SUNLIGHT TEARS THE RAFT APART beam for beam tides and tongues stream metal and a breeze to witness the hour you mud-colored creature water wiping out the salt of your wounds rocking cliffs pearl-colored clouds. The circle closes, the net is being hauled in. You ride the monster’s back, sheeted with flame, a live rocket. Avoid its sprout, red tentacles, flaming vines. Dawn ruins it. Wakes of yellow flame. Seaweed. A thousand years deep.
She pinched her leg to force herself to stay awake. Coffee? No way. Bad for your breadwinning body. Glad she hadn’t driven. Once, stalled in choked traffic, she had drifted asleep at the wheel to be awakened by a concert of furious honking.
A hot wish rose in her body. Deathrow. With his body she could exhaust all the day’s games and pretense. Deathrow.
15
THE NIGHT HELD STILL outside the rolling train window. The glass framed a clean black box. Hatch reached for Elsa’s hair. Smooth and black, pulled tight in a ponytail, or combed forward — this he hated — a curved wing on each cheek. He reached for her waiting scent. Dream it to yourself. Elsa entered the night spaces of his brain.
The cleanly dressed congregation greeted one another in the bustling calm following Sunday service. He knelt on the podium, prayer-fashion, and placed his guitar into its padded case, soft, shapely, a protective womb. Case/guitar he gripped close, then hoisted it up and slung it over his shoulder like a rifle.
That was glorious. Reverend Ransom rolled forward, polished shoes — twin reflections of Hatch on the toes — inches above the red-carpeted podium floor. He took Hatch aside — Abu was still packing up his drum set — and discreetly produced the weekly cash.
Thank you. Hatch took the cash and quickly divided it into two equal portions.
That was simply glorious.
I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Reverend Ransom continued to hover above the floor, quiet, smiling into Hatch’s face. I have something else for you. He produced a business card. Floated it over to Hatch. CARIBE FUNERAL HOME. A CENTURY OF EXPERIENCED CARE FOR YOUR ETERNAL NEEDS. Explained: Close friend and colleague, the Reverend Drinkwater K. Bishop, was in desperate need of a musician for his funeral services. Go see him tomorrow. The Lord does provide. Hatch quickly slipped the card into his pocket.
The following afternoon, Hatch met the preacher-mortician in the floral chambers of his office. The undertaker explained, fingering his paintbrush mustache, that he had tired of the typical organ sound. Every funeral parlor had one. Even the angels are bored. He wanted an instrument that sounded equally celestial. My chariots need some new shoulders at the wheel, he said.
Hatch couldn’t stand funerals. Down-home spooks in their Sunday best. The chemical stench of preserved death. Dearly departed cramped in the casket. (Strange to see how death gets hold of the flesh.) White-skinned Dave eternally at rest in the black casket. Uncle John puts a brick of E&J — Old Rocking Chair, Sheila said, that was Sam and Dave’s drink — in his stiff pocket. Bad enough he’d drink you out of house and home, Sheila said. Bad enough he wouldn’t lift a finger to help raise those kids. He was the biggest liar. Oh, he could lie. Told Lula Mae that I smoke reefer. Big mouth — her tongue flopping up and down like a vessel on stormy sea — Beulah commenced to whooping and hollering. Sam, if I hada just been there to hold up your head. The preacher — Rise in the flesh up to heaven — resurrected the dead with the saliva of his voice. Once at the cemetery, the pallbearers (in ant formation) carry the morsel of casket to the rim of the grave. Dust dust and ashes, fly over my grave. And he had never played one, but he took the assignment.
IT WAS A CAB like all the others, small and functional, bug-shaped. Aerodynamic. Uncle John, yo cab ride smooth as a Cadillac.
Don’t it. Spokesman worked on it.
Hatch, Uncle John said. Bet you don’t know this one.
When Adam and Eve was in the Garden of Eden
They didn’t know til the good Lord walked out
Say, when Adam and Eve was in the Garden of Eden
They didn’t know til the good Lord walked out
Eve turned around and soon she found out
Uncle John, that’s corny.
Where Abu?
That nigga sleep. He was sposed to come and help me with my gear.
You ain’t get him in on the gig?
The—
That’s yo running buddy.
The undertaker didn’t ask fo no drummer.
Uncle John shook his head.
Well—
Uncle John kept shaking his head.
Maybe next time.
How he payin? The undertaker I mean.
Good.
Good?
Yeah. Real good.
Good for you. Get that money.
CARIBE FUNERAL HOME swam into focus. The letters formed large bright yellow boxes like at a supermarket.
Thanks, Uncle John.
Break a leg.
THE FUNERAL HOME was an apple, red outside — cherry-wood panels — and white — oak walls and pews — inside. The assembled marched like a long line of black ants up to the raised coffin. Small clouds of handkerchiefs at their faces. Wept before the body stuffed in eggshell velvet in a gleaming bronze casket. Looped back to their seats.
Preacher Bishop started them out slow. Brothers and sisters, how often I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chicken under her wings. But such is the life of man.
Yes.
Hatch whipped organlike waves from his guitar.
Because Adam fell from grace, each of us must fall into the hands of sin, let Death lower us into the grave.
That’s right.
Reverend Bishop caught fire in the assembled’s faces.
But the grave is not our home. I say, the grave is not our home.
Lord said it ain’t.
As newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the Word that they may grow thereby, you gather at the table of my sermon.
Take yo time.
Let us sit at the Lord’s table. His breasts are full of milk and his bones are moistened with marrow.
Preach.
Brothers and sisters, one of ours has fallen but we must keep the bread of life fresh.
Fresh he said.
The breath of prayers and sermons floated in the air. He has made his bed in darkness, but as long as I am in the world, I am the world’s light. Hatch’s breath grew fat. He concentrated on producing his thick music. Yes, I’m pressing on the upward way. New heights I’m gaining every day. Our Father, lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly. Gabriel will wrap you up in his wings and fly you out of the storm. He felt the wings of an angel hard-flapping overhead. Shall we gather at the river where bright angel feet trod? The assembled roared in front of him. Laughter touched him from behind. He turned his head to investigate. There he saw a woman among the odor of roses, standing in the doorway of the hall leading to the undertaker’s office and holding a red-and-black sailor’s cap on with both hands so that the winds of Hatch’s music would not blow it off. Dark hair spilled in deep folds. And smiling. The coiled spring of Hatch’s guts twisted and raised him from his seat. He was lifted up in a sea of music, pouring out of him, churning and eddying about him in warm spirals, burying him in a glittering shower.