The Kindest Lie

by Nancy Johnson

  He couldn’t stop thinking about Miss Ruth covering him with his jacket when he fell asleep. He yanked it off and threw it into a slushy puddle of melted snow. And to think he’d blown air into his cupped hands before he talked to her to make sure he didn’t have stinky breath. He thought of all the dumb things he’d told her and kicked his coat. Dirty snow water splashed his face.

  “Little man is mad at somebody. What did that coat do to you?”

  Midnight turned around to find L-Boogie, the tall, quiet gangbanger from the night before, the one who walked with a limp, an invisible string pulling the right side of his body. He still wore a red rag, this time tied around his neck as a scarf. Midnight had thought if he ever saw him again, he’d be scared, looking for an escape route in case the guy wanted to cut up his body into tiny pieces like the serial killers he saw in the movies, but he didn’t feel afraid. He didn’t feel anything.

  “I’m not mad. She—” He cut himself off.

  “Uh-oh. Woman problems already. These females can be a trip.”

  Midnight shrugged, unsure how to respond.

  “Well, looks like you going to war with that coat. Somebody pissed you off bad. Tell me who and I’ll take care of ’em for you.”

  For a second Midnight thought L-Boogie might mean it, until he laughed. Then Midnight laughed, too, soft like a pot of water on low boil.

  “Where’s your little crew?”

  Midnight shrugged. “We don’t hang like we used to.” That wasn’t exactly true, but maybe it would be.

  L-Boogie rubbed his cheek like he was thinking. “You don’t need trick-ass friends. You need family.”

  Midnight rubbed his arms. It was still chilly out and he needed his coat, but it floated in a puddle at his feet. L-Boogie took off his leather bomber jacket and wrapped it around Midnight’s shoulders. “Put this on. Come on in here and I’ll buy you something to warm you up.”

  They sat across from each other in a booth at Dunkin’ Donuts, one of the few places open on Christmas, and Midnight ran his fingers across the soft black leather of L-Boogie’s coat. He dipped his glazed doughnut hole in his cocoa the way Daddy did with his coffee.

  “Tastes good that way, right?”

  “Yeah. Thank you. This jacket must have cost a lot of money.”

  “Let me teach you about economics, son. Supply and demand. You produce a product that people really want to buy, and they’ll pay top dollar for it. That’s how business works. I’m a businessman. That’s how I afford to have nice things.” He rolled his tongue over his teeth and made a sucking sound with his lips. “Let me tell you another thing. I don’t go into business with just anybody. Got to be family. You remember Bo? You met him.”

  Midnight nodded. “You’re related to Bo? You all don’t look alike,” he said, thinking of his baby sister, wondering if she would have had sandy hair and blue eyes like he did.

  “Closer than blood. We not into that funny shit, now, but we cool. Like brothers. I didn’t have my father around when I was growing up. Don’t even know that nigga’s name.”

  L-Boogie gave Midnight a serious look and leaned across the table.

  “Don’t get no ideas now about repeating that word, though. You hear?”

  Daddy had used that word before, when he talked about Eli Tuttle getting better shifts at the plant. But he’d said it different, the way it came out of his mouth wasn’t the same, and Midnight knew it was a bad word. Granny flipped off the radio in the car whenever a song with that word came on. He didn’t understand why, but every time he heard the word, his blood curdled like milk left outside in the heat.

  When Midnight realized L-Boogie was waiting for an answer, he said, “I hear you.”

  L-Boogie pulled out his cell phone, swiped his left thumb across the screen, and stopped on a picture of a kid in a wheelchair, a boy with a round face and no neck holding a bright orange balloon that said Get Well Soon. In the photo, nurses bent over and stooped to his level, smiling for the camera, but the boy stared blankly.

  “That’s my cousin Duron right there. He’s a poet now. I put some of his rhymes to music and he might get a record deal. Anyway, some dude busted a cap in him six years ago. Shot me, too.” L-Boogie raised his shirt to show a thick, ropy scar on his belly.

  “Duron can’t feel a thing below his waist.”

  Midnight touched his own arm and thought about the nerve damage and how it could be permanent.

  L-Boogie continued: “When Bo heard about it, he helped our family pay for some of the operations and went in with me to buy him this chair. My auntie didn’t have to come out of her pocket for nothing. Bo knew she didn’t have the money and he stepped up as a man. He’s like a brother to me.”

  He reared back in the booth, stretched one arm across the back of the seat, and took a slow sip of coffee, making a slurping sound. “Looks like you could use some real brothers, too.”

  L-Boogie’s mouth was on the cup, but his eyes stayed on Midnight, and it was like he was silently telling him something important. As if he knew things about the world Midnight couldn’t possibly know. Midnight studied L-Boogie, trying to figure out what he meant without coming out and asking him. Some things he knew for sure. No one in Ganton wanted him around unless they could use him. Tolerating him just to have someone to be the butt of their jokes. Being nice to get information. Midnight had never wanted a baby sister until he almost had one. And he had never wanted a big brother until he figured L-Boogie was offering to be one.

  “You feel me?” L-Boogie asked.

  A doughnut hole bobbed in Midnight’s hot chocolate and he swirled it around with his tongue and nodded. “I feel you.”

  Thirty

  Ruth

  The Sunday after Christmas, Ruth walked up the stairs to Friendship Baptist Church and heard a strident chord from the organ echoing from the windows, the melody as familiar to Ruth as an old nursery rhyme, but still slightly out of memory’s reach. Red poinsettias lined the entrance to the church. Two Black women in stark white suits and white pillbox hats stood stiffly, like dance club bouncers, holding programs in their white-gloved hands, all puffed up with false power. They frowned when Ruth approached.

  She ran through a mental checklist:

  She’d showered that morning.

  Her hair was freshly flat-ironed.

  She’d popped a spearmint Altoid in the car.

  She’d stomped the brown slush from her boots before entering.

  Neither of the women looked familiar, which wasn’t unusual since she hadn’t been back here since her wedding. Their eyes traveled the length of her body, but they said nothing.

  “Good morning,” Ruth said, and reached for one of the programs.

  “Every morning the Lord gives us is good,” one of the women corrected her, smiling, but showing no teeth.

  The church filled quickly, and within minutes Natasha appeared by Ruth’s side, holding Camila by the hand.

  “Your hair’s looking fly, girl. Who did it?” Natasha laughed at her own shameless plug and attempt at humor. She’d flat-ironed Ruth’s hair for the service so that Mama couldn’t complain that her granddaughter had scared away the saints and even the sinners.

  “You are a magician, but I’m going back to my natural style as soon as service is over,” Ruth said, taking in the congregants, most of whom were dressed in their Sunday best and likely still rocking relaxers.

  This church had raised her, and she remembered sitting in Mama’s lap in the choir stand and waiting long after service was over for Papa to be done taking care of deacon business.

  Keisha was to be baptized today, so many in her family sat in reserved seats up front. The girl stood by one of the front pews in a long white chiffon dress, her arms extended out from her sides while Mama tied a lilac satin bow at her waist. Her thick hair, pulled into a bun, sat high atop her head. Cassie licked her fingers, then smoothed her daughter’s edges.

  Keisha wriggled in her mother’s grasp, tripping over the h
em of her dress, squirming to free herself from the pageantry of her baptism. Sitting on the pew, Teddy and Troy reminded Ruth of a young Eli, fidgeting in their suits, tugging at itchy shirt collars, and kicking the back of the seat in front of them.

  Ruth was dressed in her Tahari charcoal pantsuit, which she often wore to client meetings. Elegant and classic. She thought it would be perfect for church, but now, glancing from Mama and Cassie to other women in the church, Ruth noticed they all wore skirts or dresses, most with hems at the knee or below. That must have been why the ushers had given her the evil eye. Since she hadn’t set foot in this sanctuary for years, she’d forgotten its customs, its rules for how to be a proper lady in the world and in God’s house.

  A man slightly bowed in a brown suit walked over. Dino. “It’s g-good to see you,” he said, and Ruth nodded.

  Natasha piped up. “I hear you and Mrs. Tuttle are thinking about a little getaway to Chicago. I love seeing older people still being active.”

  Dino’s face reddened and Ruth jabbed her friend’s ribs, immediately regretting that she’d confided that piece of gossip.

  The organ’s melody floated through the sanctuary and Ruth looked once again to Mama, on the second row with Cassie and the kids, and then back at Dino, who still seemed flustered. Pulling him to the side and away from Natasha, she said, “Thank you for taking care of Mama for me.”

  The lines between Dino’s brows smoothed and water floated in his yellowed eyes. Not wanting to embarrass him further, she patted his shoulder and walked away. As Ruth moved down the aisle toward the front of the church, she heard her name shouted loud enough to be heard over the praise and worship music. “Mrs. Ruth Tuttle Shaw.”

  Before turning around, she recognized that voice and the familiar title he had used to introduce their union the day he married her and Xavier.

  “Good morning, Pastor.” When Ruth hugged him, her arms got tangled in his billowing purple robe. Neither of them mentioned his visit to the Tuttle home and the way she had unceremoniously escorted him out.

  “It’s mighty good to see you,” Pastor Bumpus said, holding her hands in his. “I know how mightily the Lord has blessed you and your husband. Xavier, a marketing executive. And you, an engineer.” The pastor paused to smile and shake his head slightly in awe at the word engineer. “Oh, what a mighty God we serve.”

  Most late-night comedy shows had a hype man to warm up the crowd before the main event. Pastor Bumpus was his own hype man, or if you heard him tell it, he’d probably say he was a front man for Jesus himself. Ruth recognized the signs. The minister was getting her ginned up for something.

  “You know God is testing Ganton and the whole country with this recession we’re in. Friendship just started a building fund. There are a lot of souls for us to save and we need a bigger house of worship to do it in. We hope you’ll see your way to bless us as God has blessed you.” Pastor reached into his robe and pulled out a donation envelope that he slipped into her hand.

  A chord from the church organ punctuated his ask of her. A church ritual she had forgotten, and she bristled at Pastor’s brazen solicitation for money. Still, she accepted the envelope from him and found her seat next to Natasha, who had chosen a seat on the same row with Mama and the rest of Ruth’s family. As teenagers, the girls always sat next to each other, either stifling laughs or throwing shade at somebody.

  Waiting for the service to begin, Ruth turned in her seat to look at the front door, checking to see whom she might still recognize all these years later. Mother Hayes, who had to be pushing ninety by now, walked in, leaning heavily on a cane. Her hat game had remained impeccable throughout the years and she stunned in a turquoise skirt suit with rhinestones and matching pumps. Mother Hayes had mothered Natasha and many of the girls in the church when they needed a firm hand.

  Looking around the room, Ruth tapped her foot nervously. Natasha had said the Cunninghams never missed Sunday service, and Ruth was anxious to see them. It’s why she wore eye makeup, and truth be told, it was the real reason she had let Natasha style her hair.

  In the vestibule, Ruth spotted a white man talking animatedly with Pastor Bumpus. This was odd because, as far as she was aware, everyone knew that eleven o’clock on Sunday morning was the most segregated hour in America. That especially held true at Friendship Baptist, the oldest all-Black congregation in Ganton.

  The man looked vaguely familiar—sixtyish, with a narrow, sunken face—but he didn’t have that hungry look of politicians who swarmed Black churches at election time.

  She elbowed Natasha. “Hey, check out that white guy talking to Pastor. Do you know him?”

  Her friend turned in her seat. Squinting to get a better look, she said, “Hmm. That guy has been popping up here the past few months. I don’t know what his deal is, but you know Ganton’s growing now. All kinds of developers come by the church trying to get Pastor to sell so they can build town houses and shopping centers.”

  In Ganton, they knew your name at the hardware store and the butcher shop. Neighbors came over to check on you if they hadn’t seen your curtains move in a couple days. While Ruth hadn’t lived here in more than a decade, she couldn’t imagine somebody bulldozing it beyond recognition. Some storefronts had gone out of business a long time ago, leaving patches of vacant land as reminders. But even the ghost of what Ganton used to be felt enough like home that Ruth couldn’t fathom not preserving it.

  The service began and Pastor Bumpus took the pulpit, preaching about second chances, something Ruth prayed for when she remembered to pray. God extended His generosity to many in biblical times, and Pastor listed one by one the names of sinners, those redeemed and the ones the Almighty Himself might have determined irredeemable.

  “Adam and Eve believed the lies of a snake. Rahab prostituted herself. David committed adultery. Reuben slept with his father’s concubine. Solomon had a sex addiction. And Moses murdered a man.”

  With each example, Pastor’s voice rose and so did the people, leaping to their feet to applaud and shout amen and glory and hallelujah. They did what Ruth couldn’t always manage to do in her measured, analytical life; they gave themselves over to something more powerful than themselves.

  While everyone closed their eyes and bowed their heads in prayer, she looked around again, scanning the congregants for Corey. The room was nearly full, but she couldn’t see any boys who looked like the one she’d seen playing with Midnight that day at the rec center. Sweeping her gaze back the other way, her eyes landed on that same white man she’d seen earlier with the pastor, his arms folded, frowning. Their eyes met and she looked away, embarrassed that she’d been staring. He wasn’t one of her old teachers, so where did she know him from?

  Keisha joined three other children and five adults at the baptismal font, each wearing long white robes, their heads cocooned in white turbans. As the organist pounded the keys to “Take Me to the Water to Be Baptized,” Ruth saw Eli rush up the aisle, his eyes wide and expectant. He was late, but at least he showed up for his daughter.

  Suddenly, it came to her how she recognized the man. It was from the photo in the Indianapolis Star. Stanley DeAngelo, the shady lawyer who got out of prison last year. When she turned to look at the pew where he’d been sitting, he was gone. Had she imagined it? No, she had seen him, she was sure of it.

  While the congregation sang, Ruth nudged Natasha. Under her breath, she said, “That man I saw earlier talking to Pastor was Stanley DeAngelo.”

  “What? How do you know it’s him?”

  Surreptitiously, she dug in her purse for her cell. Being an old-school church, Friendship Baptist didn’t allow the use of phones during service. Hiding it in her bag, she quickly did a search and found the article about DeAngelo’s arrest. When his photo finally loaded, she leaned over to Natasha and said, “I knew it. That’s definitely him.”

  Why had this convicted felon shown up here? What had he been discussing with her old pastor? Her mind raced, and a memory surfaced of Mam
a saying she’d taken the baby to Jesus. Had she brought Corey to Pastor Bumpus?

  The Cunninghams’ absence from church began to make sense. They likely knew she’d be here today with her family. Maybe Pastor tipped them off that she was in town.

  After performing the marriage ceremony for her and Xavier, Pastor Bumpus had encouraged them to start a family. It was entirely possible he’d always known the truth about her son. She’d never suspected, but she hadn’t been looking, either. He had a history of coloring outside the lines, making legally questionable decisions for what he considered good reasons, like the funding of the recreation center. Dozens of church members had left the congregation after he’d mishandled their donations.

  A hush fell over the sanctuary and she forced herself to focus on her niece gingerly descending the steps to stand in the water. Pastor held a white handkerchief over Keisha’s nose and mouth and then dipped her in the baptismal pool. The congregation’s singing and clapping drowned out Keisha’s sputtering cries. Mama threw her head back and lifted her hands in praise. “Thank you, Jesus,” she murmured.

  The immersion in water, the cleansing of one’s soul, meant you were burying your old life, with all its malevolence and mistakes, to rise into something new, something better. As much as Ruth wanted to believe that better days lay ahead, she left church more confused than convicted.

  Thirty-One

  Ruth

  Back at the house, she took off her suit and wriggled out of her bra and pantyhose, needing her body and spirit to be lighter, unrestrained. In the bathroom, she stuck her head under the faucet and let the water fall over her freshly flat-ironed hair until each strand shrank back into its natural state.

  She took out her phone and began composing a text message to Xavier. You won’t believe what just happened at church. I saw this crooked lawyer who may have worked with Mama on Corey’s adoption. I think Pastor’s in on it, too. Her thumb hovered over the button to send it, and her held breath felt hot in her throat as she imagined Xavier reading it.