What You Sow

by Wallace Ford

  Standing in the middle of the hallway leading to Gordon’s room was none other than Reverend Quincy Holloway. The same Quincy Holloway who had pretended to carry the stigmata of wounds received at the scene of Martin Luther King’s assassination, that were proven to be false. The same Quincy Holloway who had pretended to rescue a U.S. Army Ranger in the Amazon forest, even though the true story revealed that Reverend Holloway spent his time at a luxury resort in Bahia while the Ranger managed to free himself by virtue of pure serendipity. That Quincy Holloway.

  Improbably, it was Quincy Holloway who stood in the hospital hallway, holding a microphone and getting ready to be interviewed by the camera crew that he had brought with him. It was more than amazing that he was there, at New York Hospital, at three o’clock in the morning. It was absolutely unbelievable. But there he was, and Kenitra and I stopped in our tracks at the sight of the five-foot two-inch presence of Reverend Holloway in front of us.

  I had no idea how he had managed to be there. Kenitra had no idea who might have told him about the latest developments in Gordon’s condition. And neither of us knew what to do next. It was as though our truly bizarre world had now taken an otherwordly turn.

  Thankfully, at that very moment, Paul and Diedre materialized in the hallway behind us. They must have gotten on the elevator right behind us.

  I was never so glad to see Paul in my life.

  CHAPTER 25

  Gordon

  In a Silent Way

  All the commotion around my hospital room made it impossible for me to sleep when I got back from the Purple Dragon and my meeting with Duke that night. Most of the time, particularly at night, I was unable to close my eyes, but I was also unable to move my eyes, or turn my head or move any other muscles. As a result, I was condemned to watch my life go by through a rather small-sized television screen. Having seen several doctors and Reverend Quincy Holloway scurry past my line of vision, it seemed like a good idea to pay closer attention to my surroundings.

  Having heard words like “organ failure” and “septic shock” was bad enough. But hearing a reference to “last rites” and seeing Reverend Holloway started to actually get me worried. After all was said and done, I figured this fool might actually stumble upon a way to get me killed in this mother-fucking hospital, particularly if my death would get him some publicity. I knew that the Dark Lord would always be by my side and on my side, but he was usually reluctant to intervene directly in my affairs, so it was a good idea for me to pay close attention to the current events at New York Hospital. I listened as carefully as I could to every conversation that was held anywhere near my bedside, as, at that point, no one really believed that I had a conscious bone in my body.

  “Reverend Holloway, I am going to have to ask you again to please remove yourself from the premises and to take your camera crew with you.” The lead doctor of the team of physicians that was treating me sounded like he knew his argument with Holloway was a lost cause, but he needed to go through the motions, just for the record.

  “I am here as Mr. Perkins’s pastor and spiritual advisor. I am also here to make sure that a cruel and heartless decision to remove him from life support doesn’t take place. I am like a shepherd, and a good shepherd never abandons his flock.” Holloway was clearly just getting warmed-up now. The good doctor didn’t stand a chance going up against the self-proclaimed good shepherd.

  “Mr., I mean Reverend, Holloway. First of all, I don’t know how you were able to get into this hospital, but you are trespassing.” The doctor was starting to ride the waves of righteous indignation. And I was trying to figure out how the good shepherd had found out about anything that was going on concerning my medical condition. The doctor continued in that indignant tone that doctors adopt when they feel that their sacred healing world has been trespassed upon by the heathens, by the pagans, by the nondoctors.

  “Secondly, Reverend, I am sure that no one from this hospital has consulted with you in an official capacity with respect to Mr. Perkins’s condition. You are not a family member or a designated legal representative of his interests, and I simply will not discuss his condition with you as a matter of New York State law.” I am sure that, in his mind, that last statement concluded his discussion with Quincy Holloway and he would now simply evanesce, like some midget-wraith in a bad dream. He was about to learn how very wrong he could be.

  As I lay there, a mute observer of this near-comedic scenario, I tried to focus on two items—one very important, the other a matter of idle curiosity on my part. Being totally immobilized in my hospital bed for almost two years had sharpened my ability to focus and think, since that had been all that I could do, and at that point, I was thinking about how Quincy Holloway and a camera crew had made it to my hospital room.

  I have never been averse to publicity. It usually worked to my business advantage, with the notable exception of all the press coverage of my downfall in New Orleans. And, if there had been some discussion outside my room regarding taking me off life support, it is possible that this impeccably dressed gnome of a preacher might have saved my life. But that still didn’t explain how he got to the hospital on that night at that time.

  I tried desperately to focus on the problem. Consciousness and lucidity seemed to come and go, and I wanted to get to the solution before I drifted off to someplace else, like the Purple Dragon. I tried to think some more, and then it hit me. The answer was so obvious, I would have slapped myself for not seeing it sooner. It was a matter of simple deduction. For a moment there, I felt like goddamned Sherlock Holmes.

  Anyone who knew anything about that little motherfucker knew that Quincy Holloway was a grade-A cockhound. His ministry was in third place in the order of his personal priorities, far behind priority number one, which was his deep and abiding and constant pursuit of pussy. Priority number two was his eternal quest for cash and more cash. But, in point of fact, it seemed that fucking was what he thought was his purpose on earth, and it was an aspect of every major event in his life.

  The reason that his lie about being at the site of Martin Luther King’s assassination was so despicable is that he was fucking some white freak of an heiress in California. The reason he was trying to rescue that U.S. Army Ranger in Brazil is that he was fucking the lost soldier’s very attractive mother, and the reason he didn’t find the Lost Ranger, as the young man came to be known, is that he was fucking every thong-wearing Brazilian bitch he could get his little midget hands on at the Bahia resort that he accidentally parachuted into when he was supposed to be looking for the soldier.

  So, trying to figure out what the Right Reverend Quincy Holloway was doing in my room was a simple proposition. It was either a matter of following the money or, more likely, of following the pussy.

  There was no way for me to look around the room, but nothing stopped me from looking around my mind. I scoured my memory for some clue, some hint of a factoid, something that would link Quincy Holloway’s presence to some pussy that was someplace in this hospital. And that’s when I figured it out.

  From snippets of conversations that I heard her have with Paul Taylor, I knew that Kenitra stayed at the Waldorf-Astoria when she was in New York—presumably to make sure that I was still in a coma and unable to track her down and strangle her cheating, thieving bitch ass. I also knew that Quincy Holloway had been living in a suite at the Waldorf for years courtesy of the generosity of his many supporters in his globally based congregation. That little motherfucker always depended on the kindness of strangers and, strangely enough, strangers always managed to accommodate him.

  Clearly, Holloway must have seen Kenitra traipsing through the hotel. I am sure that the dumb-ass bitch figured she was incognegro walking around with a pair of sunglasses, and I am sure that Quincy saw right through that disguise and figured out why she would be in town at all. The good reverend might have been a degenerate cockhound, a minor-league thief and a major-league charlatan, but he was not stupid.

  I figured that i
t wouldn’t have taken much deductive reasoning for him to decide to follow Kenitra to find out where I was being warehoused. Once he had that figured out, all he would have to do would be to get somebody on the hospital staff to feed him the information that he needed regarding my exact whereabouts and condition. For Quincy Holloway, getting that kind of information from one of the nurses would have been a piece of cake.

  A number of the nurses were black women, and the overwhelming majority of his global ministry consisted of black females. While several of the nurses that I saw looked like clear winners of the Mike Tyson Look-alike Contest, I could recall seeing several truly attractive nurses pass through my field of vision—nice asses, great bodies, dreamy eyes. Hell, I would have fucked more than a couple of them if I could have gotten my fucking head off the pillow.

  And, as I thought about it a little further, I do remember hearing a couple of the nurses chattering about getting some of that hospital cocaine to take to a private party that “the reverend” was having at some hotel in midtown. It didn’t take a genius to add one and one and come up with two. And now I knew how Quincy Holloway came to be outside my hospital room, but I still couldn’t figure out why he was there.

  It wouldn’t be long before I found out.

  CHAPTER 26

  Diedre

  Straight, No Chaser

  What I remember most about that evening is the sheer, improbable madness of the entire scene at the hospital. I was never more thankful that Paul Jr. was a heavy sleeper.

  As Paul and I exited the hospital elevator on the floor where the Special Intensive Care Unit was located, we found ourselves literally two steps behind Kenitra and Sture. They were holding hands and not walking very briskly towards the nurses’ station. Kenitra was emanating an extremely high level of tension. There was no doubt and no question why.

  Gordon had traumatized her mind, body and soul, and no matter what she might do to recover and rebuild her life, she could never be around Gordon without being embraced by the cold and pitiless arms of Pure Fear. I was so glad to see Sture there with her. She absolutely did not need to be alone in a situation like this. I knew that Paul, Jerome and I were there for her as well, but she had told me about the special relationship that she had started with Sture, and I was glad for her when she told me. I was even happier for her now, in the hallway of the hospital.

  “Kenitra, Sture, let’s talk for a moment before we go down the hall.” I was hoping that I didn’t make it sound too urgent, although the stress of the situation was beginning to be contagious. When Kenitra turned, I could see the fear and anxiety all over her face, and I had never seen Sture look so drawn and concerned.

  “Diedre, Paul, I’m so glad you are here.” Kenitra flung her arms around my neck and began sobbing and weeping. I put my arms around her trying to comfort her, and for a few minutes, Paul, Sture and I stood there in silence. That was when Paul eased away to try and find a cot or small bed for PJ in one of the rooms usually used by the relatives of patients.

  While he was gone, and while Kenitra was trying to compose herself and Sture and I were trying to comfort her, events started commencing at opposite ends of the corridor. On one side, we saw Jerome coming out of the elevator, tall, serene, wearing a dark fedora and a suede jacket and a somber expression. He seemed to take in the entire scene as Kenitra lifted her head from my shoulder and mouthed “hello” in his direction. Jerome nodded, but he seemed to be looking at something behind us.

  I turned in the direction in which he was looking. In another place and at another time, it would have been an hilarious sight evoking peals of laughter. Even under the circumstances, I cursed myself for even beginning to smile, but I couldn’t help it.

  Coming down the hospital hallway was the elfin preacher Quincy Holloway, engaged in what seemed to be a furious conversation with several doctors and hospital administrators. Arms were flailing; voices were alternating between shouts and fierce, hissing whispers. And behind them were the bright tungsten lights of a video camera crew, which was seemingly taping the entire encounter.

  Surrounding this bizarre tableau were several nurses and orderlies who were dumbstruck by the apparition before them. I also saw a couple of rather huge beefy bouncer types lurking in the background that I assumed to be part of the hospital security staff. I would have bet that it would not be long before the good reverend would be ignominiously jettisoned from New York Hospital.

  That was a bet that I would have made if the situation involved anyone but Quincy Holloway. The tiny reverend had made a career out of extricating himself from situations that would have struck down mortal men. Staying in a hospital without even a fig leaf of authority was mere child’s play for him. The staff of New York Hospital had no idea with whom they were dealing.

  After all, it was Quincy Holloway who, when it was discovered that he had lied repeatedly about being at the scene of Dr. King’s assassination, initially accused Time magazine, which had first printed the story, of racism and persecution “in the manner of the slave master.”

  When that didn’t resonate with anyone with an IQ over fifty, he called a press conference with a couple of noted black psychiatrists in tow. It was then that he introduced to the world the concept of “Black Grief.” Essentially, black grief was supposed to be a special kind of mental affliction suffered by the postslavery psyche of African Americans that magnifies the impact of any psychological or emotional trauma.

  So, Holloway confessed to misrepresenting his presence at the King assassination. He blamed Black Grief for the entire misunderstanding, claiming that Black Grief made him think that he was in Memphis on April 4, 1968, even though he was in a California hotel suite with a white heiress well known for her sexual appetite and diverse tastes in men—and women.

  Amazingly, Holloway lost very little popular support after his so-called confession. And after taking the hit on the King episode, the press assumed him to be bulletproof and essentially left him alone. His various exploits and adventures since then had only added to his fame and his bank account, and he had ascended into the celestial heavens of celebrity, seemingly for all time.

  When he appeared at the hospital that evening, he had just arrived back in New York after having spent the previous month engaging in a hunger strike in Mount Vernon, Virginia, in front of the plantation home of George Washington. He had been leading a campaign to have Mount Vernon de-listed from the National Register of Historic Places unless it was relabeled a “concentration camp for African Americans.”

  His opening line had been that “Mount Vernon is black America’s Auschwitz,” and one had to admire his creativity in coming up with a campaign and a slogan that were sure to get on the news every evening. And while there was no chance that Mount Vernon would be de-listed, there was every chance that Quincy Holloway would be on television every day and that the nation—indeed, the whole world—would follow the progress of his hunger strike.

  When he had ended his hunger strike a few days earlier, promising to return “until justice is done,” he was reported to have gained eight pounds during his ordeal. While he vehemently denied those reports, he certainly didn’t look like a man who had been hungry for the past thirty days when I saw him in New York Hospital that night.

  I started to feel sorry for the doctors and the hospital administrators.

  CHAPTER 27

  Paul

  Expect a Miracle

  I had found a nurse who was nice enough to let me put PJ in one of the small bedrooms reserved for the families of patients. I had just finished wrapping him in a blanket and returning to Diedre, Sture and Kenitra when I saw Jerome coming down the hallway. And that was when, as I waved hello to him, I heard all the commotion down the hall—commotion centered around Reverend Holloway and a gaggle of doctors and hospital administrators. Clearly, this was going to be a night to remember.

  I had known Quincy Holloway for too long to be totally surprised by his presence at the hospital at three in the morning.
In retrospect, it would have been surprising if he weren’t there. I knew immediately that he must have gotten some word about Gordon’s condition, but I couldn’t figure out why he was there at that moment in time.

  “Let me see what the story is ... I’ll be right back.” I spoke quickly to Diedre, Kenitra and Sture. Jerome walked with me over to the madding crowd that was centered on Holloway, the whole scene shimmering under the false daylight-bright camera lights and being recorded for eternity by the video camera crew that had accompanied the reverend.

  Seeing the tiny reverend in such an agitated state, arguing vociferously with the doctors and hospital administrators, somehow reminded me of a bantam rooster preparing to do battle with a couple of dull hound dogs. And these were hound dogs that had no idea of what to do next. I could see it in their eyes.

  And when the doctors and administrators turned their eyes toward Jerome and me approaching the contretemps, I could almost read their minds: Sweet suffering Jesus on a cross! What now? First, this midget minister with a camera crew at three in the morning. And now, these two tall, serious black men coming our way. Thank God they’re well dressed. But what do they want? And where is security when we need it?

  The doctors were Indian and the administrators were white. None of them were happy. But clearly something was going on that kept them from just having the approaching security guards toss everyone out onto First Avenue, sorting out the facts later. I was hoping that I could introduce some element of sanity into this particular imitation of Bedlam.

  “Pardon me. I’m Paul Taylor, counsel to Mr. Perkins’s wife, Kenitra Perkins. The courts have also appointed Mrs. Perkins as Mr. Perkins’s guardian. She and I were asked to come here this evening, as some medical emergency required our immediate presence.” I tried to speak calmly and with firmness that I hoped would begin to settle things down. When I saw that Quincy Holloway recognized my voice and quieted down as he turned around, I knew that I had a chance of turning down the volume.