All this digging is boring now, and Im sneaking peeks at Katrina checking her watch. We been working this pit a good while, breathing heavy, and my eyes are level with her toes. Hectors head dont even reach up to the grass, he being one short Puerto Rican. Got dirt in my coveralls, dirt on my face, dirt soiling my brand new White Sox cap, dirt in my boots, blisters on my hands, but from this angle I aint thinking of none a that, cuz I can see right up under that miniskirt, right to Katrinas white thong against her smooth coffee skin, and what a heavenly sight that is. I want to just pull her down and get us both really dirty right here in this black soil.
But she surprise me.
Good enough, she say. Zane, use your shovel to get out first.
Show Time is at hand. I prop the shovel against the end of the grave, spade end down on a rock, and use it as a step to boost myself up. My hearts racing now cuz I been thinking about everything else but the big moment.
Katrina back off a step or two as I climb out. Like me and Katrina plan, I hold my hand down to Hector and say, Dont leave it behind, and he hands me his shovel.
Then he looks down to step on my spade end, his hands grabbing at the sod above, ready to boost himself out of the grave. He still looking down as his head comes up, and I take a full swing with his shovel right down hard on his head. Only it dont hit quite square and the edge of the shovel scoop off a hunk of Hectors scalp and skull bone, which goes flipping onto the grass at Katrinas feet like a bloody tea saucer.
You could even see some of Hectors brain sitting in it like some freaky Fear Factor stunt. Sight gross me out, man, dont know why cuz I seen that before. Lying back in that grave, Hector give out this puny little cry and his body start in on some serious shaking.
Cant say I feel nothing much as I watch Hector shiver and bleed out the top his skull, cept maybe tired and dirty, just want to finish and go clean off this dirt. So I lean down and grab my shovel up out of the pit, and just when I straighten upBAM this explosion slams the inside of my headand everything goes queer and too slowand then Im coming out of this blackness and I find myself looking up from inside that pit, Hector underneath me trying to shake even with my weight on top of him.
After I dont know how long, Im coming out of another darkness and I see Eddie Mac and Katrina looking down at me. Eddie Mac holds a nine with a silencer on it. Then things go black again.
Next time I come back from the dark, Im half covered with dirt. I cant hardly see cuz dirts on part of my face and some in my mouth and I cant lift my head to shake it off. I try to call out to Katrina, but cant make no words. I try to get up but my body dont care what I try, it wont budge.
With my one eye that can see, I see that Eddie Macs busy shoving dirt down from the pile, working at the end where my feet are. I can hear him pant cuz the old guys working hard. I can move my left arm and I try to bring it up and take the dirt off my face. On the way up my stomach, I feel my strap under the coverall, hanging just under my arm. Real slow, inch at a time, I crawl my hand in and slip my nine out. They dont see me move cuz
well, I dont know why, I guess its too dark or they think Im already dead.
I aint thinking about what happened or why. It dont matter to me now if Katrina done me dirty this way, or Eddie, or even Blue, though all of them must have, Im sure now. It plain this is where Im gonna be for, like, ever. I dont even give that much of a damn, really. Never know how you gonna end up. Or when and where. Or why, for that matter. You just know you will. Somehow, somewhere, sometime. That, and howd you use your time? Those all some things to think about. Now, anyway. My line of work, I always figured I have something like this shit coming.
I coulda finished high school, coulda fixed cars. I could say I shoulda done all that. But this is what I want, so this is what I do, and this is what I get, no big deal.
They say before you leave the world you see your life flash before your eyes like some kind of big movie, which amounts to making some kind of sense of things. Nothing big and grand like that happening for me right here and now, probably cuz my life never make much sense anyway.
So I cant even say why Im looking up with my one free eye, lifting my nine out from under the dirt and pointing it at Eddie Mac. I cant exactly say why it makes sense for me to put two quick slugs in him and then turn my wrist and put another two in Katrina. But as soon as I do, it feels okay.
Eddie Mac, he falls on top of that dirt pile and I can see his legs shaking bad as they stick down over the edge of the grave. More and more dirt slips in and I know its only a matter of time till his body slides down here.
Meantime, sweet Katrina, she down to her knees on the other edge, gurgling and gasping as she holds herself, red spreading across that blouse, down onto that cute little mini. She look so beautiful to me. And so sad. She cries a little bit, but I guess the pain cuts into that, and then she loses her balance and she fall right in on top of me.
Time short now. I cant see nothing. I guess thats Katrinas blood making my face wet. I like the warm feeling. I like its her blood, not some stranger. She making it hard for me to breathe, which is just as well, I dont mind. The kind of guy I am.
Just before the dark closes in on me again, Im laughing on the inside, cuz we all four ended up in this pit here, all four headed underground no matter what other plans they had. And Im also laughing cuz when anybody, Blue maybe, come looking to find one uncle, one ghost, and two gangstas, all they gonna find themselves is four ghosts, surprise surprise. Like to see them try to figure this one out.
Still cant form no words, but in my mind Im saying, Dont you worry, Blue, you be in here soon enough.
And now that I finish thinking all these last thoughts, weak as I ever been in my whole idiot life, heading into the darkness again, all I can think to add is four more silent little words in my grave in the big, bad Southside, not one mile from the place where I was born: Goodnight, Chicago, and amen.
THE GOSPEL OF MORAL ENDS
BY BAYO OJIKUTU
77th & Jeffery
Swear Im trying to keep up with Reverend this morning. Aint so easy, not with the black angels crooning at his back, alleluia, and these amens rising in flocks from the Mounts bloody red carpet and gleaming pews, and the Payless heels square stomping up above my head until Calvarys balcony rocks in rhythm with the charcoal drum sergeants skins. Seems the flock understands his sermon mighty fine, else why would they make all such noise in Mount Calvary? Its me then. I am the lost.
Today is a good day, Church. Aint it, Church? Always a good day for fellowshipping in the community of the Lord God, aint it?
The woman leaning on her walking stick across the aisle echoes loud as the speaker box boom.
Amen!
We come in here on this good day looking for the righteous way to serve Him to bring manifestyall like that word, Church, thats a good wordlet me say it again. We come in here to bring man-i-fest His glory in a world gone wicked, Church. We got this here fine church built on a mountand we call it Calvary, like that hilltop where the Lord God sent His One Son to hang from a cross for us and save us from sin, deliver us from black death, Church. Make me so happy when I talk bout how the Savior came to this world to sacrifice His life for us, so happy, Church, all so we could come back here to the hilltop and build up a palace thatd shine bright in His city, so all would know. But all still aint here celebrating the Good News, Churchno matter how loud I speak it, yall sing it, and no matter the blazing beauty of this here Mount Calvary. Citys wicked, Church, so wicked; we got folk look like us, talk like us, breath like us out here. But them folk is confused, Church, lost out in concrete Gomorrah. Yall know too much about that place already. Thats right, the wicked place right outside the oak doors to our Mount Calvary. Right down there on 79th Street, where sin whirls among folk blind to the Good News.