by Bill Harris
“It’s a good story,” Son said finally. “It has a good ending.”
25
Spain Street Zion A.M.E.
Reverend Cook Richmond was already there. He was one fine-looking specimen of a colored man, keen-creased and crisp in his tailored, camel-colored, double-breasted suit. In the guest speaker’s high-backed chair, in the pulpit of Spain Street Zion A.M.E., sitting easy as a fat cat lying on a sunny window sill. His arms resting on the oak arms, legs crossed, the toe of his shiny brown oxfords tapping slightly to some tune in his brain. His gaze was fixed over their heads somewhere at the bottom of the balcony. There were no deacons fussing around him trying to look important. And a close, crane-neck survey by nearly every sister in the church gave evidence that there was no unfamiliar woman of elegance equal to his who might have been Missus Richmond. Interesting.
It was getting close to the time. The assembling congregation was starting to settle down, anxious for it to start, but they were probably going to be in for an extended service so they were still not prepared just yet to get in their sermon-ready frames of mind.
Ushers were shuttling up and down, greeting, seating. There was a harmonious hum to the greetings: polite recognition and proper respect for the deserving to the degree that either was appropriate. Special salutations for Old Mother Johnson, bless her heart, Don’t she look good. And Elder Leonard, and how well he was holding up.
Young Brother Jefferies (Junie) on the organ, bless him, noodling an improvised medley of hymns. He was in their secret prayers in the hope it would help him—heal his—wasn’t no way to say it but to say it—heal his swishy, sissy ways.
Looking like satin angels for the world, the choir, at Junie Jefferies’ signal, entered in formation from the rear of the pulpit, strutting proud in their shiny new robes.
Vienna among them as they got settled, double-checking their hymnals, clearing their throats, saw Branch enter and refuse the offer of being ushered to a seat. He indicated he would stand, and as against custom as that was, he was allowed to remain at the rear corner of the right-hand aisle.
Scanning the church Vienna saw that by some mystery of group perception Branch’s presence was almost instantly noticed. His entrance was the only thing, she thought, that could have diverted attention from Reverend Richmond. It ran through the church as if a horsefly had buzzed it and moved ear to ear through the church. Women began puffing themselves up at the unexpected sight of him.
“Ain’t them robes something!”
“Girrrrllll, how you doing?” Church Mother Daniels said. “You looking goooood.”
“You too. And I like that hat,” Mother Johnson praised in her rough-edged purr.
“Aw, thank you. Look like it took me forever to get going this morning.”
“Well it certainly doesn’t show.”
“Thank you. I wasn’t going to miss this for the world.”
“Me neither, you know—” Cut off in mid-sentence as Junie gave the downbeat and the choir began to hum “Oh Ship of Zion.”
There now, see, Junie’s jumping the gun, lots of folks still to be seated and . . . and then that blind boy got up and started singing, bless his heart. Mother Johnson whispering how his mama had designed and made all the robes. His mama, Pearl. The two senior women nodding to each other how that Pearl Moon was a real go-getter.
Her son singing, “What ship is this that’s landed at the shore?”
Looking at the watch her son Chepheus gave her last Christmas, Mother Johnson whispered, “Eleven o’clock sharp.”
“On the dot!”
Maybe Junie just following instructions, they thought, as they a-men-ed with reconsidered admiration and approval. The tone of it said just the fact of Reverend Richmond starting on time was a whole sermon in itself.
“Oh, Glory hallelujah!” Son sang.
“It’s the old ship of Zion, hallelujah!
It’s the old ship of Zion, hallelujah!”
And the choir coming in with the chorus,
“Don’t you see that ship a-sailing,
Going over to the Promised Land?”
The boy singing,
“What kind of Captain does she have on board?
Oh, Glory Hallelujah.”
“Don’t he sing good?”
“Mummm,” Mother Daniels half approved, “but it ain’t like Sister Ryder.”
“No, Lord. That was her song.”
Unannounced Reverend Richmond eased into position at the pulpit as smooth as oiled silk. He gave the text and topic of his upcoming sermon.
They looked at each other. Hadn’t never seen it done like that. Raised their eyebrows, being patient. Must be the way they do it up in Riverton. Drum-patted the back of one hand with the fingers of the other. Waited to see.
“My theme,” he said, “is a brand new day and a brand new time.”
Hallelujah.
Simply by being punctual, Vienna thought, Richmond is saying he’s professional. Not like any of the other of those old-timey Chilton jack-legged preachers. Operating on colored people’s time like they still did, with their services starting anywhere from a half hour to forty-five minutes late was like the attitude of doing just enough to satisfy the white man. That might have been all right in its day, but not anymore. The whole world was changing—war in Europe, A. Philip Randolph and Walter White meeting with Roosevelt to get rid of government discrimination and let colored boys get a fair fight in the army—and this Reverend Richmond’s starting on time was like saying, what he say his theme was, Hallelujah, a brand new day and a brand new time? Well, the white man didn’t get rich and powerful by showing up late. Reverend Richmond was showing by his manner, attire, and punctuality how to go about it in a brand new way. That was just what Zion A.M.E. needed, Hallelujah.
“She has landed many thousands,” the boy sang.
“She can land as many more.”
Surprised latecomers whose usual habit was to make an entrance, nodding and being noticed, were unceremoniously being rushed to seats by composed but impatient ushers. Is this saved? Excusing themselves, squeezing by the already seated, who gave them smug, less than Christian looks, as if to say, it was time to put behind them those old ignorant ways of showing up late because you assume things going to start late, amen. Let that be a lesson to them.
Reverend Richmond saying just above the singing, “There was a time for plowing and planting and plucking. A stone gathering and a stone throwing time.”
Oh, glory Hallelujah!
“A time for tearing down, and building back up . . .”
“She sails like she is heavy-ladened . . .”
“A time for laughing and crying, dancing and mourning . . .”
“But she’s a-sailing mighty steady
She’s neither reeling or rocking.”
“A time to be born and . . .”
“But she’s a-sailing mighty steady
She’s neither reeling nor rocking.”
“Time for tearing, and sewing, and hating, and loving, and a time for moving on, crossing over from the old to the new,” he said, enunciating in his crooner’s voice like an English professor.
Professional. That was what his starting on time said to any with sense enough to hear it and take it to heart.
Junie Jefferies, his robe sleeves flapping like butterfly wings whipping the choir to an upbeat finish.
“Oh is your bundle ready? Hallelujah.
Oh is your bundle ready? Hallelujah.
A-men!”
Reverend Richmond turning to watch Son as he moved a few steps back, wiping at his forehead with the back of his hand.
“Isn’t he a blessing,” Richmond said.
“A-men,” agreed the church.
“Isn’t he a blessing,” Richmond said again.
“A-men,” agreed the church.
“Amen!”
“Isn’t he a blessing?” Richmond repeated.
“A-men,” agreed the church.
The reverend then said
he wanted Son to stay right there to help him because he was going to dispense with the usual way he conducted a sermon. He was going to get right to it, because he didn’t have much time to get to all he had to do.
They encouraged him to get to it.
That was when Mother Johnson, in her raspy bulldog growl with the same indignant inflection that she said most things, always making even her most damning accusations sound like questions from the Old Testament God, said, “What you doing with that gun in here, Mister?”
At the same time the first shot went off like a car backfiring, and the pandemonium began.
Chap had strongly suspected that Sunny Bob’s disappearance wasn’t about the payoff money Sunny Bob was delivering to the local officials and police for Chap. Sunny Bob did not work just for Chap. He also did distribution, or was a bagman in the employ of a legitimate syndicate of Chilton businessmen with semi-legitimate silent partners outside the city. Those partners, Chap suspected, were the Finkleman mob. They ruled part of the underworld activities in Riverton. The Finklemans, who had money and muscle, had been making overtures to Chap and white real businesses and estate owners about partnering with or buying up some Chilton properties. Chap’s having to guess at whom and why told him the outcome would likely not be in his best interest.
Another possibility was Rudolph Lyons, aka, Ruddy the Lion. He was the head of the biggest Negro numbers racket in Riverton. The Finklemans were his backers. Reverend Richmond’s big church in Riverton was one of the venues used by Ruddy the Lion to launder money. Whether it was the Finklemans directly or Lyons through them it meant trouble for Chap. That was why he had sent for Branch.
The bullet hit the reverend in his torso. He took a step back, not even raising his hands to the ballooning red wound. The second shot, from a different point in the church than the first, was also to his chest already leaking blood. He didn’t stagger, he just tilted straight back like an axed tree, falling back against Son.
Branch knew the two out-of-place-looking Negroes were together, damn it. Same type and quality topcoats, suits, and fedoras, their right hand in their coat pockets. He had spotted and tracked them from the time they entered about four or five minutes apart a couple of minutes earlier. They had muscled their way into aisle seats on opposite sides of the church. They didn’t look nervous but they did look out of place. They were there for a reason, all right, and it wasn’t for coming to Jesus. But because it was his first time in the church, he hadn’t known whom to ask about the two men.
Too late. Richmond was down. Branch’s gun already out of his under-the-arm holster and aimed at the first shooter standing halfway down the aisle to his left above those crouched down in the pews around him. The man had turned to move back up the aisle. Branch’s shot entered his center chest a couple inches below the four-in-hand knot of the shooter’s tie, splattering tissue, blood, and spine bone.
Satisfied without checking that his first shot had inflicted sufficient damage to the shooter on his left, he swung his Colt around to his right. Amid the rush of scrambling, screaming congregants, the second shooter, perhaps aware that his partner had been shot, perhaps not, was trying to make his exit by, through, or over the panicked crowd who were doing their best in the confused press of bodies to back away from him and the pistol still in his hand. Branch whistled a loud, sharp single note. It pierced the air like an eagle’s cry.
Still fighting his way out, the man heard the whistled note above the noises echoing through the church. He turned to look over his shoulder. The bullet entered his temple, snapped his head back, and he spun around and crumbled sideways, his arms thrown up as if signaling a touchdown. His errant shot, squeezed off in a death spasm, angled into the ceiling. A shower of plaster chips and dust sprinkled down on the confusion like snow.
In the basement Pearl had already stopped picking up after the choir members, having heard the upstairs commotion of people and chairs. Ada, picking up the strewn hangars and tissue paper and delivery boxes the robes were brought in, stopped too, having heard what sounded like a big branch snapping off a tree, and three more. Pearl knew they were pistol shots and was looking for her purse.
“Purse?!” she said to Ada, who had dropped her handful of wire hangers. The girl pointed to the floor by the long table near where Pearl was standing. Pearl stooped, picked it up, unsnapping open the large plastic tortoiseshell clasp handle and had one foot up on the bottom step as she pulled the blue steel snubbed-nosed pistol from it, and dropped the purse, its contents of folding money, change purse, receipts, identification, compact and lipstick, hair comb, everything raining and rattling, clattering to the floor. Her skirt pulled up with her free left hand. She was taking the steps two at a time and rushed up to and through the door at the rear of the pulpit into the screaming and scrambling.
Outside on Spain Street Horace Bradshaw, Horse, the colored dayshift foot patrolman, with his night stick, pistol, handcuffs, whistle, and badge 79, exited Kellwood’s Restaurant and stood under the canopy, watching Arthur Fuller hurrying across the street through the unexpected rain that had turned the day cement gray. The fool was gesturing behind him, to the church, Bradshaw guessed. What now?
Arthur stopped at the curb, not even enough damned sense to step up under the canopy, Bradshaw thought. “Get out of the street,” he told him. Arthur did, but still stood in the rain. The smell of liquor leapt from him like a shout. He just stood there dripping. Waiting. Bradshaw exhaled gray smoke at him. It evaporated in the distance between them like a rabbit under a magician’s cape.
“What?”
Without looking behind him Arthur pointed and spoke in a loud, conspiratorial whisper. “Horse,” he said, “The devil in there claiming souls.”
So sick of sorry Arthur Fuller, the only white man that Bradshaw almost felt pity for, he didn’t know what to do.
“Who, fool?” he bothered to ask.
Then several men and women came, exiting Spain Street Zion A.M.E., and shouting to Horse, and anyone, that they were shooting and killing inside. He threw down his cigarette as a few more rushed out of the church. The cigarette sparked, sputtered, and hissed to death on the wet street. Some reverend had been shot as far as he could make out.
Bradshaw hoped it was a white gunman. He didn’t have time to reckon why white men would be shooting up a church chucked with colored people any more than he had time to reckon why a Negro would. He just hoped it, and started running toward the gray-stoned structure, his service revolver in his hand.
Bradshaw didn’t mind rousting and occasionally cold-sapping a colored man when the situation called for it, but he wasn’t that crazy about the prospect of having to shoot one.
Bradshaw, as he leapt to the church’s top step ordered, “Call for help!”
Did he remember a car parked outside the church when moments ago he went in to Callwells? Was there a white or colored man at the wheel?
He heard screaming from inside as he eased the heavy front door open and entered the vestibule. A couple of elderly people were crouched in the small foyer, hiding or scrunched down praying. With his left hand he gestured for them to remain silent and with the sharp gesture of his gun hand he motioned them to git, angry with them for their old cowering attitudes.
No more shots had been fired. A short couple of minutes ago he’d been standing out of the rain under the awning of the restaurant, picking fried pork chop from his teeth with his fingernail. Now with his back against the wall he took a short snort of air, collecting himself, his pistol gripped chest-high. It was the first time in two years on the force his gun had left his holster in the line of duty. With his left hand he pulled the inner door left open.
Vienna wondered if this was the trouble Branch had predicted on the side porch that night. Whether or not it was, he was in the middle of it, brought to him without his seeking it. She did not think to scream, or to duck. She watched as if she was seated next to him in the dark at the King picture show, eating popcorn and watching him on
the silent screen. He was different from Twin Collins, fancy-dressed in jingling and shiny outfits, silver, and silk bandana. Branch, his arm extended, pistol in his hand, was more like a vengeful William S. Hart. She saw the pistol kick but she did not hear it fire, did not hear any of the sounds around her, had not since Mother Johnson shouted. She saw the gun steadied as it swept to Branch’s right and stop, seemingly without its being aimed and kicked again as it fired, and she watched him move then through the scramble as easily as if she were on his arm as they were leaving the King after a Thursday night double feature. He moved through a dusting of plaster floating from the ceiling, like dandruff on his brown suit.
Then, as if someone had flicked a switch, Vienna heard the screaming again. And she felt the trembling throughout her body at the sight of the bedlam, Branch at the center of it, standing with his back to her and the choir that was still dissembling themselves from their hiding places.
Patrolman Horace ‘Horse’ Bradshaw opened the carved oak vestibule doors, his gun raised.
Branch, his right arm raised above his head with the .45 showing, let Patrolman Bradshaw see that he had it, and let him know he had done with it all that he intended to do at that time.
Pearl and Hughes reached Richmond and Son from different directions and at the same time knelt beside them. The reverend was face up, lying three-quarters on top of Son. The boy was saying he was all right. He was all right, mama, he was all right. Hughes rolled the dead preacher off the boy and Pearl lay down prone on top of her son, asking for additional reassurance that he was all right.
Upon his opening the door all went still and quiet in uncertain anticipation. It was like a children’s game of Freeze. The congregation pressed, crouched, clinging, cringing against the floor, walls, corners, or each other, not knowing if Satan or salvation would enter. At the sight of Horse what passed among them was the slow realization that the first of it was over. The violent thundering storm had stopped and was being followed by what they hoped was a soft rain, like the gentle patter of drops spattering against the stained glass window, and sanity, or what had previously passed for it, was returning through the opened door in the form of the wet colored policeman, a gun in his hand.