Street of Angels

by Joe Derkacht

  “I don’t imagine this was your mother’s idea,” he said.

  “It was Ioletta’s, actually. She rang up on the phone and I happened to be the one to answer. Of course mother took persuading, but she finally gave in, it being Sunday, and you and Lamarr doing a good deed for Miz McIlhenny.”

  “And she approved of your dress?” He asked, relieving her of the picnic basket and strolling beside her on the path. While the sundress covered her long, slender legs adequately, it revealed more of her bust than he thought proper.

  “Would you believe she suggested pink, Daddy, which I’ve always abhorred?”

  Chance cocked an eyebrow at her, all too familiar with his daughter’s penchant for leg pulling--his leg, at least.

  “Yellow is so much more attractive with my hair.”

  “I shouldn’t let you out on the streets at all,” he muttered.

  “Oh, Daddy,” she said. “It is such a warm day, and I’ve always been the safest little girl in the world, with a daddy like you.”

  Not the gun thing again, he hoped. She always ribbed him about his guns.

  “You do still wear that ankle holster of yours, don’t you, Daddy?”

  “Never take it off,” he said, thinking he seemed to mutter around Cecily a lot.

  “Look, here are Ioletta and Lamarr and Angel,” she said, brightening visibly.

  Lamarr carried Angel, sans leg braces, down the steps, and if Angel noticed Lamarr squeezed him too tightly around the chest, he did not complain. Behind them, on the porch, Ioletta bore a large metal tray of foodstuffs covered with a red and white checkered tea towel. Chance winced, hoping Ioletta would wait to set foot on the stairs until after her son and Angel cleared the bottom step.

  “Over by the willow tree, honey,” Ioletta directed. Lamarr left the path, crossed over the skid marks from last night and veered toward the corner nearest the McIlhenny driveway, the church property line just beyond it. Chance and his daughter changed direction accordingly. It was one of the few places on the grounds that was shaded, and Ioletta could just as well have said “by the tree,” since it was the only tree in the front yard. Out back, behind the shed, there were two ancient trees that bore the best pie apples in the city, which was providential, since Stella Jo and Ioletta also made the best apple pies of anyone around.

  “Lamarr, could you fetch us some blankets from the house?” Ioletta asked as he set Angel down in a patch of stunted grass.

  “Yes’m,” he said, his brow bunched in frustration, as he crossed paths with Cecily and her father.

  “Now won’t this be nice!” Ioletta declared. “You just set those things down next to mine, Miss Cecily and Captain Odoms, until Lamarr returns with the blankets. We’ll be just fine here in the shade.

  “Are you all right, Angel?” She asked.

  Angel hummed, perfectly satisfied, no foreigner to sitting on the ground without use of either a chair or blanket, though he often sat on a three-legged wooden stool while carving stone.

  “Is that lemonade or iced tea in that jug of yours, Miss Cecily?” She asked.

  “Lemonade,” Cecily answered. “I do hope you have spare ice cubes, Miz Brown. I brought along plastic cups in our picnic basket, but I’m afraid we were out of ice at home.”

  “Lamarr,” Ioletta said, as he arrived with the blankets, which were olive drab, evidently Army issue from WWII, and scratchy wool. “Honey, will you fetch some of them ice cube trays out of Stella Jo’s icebox?”

  A look of defeat in his eyes, Lamarr dropped the blankets by his mother and turned once again toward the house.

  “And don’t forget to wash your hands, boy,” she called after him.

  To his credit, he said nothing in reply. But Chance thought he saw blood trickling from Lamarr’s lower lip, when he came back with the ice cube trays.

  “The boy must be tired or somepin’,” Ioletta said, moving her tray of foodstuffs to the grass next to Angel. She picked up one of the blankets dumped unceremoniously at her feet, and shot it out neatly, letting it float to the ground. One would be just about right for her. It wouldn’t do to soil her best Sunday go-to-meetin’ dress.

  “Miss Cecily--” she indicated the second blanket, which she spread next to her own. The men, who had neither one seen the inside of church that morning, could sit anywhere, as long as it was on the ground.

  “Will there be others joining us today?” Cecily asked, as she gracefully settled to her knees and opened the picnic basket.

  “There may be, I don’t know,” Ioletta replied. “Whole neighborhood knows about last night, so I don’t guess they’ll be expectin’ our usual feast with Stella.”

  “I’m sure there will be enough for us all, if anyone does make an appearance,” Cecily said.

  Ioletta cast a doubtful eye toward the basket which, to her, appeared almost empty. There was one little bitty roasted chicken in there, and what looked like must be a mess of potato salad. She was glad she had put a couple of chickens on to cook in Stella Jo’s gas oven that morning before church. The girl must eat like a bird, if she thought one little chicken could feed anybody!

  Ioletta proudly whipped off the red and white checkered tea towel from her tray, revealing two roasted chickens the size of young turkeys, a green salad in a wooden bowl, and orange-flavored fruit Jello in a Tupperware container she’d found in the fridge. Just as quickly she moaned to herself, realizing she had forgotten the eating utensils. But here was Lamarr, ice trays in hand.

  “Lamarr--”

  “Yes Momma,” he said, broad shoulders tensing.

  “I only come as far as Stella Jo’s coffee table with the silverware and the carving knife, honey.”

  “Don’t worry,” Chance Odoms interrupted, pushing himself to his feet. “I’ll bring them, Lamarr. You sit and rest a while.”

  Looking grateful, Lamarr handed the ice over to his mother and plopped himself down, landing on the overlapping edges at the foot of the blankets between Ioletta and Cecily, with his back to both of the women.

  “God!” He said.

  “Lamarr!” Ioletta spoke sharply.

  “Just feelin’ weary, Momma,” he said. “It was a long night, last night.”

  “I’m sure you had yourself as much sleep as I did,” she said. “No reason to be irreverent.”

  “Which was none, then,” he retorted. “It’s too excitin’, havin’ someone try to cut your heart out, and the police wantin’ to blow your brains out besides.”

  “You could have gone to church with me this morning and rested up, instead of working on the Sabbath.”

  “At Reverend Champion’s?” He said, glancing in her direction. She was surely joking. While a person might find peace for his soul at Alliance Baptist, they certainly wouldn’t find rest. If they weren’t always standing, shouting and singing, they were listening to Rev. Champion shout and sing, whose voice carried like the foghorn of a tugboat off the Gulf. In either case, no one slept through meetings at Alliance. Uh-uh. Even if you tried, someone would likely poke you in the ribs. A certain woman well in excess of--well, he wasn’t sure how much she weighed, but she certainly came to mind.

  “My father says you were very brave, Lamarr,” Cecily said.

  The sun seemed to have come out from behind dark clouds. From somewhere in the sky, a chorus of mockingbirds broke into song. Lamarr repositioned himself to face Cecily, only to find that the ground sloped upwards and there seemed to be a rock under his tailbone. Why did people have to sit on the ground for a picnic lunch? Where was the attraction in it? He could do the same any old time, eat rations with an Army platoon under the open sky.

  He decided to stretch out on his side, and propped himself on one elbow. The rock stretched with him. He investigated under the blanket and discovered a seam of granite fashioned into a series of cameo reliefs. Once Angel had given them beatific smiles but now they leered at him.

  “I done what needed doin’,” he said, quic
kly resettling the blanket.

  “I hope that includes moving over,” Chance said, returning with the utensils, which were well-used stainless steel, veterans of countless feasts, not polished silverware.

  Lamarr gathered in his long legs and sat up.

  “I’ll give you the honors,” Odoms said, handing over the carving knife to Ioletta. Joints popping, he lowered himself slowly to his knees and distributed knives, forks, and spoons.

  From the depths of her picnic basket, Cecily took paper plates, which soon were piled high all around with food. It was not, perhaps, the picnic any of them might have envisioned enjoying. True to Ioletta’s suspicions, Cecily ate like a bird. Lamarr did not eat with nearly his usual gusto, and his mind seemed preoccupied with events elsewhere. Ioletta kept glancing at her son, wondering what could be the matter even as she polished off half of an entire chicken by herself.

  Fingers itching for a cigarette, Chance munched thoughtfully at his portion of chicken, green salad, and potato salad, every once in a while glancing between his daughter and Lamarr. Of them all, probably only Angel truly enjoyed the moment. He hummed as he spooned in his last mouthful of Jello salad. If he was worried about his mother, who Chance had reassured him had gone to the hospital for a short rest, no one could tell it.

  ****

  Chapter 7

  From long habit, a childhood habit, to be accurate, (which would have required as many years of counseling and support to break as any thirst for alcohol or the craving for tobacco), Lamarr took the concrete stairs in two strides, and stood at the church’s front entrance. Lifting one hand, he pounded his fist on the oak-paneled double doors. He glanced at his watch. Six o’clock, straight up.

  If he was lucky Rev. Champion had taken the day off or slept in for once. Even barbers didn’t work Mondays, Lamarr reasoned. Certainly, barbers weren’t up every day before the crack of dawn to pray over their flock, even if their task in life was to shear them.

  Thank God, he mused, I’ll never be a preacher. He pounded on the door again and glanced at his watch. The Reverend’s office was at the rear of the building. Maybe he was taking his time, or maybe he hadn’t heard?

  A garbage truck rumbled by on the street, and Lamarr wrinkled his nose and held his breath at the smell of diesel and trash. Time to be amblin’ on. But because he had promised his mother he would drop by the church and make a real effort to say goodbye before leaving for other parts of the country, he knocked once more, this time sharply rapping the door with his knuckles.

  Gone fishin’, he thought. His watch said 6:02. He had waited long enough. One step, habit again, took him halfway down the stairs.

  The doors opened behind him. “Lamarr--”

  He turned at the sound of the familiar, rumbling voice, and remounted the stairs. Rev. Champion, attired in the requisite black suit, white shirt and black necktie, motioned him inside and then pulled the door shut. Lamarr could not recall having ever seen the man in anything but this same suit or ones exactly like it. Rev. Champion held his office in dignity and even under a blazing sun did not remove jacket and tie for the church’s annual summer picnic.

  “Your mother told me you would be coming, son,” he said. Gesturing for him to follow, Rev. Champion led the way from the foyer and into the dimly-lit sanctuary. Down the church’s central aisle they walked, past thirty rows of highly polished beech wood pews, skirted the wide stage (which could not contain Rev. Champion’s perambulations when he was under the unction, un-anchored by either tradition or convention to the pulpit standing at center [the communion altar below it, the words DO THIS IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME carved into its front for all to see]), the baptistry twenty feet behind it, just beyond the carpeted risers used Sundays by the church’s 72-member choir, and past the church organ, a Wurlitzer, until they finally came to his book-lined office.

  There wasn’t a square inch in the place that did not bring back memories for Lamarr. Here he had sat beside his mother through not hundreds but thousands of sermons, almost within reach of the Wurlitzer pump organ from the front row pew. Here he had the fear of God put in him at an early age, and God Himself must sound like Rev. Champion, whose barrel-chested voice could shake the rafters overhead and rattle the stained-glass windows. Here he had learned John 3:16 and that he must be born again, and had been baptized with a dozen other young teens one summer evening. Here he had seen weddings and funerals and baby dedications, and heard evildoers and evil doings rebuked and wise men and not a few wise women praised. Here he had learned that he had a fine bass voice for singing but that he did not care to use it in front of others, even if it might bring glory to God, as his mother said. Here he had burned with shame one Sunday morning when his mother was especially exercised over the music, the pew they were in giving up the ghost as it shattered, to the raucous laughter and sudden applause of the brothers and sisters--who at that moment did not much seem like brothers and sisters.

  “Shout hallelujah!”

  What he did not remember (embarrassment having burned it from his memory) was that as his mother floundered and thrashed upon her backside, Rev. Champion had leapt from the stage and, in a demonstration of Samson-like strength, lifted her to her feet.

  “Praise the Lord! Dance, sister!” He shouted, gesturing for her to follow him. The entire row emptied, as he led the way into the aisle, and then began a circuit of the sanctuary. A sign from him to the music director drew forth a new burst of music--drums, trumpets, and guitars leading the way. It wasn’t exactly a conga line, but it wasn’t far different, except that no conga line had ever seen such exuberant shouting, clapping, and singing of praises to the Lord. Then he’d stepped aside and gestured for Ioletta to lead. The pews emptied, everyone in the congregation, from young to old, following suit. In the excitement band members joined them, grabbing up their instruments and falling in line wherever they could squeeze in.

  Returning to his pulpit, Rev. Champion shouted, “Are we gonna let some broken down pew stop us from praising the Lord?”

  “No!” Came the answering shout.

  “Are we gonna let the devil keep us from praisin’ the Lord?”

  “No!”

  The next thing anyone knew, the Lord’s conga line snaked its way out of the sanctuary and onto the sidewalk. Soon they were circling the church property, hundreds of people exuberantly praising the Lord. The drummer grabbed his snare drum from its stand, and the pianist and organist, wishing they could carry their instruments, gave up and ran after the drummer. Last to follow were several elders sitting on stage at their usual places in support of the pastor.

  Rev. Champion had the wisdom to know there was no way his people could be lured back inside the church building. When their exuberance faded, he ended the service by preaching a brief sermon from the church steps.

  But for the moment, Lamarr remembered none of this.

  Rev. Champion’s office was perhaps the least familiar ground to him in the church, even if he had sat here, too, at least a dozen times over the years. The first time, as with most things, was the time he remembered best. His mother had brought him and ordered him to explain why he hadn’t learned the catechism. Of course, as a boy of eleven, he didn’t know that most Baptist eyebrows would rise at the sound of such a Catholic-flavored word, but if Catholic boys and girls could learn the catechism, then the Baptist children of Alliance could certainly learn a catechism of their own. On the same occasion, Rev. Champion demanded of him why he could not seem to learn his multiplication tables at school. His teachers and mother had been asking the same question for two years running, but none of them had the gravity of Rev. Champion, his rumbling voice or the intense gaze that could be turned on and off like a searchlight.

  Now he took his place and motioned for Lamarr to sit in one of the four high-backed leather chairs arrayed in a semi-circle around his wide, ornate desk.

  Lamarr sat and took a deep breath, letting the smell of leather and books take
him back through the years. His first time here he had been too afraid to look at anything other than the desk and the man behind it. The second time here his eyes had grown big, as they took in the towering shelves of books and he wondered how anyone could ever read even half of them, “not one of them fiction,” his mother would say.

  Cedric would have argued with the fiction part, since there were volumes of apocryphal writings he had collected over the years, and shelves of opinion on everything from creation and evolution to the contradictory theories about Revelation and the end of all things. And while he had read these books and knew the arguments, he preached the Bible, seldom quoting anyone outside of it in his sermons, unless it could be backed nine ways from Sunday with other Scripture. Hadn’t that been the whole point of the Reformers’ Sola Scriptura?

  It was a moment before Lamarr, reflecting briefly on his memories, realized there was someone else present. Partially hidden by a tall chair, a man stood next to the windows.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Reverend Champion,” Lamarr apologized, rising to his feet. “I didn’t realize you had a visitor, sir.”

  “Don’t worry yourself, son,” he said, motioning him back into his seat. He hesitated before saying, “Brother Winfield dropped by unexpectedly.

  “I missed you at our meetings yesterday,” he went on quickly. “We couldn’t be prouder of you, son, of what you did the other night, taking your life into your own hands to save Sister McIlhenny and her son.”

  Lamarr’s attention was momentarily on Brother Winfield, as Rev. Champion had called the short, whippet-thin man dressed in the black-and-white uniform of a minister. Rev. Champion’s hesitation had been like a wink between them, and Lamarr knew he wasn’t expected to believe the man’s name was really Winfield. The strangeness of the introduction faded, as he remembered Rev. Champion was sought out for counsel by many black ministers. Like any parishioner, they would want that counsel kept in strictest confidence.

  “I only did what anybody shoulda done,” Lamarr said.

  “You risked your life, son.”

  “I thought the cops would blow my brains out, until Captain Odoms come in and took control of the situation.”