Chicago Noir

by Neal Pollack

  Mount Calvary Missionary Baptist has sat just west of 77th and Jeffery Boulevard since the real Jews first let dark folks on these blocks fifty years back. Deep Down wanderers brought the Mount with them from Mobile County, Alabama, or some such burning place, so this is really Mount Calvary Second Baptist, too many words to get in before crooning an alleluia and interrupting the mission. The church used to be a rickety wood frame worship-shack blending in perfect with the houses leaned sideways by lake wind, siding smudged orange-brown by the burn of the wicked city's July sun, same as the Rothschild Liquor store across from the church parking lot. That old mud-weed lot where the Cadillac hearses parked whenever one of the Section C heads who sit under haberdashery and Easter brims passed on from this world to that better place prepared for them in the Kingdom.

  But that old Deep Tuscaloosa–style shack didn't shine sufficient for the Good News. So Reverend sent me to the alderwoman's main ward office in the old Gold Medallion cab, carrying five large from Calvary's tithe right after Mayor Harold died. Handed the flock loot over to that elected bag lady in exchange for imminent domain over half the row of homes just east of Jeffery, and the mudweed lot too. City crashed down them shacks that used to line 77th long before they swore in Gomorrah's new king. Then the church board started passing around a second collection pot on the second and fourth Sundays. They called it "the building reserve special blessing fund."

  "Give what you can, Church," Reverend told the flock then. "Know times is rough for folk round here right round now, but sacrifice is remembered eternal—and remember, you sacrificing for the One who gave the greatest sacrifice, who made that path into Glory with His own blood. If you can't give to build up a new place for celebrating Him, there's still gon be a place for you on the Path, Church. I promise it. Still gon be a place for you in His new house. Somebody say amen. "

  Before hardhats started pouring foundation to the new temple, Reverend had to payout six weeks worth of bingo proceeds to the bag lady, just so she'd change the title to this block of 77th Street into his name. Original paperwork claimed the Lord, or the Mount itself, or the flock, as the new church land's owner. "Naw, that ain't right," Reverend moaned back then. "All deeds got a price, Moral." Then he pointed me toward the bags of bingo gold, and watched as I piled them into my cab's trunk.

  So the Church got to building its shining palace on the north side of 77th Street, foundation laid by the sacrifice of the flock, bricks stacked by the real big-time loot kicked back from D.C. in '93, after the reverend sent us around in the bingo vans and the hearse to collect all the living and dead souls, bring them on back to the rickety old shack to cast rightful vote for our good brother, slick

  Willie C. That honorary deacon on the Mount never would have sat on his high throne not for the tireless work we put in here in the city, and the new church never could've afforded its masonry not for the deacon's big payback.

  Like the reverend say, "Rejoice and be exceedingly glad: for great is our reward in the Kingdom. That's from the Good News, Church." No trouble understanding that sermon, not even in my dwarf ears.

  Today the wood pews in the Mount shine with fine finish, and you can't hear the high heels clicking as the Section C women prance about the vestibule cause this plush red carpet stretches front door to black angel choir bandstand to swallow the sharpest points. Drywall towers above us, spackled to match the floor, with stereo speakers built behind and up into the ceilings, too, so no matter whether you're sitting in row J on the second balcony or downstairs in the toilet stall, you hear his sermon in surround sound. My sweet Lord Jesus, don't forget those holy shining basement bowls below the Mount, porcelain from Taiwan with the automatic power flush, and the perfume shooting from vents as stall doors open and close. Just enough mist let loose so you never smell your own shit, no matter gaping nose holes.

  Even if you arrive late to the 11:30 and find the Mount packed through to the balconies with blue-black city souls, and you end up sitting in the last row of main floor pews— even then, you still see the reverend's pockmarked skin turn orange as he spews the Good News in front of a thousand furs and brims and palms and heels stomping. Last summer, Reverend had me install this camera here over the back row, lens set to beam him to the four movie screens at each corner of the service. Lens don't leave the podium until Reverend Jack's calligraphy-mustached grill crackles from his microphone as he dances one of his glory circles and drops the main point. I strung the camera chord up to stretch past the Mount's balconies and the rafters, just like he told me, and now this wire carries the sermon and the sight of its pinstriped deliverer out for broadcast someplace way beyond the flock.

  "What we doing on this good day here on Mount Calvary?"

  "Celebratin'! "

  "All right then, y'all hearing me. Only one thing that word could mean after how I just told it to you—'I celebrate man.' You celebrating the Lord God sending His One Son in man form just to sacrifice that human life so that the souls of we men would be forever saved. If you bring manifest, Church, then you celebrating the Good News. See how warm that makes you, just saying it. I know it makes me warm. Say it with me together, Church, and feel the shower of His Glory. Celebrate the Good News … Celebrate the Good News …"

  "Celebrate the Good News! "

  "Well all right then, Church. You been hearing about this fellow Teddy Mann all about the streets, ain't you? If you ain't heard, Church, then best time you listened in close. You come in here on Sunday morning and you feel sanctified bout the way of your souls, sacrificing your time for the One—"

  "Amen," the church sister squeals short-throated on her cane.

  "Yes siree, Reverend—" the drummer boy in his clean green fatigues answers before he two-stick slaps his cymbals.

  "Amen," some Low End woman in the first balcony says before stomping square heels together.

  "Sing his name on high now, Church. But the minute you step back outside them oak church doors, we ain't on the Mount no more. You back in the world, Church, and it ain't so warm. Not with that icy wind whipping up from the concrete. Even your Mah-shall Fields wool ain't fine enough to keep you covered out there. Ain't nobody praying to Him at the liquor store counter, no sweet virgin voices humming hymns by the lotto machine. Ain't no Good Book studying in the battlefield, out there as one man spills his brother's blood over the wages of sin, Church. No Reverend Jack preaching the Word over the rivers of pain and lakes of broken glass. Them folk don't even know the Good Lord out there in the concrete world, do they, Church?"

  "No sir," Deacon Nate responds. "They don't even know."

  "Or maybe they got the facts all switched up. Cause out there, I hear children who look just like your good children talking about Teddy Mann like he himself is the Lord God Almighty. Say Teddy be making rainwater fall out the sky; Teddy, he feeds us with the warmth of his crack glory. He brings smiles to faces flush of ashy worry and worn wrinkles. Teddy do so it, cause he's the king of 79th Street, that concrete path. Folk swear they see him walking on top of the pond down by the Highlands. Strutting with the ducks just before he goes and turns that same water into wine, multiplies the fishes and loaves, cures the leper, and raises the dead. Breaks my heart to hear folk talking like so, Church, but I go on and listen to them desecrate and blaspheme Jesus' holy name. These are my people, even when they lost in their confusion. I know this place, don't I, Church?"

  "Amen! "

  All the flock, they did say alleluia-amen together, as Lucifer is a black angel fallen down from the choir, never the church board folk in Section C.

  The Calvary ushers appear at the service hall's front door with their fake gold sashes draping right shoulder to left hip. "Mount Calvary Missionary" is scripted in sparkling letters along the diagonal of their chests, and they cradle collection pots between stomachs and clasped hands. Ushers always start with the back row. Such is the price for coming late to the 11:30. So I reach into my left pocket, palm brushing against the Good News just slightly, but fin
d nothing save for lint and receipts from my weekend fares. The church sister on her cane stands and stares at me crooked-eyed, no matter that it was me who carted her to the Mount. Because of her, I was late this morning.

  I left all my spare cash locked in the yellow cab's glove compartment, parked out in the new paved lot. Been leaving cash locked up since I accidentally dropped a hundred spot into the pot; that c-note earned carrying the serpent Teddy Mann from Cornell Avenue all the way out to O'Hare to catch his red-eye to the islands one Sunday morning. Tried to explain it to the usher, that longtime fellow flock member, how I'd made a mistake that good Sunday, tried to get my tip back from him. Missionary sash-wearing muthafucka just looked at me crooked-eyed as the church lady on her walking stick and strutted on to row twenty-four to continue collection rounds.

  Ain't got nothing for them on this good day then, nothing but my Good News message. So I climb over the legs of the other late folk and dash for the service's corner door, holding onto my crotch like I've gotta go bad. Old church sister still stares at me though, I see her, and so does the reverend in the fourth corner movie screen, gray-black eyes beaming down. But I do make it to the red carpet stairs, and I let go of myself only as I touch the banister. I walk up along the thick fiber instead of down to the basement toilet. Got plenty of time before the collectors make it up top. Takes them twenty minutes to finish rounding up the fellowship loot from Section C. Don't feel or hear a damn thing as I step into the blackness separating staircase from square stomp in the Payless balcony aisles. Nothing except for this Good News rubbing steel against my side and the reverend panting heavy into his podium mic.

  Teddy Mann's got the finest honey mamma ever seen on the Mount. Kind so fine you want to call her "mamma" just so you can go on pretending like you remember sliding headfirst from her in the beginning. And maybe you would've held on to that joy somewhere had you been the one so blessed; sure know if you were born from between there, Church, you wouldn't need Reverend Jack to tell you a thing about Galilee.

  Honey mamma looks to be some righteous mix of Humboldt Park Spaniard, Howard Street Jamaican rum, Magnificent Mile skyrising, and 95th Street sanctifying. Got slanted eyes, cold as Eskimo soles, and a fish-hook nose. Not a beak hook like mine, no, hers is curved upwards just so funk's gotta climb to seep into her. Her skin's the same color sand used to be on top of Rainbow Beach when I was little, but clean sand—only thing that shows against her smooth face is the peach fuzz barely sprouting from her pores. You only notice it if you're blessed enough to catch yourself daring to stare her way; of course, you're only so brave because Teddy Mann's never to be found in these balcony pews.

  Her smile is just slightly yellowed from all the sugar breathed from bubblegum lips. She's tall, not so tall to cast shadow over that sly serpent Teddy; but she stands high and regal like the queens who ruled history's pale make-believe lands. So fine and upright that when honey mamma reaches down to tap your shoulder, you know you're a hero just short of the gods in heaven.

  Teddy must have claimed honey mamma after he turned to evildoing. Serpent served some 26th and California time after he first started playing with that dope—Burglary, Assault with Intent, some desperate something—and hooked up with the old-time concrete kings from Blackstone Avenue behind those bars. Vestibule says after his bid, Teddy returned to 79th Street and proved his soul in flowing blood and cash rolls, and before long the kings turned Sodom, Gomorrah, old Babylon Lounge off Stony Island, and the Zanzibar on the Isle, over to him. Almost twenty years later, he's still the king with all the paper ends and crooked angles covered. Must be the game that won her over, that same street player's game that lets the congregation know sly Teddy is the king on Reverend's sin throne this third Sunday.

  There his honey mamma goes, celebrating in Row D first balcony. The sweet mother of Jesus, halfway smiling in that faded yellow gleam, halfway smiling and halfway weeping, sharp bones jabbing through hands patted together soft in Reverend Jack's pauses. Purple shame just now fades from her cheeks and these slant eyes cut into slices so her pupils hide from the good day sermon. Reverend just told the Mount all about her man, like they ain't already heard the concrete tales. Yet honey mamma's still gotta go through these sermon motions. She may have lost Paradise and fallen down from the Mount, taken by Teddy Mann's sly way, but the fact that she's here seeking to celebrate His Good News only goes to prove Reverend Jack's main point about the iniquity of that black serpent, evildoing Satan.

  Teddy told me this story about his lady while we rode out north to O'Hare. Her name is Eva, with the "a" from the reverend's "feast" tacked on for the sake of the celebration. Back in the beginning of their thing, baritone Deacon Nate, who was Teddy's cousin just up from Mississippi, long before he came about his saved seat in Row Two, he arrived in concrete Gomorrah and tried to convince the serpent how this heifer couldn't be about nothing special, how she'd bring him down from his throne like all them other fake-ass mixed-nut tricks be doing a nigga trying to get his money right. Spewing hatred's spittle, that's how Deacon Nate talked before he came to know Jesus.

  Or maybe Nate was such a hater until Teddy took him for a ride along 79th Street in the purple custom Jaguar. They kept riding the strip until they found Eva, then they rolled half a block behind, following her sweet strides. The Jag's passenger seat and Teddy's cousin's Mississippi gabardines were all wet with shame, and Nate was babbling off at the mouth in baritone tongues as the light turned red at King Drive, praising the glory of His name and the wonder of His deeds. Then he begged the serpent for explanation.

  "That's what this life in the game is all about, brother … What's your name?" Teddy's black eyes reached over the cab's sliding glass protector, burned into my dashboard ID card. "Moral? Hah. That's a good black man's name. That's what I tried to tell my bumblefuckin cousin sitting there all stiff-nutted staring at my lady; a black man goes and gets into this game, right, and sets himself up proper, I told the fool. Get hold of as much knowledge here, as much cash as a nigga can on this earth. Not cause being a smart nigga means a goddamn thing, Moral, or cause calling your black ass rich is worth shit in the end. Black man follows the path to treasure so he can get himself something beautiful in this life. Get him something so fine he knows he's alive cause his limbs is stirring with fresh blood. So fine, he believes there's a god somewhere, one who is good cause he gives life this purpose. A true god, not this quarter-wit bullshit they got ill pimps like Reverend Jack preaching up high on the Mount about, that bastard. Him and his cockamamie god standing on high with the kings, getting paid off lost souls. Ain't talking about no lie to make niggas feel good about the chitlins down deep in their guts and the stupidity sky high in their minds; a true and real god who creates sweet, beautiful things for human beings. That god leaves you humble with his mighty eye for making beauty, humble but proud at the same time to be alive. Can't help humble pride walking down 79th Street next to a living creation that fine, brother. Hear me? You gotta get that god knowledge so you grasp how to appreciate it. Gotta get that man's paper so you can afford her, cause the god rule say she costs. That's all we're in this cockamamie quarter-assed game for, Moral. Told my cousin this as he sat next to me—know what that buzzard went and did right afterwards? Country fuck went and got religion on the Mount with the pimp. Deacon's nuts ain't got stiff since. Punk-ass plantation retard. But you hear what I'm saying to you, don't you, Moral?"

  "I hear you."

  Sly Teddy reached his hairy black hand through the protection shield and dropped that Ben Franklin note into my lap, then he used the orange palm to slick down goatee waves on either side of his lips. He stared into the cab's rearview mirror all the while, checking me for doubt, fear, or worship, burning into these rot holes in search of my soul. But there wasn't no rhyme or revolution in me that good Sunday morning, Church. I wasn't but a gypsy cabbie, sore eyes running off into the Good Lord's purple sunrise.

  Serpent squeezed my shoulder blade just a bit before pointing shap
ed nails at the fare meter: $48.50, the red bulbs blinked. I dug down in my pockets for change to return to him, without glancing in the rearview.

  "Ain't got nothing smaller?" I asked. But before I could look up, he'd patted me on the left shoulder and propped open his back door as a United jet roared over my "For Hire" sign—couldn't even shake the serpent's hand cause I was busy unraveling the torn dollar bills from my pockets.

  "What a friend we have in Jesus, hey Moral?" Teddy crooned in funky gospel rhythm as his steppers tapped against O'Hare's tar street. "You take it slow and easy and keep your eyes peeled ahead on that path riding home, will you?"

  Sly serpent left the rest of his message in my backseat. Not another c-note, no, that there lump sitting snug up under the Saturday edition of the Chicago Tribune Metro section (y'all know sly Teddy's bout the only soul you'll still see round here reading the Trib, Church). I brushed the thin paper sheets to the floor, and there was his black steel, same one he wears underneath the flaps of his snakeskin leather as he slithers about the city, a cold killer .357 piece, chromed to shine in its camel pouch. Tried to call out the window to let him know he left it, I did, but that driver's-side glass wouldn't roll down. Swear, Church.

  Been riding round the Mount three weeks now with this message and its thick holster right next to the spare cash in my glove compartment. The Metro section, I threw that away long before making it back to 79th Street for Reverend Jack's early service.