Blood and Oranges

by James O. Goldsborough

  “I don’t think of God’s work as a business, as you put it, though I agree that we take care of people in different ways. I hope you’re not asking me to condone illegal gambling just because you’re involved in it.”

  “How can you call it illegal? What law are we breaking? Who is arresting us? We are law-abiding citizens, just as you are.”

  Willie raised his hand. “No sophistry, please. Gambling is gambling whether on shore, three miles out or in the middle of the ocean. It is a nonproductive enterprise, a biblical evil that preys on the little man who has better things to do. I shall continue to denounce it—without mentioning you, of course. I respect your wish to remain a silent partner.”

  Rising, Eddie walked to the front window and looked out on the parking lot. Callender was leaning against the Cadillac having a smoke. Spying Eddie, he quickly turned away. Eddie’s skin prickled. “Which is exactly why you must keep this discussion private—even from your righthand man.” He turned on Willie, anger in his voice. “Why did you bring him here?”

  “I thought it might do you both some good.”

  “Salt in the wounds, Willie, salt in the wounds.”

  Willie thought of Lot’s wife, turned into a pillar of salt. “I have no intention of discussing this with anyone, including Henry. Why did you invite me here, Eddie? Something about a business proposition, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, yes.” he cried, crossing to a cabinet behind his desk and extracting a large mahogany box. He set the box on the desk facing his brother.

  “Have a look.”

  A brass plaque was inlaid above a large slot in the box, large enough for an envelope:

  JUST A FEW DOLLARS OF YOUR WINNINGS WILL FEED AND HOUSE A POOR FAMILY FOR A WEEK

  “Alms boxes, Willie, placed throughout the ship, along with envelopes. That’s why I want you to come out and meet people, talk to them, have a look around. Our clients will be invited to share their winnings with the less fortunate, and I have no doubt that they will be generous. Money from these boxes will be distributed to churches across the city. As much of it as you need will be sent to the temple. Just let me know.”

  Willie stared at the box as though a snake might crawl from the slot. “Surely you don’t think you can . . .”

  “Stop! I know what you’re going to say, and you couldn’t be more off base. I hold the temple’s mortgage, remember. I’d like to pay it off some day. A little more money in the coffers is not such a bad idea.”

  “Pay off the mortgage with alms from gamblers? Surely you’re joking.”

  “You know me better than that, Willie. When money’s involved, I never joke.”

  Chapter 11

  Willie knew little about Angie, which was just as well. She never told him more than that she was from Texas, and that her father, like Willie, was a preacher. They’d had coffee a few times after rehearsals, but with other cast members. He knew she lived somewhere in Glendale, somewhere near Tony’s soda shop because she said she could walk to work. Though thinking about it constantly, he’d not dared invite her on a date, much less to Sunset Towers. The girl was cautious, but also a flirt, and he was powerfully tempted. At times he thought himself a fool for having feelings for her and, worse, imputing feelings to her for him. He admonished himself that if he did not act the fool no one would know. It was a dilemma, one he was helped out of, once again, by Henry Callender.

  Callender brought him a clipping from the Times, an item about an unmarried girl who’d sought an abortion and died under the scalpel, murdered really, along with the fetus. The Los Angeles police caught the man, who was no doctor, and were looking for women to testify against him. The clipping had been sent in along with an unsigned note, short and to the point:

  “Rev. Mull. How can you tolerate such activities?”

  “A natural for you, Reverend,” Callender said, “ and for the young lady.”

  “Angie?”

  “I could write the script myself.”

  “You can write?”

  “I could give it a try.”

  They had to knock down a door and a wall to get Willie’s Chevy roadster on stage for the show. All week long, a banner announcing “Taking a Ride” flapped from poles on the roof of the temple, visible from Echo Lake to downtown and to the thousands who passed each day on the trolleys running along the boulevards, Sunset and Glendale. Willie usually wrote the Sunday scripts himself, but this was a collaborative effort. He was impressed by what Callender had done, but needed to touch up the ending, give it the drama he wanted.

  A few days before the show, Willie spoke of it on his KWEM radio broadcast:

  I’m speaking to all women who might be listening, but especially to young women who have left families in the East and Midwest to come to our fine city but still don’t feel quite at home. “Taking a Ride” is a story for you, a story that can change your life. Don’t be disappointed. Come to the temple early to be sure you find a seat. If you can’t make it in person, be sure to tune into KWEM, 1020 on the dial, 7:00 p.m., this Sunday.

  By five o’clock, thousands were swarming the temple, slowing trolleys on Glendale and Sunset to a crawl. At 5:30, the temple doors opened and ushers began helping five thousand fortunate people to their seats while hymns from the choir rolled through the building. At 6 p.m., the Rev. Marcus Wynetski, associate pastor, led the congregation in hymns and prayer, and at 6:45 deacons passed with the gilded plates. At 7 p.m. sharp, lights dimmed and the red stage light went on. A portly, silver-haired network announcer entered from the wings, embracing a large, diaphanous circle microphone:

  “From the Temple of the Angels in the City of the Angels,” he intoned in his liquid bass, “welcome to Sunday evening with the Reverend Willie Mull—proudly sponsored by Lux soap flakes, which won’t turn silks yellow.”

  Willie, wearing his black clergy stole, stepped to the microphone. “Wherever you may be around this great nation of ours, I welcome you to the Temple of the Angels. Buckle up: Tonight we’re going to be—‘TAKING A RIDE!’”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The curtain goes up on a stage plunged into darkness. A spotlight snaps on. On center stage sits Willie’s Chevy roadster, top down, white sidewalls shining, waxed and buffed blue metal gleaming under the spotlight. Dressed in a pleated white flapper skirt trimmed in cardinal and a white sweater with a large gold “C” across her handsome chest, Angie l’Amoureux runs on stage followed by a young man in slacks and sweater of identical colors.

  “Jenny and Pete are going to a football game at the new Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum,” Willie narrates from side stage. “They’re admiring Pete’s new Chevy roadster, and talking about the glorious day ahead. No classes, no studies, no homework. It’s Saturday, the day of THE BIG GAME! They climb in, Pete starts it up and they begin their drive across the city, top down, heading for the coliseum and the big game. Look there! Pete has produced a flask and passed it to Jenny. I wonder what’s in it.”

  Nervous laughter peals through the building. A movie rolls in the background as Willie describes the scene. The audience sees familiar city landmarks as the car crosses town—Westwood Tower, May Company, Daily News building, city hall, Washington Park where the Los Angeles Angels play baseball, USC campus.

  “And suddenly, there it is,” cries Willie, “Los Angeles’s own coliseum, the city’s new pride and glory, seating seventy-six thousand. The largest stadium west of the Mississippi!”

  Willie paints the scene: cars, buses and trolleys arriving from everywhere; people streaming down Figueroa and across Exposition Park from the USC campus carrying bags, hampers, blankets. Bands play as people climb to their seats, cheerleaders bark instructions, the crowd cheers, the teams enter the field from under the stadium. Henry Callender has made a recording of all the sounds, which boom out over the radio waves.

  The curtain falls so the stage crew can change the scenery. The anno
uncer comes out during the changeover, this time bearing the blue Lux box with the big red dot. He holds the box high so the congregation can see it: “Lux soap flakes,” he cries into the microphone. “Keep undies lovely up to three times as long.”

  The curtain rises and sounds of the game fill the temple from a dozen loudspeakers. Jenny and Pete are in the stands with their friends. Flasks are passed. Willie describes the game, the crowd, the drinking, the action. The temple remains hushed, no one knowing where he is going with the theme, taking a ride. Surely he has in mind more than another sermon against alcohol. Or does he? “These young people are drinking in public,” he says. “What do we read in Proverbs 23:21? ‘The drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty.’”

  Suddenly, he stops. The sounds of the game fade away. Silence.

  “When the game is over,” he intones, his resonant preacher’s voice dropped to a lower pitch, “Pete wants to take a drive. With night falling, he decides to head up into the foothills that surround our beautiful city. He wants Jenny to have a good view of the city at night.” The film background starts rolling again.

  “And that’s not all Pete wants.”

  Deathly silence in the temple. A single spotlight illuminates the parked roadster, lights twinkling in the background.

  “And now, my friends,” whispers Willie, “what does Jenny do? She’s a little tight, maybe even a little drunk. She’s not a big girl. It doesn’t take much.” He pauses, thinking of Angie, his mind drifting. “Like so many of us, Jenny is new to Los Angeles. She is a good girl. She is a church-going girl. She is a Christian girl. JENNY IS A VIRGIN! She knows that sex outside marriage is a sin. She’s come to Los Angeles from Pennsylvania or Kansas or Texas, and she knows—at least knows when she is sober, that one mistake can put her life in danger, physically, morally, that one mistake can ruin her, that one mistake can KILL her!

  “WHAT DOES JENNY DO?” he shouts.

  Not a sound is heard. The vast building, every seat filled, is as if empty.

  “Look at the car—think of that car, my friends. The car has three forward gears. Jenny and Pete are in first gear. They are kissing. Now ask yourself this: What about Pete? Is Pete a lowlife, a louse who would willingly take advantage of this tipsy girl? Of course, he isn’t. Pete is a good boy, a college boy, a decent fellow who would never set out to ruin a girl’s life.”

  Willie’s voice falls lower. “But Pete is tipsy, too. Pete wants to go faster, to put the car in second gear.”

  From the rear of the temple comes a loud shout of “NO!” called out by a member of the staff. Quickly it echoes around the temple—“NO! NO! NO!”

  “But, YES! YES! YES! my friends,” shouts Willie back at them. “Pete wants to shift gears. Look, he is moving his hands onto Jenny’s body, moving them places they shouldn’t be, to private places under her clothes, warm places. Pete knows about cars. After first gear comes second. He is shifting gears, giving in to—TEMPTATION!”

  This time the shouts from the audience are spontaneous. “NO! NO! NO!”

  “What does Jenny do? She pushes his hands away, but they come back. She pushes again, and they come back again. The third time, she doesn’t push. She’s a little tipsy, a little tired—and yes, a little aroused. Clothes are unbuttoned and removed. Pete will say later that he’s not responsible for Jenny’s death. The gears in the car became automatic.”

  “Strike him dead, Lord,” someone shouts.

  “RUINATION!” answers Willie.

  The curtain falls.

  More than five hundred people declare themselves for Christ that night and $11,473 is offered to the church in gilded plates. The show has touched a chord with God’s little people, people who have come from across the country to make Los Angeles their new home, people escaping the sin and corruption of the East, people determined to build new and better lives in the new and better place called Los Angeles.

  Letters, many with offerings, pour in praising the Rev. Mull, praising the show and praising Angie l’Amoureux.

  “A lesson for every girl in the country,” the letters say.

  Willie shows Angie the letters.

  “It won’t be long now,” he says.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The next day, at Oildale, outside Bakersfield, a roughneck named Johnny Perkins pauses while driving rivets into a derrick and shouts across the steel framework to a colleague:

  “Hey Gil, I picked up this church broadcast last night. Girl in the cast’s got your same weird last name . . . any relation?”

  Part Two

  Chapter 12

  Cal wasn’t supposed to be there. Sometimes when he was working late at the temple he would spend the night with his father at Sunset Tower, but he always let him know. This time, he hadn’t had the chance. Maggie called to borrow his apartment at the last minute, and when he couldn’t reach Willie he just headed for Sunset. He had his own key. Maggie was engaged to an Army Air Force pilot transferred to Honolulu, and Cal had no trouble vacating his apartment for a day or two when he came back unexpectedly. He didn’t like Harold, though it was nothing personal. Harold had encouraged Maggie to take up flying. She was dangerous enough on the ground, quite frankly, lucky to be alive.

  He was lounging on the couch with a book and a beer when he heard a click in the lock, then voices, one of them female.

  No . . .

  From a distance, he’d seen her before. Sometimes he would walk from the second-floor business office into the upper tiers at the temple to munch a sandwich and watch the noon rehearsals. Full-dress rehearsals meant choir and organist and for a really big show the orchestra would come in. Even from the high tiers, Angie’s shapely, lithe body, even cloaked head-to-toe in immaculate white, stood out. They called her Sister Angie now, and she was doing some preaching. She was the new star. He was on his feet in a second, stupidly smiling, wishing he could instantly evanesce.

  “Oh,” said Willie, flustered, “Cal, I had no idea. You didn’t call . . . “

  As his father blathered away, Cal observed the young woman he’d seen only from on high. Pretty, petite, not much make-up, short brown hair fluffed, dressed in a red and blue checkered cotton blouse and swishy dark skirt. Bare legs. Nothing white to be seen. She was nubile and girlish and devilishly sexy, and Cal did not know what to make of it. His father’s flustering could not erase the hint of a smile on her lips. She is younger than I am, Cal thought. She held his gaze until he looked away. In all his years with his father, he’d never found himself in such a situation.

  “Sorry, Dad,” he said. “Maggie called at the last minute, Harold came in. You’d already left so I figured I’d just come over and—well, I think I’ll be leaving.”

  “Don’t even think of it,” Willie said, improvising. “We’ve got scripts to go over. The guest room is yours. Everything is fine.”

  The guest room was his? Did the girl know that? Scripts? Everything was not fine. With Angie wearing not much in the way of clothes, they’d surely not come home to go over scripts. They could have done that at the temple and in any case, it was nearly eleven and they’d likely already been to dinner. His father’s color suggested wine, but maybe it was embarrassment. Or anticipation. He looked to Angie, who was still watching him. The image of her naked in his father’s bed passed his mind.

  “You two excuse me a minute while I take off my coat and tie. Get to know each other.”

  “Can I get you a beer?” Cal asked.

  She shook her head, moved his book from the couch and sat down. She’d not yet said a word. Was she his father’s girlfriend? Was it possible? He’d had no idea. Chun hua, his Shanghai amah, passed his mind. He seemed to remember them in bed together, though how could he since he was a baby? He’d never thought of that aspect of his father before. He would gladly have sat down next to this fetching girl but couldn’t because she’d come home with his father. He had to ge
t out of there.

  “You sign the checks,” she said, finally breaking her silence, scrutinizing him. “How come we’ve never met?”

  His brain was sending messages to leave, but his body was not reacting. He detected the smell of lilacs. Plumeria? Enchanting.

  “I’m a bookkeeper. I rarely get off the second floor. Sometimes I sit up in the tiers to watch rehearsals. I’ve seen you.”

  “Why don’t you sit down?” She was studying him, noticing the marks on his face. “You don’t look like Willie.”

  He sat in a chair. “They say I look more like my mother. She was blonde, I’m told.”

  “A sad story. You caught the fever.”

  “He’s told you?”

  “Of course.”

  She’d kicked off her shoes and pulled her legs up under her. She was completely composed, not a trace of embarrassment. “Of course,” she’d said. How much had Willie told her? How many times had they been here? Her skin was creamy, not olive like Willie’s, but not light like his own. He wrote Angie l’Amoureux on her checks, but she was Sister Angie in the glass cases outside. French Canadian, maybe. He doubted that she was much over twenty-one.

  “Angie, what can I get you?” Willie said, on his way to the kitchen. In the bedroom he’d fallen to his knees, prayed to Augustine, who alone understood. He desperately wanted to make love to this woman, but why was Cal there? What did it mean?

  “Dad—I’m off.”

  “No, you don’t have . . .”

  He caught himself, nodding, stopping in mid-sentence, as if to say, yes, we both know you have to leave. He’d changed into moccasins and cardigan, feeling better after his prayers. Why shouldn’t Cal know he was in love? He’d think it was a regular affair, though in fact it was the first time Angie had come home with him. He’d been nervous as a debutante about it, and now was calm. Augustine understood that he wasn’t ready. He hadn’t been ready either.