Each afternoon, Uncle John would meet you in the schoolyard — Andrew Carnegie Elementary School — with the red wagon.
How was school today? Uncle John asked with his daring grin.
Fine. You always said fine.
What they learn you today?
How could you answer? Did you have a century to tell and he a century to listen? I don’t know, you said. Your hands went quickly for Uncle John’s pants pockets to discover the treasure of gold and silver coins hidden there.
What you want to buy?
Some potato chips and sunflower seeds and a 3 Musketeers bar and Now & Later and some wine candy.
The usual.
With his muscular stride, he pulled you and your sweets up and down Church Street, up and down Sixty-third Street, all over Woodlawn, all over the South Side, along the shores of Tar Lake, that great horseshoe curve west and east around most of the city, all over Central (Central was yours, belonged to the two of you, and would be yours forever), and backward and forward in time.
See that dead dog there?
Yuk.
I bet you it’s a male. Dogs get run over crossin the street chasin after that stuff.
What stuff, Uncle John?
You know what stuff.
Perhaps to prove to you that he was as gallant with non-kin as with kin, he would offer other little girls a ride in the red wagon.
Two can’t fit in this wagon, you said.
Share, girl. Learn to share.
To ease your jealousy, he would lift you above the wagon and bounce you in his arms.
Throw me in the air too, Uncle John, Nia said.
Don’t throw her, Uncle John. She might float away like that big blimp.
A CONSTELLATION OF SIGHTS AND SOUNDS. A few hundred people were all trying to push through the wide church doors at once, their loud voices anxious and angry in the night. Long-headed TV cameras walked about freely like alien beings. Microphone booms floated above like black kites. Maybe she should turn around and go home. Besides, she wasn’t feeling her best. Round and heavy with heat. She looked around and found that she had somehow waded into the crowd, surrounded, mosaic eyes. No turning back. Besides, what did she have to fear? The organ came from inside, a raised hand directing the visitors inside the church. Progress was slow. She floated through the doors, bodies and machines brushing against her, driving her, tossing her.
The church was large and high enough inside to hold every animal on Noah’s ark but all the pews were occupied and people stood in double rows against the walls. A kind reporter gave her his seat.
Thank you.
My pleasure.
If this was the old Cotton Rivers’s church she didn’t recognize it. Built by an architect with the will to adorn. Frescoes and murals of biblical scenes. Every board and beam gleamed. The oak pews greeted your backside with red cushioned leather. And the path of plush red carpet saw to it that you would never fall. Openmouthed speakers hung high off the walls like gargoyles. And blinking white runway lights directed your eyes and feet to the faraway chapel, a tree-trunk-thick podium on a stage of veined marble under three lean windows, moonlight swimming in colors through the stained glass.
The walls spoke: Please settle down and be seated.
Silence closed over the room.
I thank yall for coming. It has been a long time.
The podium was so far, far away that she could not identify the speaker. It has been a long time. On a wood beam above her the New Cotton Rivers spoke and moved on a stained-glass TV monitor. She studied his live double in the distance. The New Cotton Rivers was shorter than she had imagined he would be. And thinner. Barely enough skin on his face for a mustache. (How old is he now anyway? Fourteen at last count, last she remembered.) His white robe billowed like a sail.
Amen.
It’s good to see so many of you here today though I know some of you are here for the wrong reason.
Tell them about it!
Though some of you did not journey here to worship in the Lord’s house.
Tell the truth!
You are welcome. Keep coming back. God always got mo room for one more soul.
The congregation laughed long and deep, then laughter diminished, trickled down.
I welcome you.
She could not help thinking, Did the thin young body on the monitor truly house the booming voice? A voice heavy with age and insight. A miracle. The old Cotton Rivers was making himself known through his son’s lungs and mouth.
Yall gon help me preach this morning?
Yes.
Said, yall gon help me preach this morning?
Yes!
Praise the Lord …
She praised him.
We are gathered here today in unique purpose. But let us remember, it is his loving kindness that has allowed us to be here.
That’s right.
Some of yall don’t realize that.
Yes!
I think I should say it again.
Say it!
I say, a lot of yall don’t realize that. The preacher’s voice searched out every corner of the church. Only his loving kindness, brothers and sisters. Some of us forget bout his loving kindness.
Tell it.
Don’t lie.
He woke us up to glad daylight this morning, but some of us forget.
Teach.
He casts rays of pure joy over our problems and pains.
I know he do.
He bore us through the floods, kept us in a high dry place at his side, and still we don’t thank him.
No we don’t.
He fed our souls. He gave us children. He made us music. He gave us dignity. He bought our freedom.
Yes indeedy.
Why is it, brothers and sisters, that we don’t thank him?
Why?
I say, why is it that we don’t thank him?
The congregation waited in silence.
I’ll tell you why.
Tell us.
I said, I’ll tell you why.
Tell us!
Cause we are blind!
You said it.
I say we are blind.
Yes we are.
All things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made. But the world knows him not.
Tell it, brother.
It don’t know him.
I said, he is in the world and the world was made by him but the world knows him not!
That’s right, brother!
Did not Eve taste the sweet red skin of the apple?
Yes she did.
Did not Eve taste the sweet red skin of the burning apple?
Yes she did.
Why did she bite of the forbidden fruit?
Why?
What drew her lips to fire?
Tell us.
She thought she was safe in the garden. Did she not see the bloody footprints of the first remorseless soul thief?
No!
Yes, the Snake was in Eden before Adam.
You said it, brother!
Just like today. The Snake is here today.
I see him.
I said just like today!
Yes!
Hiding in the apple like an innocent worm. Isn’t that always how he is? Satan waits in the shadows engineering his horrible plans.
Oh life is sweet!
Engineering his horrible plan to destroy the Lord Christ.
Sin!
So what did Eve do? Eve ate the worm-wet apple. And she knew she had done wrong. Yes, I say she knew she had sinned, for the devil’s spit embittered the sweet waters of life.
Yes it did.
And Death stretched its dark wings over the land. God put Adam out of the garden. I said, Gawd — the boy preacher was humming the words, singing them — evicted Adam from the garden. Gawd looked at him and said, My son, I said, my son-on-on, you shall bear children the rest of your days.