Just Wanna Testify

by Pearl Cleage

  “Why’d you put them in a golf bag?” Henry wanted to know as Peachy gave Blue the update on his to-do list. “You don’t even play golf.”

  “Where do you expect me to put them, man?” Peachy said, sounding a little annoyed. He didn’t really think Henry had the right to ask questions yet. He hadn’t been around long enough. “It ain’t like I can stick it in the case with my guitar.”

  “Henry will come by and pick up the bag later,” Blue said, cutting off their exchange. “You got it from there?”

  Henry nodded.

  Blue looked at his watch. “The guys will be here in a few minutes. Any questions?”

  Henry spoke up again. “Were you able to find out anything about the bleeding?”

  Blue shook his head. “Nothing definitive, so be prepared to clean up afterward.”

  Peachy shook his head. “Damn!”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I’d just like to kick those boys’ young asses for getting us caught up in this crazy shit.”

  Blue shrugged. “It was bound to happen sooner or later. Once the vamps showed up in that rap video, it was just a matter of time.”

  “So you think this is going to happen again?” Peachy said.

  “I don’t know.” Blue looked at his friend, wishing he could give a different answer. “But if they do, we’ll be ready.”

  Henry and Peachy looked at each other and back at Blue.

  “Oh, yeah, we’ll be ready,” Peachy said.

  “Good.” Blue turned to Henry. “Why don’t you go bring these guys around so we can get this over with? I don’t want to spend any more time with them than I have to.”

  Henry closed the door behind him and headed toward the café, where Jake had been told to keep an eye on the boys until they were called.

  “You sound like you’re as tired of these fools as I am,” Peachy said.

  “I just have to keep reminding myself that I’m not doing it for them,” Blue said. “I’m doing it for us.”

  Peachy frowned. “How you figure that?”

  Blue stood and took his empty espresso cup over to the bar. When he turned back to Peachy he sounded weary. “You know, I stood here yesterday for an hour and listened to five different women tell me about the men in their lives and not one of those women had a good-man story. Not one.”

  Peachy wasn’t as surprised as he wanted to be. “Puts a lot more weight than we need on those of us who’ve still got some sense, I guess.”

  “But that means something,” Blue said. “It means something I hadn’t let myself really think about before.”

  “What’s that?” Peachy didn’t like to hear that tone in Blue’s voice. Blue was about solutions, not regrets.

  “I’ve been focused on the really bad guys, the ones who are the most dangerous,” Blue said. “The ones who are already so damaged that nothing I can say or do can change the way they cut a path through the world. Those are the ones I know how to handle, and if I’m ever called upon to answer for what I’ve done to get them out of West End, I have nothing to hide.”

  Peachy turned in his chair and looked at his friend. “Twelve years ago when they let that fiend walk free after he killed my baby sister, and who even knows to this day how many other black women, you stepped up. When nobody did a damn thing, you took responsibility, and you made the men around here act like men.”

  “I guess I should have remembered to spread the word a little more.”

  Peachy shook his head. “It ain’t like these boys ain’t been told, Blue. They just didn’t choose to listen.”

  Outside in the hallway, they could hear Henry and the students approaching. Blue stood up and buttoned his jacket, his eyes clearing along with his thoughts. Peachy could see him considering the options and making his decision.

  “So what are you going to do with them?” Peachy said.

  “There’s only one thing to do,” Blue said. “I’m going to teach them how to listen.”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Between Humans and Vamps

  Iona Williams knew that if anybody had six silver candelabra lying around the house, it would be Abbie. Anyone who had taken any of Abbie’s classes or gone on her retreats knew that candles played a big part in setting the mood that Abbie was so good at creating. Her admirers all over the country often sent her beautiful candles and all manner of lovely holders for them, so she had an eclectic collection that grew with each new group that passed through the ocean room and wanted to say thank you by leaving something beautiful behind.

  The idea of collecting things did not appeal to Abbie, no matter how beautiful those things were, but the lovingly chosen, carefully packed gifts from women whose lives she had touched moved her and strengthened her resolve. She would send them handwritten thank-you notes and welcome the new addition. When Iona asked if she could borrow some of Abbie’s silver to make sure the overflow ballroom was as beautiful and festive as the club downstairs, she agreed immediately and promised to polish up the showpieces and bring them over later that afternoon.

  “That would be great,” Iona said. “I want you to take a look at everything anyway and tell me what you think. This is the biggest crowd we’ve ever had.”

  “I told Peachy if they keep this up, he’ll have to move the whole thing upstairs,” Abbie said, wishing she could tell Iona what was really on her mind.

  “Good luck with that,” Iona said, laughing. “These guys are superstitious. They think it’s the Club Zebra magic that makes it work. Every time I bring up the idea of a bigger space, Peachy just rolls his eyes and says, ‘If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.’ ”

  Just the word superstitious made a vampire thought pop into Abbie’s mind. If Club Zebra did have some kind of magical effect on this benefit, she hoped those powers would be in full force on Saturday night.

  “Abbie?” Iona said, sounding concerned.

  Her mind had wandered. “Yes, I’m here.”

  “You okay?”

  “I’m sorry, sweetie. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

  “Well, once this is all over, you need to go on back to that island for a while and let your mind roll on,” Iona said. “The sisterhood can spare you for a little of that rest and reflection you’re always urging on the rest of us.”

  That made Abbie smile. After she had finally coaxed Iona into trying meditation, her friend had become a real devotee and she never missed a sunrise. It made sense to her that you could train your mind to be at peace the same way you could train your fingers to play Mozart.

  “That’s exactly what I intend to do,” Abbie said, assuming things went smoothly on Saturday night. “Thanks for reminding me.”

  “Physician, heal thyself,” Iona said. “See you later!”

  Abbie wasn’t sure about her supply of silver polish, but she knew exactly where the silver candelabra were. She always stored them in the back of the closet on the top shelf, lovingly wrapped in soft, white baby blankets to keep down tarnishing while they waited to be rotated out to take their turn in the ocean room. Last year, one of the women who had attended a Tybee retreat had gone to Mexico for a spiritual gathering soon afterward and shipped Abbie two real beauties that held ten candles each and stood almost four feet tall when the tapers were inserted. What better time to break them in?

  As she headed down the hall to the back bedroom, Abbie was glad to have a task to occupy her mind. Ever since she and Peachy left Blue and Regina’s house, she had been feeling alternating waves of sorrow, fear, and helplessness, none of which were particularly empowering emotions, and certainly ones that could do major damage if you let them hang around too long.

  If Abbie had ever doubted it, the dismal outcome of the meeting with the reluctant character witnesses yesterday was proof that the gulf between the sexes was even wider than she thought. Much wider. She was just sorry the consequences of that distance were going to involve some men she loved in an act of community defense that was necessary, but which brought tears to Abbi
e’s eyes. She wondered if this was how women always felt sending men off to do battle against the invaders, and hoped that the things these men were required to do and see and be didn’t so damage their humanity that they were lost to their families forever.

  Abbie loved the sweet heart of Peachy Nolan and she didn’t want to see it damaged by the need to engage in mortal combat with the undead, which was probably an oxymoron anyway. She was glad Regina was going to meet her at Club Zebra later so they could try and figure out what to do to head off a confrontation between humans and vamps from which no good could come. There had to be another way. There had to be something in these female creatures to which she and Regina could appeal, but what could it be?

  Abbie flipped on the back bedroom light and opened the closet door. The first thing she saw was the big red golf bag leaning against the closet’s back wall like she had put it there herself. Abbie frowned. Nobody had been in the house except her and Peachy and neither one of them had ever played golf. She was as surprised as if she had found a litter of newborn kittens mewling on the closet floor, looking for their mother. She leaned over to peek inside the bag, unsure that something wasn’t going to jump or crawl or fly out. With vampires in town, she supposed anything was possible. She didn’t see any golf clubs sticking up, so maybe it was empty. But maybe it wasn’t, she thought. This was no time to be careless. She leaned over a little farther and saw only what looked like a bunch of poles or sticks of some kind. What was Peachy up to now? Curious, she reached down and pulled out one of the sticks. It was solid and seemed to be made of some kind of highly polished hardwood. Not until she pulled it all the way out of the bag did she notice that it was sharpened at both ends.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Singing Backup

  “Sit down,” Blue said when the boys assembled in front of him as if they were waiting for inspection. They dropped immediately into the five chairs Henry had set up behind them. Blue remained standing.

  “I ought to let them take all five of you,” he said, and the boys drew in their breath in a collective gasp. “The truth is, I spent a lot of time last night trying to talk myself into doing just that, but I can’t. It sets a bad precedent for a man in my position to allow anyone or anything to come into my backyard and take anybody anywhere against their will.”

  Peachy could almost see the boys slumping in relief as they realized maybe all was not lost.

  “Oh, thank you, Mr. Hamilton,” Jerome said, sounding all choked up. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me, yet,” Blue said. “This isn’t about defending you. You don’t deserve defending. Your behavior toward the women in your life is unacceptable, and there will be consequences.”

  The color drained from their faces, and those five different shades of brown turned into one terrified shade of gray.

  “Consequences?” Hayward Jones’s voice squeaked like he was just entering puberty.

  “This is not the time for you to ask questions,” Blue said quietly. “This is the time for you to listen to what I say as if your lives depended on it, because they do.”

  “Yes, sir.” They spoke in one voice, their eyes as wide as children’s.

  “I am prepared to protect you from these vampires at great risk to my own life and the lives of my friends, and in exchange, you will work for me here in West End for one year doing exactly as I say. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” they whispered, wishing they had enough nerve to ask him what kind of work they’d be doing, but grateful that whatever it was, it would not involve sex and death.

  “Your contact with women will be strictly limited until you have completed a rigorous course of study, reeducation, and reprogramming that will attempt to completely change your inability to form and sustain productive, positive, truthful relationships with women. That will be your primary job.”

  Peachy admired Blue’s resolve, but he wondered how the hell they were supposed to move these guys from where they were to where they needed to be in one short year. He figured Blue would tell him soon enough. Right now, all he had to do was get them fitted for their tuxes.

  “Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “At the end of one year, if you do everything I tell you to do, maybe you’ll begin to know what a man is and what a man does. And then, if you’re very lucky, maybe the next time you need a woman to stand up for you, you won’t have to come crawling to me because you can’t find one. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good, because let me assure you that if you don’t do exactly as I say, you will wish you had taken your chances with the vampires.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Speak up!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Good, then our business is over for now. I want you to go with Mr. Nolan so he can get you fitted for the benefit.”

  As they stood up to leave, the panic returned to Lance Young’s eyes. “But if we’re not going anywhere, why do we have to go to the benefit at all?”

  “Because,” Blue said, “you’re going to be singing backup.”

  Chapter Thirty-five

  All That Vampire Stuff

  Abbie was already standing in the back of Club Zebra talking to Miss Iona when Regina arrived. They had agreed to meet there because Miss Iona wanted them to see the decorations and they wanted to see one another. The building was buzzing with final preparations for the benefit, but Miss Iona was the calm center in the eye of the storm. Everything was so well organized that she had time to stop and give them a quick update.

  Good thing she doesn’t know about the vamps, Regina thought. Miss Iona would have called the National Guard, since her Civil Rights movement experiences didn’t include driving sharpened stakes through anybody’s heart.

  “The press has been calling all day asking if we’re going to do a red carpet thing because those girls are coming,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I told them the whole idea of a speakeasy is to be hard to find. A red carpet sort of goes against the whole idea of what we’re doing.”

  Zeke Burnett always described it as “a floating speakeasy and cabaret, and the international center of bohemian negritude.” Miss Iona was taking him at his word, although Club Zebra hadn’t been a speakeasy since the early days and true negritude was as hard to find these days as true love.

  “Everything looks great,” Abbie said, nodding her approval while Iona beamed. She knew that if Abbie liked it, Peachy would love it.

  The small stage was already set up with the bandstand and several microphones. The front tables were so close that the people who sat there would be able to reach out and touch the performers, which is why those seats were reserved for Blue’s guests, not his fans. At such close range, fans were guaranteed to act a fool.

  “Where are you going to put my candleholders?”

  “Upstairs,” Iona said. “The art students over at Spelman made a completely amazing Zebra out of papier-mâché that you are going to love, almost as much as I love that husband of yours.”

  “Join the club.” Regina forced herself to smile. “What’s he done now to earn your adoration?”

  “Well, he knows we’ve got this huge overflow of folks coming, so he’s giving me five Morehouse seniors to help with greeting people and making everybody feel welcome.”

  Regina knew exactly what five students she was talking about. She nodded her approval.

  “That’s great,” Regina said.

  “Peachy’s going to have them all in tuxes in time for Saturday night, too,” Iona said, as a uniformed deliveryman walked in, all but obscured by a giant bouquet of birds-of-paradise.

  “Look at this chile. All in the wrong place, just as big as you please. No, no, no!” Iona said. “That goes upstairs by the … Oh, come on, sweetie. Let me show you.”

  She turned to Abbie and Regina as the deliveryman struggled to turn around without bumping into anything. “Tell Blue to call me if he has any q
uestions or concerns, but everything will be ready for whatever he wants to do.”

  She was referring to whether Blue wanted to sing or not, a decision he always made at the moment he stood up to thank everybody for coming. Folks always wanted him to sing, but he never promised he would. The anticipation made the experience even more exciting, if he actually stepped forward and nodded his head to cue the band.

  “I’ll tell him,” Regina said, as the door closed behind Iona and she turned to Abbie. “Shall we sit for a minute?”

  Abbie pulled out a chair at the closest table. “Absolutely.”

  Regina took one, too. They looked at each other and Abbie attempted a shaky smile that she couldn’t quite pull off. Regina reached for her hand.

  “You okay?”

  Abbie nodded and took a deep breath. “I’m okay. It’s just that …”

  “What? Tell me.”

  “I don’t know how I can look at either one of them if we let them go through with it.”

  “How can we stop them?” Regina had been hoping Abbie had a plan.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Those women told me I couldn’t understand the way they felt because I’ve got Blue,” Regina said. “Do you think that’s true? Am I out of touch with how bad things have gotten between men and women?”