pen making quick neat strokes, the crisp bills snapping off her fingers. Occasionally Victoria would take a dislike to a customer, and if she didn’t like someone Victoria would go by the book, which meant checking identification and signatures and everything else under the sun, but usually she sped people through so quickly that she was worth two tellers. Rayburn got into Victoria’s line even when he wasn’t in a hurry because he loved to watch her work and because he suspected Victoria had a special liking for him.

  The line advanced smoothly and in almost no time at all Rayburn was next. He glanced around disdainfully at the people in the other lines, pulled his beret lower on his head, sniffed, and stepped up to the window.

  “How doin’, honey, did you come fo’ some money?” said Victoria. She giggled tightly and wiggled slightly. Rayburn smiled.

  “Right,” he said in a clipped, businesslike tone of voice. “Cash for all but ten. That”—he produced a savings passbook and a deposit ticket—“goes in here.” Victoria grinned at him, accepted the paycheck, deposit slip, and passbook, made a few notations. She tapped a few times on her adding machine, tore off the tape, then turned to the rank of auditing machines on the counter behind her. She inserted the passbook in one of them, typed a few digits, punched a button. The machine clattered for a moment as if deciding what to do, then emitted a grunt and a clank and spat the passbook out into Victoria’s waiting fingers. Victoria looked at it, nodded approval, stepped back to the window. She counted out cash, placed the cash i
n the passbook and the passbook in an envelope, and gave the envelope to Rayburn. “Thanks,” Rayburn said, slipping the envelope into his pocket without looking inside.

  “Hurry it up,” said the customer behind Rayburn.

  Victoria looked at him. He was a beefy, red-faced white man in a baggy blue suit, and Victoria took an instant dislike to him. She turned back to Rayburn and batted her eyes. “Baby, baby, what you gonna do with all that gravy?”

  “Ain’t tha’ much,” mumbled Rayburn, feeling his face grow a little warm. He looked at Victoria and observed, not for the first time, that she was a very attractive woman, except for her front teeth, which slanted out a bit too far and which had a bit too much gold in them.

  “Sure it is,” said Victoria. “That’s a nice piece a change. What you gonna do, buy yourself a Cadillac?”

  “Nah,” said Rayburn, “what am I gonna be wantin’ with a car like that—eats gas an’ takes up more room than a damn elephant? Nah, I been lookin’ for someplace to invest it.”

  The man behind Rayburn snorted. Rayburn felt his neck grow warm. Victoria’s dislike for the man grew, and she decided that when she did get around to him she would go by the book. “You hang onto that money, sweetheart, and don’t go lettin’ no woman get her hands on it.”

  The beefy man inched forward. His stomach pressed against Rayburn. Rayburn planted his feet and refused to budge. “Come on,” said the beefy man.

  “Wait you turn,” snapped Victoria.

  “I’ve been waiting—”

  “So keep on,” said Rayburn. “Pretty soon you’ll get so good at it you can join the Urban League.” He turned and smiled at the beefy man. “An’ get offa ma ass.”

  “Well,” sighed Victoria, “I suppose I’d better wait on the, uh, gentleman.”

  “Sure, baby,” said Rayburn, “only I guess I oughta count this here money before I leave.” He winked at Victoria. Victoria winked back. Rayburn began to count laboriously.

  “Come on,” growled the beefy man.

  Rayburn raised his head. “I done tole you to stay offa ma ass. Now you done made me lose count.” He sighed and began to count from the beginning.

  “I don’t think he can count,” muttered the beefy man.

  Rayburn sighed and started counting all over again. The beefy man remained silent. Rayburn folded the bills and slid them into his pocket. “See you, honey,” Rayburn said. He stepped away from the window. “Come on now, honey,” the beefy man said to Victoria. “Let’s see if you can figure out how to read this before next Christmas.”

  Victoria smiled at him sweetly. “I ain’t your honey,” she said. “Now, do you have some form of identification?”

  Rayburn stood on the corner outside the bank and considered the disposition of his wealth. There was no food at home. The rent was due. And the gas bill. The electric bill, thank God, had not yet arrived. A little drinking money for Les. A little for him. That would leave just enough to buy her a little present with. Not much, not enough to make her happy, but perhaps enough to keep her quiet. Rayburn walked over to Chestnut Street and turned downtown, walked along, peering in shop windows. The department stores were farther down, and these were small, expensive shops. He moved on. Maybe he ought to just take the money, go somewheres. Canada. Got to be different in Canada. Goddamn right. Canadian whiskey. Dog sleds, penguins, eskimos, polar bears.

  Rayburn began to walk with a purpose. He quickly covered three blocks, found the establishment he wanted, pushed open the door. A bell tinkled, and the girl behind the counter said, “May I help you?” without taking her eyes away from the magazine she was reading. Without replying Rayburn took the two steps necessary to bring him to the counter. The girl looked up, saw Rayburn standing a foot away from her, and the smile attached to her face slipped. “Yes?” she said, backing up a step.

  “I wants to go to Canada,” Rayburn said.

  The girl peered at him. “Canada?”

  “That’s right—Canada,” Rayburn said. “Ain’t you ever heard of it?”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” said the girl, pressing her thin lips together.

  “Well, all right then, I wants to go. How much?”

  The girl stared openly at Rayburn’s sweat-stained shirt. She pursed her lips, brushed a strand of dirty-brown hair back behind her ear. “Well,” she said, “what sort of vacation did you have in mind?”

  “Honey, I ain’t plannin’ no vacation. I wants to go to Canada, that’s all, an’ all I want for you to do is to tell me how to get there an’ how much it costs. Now can’t you do that?”

  “Yes, yes, of course. Which, ah, part of Canada did you want to visit?”

  “This here’s supposed to be a travel agency,” Rayburn said, resting his hands on the counter, “so why don’t you tell me?”

  “Well, I mean, ah, don’t you know what Canada is like?”

  “What’s wrong with it?” demanded Rayburn.

  “Nothing’s wrong with it. B-b-but don’t you think you ought to know what to expect when you—”

  “If I knowed what to expect what the hell would I be wantin’ to go for? Wouldn’t be much point to it, now would there?”

  The girl sighed. “Well, for a start, maybe you should go to Western Canada. It’s, ah, slightly more economical.” She looked pointedly at his clothes.

  “Cheap, too?” asked Rayburn.

  The girl looked quickly up at his face to see if he were laughing at her. His face was expressionless. She ignored the question. “I don’t think you’d like Quebec.”

  “Quebec?” said Rayburn. “Isn’t that the place where they parley-voo the France?” The girl nodded. “That,” said Rayburn, “has got to be different. How much?”

  “You speak French?”

  Rayburn shrugged expansively. “I dunno, honey, I ain’t never tried. Didn’t talk Japanese, either, when I got there, but I had a good time in Tokyo.” He smiled at her, turned, and leaned his back against the counter, hooking his elbows over the edge.

  “Tokyo?” the girl said in a small voice.

  “Yeah,” said Rayburn. “Tokyo. It’s in Japan.”

  “I know that,” she snapped. She looked at him suspiciously. “What were you doing in Tokyo?”

  Rayburn stared out at the street for a minute as if deciding whether or not to answer. “Guvment sent me,” he said finally.

  “You work for the government?”

  “Not no more. Useta.”

  “Doing what?” she demanded.

  Rayburn turned and stared at her. She blushed. “I was with the de-fense department. You got any matches?” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled cigarette.

  The girl reached below the counter and pulled up a packet of matches. Rayburn leaned back. She held the matches out in a slightly trembling hand. Rayburn closed his eyes. Fumbling, she pulled out a match, struck it, and held the flame to his cigarette. Rayburn took the first drag, held the smoke in for a minute, then let it stream out his mouth and nose, acting as if someone always lit his cigarettes for him. The girl laid the matches down, leaned forward, and propped her minuscule chin on her hands. “What’s it like in Japan?”

  “Not bad,” said Rayburn. He took another drag on his cigarette. “You know, baby, like mountains an’ rivers an’ trees an’ a couple waterfalls an’ the same damn shitty cities an’ dirty air. Ain’t no big thing.”

  “But it has to be!” she exclaimed. “It’s Japan.”

  Rayburn looked at her. She was an incredibly homely girl—not ugly, just terribly plain and slightly overweight. “Japan’s just like anyplace else,” he said.

  “Oh,” said the girl. Her fingers toyed with the book of matches. Suddenly she looked up. “If you’ve been to Japan, how come you’ve never been to Canada?”

  “They didn’t send me to Canada,” Rayburn said. He waved his cigarette around, searching for an ash tray.

  “Oh,” she said. She turned and bent over, showing a pastel flash of panties, found an ash tray, and pl
aced it on the counter.

  Rayburn trimmed his cigarette. “Don’t matter anyways,” he said. “Canada ain’t gonna be no different neither.”

  “Don’t you want to go any more?”

  “Nah. What for? So they speaks French. Big deal.” He straightened up and stubbed out his half-finished cigarette. “It’s the same everywhere.”

  “I just can’t believe that,” she said. Her gray eyes looked out the window at the passing traffic. “I just can’t believe that. There’s got to be more than that to Japan, more than just trees and mountains and rivers. …” Her voice trailed off. Rayburn looked down at her pinched, chinless face, which rested on her plump, pale hands. “Was it really just the same as here?” she said pleadingly, raising her face, searching his eyes with hers. Rayburn felt anger and hatred rising within him. He wanted to kill her. He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again.

  “Nah, honey,” he said, “I was kiddin’. Japan was real cool. All them folks was runnin’ around in funny clothes, all them gals was all painted up an’ walkin’ around like their feet was tied together. It was somethin’ else.”

  “What color was it?” she demanded excitedly.

  “Color?” said Rayburn. “What you mean, color?”

  “You know. Countries have colors, like Ireland is green and Holland is yellow and Greece is golden brown … oh, maybe it’s silly, and I’ve never been there, I just sell the tickets, but it seems like places have to be colored something.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Rayburn. “Well, I’ll tell you. It was all different colors. Lots of blue an’ lots of orange, but all kinds a colors.”

  “Oh I knew it,” she said happily.

  “Yeah,” said Rayburn, smiling too. Then he caught himself, pulled his beret down, made his features stern. “Well, I done wasted enough time around here.” He stepped to the door, opened it, paused to look back at her. Her eyes were staring at a poster on the wall that said JAPAN in blue block letters beneath an orange pagoda. The tinkling of the bell brought her attention back to Rayburn.