Street of Angels

by Joe Derkacht

  ****

  Chapter 24

  The transformation of the half-dozen men was instantaneous, as they filed in for an emergency meeting of the deacon board the following Tuesday night. As soon as they caught sight of Rev. Champion, whose folding metal chair was positioned next to the pastor’s desk, their smiles and easy banter died. Cedric recognized them all from his years in the community but did not know any of them beyond an occasional chance encounter; they were from one side of Flowers Avenue and he was from the other. He sized up each one as they took their seats:

  Ernest Tyler, the youngest of the deacons at 50 years of age or so, who blurted a surprised hello upon entering and sat in the chair beside him, he knew from reputation as one of the church’s most active members; Ioletta Brown often told of how he left groceries at Sister McIlhenny’s for the Sunday dinners there. For that reason he felt confident in expecting his support, when it came to a vote of the board to share their facilities with his church.

  Frank Jamieson, a retired public school teacher, whose bald head and snowy-white fringe of hair made him appear older than his 70 years, rumored to be a distant relative to Frank and Jesse James, he knew from the integration of Calneh’s schools a few years before. He’d been one of only a handful of teachers willing to speak up for integration, which was certainly encouraging. He took a chair at the opposite end of the desk.

  The remaining deacons typically were loath to return his greetings on the street. Judging by that and their stony expressions now, he assumed he couldn’t expect much from them. He wondered how quiet they would be, once their pastor revealed the meeting’s purpose.

  “I believe we’re all here, Reverend J,” Ernest Tyler said, his eyes twinkling in expectation.

  Willimon gestured toward two thermoses and a stack of paper cups. “I had my wife prepare coffee.”

  The two ministers had poured coffee for themselves earlier, and now all of the deacons, except for Tyler, started from their chairs. “I’ll serve!” He said, raising a hand to prevent any rush to the desk en masse.

  “I’d rather have a beer,” one man commented.

  “Same old joke, every time,” Tyler said, with a nod to Cedric, whose eyebrows were raised in surprise. “I always have to tell Avery here that we’re not Lutherans. Wiseacre.”

  “Coffee’s pretty dadgummed Lutheran,” Avery groused. “At least at the Elks we have a choice--” He shut up and frowned, as Tyler handed the first cup of coffee to Cedric to pass around the circle.

  “Sugar or cream for anybody?” Cedric asked. Only Jamieson shook his head, the others neglecting to answer. They either liked their coffee black, he figured, or they were afraid his touch might contaminate the packages of sugar and powdered cream.

  “Is that all?” Tyler asked, glancing around at the circle of chairs. “Last call for alcohol--sorry.”

  The men nodded or murmured, as if this was the usual routine, and he resumed his seat. “Sorry,” he apologized again, leaning over to Cedric. “Before I was saved I was a bartender on my way to hell.”

  “If we can open with prayer,” Willimon suggested, anxious to begin, nervously running one hand through his brown, prematurely thinning hair.

  Jamieson smiled faintly. “That might be in order.”

  The men bowed their heads, and Willimon prayed a brief, simple prayer asking for God’s guidance and direction, guidance and direction being two different things, evidently, and God’s grace for all their proceedings.

  After the amen, he slid a steno pad and Bic ink pen across the desk to Jamieson. “Will you take the minutes, Brother Frank?”

  In answer, Jamieson took a pair of half-rimmed reading glasses from his shirt pocket and pushed them onto his nose.

  “Since I’m the only one who can spell quorum, I guess that leaves the honor to me,” he commented. He touched the tip of the ink pen to his tongue and opened the steno pad. “We are taking roll, making it official, aren’t we?”

  “Yes, why don’t we do it according to Hoyle?”

  “That would be fine, if we were playing cards,” he corrected the minister. “But since this is a church and we’re making a stab at parliamentary procedure, we should rather adhere to Robert’s Rules of Order.”

  “We ain’t no dadgummed parlyment, either,” Avery, seated next to Ernest Tyler, commented. “Jist write the names down, why don’t ya?”

  Everyone laughed, except for Jamieson, who poised pen above paper and looked questioningly at Tyler.

  “Ernest Tyler?” He demanded.

  “Present,” he answered, rolling his eyes while Jamieson busily wrote down his name. He leaned over to Avery, and whispered, “Once a teacher, always a teacher.”

  “Once a pain, always a pain, is what I say,” he shot back, failing to whisper or to divert Jamieson from his appointed task.

  Avery Wills, sourpuss and wiseacre thirsty for a beer. Wyland Cooper, or Wylie, as everyone called him, not a good nickname for a deacon, Cedric reflected privately. Roberts Robertson, a hulking blond with deeply callused hands, well-deserved, since he was a cabinet maker by trade. He had the awful habit of sucking his teeth, which instantly grated on Cedric’s nerves but everyone else ignored. Lee Jackson Davis, evidently named for the South’s important Civil War figures but too diminutive to do much harm in a fight. Cedric filed away each of their names, certain that no matter what happened in the meeting tonight, he would never be able to forget them or the faces that belonged to them.

  “Make sure to ask yourself if you’re here, too,” Avery said to Jamieson.

  Forehead wrinkling, Jamieson glanced over the top of his glasses at the scowling Avery but did the Christian thing by keeping his tongue, and continued to write until he had everyone’s name down, including that of Rev. Willimon and their surprise guest. He snapped the tip of his ball point pen on the steno pad with a flourish, signaling the completion of his task.

  “Uh, since that’s done,” Willimon began, “why don’t we just launch into the reason for why I’ve called an emergency meeting of the board tonight?”

  Cedric sipped his coffee, surreptitiously eyed each of the men, and prayed silently. Facing them made him all too well aware of the fact men often subverted the will of God, like Adam in the Garden of Eden. Since none of these men seemed capable of respect for each other or for their pastor, how could he hope for them to respect what he was sure God would want them to do in regard to the needs of his flock?

  “As I’m sure you are all aware, Reverend Champion’s church was set on fire by an arsonist last Wednesday night. In meeting with him Saturday, I felt it behooved us all to have him briefly address the board. Afterwards, I’ll open the meeting up to discussion.

  He nodded in Rev. Champion’s direction. “The floor is yours, brother.”

  “Not askin’ for money, are you?” Roberts Robertson asked, noisily sucking his teeth and leaning forward in his chair, knowing that any time a preacher used the word behooved, money or morals was the subject most likely to follow.

  “Ah, no,” he answered, leaning forward to match the other’s posture.

  “That’s a relief,” Robertson said, visibly relaxing, as if having dodged a bullet.

  Cedric scrutinized the circle of men, their eyes growing seemingly larger and rounder at the prospect of his addressing them. Roberts Robertson might be rude, but he was grateful the man had immediately brought up the subject of money. He had not wanted any of these men to think he had come to them begging. Now that the money issue had been answered, he could proceed with the business at hand.

  “Gentlemen. Christian brothers,” he began, not really sure of either but willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. “As your pastor, Reverend Willimon, has mentioned, Alliance Baptist was set on fire last Wednesday night by an arsonist. Because of that sad fact, my congregation, which numbers well over 800 souls, has no building to meet in. Half of my congregation, many of them elderly, walk to church on Sundays and Wedne
sday nights. This last Sunday we met for worship in the rain and will be forced to do so for the foreseeable future. Simply put, until we rebuild our facilities, there are no buildings in this area large enough or close enough to meet the needs of my congregation.”

  “I heard you didn’t have no insurance money,” Avery remarked.

  “Reverend Champion has the floor,” Jamieson said, staring pointedly over the top of his reading glasses.

  “What can we do about it?” Tyler asked, which earned a disgusted frown from the retired school teacher. “Is there any way we can help?”

  Cedric massaged the back of his neck for a moment, and nodded gratefully to Tyler. He had halfway expected someone to say, “Yeah? So?” It was infinitely better to hear someone ask what they could do to help, instead.

  “I’m here to see if Flowers Avenue Baptist would be willing to share facilities with Alliance Baptist until we’ve rebuilt.”

  “Now wait one minute,” Lee Jackson Davis said.

  “The question is open for discussion,” Rev. Willimon announced.

  “Hey now, whaddyamean? That ain’t right,” Davis said.

  “Isn’t right,” Jamieson corrected him.

  “What isn’t right?” Willimon asked mildly.

  “We can’t be sharing. We’re white and they’re--they’re--nigras!” Davis protested. “That’s what ain’t right.”

  For a moment, Cedric wondered if the men might come to blows. Ernest Tyler and Frank Jamieson immediately bristled, and Roberts Robertson and Wylie Cooper made noises that seemed in agreement with the bantam Davis.

  “Oh God, I knew I shoulda went to the Elks tonight,” Avery muttered sourly.

  “No, it’s absolutely the Christian thing for us to do,” Rev. Willimon said. “Regardless of our color differences, these are our brothers and sisters in Christ, Brother Davis.”

  “Well, I won’t be sitting next to any nigras,” he insisted. “You may as well be askin’ me to mix with Jews.”

  “The Lord Jesus was Jewish,” Cedric commented, smiling the least little bit to himself.

  “No! Did you hear that, hear what he just said, Reverend Johnny? Are you lettin’ him get away with that?”

  John Willimon buried his face in his hands. “The Lord Jesus was Jewish,” he said, visibly suffering. He wondered if he could return to accounting after being away from it for four years.

  “I thought he was the son of God,” Avery remarked helpfully.

  “He was--is,” Tyler said, glancing at both Davis and Avery Wills. “But he was still Jewish. Haven’t you ever read your Bible?”

  Davis bristled like a terrier. “Then why did they kill him?” He demanded. “Tell me that!”

  “‘He came unto his own, but his own received him not,’” Rev. Willimon recited from memory. “‘But as many as received him, gave he the power to become the sons of God.’”

  “Well, I don’t know why the old Reverend Johnny didn’t ever mention it,” he retorted.

  “I could recite a lot of other passages for you, or you could come to a Bible study on the subject, Brother Davis,” he said, lowering his hands. “But the issue before us is sharing our facilities with Alliance Baptist until they rebuild, and if you were more patient, our guest would have told us by now that they don’t wish to hold services at the same time we’re holding ours.

  “Does everyone understand that?” He asked. “Alliance Baptist would simply make use of our building while we’re not using it.”

  Robertson shook his head. “Still don’t seem right, somehow, coloreds and whites using the same facilities.”

  “How do you mean?” Willimon asked, with an uncomfortable glance in Cedric’s direction.

  “Wee-ell,” Robertson drawled, his eyes shifting between the two ministers.

  “He means he don’t want us coloreds using the same toilets as him,” Cedric answered bluntly, tempted to add, “Assuming he uses the toilet.”

  Robertson sucked at his teeth and slumped backwards in his chair. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Like I said, it just don’t seem right, somehow.”

  “That’s right, my feelin’ exactly,” Davis concurred.

  “Of all the lunkheaded things to say!” Tyler blurted.

  “Brothers! Please!”

  Silence fell over the room. Rev. Willimon dabbed his forehead with a white handkerchief and massaged his temples.

  Cedric sadly shook his head. How had he ever dreamed that a bunch of good ol’ boys would be interested in helping him and his congregation? He had made a mistake and it was time to admit as much, time to walk while he still had a shred of dignity remaining to himself. To his left, Ernest Tyler’s blood was obviously ready to boil. In another moment or two the man would come to blows with the others and likely be killed in the process. Roberts Robertson might be in his sixties, but he was twice Tyler’s size and looked like he could bend railroad spikes with his bare hands.

  Cedric noisily cleared his throat, and the deacons shifted their focus to him.

  “Look,” he said, dispensing with the use of gentlemen or brothers. “I did not come here tonight to cause trouble or hard feelings in your church. Seein’ that’s obviously what I’ve done, in making what seemed a very reasonable proposal, to me, for that I apologize.”

  To the white minister’s dismay, he rose to his feet, preparing to leave.

  “Please, Cedric,” he implored him. “I’m sure we can work this out, it’s just a matter of details.”

  “It would never work, John,” he replied, through with mincing his words regardless of what these men thought. He had dealt with his share of racist fools over the course of his lifetime, and it was just his bad luck that now he was confronted by a handful of religious racist fools.

  “Don’t you see? There’d be others in your church just like Lee Jackson Davis here, who wouldn’t know the difference between a rabbi and a rabbit if the two of them were sittin’ together in the same pew, and some like Roberts Robertson, who wouldn’t let Jesus himself use his toilet because he wouldn’t be white enough for his tastes--your whole church would be up in arms over us comin’ in.”

  Stunned silence fell over the group. John Willimon stared, slack jawed, along with his deacons. Even Robertson forgot to suck his teeth.

  Having spoken his mind in such blunt terms, you would have thought Cedric might put one foot in front of the other and leave. Instead, he sat down, as if daring them to refute his claims.

  “What the he--what the goldanged heck does a rabbit have to do with a rabbi, whatever that is?” Davis blurted into the silence.

  “A rabbi is what the Jews call their ministers,” Jamieson said, staring again over his glasses.

  “Yeah, so?”

  “The people in Jesus’ day called him ‘Rabbi,’” Tyler explained, struggling to repress laughter. “Because he was a Jew!”

  “That don’t make Jesus colored,” Robertson sullenly remarked. “God ain’t colored, and don’t try tellin’ me He is. I don’t take to none of that black Jesus stuff.”

  “Oh, but God is colored,” Cedric corrected him.

  “Not in any pictures I ever saw,” Wylie Cooper said, his only comment that evening except to answer roll call. Both Tyler and Jamieson rolled their eyes. Tyler clamped a hand over his mouth to keep from guffawing.

  Rev. Willimon cleared his throat and glanced in mild rebuke at his deacons.

  “All of our pictures are from a white European perspective, Brother Cooper,” he patiently explained. “We don’t really know what God or Jesus looks like.”

  “Except that God is colored,” Cedric commented.

  “Figuratively, you mean?” He asked, his eyebrows rising in alarm.

  “If you can prove that malarkey, I’ll vote to let you use the church,” Robertson offered. He sucked at his teeth and grinned with supreme confidence. “But I’m bettin’ you’re not a wagering man, bein’ a Reverend and all.”

  “He doesn’t mean
--” Willimon began.

  “I do mean,” Cedric said, interrupting him.

  “Oh, this is good,” Avery remarked, dangerously close to cracking a smile. “I’m in.”

  “You in?” Robertson asked Davis and Cooper.

  “I’m in,” Davis said, almost fiercely. “I know the Bible don’t say nothin’ about God being colored.”

  “Wylie?” Robertson demanded.

  Wylie Cooper grimaced like somebody who feels he is suddenly about to go in over his head. But he nodded his assent.

  “Gentlemen--” Rev. Willimon began. Did he really have to remind them that they were in a church, were deacons of the church, and that they were there to discuss and vote on the issue of sharing their facilities with Alliance Baptist Church, that they decidedly were not there to make wagers?

  “You in?” Ernest Tyler and Frank Jamieson asked him in unison.

  Reluctantly, he nodded. He was in. Problem was, he knew the Bible didn’t say anything about God being colored. Of course, it didn’t say God was white, either, not that he could recall offhand. But the point was, Cedric and his flock would not have the use of Flowers Baptist and would have to go elsewhere, when he wanted desperately to help them.

  “Did y’all bring your Bibles?” Cedric asked, picking up his own, an old, well-worn King James Bible he’d set on the desk before the meeting began.

  Not expecting a Bible study, none of the men had brought their Bibles. They scrambled, most of them, to take Bibles from an office bookshelf, and came back to their seats with smug grins.

  “You say God isn’t colored?” Cedric asked, eyebrows raised enquiringly to meet each man’s gaze. Except for Ernest Tyler and Frank Jamieson, most of them answered with a smirk.

  “That’s right, I agree with Roberts,” Davis said, nearly swaggering. “I’ve read the Book, and my mother used to read it to me every night before sending me off to bed. It don’t say nothin’ about God being colored.”

  “Thank God!” Robertson muttered none too quietly. “Thank God Almighty!”

  “Then tell me what it means in Revelation 4:3,” Cedric ordered them, as he flipped open to the last book of the Bible, “when it says God looked like a jasper, a sardine stone, and like an emerald.”