“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 Hi
ram, 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?”
“All right,” Fitzgerald said, “we can do that. T.J., move aside. You fellas come on in.”
34.
The only light in the gym was the sunlight that came through high shutter windows, and it was bright to the center of the gym, but there its reach played out and the shadow took over, grew darker toward the far wall.
The Reverend took off his T-shirt and showed us a hard body, and said, “Hiram, you and me. We’ll start easy, get warm.”
Hiram nodded, picked up some blue boxing gloves lying against the wall, and put them on. They were the slip-on kind. No strings.
The Reverend pulled on a pair of red gloves, and he and Hiram moved toward the center of the gym, and the line of light and shadow split them down the middle, putting one side of their bodies in the light, the other in the dark, but then they began to move, to bob and weave, to shuffle and dance, and they were one moment in brightness, the next in shadow.
Back and forth, around and around, reaching out with the gloves, slow at first, touching, jabbing, and then they came together and the blows were smooth and soft and not too quick, and on the sidelines T.J. watched like an attack dog, ready for the word.
They slugged and dodged and bobbed and weaved, and Hiram was, as he said, a scrapper, not a boxer but a scrapper. He threw his punches wide and dropped his hands, but he was fast and game and landed shots because of it. Fitzgerald was somewhere between a boxer and a brawler. It was obvious he was holding back. He could easily have been a retired heavyweight, a guy that might have been a contender.
They eventually came together in the center of the gym, locked arms, and began moving around and around in a circle, light and shadow, their foreheads pushed together as if they were Siamese twins connected by flesh and brain tissue. Around and around. T.J. carefully watching.
Finally Fitzgerald pushed Hiram away and smiled at him. “You’re a little better, my man.”
“I been working out at a gym,” Hiram said when he got his breath. “But I’ve had all I want.”
“You tire too easily,” Fitzgerald said.
“That’s the truth,” Hiram said.
Fitzgerald looked at me. “You want to go?”
“Sure,” I said.
Fitzgerald turned to T.J. “Take it easy, T.J. It’s just fun.”
T.J. nodded, but there wasn’t anything on his face that showed he thought any fun was going on. He didn’t relax a bit. Tiny rivers of sweat rolled down his face, and he stood partially crouched.
“Kinda takes the thrill out of it with him at my back,” I said.
“He’s all right,” Fitzgerald said. “He’s just overly protective.”
I got the gloves from Hiram and pulled them on. They were sweaty inside, and hot. It was starting to warm up in the gym, as the air-conditioning was off and the air came from the same place as the light – the outside.
“You should go to church,” Fitzgerald said to me. “Everyone should go to church.”
“How do you know I don’t?” I said. “I might preach somewhere. God might have sent me here to whip your butt.”
“No,” he said, smiling. “I don’t think so. Your friend, he went to church, he might realize the perversion of his homosexuality. He could change his ways. There might be forgiveness from the Lord.”
“Might be?” I said.
I took up a southpaw position and we moved and threw some jabs, but there was no real connection. Fitzgerald said, “There’s no true home in the House of the Lord for the sodomite, young man.”
“Let it be, Fitz,” Hiram said from the sidelines. “Just box.”
I threw a quick jab and hit the Reverend on the forehead, and we started shuffling about, looking for openings. I said, “You make homosexuality sound like a true sin. Right up there with murderers, child molesters, false prophets. You might as well include unmarried mothers and illegitimate children.”
Fitzgerald studied me curiously. He jabbed and right-crossed and hooked. Lightly. I blocked and countered with a weak combination.
We moved apart, he said, “There are some who are lost to the joys of heaven. They have to be put aside.”
“Aside?” I said, and hooked him with a left to the gut, hooked him hard. He covered and slid back. “What’s ‘aside’ mean, Reverend? You sound as if you’re out to punish souls instead of save them.”
His face turned into a black Kabuki mask, and he came with a jab and a crossing combination. I took it on the side of my face and rolled it, but it still hurt. We weren’t playing tag now. I got my focus. I let myself settle. I tried not to concentrate too much. I tried to relax and let the reflexes take over. I thought too much, I was going to get hit while putting together a combination. I had to react, not plan, and I had to remember not to kick. We were boxing.
I threw a jab and tried a hook, and Fitzgerald leaned away from the jab and moved outside of the hook and came over my hand and hit me with a right cross over the left eye.
I bobbed and weaved and let a couple of shots ricochet off me while I got it together, then we were close and the fists were flying and I was distantly aware of the sound of the gloves as they slapped on our sweaty flesh, and I was aware of moving in and out of light and shadow, and finally, when he stood in shadow and I stood in light, with the sun at my back, I decided to hold him. I wasn’t going to move. He wasn’t coming into the light. He was going to take what I had to give in shadow. Take it and like it.
I took a few myself and had to like it, but I had moved beyond pain. It was going to take a damn good shot for me to feel it now. We weren’t playing. We were hitting. Hiram said, “Hey, men, too much,” but we didn’t stop, we kept slinging and the sound of the gloves became sweet, like a backbeat to good music, and Fitzgerald tried to press hard, to move around me, to move into the light, to push against me and bring himself to my side of the gym, but I wouldn’t let him. He tied me up, I shoved him off and jabbed him. He tried to circle, I hooked and crossed.
Hiram was calling something from the side, but I wasn’t aware of it anymore, I couldn’t make sense of his words. There was a copper taste in my mouth. And then there was a great shadow, like a cloud moving before the sun, and I knew T.J. had slid up behind me, eclipsing my light, and I sensed him close to me, ready to grab me, and I thought of those children, like rag dolls in his hands.
Fitzgerald tried to bob and explode, like Smokin’ Joe Frazier, but when he bobbed, I uppercut him solid enough to bring him on his toes, and I hooked him on the jaw and was driving him back farther into shadow, going with him, deeper into shadow, and he was in trouble, but holding up, and then I felt a vise fasten around my body, trapping my arms to my sides, and I could smell anxiety sweat as T.J. crushed me to him and the gym began to spin. I struggled in his grasp, thought about stomping back and down to b
reak his kneecaps, or driving the back of my head into his face, but this was a friendly situation, nothing serious here – a little out of hand, but friendly. Any second T.J. would let go. He’d realize his brother was in no real trouble here. He’d drop me. Someone would stop him.
The walls of the gym turned to hot liquid and flowed over me and the ceiling fell down and light and shadow scrambled and there were bongos in my head and I realized I had waited too late, because T.J. wasn’t going to put me down, and I was too weak now to do anything about it.
Bright and dark, bending in upon themselves, whirling around and around to the tune of blood pounding in my skull, and I had a flash of that dream where I was underwater in the bookmobile with Illium and Chester and the dead boy with the flesh floating away from his bones.
…
When I awoke, I was on the floor of the gym. First thing I saw was Hiram. He was leaning over me. He looked concerned. He said, “Hap, you OK?”
“Yeah,” I said.
Fitzgerald came into view. “Sorry about T.J. Normally, he stays in check. He got the feeling we were really into it. He squeezed your air out.”
“I know,” I said. “And we were into it.”
I sat up slowly. The gym was only moving a little. My ribs were mildly sore. I figured that would balance out the knot on my head I’d gotten the night before. I’d certainly had an interesting two days, and it wasn’t even lunch yet.
T.J. was standing against the far wall with his hands by his sides and his head hung. He looked as passive as a puppet. I thought: Klaatu barada nikto.
“Yeah,” Fitzgerald said, “we were into it. It’s my turn to apologize again. For T.J. And for going so hard, keeping up with the rhetoric. I guess I do bear a little animosity for the other day, and I just can’t help but be a preacher. By the way, you were putting it on me pretty good. But I’d have come back.”
“Now we’ll never know, will we?”
“Maybe we’ll do it again sometime.”
I got up slowly with Hiram’s assistance. “It could happen,” I said.
Mucho Mojo cap-2 Page 20