THE THOUGHT OF GRACIE brought Sheila back to the Oriental woman’s face. Sheila caught the woman’s eyes. The woman did not turn away. The eyes in the reflected face continued to look at her. Sheila felt transparent under the gaze. I forgot to comb my hair? Didn’t wash my face? Got a booger in my nose? My legs ashy?
The train arrived with a smell of hot metal. Not the one she needed. Framed in the windows, the frozen-forward faces of passengers. But they different in New York, Lucifer says. Here, the seats face forward overlooking the tracks — as if you were the conductor, you think — but there, you face the other passengers, keep yo eyes to yoself. Yes, you think, looking but not seeing, eyes turned away, curving and swerving with the tracks. The conductor shouted, STANDING PASSENGERS, PLEASE DO NOT LEAN ON THE DOORS. Cause you might fall out of the doors, like teeth spilling from a mouth. The train drew off.
Roughnecks rolled down the platform steps. She clutched her purse strap tight, kept her hand firm on the skillet inside her purse. Her previous weapon, an open knife, Hatch’s old Boy Scout blade (cause switchblades illegal) rusty to the touch, though it still cut; carried it till that day she left it on the sink and lost it to the drain; sides, knives are slow to the cut. Used to carry a pistol, wrapped up in a white footy — really did look like a foot, cloth stretched tight — til it fell out of her purse, stomped against the kitchen linoleum and blasted a hole in the wall, inches from Hatch’s stomach. Tried Mace; one day on the bus, it released in her purse and nearly suffocated the passengers. So she settled on an iron skillet no bigger than her palm. Purse snatchers. Cutthroats. Rapists. Junkies. The mayor was even talkin bout puttin video cameras on every street corner. Fine with her. Sometimes she wished those doors would open and spill — spit? — out some of these bad niggas from the foul-and-rotten mouths of projects in Central, Eddyland, Crownpin, and South Lincoln. Kids nowadays got a patent on devil. They walk loud and talk loud and drive loud cars that zoom by in the silence of night, blaring music, shoving you out of sleep and rearranging the house. Most nights, Sheila slept through the noise, but Lucifer—His reflection in the glass of her eyes is the transparent mask of a man. The runaway world. The sharpest eyes can’t see the arrows of death, Father Tower used to say. Bad intentions cannot travel so far as good.
The younguns in this dashing city, what do they know? Where have they been? Their eyes see nothing but their own nightmares. Father Tower used to say, There are plenty fountains of knowledge beside the roadside. It’s up to us to drink. Perhaps, if these young hoodlums could taste the cleansing sweat of labor. The way of work and knowledge are one and the same, idle body, idle mind. The devil works overtime.
Somebody got to witness for the Lord. I’m too old. You prefer the privacy of your own Bible, though your fingers almost too tired to flip through its pages. Tired of left-handed fellowship, you left the church a few years — two? — after Father Tower’s death, after Cotton Rivers climbed to the pinnacle of Mount Zion’s rock, setting up a pulpit at either end of the stage, and he and that Cleveland Sparrow exchanging sermons, extending a long length of white Scripture between them, branched birds sharing a single worm. Said, somebody got to witness for the Lord.
Here I am, Mother Sister. Years of seeing, Sheila knew her well. A fat yellow woman, a lump of butter, spilling into two pink house shoes. Hair pulled back into a long ponytail, stretching the lines of her face. You may not know it, but each of you is my spiritual baby. I bring words of Scripture for nourishment. The milk of salvation. I am here to lift you up so that your short arms can reach the teat of your redemption. For the Lord Christ said, As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness to save the backslidden Israelites, so must the Son of God be lifted up, so that whosoever will believe in him should not perish but have everlasting Life.
My children, do you want everlasting life? It is written in the Scriptures that the Lord Christ said, Lift up your eyes for the fields are white and ready to harvest, so pray to the Lord of the Harvest to send forth laborers into the field. The laborers are paid good wages. Better than the white man’s wages downtown.
Each day, Sheila gave her a dollar and felt better for it. God needs soldiers. Tomorrow is not promised to us.
Mother Sister wasn’t like some of these really crazy ones who got all up in yo face, a bullhorn, screaming, Repent! The wages of sin is death! The Lord will stamp your passport to helclass="underline" Blaspheme! Fornicator! Homosexual! Whore! Dope fiend! Drunkard! The crazy ones who say, God don’t tolerate this, he don’t tolerate that. Christ is coming. Take care of yo soul. No, Mother Sister wasn’t bad. Nor the Burned Man. Each day Sheila gave him money too — a quarter — while most passengers turned their faces to the window.
Heard he really saving that money fo an operation.
What happened to him?
Got burned up in a car crash.
That’d give anybody religion.
No money could sway Lucifer. His feelings about religion had petrified into one silent shape. Once, Sheila and Lucifer had boarded a crowded bus. He found a seat and she found one behind him, both directly on the aisle. She could watch the taut ropes of his neck. The squareness of the back of his head. Whisper over his shoulder. For the next few stops, passengers crowded into the river of space that separated the two rows of seats. Stood tidal wave-tall above them, swaying to the bus’s motion. A man vacated the seat next to Lucifer and he slid over to the window, opening the vacated seat for her. Before she could rise out of her own seat, a bean-bald young man snapped down into it. Sheila started to tap his shoulder, say, Sir, this man is my husband. Would you mind? But people today full of devil. Every word was a challenge. The man fumbled in the pockets of his blazer, stealing glances at Lucifer. Hi, the man said.
This was her opportunity. He had spoken and without venom. She saw the mug-shot profile of his face, every feature straining under a permanent smile.
You know you hear bout so much evil these days but rarely do you hear of the wonders of God. The man waited for Lucifer’s response. Here is my chance. I could ask him, Kind sir, this man is my husband. Would you mind exchanging seats so we could sit together?
Why, ma’m. Not at all.
Guess so, Lucifer said. He was looking directly ahead, not at the man.
Bet you never heard of DDT?
DDT?
Guess not.
Disciples Against the Devil’s Tribulations.