Mucho Mojo

by Joe R. Lansdale

  And I was pretty certain Hanson knew we were still holding out on him. That we had an important part of the puzzle we weren’t showing.

  So, Hanson was going to get a court order, quickly and quietly, not hide it from the chief, but not announce it either, and he and his crew were coming out.

  His crew was going to be Charlie, the retired Houston coroner, me and Leonard, and a couple other folks he thought he could trust. It wasn’t a morning I looked forward to.

  I stood up and stretched and checked out the remains of the crack house, felt a rush of adrenaline from last night. I also felt a rush of shame.

  Violence and anger against another human being always made me feel that way, no matter what my justification. I lost it, I always feel somewhat diminished. But I would have felt even more diminished to have done nothing. That little boy, dying up under the house like a dog with a belly full of glass. . . . It’s hard to figure why it has to be that way.

  But had it been just that? Had I done what I did, followed Leonard because I wanted vengeance for that child, all the children they infected with their slick talk and drugs? Or had my willingness to lose it also been part of my problem with Florida? Was I finding a way to self-righteously vent my disappointment and rage? I didn’t like to think about that kind of snake inside me, crawling around, waiting to strike.

  Across the street I heard a screen door slam, and looked to see Hiram out on MeMaw’s porch. He had a cup of coffee and was wearing blue jogging pants, a blue T-shirt, and dirt-tinted white tennis shoes. He walked to the edge of the porch and hacked up a big wad of phlegm and spat into the yard. He looked up and saw me.

  “Hap,” he called.

  I walked out to the curb, talked across the street. “Thanks for last night,” I said. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

  “What else could I do? How’s the boy?”

  “Dead.”

  Hiram nodded. “I’m not surprised. He didn’t look none too good. He had that look about him, like he wasn’t long for this world.”

  The screen door opened and MeMaw started working her walker outside. Hiram grabbed the screen and held it open. “You don’t need to come out here,” he said.

  “But I want to,” she said. After a full minute, she was in the center of the porch, leaning on her walker. She said, “I’m glad you did it. I’d been younger, I’d did it. Lenny up?”

  “No, ma’am,” I said. “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, you come on over,” she said. “I’ve got breakfast cooking.”

  “Ma’am,” I said. “I don’t want to intrude.”

  “Biscuits, eggs, and bacon,” she said. She turned her walker slightly, then slightly again, until she was facing the screen. Hiram opened the screen for her. She worked her way inside, called over her shoulder, “Don’t let it get cold.”

  Hiram smiled at me. He said, “I think you better come on to breakfast.”

  * * *

  MeMaw looked extremely frail that morning, but she was radiant just the same. Happy about the crack house being turned to smoke, happier yet her baby boy Hiram was home. The breakfast was great. The bacon was thick. She’d gotten the meat from one of her sons who raised hogs, and we spread real artery-jamming butter on the biscuits and dipped them in the sun-yellow yolks of farm-fresh eggs acquired from a friend of hers who had his own chickens.

  After breakfast, MeMaw entertained me and embarrassed Hiram with stories about when he was a child, told some cute incidents, explained what a good Christian child Hiram had always been, and when Hiram had had all of that talk he could take, he said, “Hey, what’re your plans today, Hap?”

  “Not much,” I said, not prepared to mention that I was going to exhume bodies.

  “You ought to work out with me.”

  “After last night, I’m pretty bushed. What kind of workout?”

  “Boxing.”

  “I hate that boxing,” MeMaw said. “Two grown men hitting one another in the head for fun. You’d think Hiram and Reverend Fitzgerald would be old enough to know better.”

  “Reverend Fitzgerald?” I said.

  “Yeah. I come in once a year, we get together, do a little boxing, talk old times. Play chess. I do it mostly to please MeMaw. She thinks I ought to know the right hand of the Lord. Not that we didn’t get drilled with religion all the time we were growing up.”

  “When I was able,” MeMaw said, “I saw that this family lived in the church.”

  “You know Reverend Fitzgerald pretty good then?” I said.

  “Didn’t you meet him the other day?” MeMaw asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, “just briefly.”

  I gave Hiram the Reader’s Digest version of that, leaving out all the tense stuff between him and Leonard. I was getting to be a pretty good liar.

  “I’ve known Fitz for years,” Hiram said. “We used to go to his daddy’s church. Me and him played together. His daddy taught the both of us how to box. Fitz is a little older than me, but I’m a scrapper. ’Course, he still beats hell out me. Or has in the past. I’m kind of hoping age will catch up with him.”

  “It hasn’t so far,” I said. “I saw him working a bag. He’s in shape. He can still hit hard. He drags his back foot in the bucket a little when he moves, but that could just be the way he works a bag.”

  “You know something about boxing then?” Hiram said.

  “A little.”

  “Another man likes to get hit in the head,” MeMaw said. “I can’t figure it. . . . By the way, how’s that little boy?”

  It took me a moment to shift gears and know who she was talking about. Then it came to me. I said, “He died, MeMaw. We found him too late. The drugs snuffed him out.”

  “Oh,” she said. “I’m so sorry. A child like that, in that den of wolves, he ain’t got no chance. What I’d like to know was where his mother was.”

  I’d found out a little about the boy last night from Charlie and Hanson, and I told MeMaw what I knew. “He was a street kid, MeMaw. Name of Ivan Lee.”

  “I heard of the Lees,” MeMaw said, “but I can’t say I knew nothing about them.”

  “Ivan lived with an aunt,” I said, “but apparently there wasn’t much going on there in a family way. He was on his own. Wasn’t even going to school, hung out on the streets most of the time. He’d been picked up for little crimes here and there. He fell through the cracks.”

  “Over here,” MeMaw said, “lots fall through the cracks. There’s always somethin’ pushin’ in on a person here. Bad people and bad things from all sides. A baby has got to have a shield from the world. Got to learn how to shield themselves. I’m lucky I raised all my chil’ren without none of them gettin’ messed up.”

  “Don’t fret, Mama,” Hiram said. “That little boy was a goner from the start. Ain’t that right, Hap?”

  “I don’t know anyone’s a goner, you get to them in time,” I said. “But there’s a line you can step across that puts you on a path of no return. In little Ivan’s case, I don’t know he stepped across so much as got shoved over it.”

  “Maybe so,” Hiram said. “But if he runs with the dogs, he, well . . . ‘becomes like them that go down into the pit.’”

  “I presume that’s biblical,” I said.

  “Yeah, I guess it’s a way of saying birds of a feather stick together. Or if you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas. Whatever . . . whatcha say, Hap? You gonna work out with me? We won’t be there long.”

  I considered a moment. There really wasn’t any clear evidence, other than circumstantial, that Fitzgerald had done the things Leonard and I thought he had. There was still the possibility that Chester Pine and Illium Moon were what we thought they were being framed to be. Another look at the Reverend might be of interest.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m game.”

  33.

  We took Hiram’s van. It was a cluttered thing, and I had to move a small box of folded Texas flags off the seat to sit down. I sat them on a box of Americ
an flags in the back. Strewn on the floorboard, front and back, were booklets containing designs for senior rings and samples of paper to choose from for high school yearbooks and bulletins, and there were pamphlets advertising photocopying machines, typewriters, and the like.

  “Yeah, I know,” Hiram said. “I’m messy.”

  When we backed out of the drive and hit the street and the merchandise stopped shifting, Hiram said, “I didn’t want to say anything in front of MeMaw, but actually, going over to see Fitz isn’t always that wonderful. He’s a little quirky.”

  “I thought as much when I met him. I mean, he was nice enough, just a little fanatic.”

  “That’s not all bad. I mean, he’s a good guy. But that’s why I was hoping you’d come along. I’m not saying I mind boxing him or playing a game of chess now and then, but he can be a little much sometimes.”

  “I understand.”

  “MeMaw is just crazy for church and religion though, bless her sweet heart, so she always sort of invites me to go over there, I want to or not. She thought Fitz’s old man was something special. Had the hot line to God.”

  “But you didn’t think so?”

  “Actually, the old man could put up a good front for someone when he wanted to. I was around Fitz a lot when I was a kid, spent the night over there now and then, and I saw the old man was kind of a bully. Never let the kid really enjoy his childhood. Always had some kind of complaint. And he was very much a hands-on person. He was hard on Fitz ’cause Fitz wasn’t his child.”

  “A former marriage?” I asked.

  Hiram shifted gears and shook his head. “I can’t figure why the old man married Fitz’s mother. Didn’t seem a preacher’s type. She’d been a kind of sportin’ woman before they met. I guess he liked the idea of transforming her from a Jezebel to a woman of God. Though I don’t know she changed all that much. There were stories went around, and enough of them, so I figure where there was smoke, there was fire.”

  “What about Fitz’s real father?”

  “Don’t know nothing about him. Neither does Fitz. He was some guy who bought Fitz’s mother and did his job and left. Probably never even knew he’d made a baby.”

  We cruised by the East Side Market. The old man who owned the place was sitting outside at the domino table, watching the street, perhaps planning his strategy for when the rest of the players showed up.

  I said, “So the Reverend is actually illegitimate?”

  “Well, he got his stepfather’s name, of course. But strictly speaking, yeah. I figure that’s what makes Fitz such a hardnose. He’s trying to live up to something. The old man never let either Fitz or his mama forget where they come from and what a big deed he was doin’ for them.”

  I thought about the profile I had put together on the Reverend Fitzgerald. I was beginning to think I should pursue a career in psychology. Of course, when it came to putting together a profile on women, I’d have to pass. I understood the secret life of the hummingbird better than I understood women.

  I said, “The mom still around?”

  “Fitz’s mama disappeared. Probably ran off. The old man got some kind of cancer or something. Died slow. Lot of people thought God was paying him back for the kind of man he was. As for Fitz, well, he’s got his good points. He’s developed things to keep kids off the street. He’s real antidrug. He’s introduced soccer and boxing and baseball and the carnival.”

  “Carnival?”

  “Yeah, I like the carnival myself. I go every year ’cause I’m here at just the right time. There’s something about seeing black kids who can’t even afford to get across town being able to walk over to the fairgrounds and have a good time. And Fitz has a bus so he can pick up kids might not be able to make it, or might have to walk through a bad section of town. He takes them over there, and they haven’t got the money, he sees they get in and get some rides.”

  At mention of the carnival, something had shifted inside my head. I said, “Saw a sign on the carnival. It’s next week, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Does it always take place sometime during the last week of August?”

  “Yeah, it’s just for one night. One night is all can be afforded. Fitz gets the local merchants to sponsor it, throw in donations. He raises money for it other ways too. The carnival owners sell tickets to get in and for the rides, but they’re cheap, so most anyone can afford it. It’s a little operation. Black owned. Goes around to black communities. Fitz heard about it and made the deal with them, so the carnival comes back every year. Wasn’t for Fitz, lot of the kids here wouldn’t have anything going for them.”

  I felt a sickness in the pit of my stomach. “How long ago was it Reverend Fitzgerald set this carnival business up?”

  “Let’s see. Nine, ten years ago.”

  “That’s real benevolent of him.”

  “He’s got his good points. Like the way he protects his brother, T.J.”

  “Brother?”

  “Half-brother, actually. He’s retarded and about the size of a small army tank.”

  I thought of the big man Leonard and I had seen working in the yard outside of the church.

  “Rumor has it,” Hiram continued, “the boy wasn’t really the old man’s son either, but that the wife had been slipping around again. I don’t know. Maybe the Reverend wanted to believe she was slipping around. Man like him, it might have been easier to believe that than believe his seed could be tainted, could produce something like T.J. A giant with the mind of a poodle. Fitz, though, he always treated T.J. special. Real special. T.J. didn’t have Fitz, he wouldn’t last long. They got a serious bond.”

  When we were close to the church and Reverend Fitzgerald’s house, Hiram said, “This might be the last year I see Fitz. When MeMaw passes, I know I’m through. Me and Fitz were kind of close when we were kids, but the older I get, harder it is for me to connect with the guy.”

  We parked in the church lot, and before we got out of the van, I said, “I got a confession. Me and Leonard were over here the other day, like I said, but it didn’t go that well. We came looking for someone Leonard’s uncle knew that Reverend Fitzgerald was supposed to know, and well, Leonard and him didn’t hit it off.”

  “How bad did they not hit it off?”

  “Hard to say. Fitzgerald was polite. No one came to blows, but it was a little tense.”

  “It was a point of religion?”

  “That, and the fact that Leonard’s homosexual.”

  Hiram was quiet for a time. “He’s queer?”

  “That’s not a word he prefers.”

  “Well, I didn’t mean nothing by it . . . I guess I didn’t. You queer?”

  “No, I’m a Democrat when they’ve got the right people to vote for. Listen, Hiram, Leonard’s a good guy. I don’t know what your deal is concerning homosexuals, and frankly, I don’t care, but I wanted you to know what happened.”

  “Leonard seems all right.”

  “He is. Gay guys come in all shades and types. Leonard’s one of the good guys.”

  “It’s just a surprise.”

  “I know.”

  “He’s not like I thought a queer was. He’s like us, you know. I mean . . . hell, I don’t know what I mean.”

  “Nothing to know. I took you up on your offer to box so I could apologize to the Reverend. Things could be a little awkward is what I’m saying. I figured I ought to tell you now. You’re uncomfortable, you can drive me back.”

  “No. No. I know how Fitz is. We’ll get through it.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  We got out of the van and walked around to the back of the church.

  T.J., dressed in gray sweatpants and T-shirt and tennis shoes, was standing at the back door and it startled me. He was just standing there, not moving. His arms hung limp by his sides. He seemed to be waiting on something, or considering some deep, forgotten secret that wouldn’t quite come to him. He looked like a black golem. He lifted his huge arms slightly and his hands
flopped forward like catcher’s mitts on pegs.

  Hiram said, “Fitz in, T.J.?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You remember me, T.J.?”

  T.J. thought about it for a moment, and shook his head.

  “That’s OK,” Hiram said. “Would you tell Fitz I’m here? Just say Hiram’s here. He’s expecting me.”

  The giant nodded, turned and opened the door, and disappeared inside. Hiram turned to me, said, “Every year T.J. forgets who I am. He can only hold certain kinds of thoughts for so long. Remembering me from year to year isn’t one of them.”

  A moment later T.J. came back, and Fitzgerald was with him. T.J. let Fitzgerald go outside, then took his place in the doorway, filling it, substituting for a door. Fitzgerald was wearing a white T-shirt and white shorts and tennis shoes. He was grinning until he saw me. He looked at me, then Hiram, then back to me. Slowly the grin came back.

  “You decide I was right?” the Reverend said. “About wanting to hand your life over to God?”

  “Not exactly,” I said. “I conned Hiram to get a ride over here. I wanted to apologize for the other day. I’m sorry about how it went with you and my friend.”

  “Ah, yes. Him. Well, it didn’t go so bad. Apologies were made all around. It’s over with.”

  “I didn’t apologize,” I said, “and I wanted to. For me and him. We just got sideways. It wasn’t our intent to step on your beliefs.”

  “You didn’t. They’re too solid for that. And I don’t need an apology. I was merely trying to do what it’s my mission to do. Point out how God sees things. Then let you, and your friend, take your own path. If you’re going to owe anyone an apology, it’s God.”

  “Maybe I’ll drop him a card,” I said, then immediately wished I hadn’t. I was getting as bad as Leonard.

  The Reverend, however, hadn’t lost his grin. He said, “You can laugh about anything in this life, my friend, but in the next—”

  “Hap boxes,” Hiram said. “He’s a friend. That’s why I brought him. To box. Why don’t we just do that?”