“Amen!”
All the flock, they did say alleluia-amen together, as Lucifer is a black angel fallen down from the choir, never the church board folk in Section C.
The Calvary ushers appear at the service hall’s front door with their fake gold sashes draping right shoulder to left hip. “Mount Calvary Missionary” is scripted in sparkling letters along the diagonal of their chests, and they cradle collection pots between stomachs and clasped hands. Ushers always start with the back row. Such is the price for coming late to the eleven thirty. So I reach into my left pocket, palm brushing against the Good News just slightly, but find nothing save for lint and receipts from my weekend fares. The church sister on her cane stands and stares at me crooked-eyed, no matter that it was me who carted her to the Mount. Because of her, I was late this morning.
I left all my spare cash locked in the yellow cab’s glove compartment, parked out in the new paved lot. Been leaving cash locked up since I accidentally dropped a hundred spot into the pot; that c-note earned carrying the serpent Teddy Mann from Cornell Avenue all the way out to O’Hare to catch his red-eye to the islands one Sunday morning. Tried to explain it to the usher, that longtime fellow flock member, how I’d made a mistake that good Sunday, tried to get my tip back from him. Missionary sash-wearing muthafucka just looked at me crooked-eyed as the church lady on her walking stick and strutted on to row twenty-four to continue collection rounds.
Ain’t got nothing for them on this good day then, nothing but my Good News message. So I climb over the legs of the other late folk and dash for the service’s corner door, holding on to my crotch like I’ve gotta go bad. Old church sister still stares at me though, I see her, and so does the reverend in the fourth corner movie screen, gray-black eyes beaming down. But I do make it to the red carpet stairs, and I let go of myself only as I touch the banister. I walk up along the thick fiber instead of down to the basement toilet. Got plenty of time before the collectors make it up top. Takes them twenty minutes to finish rounding up the fellowship loot from Section C. Don’t feel or hear a damn thing as I step into the blackness separating staircase from square stomp in the Payless balcony aisles. Nothing except for this Good News rubbing steel against my side and the reverend panting heavy into his podium mic.
Teddy Mann’s got the finest honey mamma ever seen on the Mount. Kind so fine you want to call her “mamma” just so you can go on pretending like you remember sliding headfirst from her in the beginning. And maybe you would’ve held on to that joy somewhere had you been the one so blessed; sure know if you were born from between there, Church, you wouldn’t need Reverend Jack to tell you a thing about Galilee.
Honey mamma looks to be some righteous mix of Humboldt Park Spaniard, Howard Street Jamaican rum, Magnificent Mile skyrising, and 95th Street sanctifying. Got slanted eyes, cold as Eskimo soles, and a fish-hook nose. Not a beak hook like mine, no, hers is curved upwards just so funk’s gotta climb to seep into her. Her skin’s the same color sand used to be on top of Rainbow Beach when I was little, but clean sand—only thing that shows against her smooth face is the peach fuzz barely sprouting from her pores. You only notice it if you’re blessed enough to catch yourself daring to stare her way; of course, you’re only so brave because Teddy Mann’s never to be found in these balcony pews.
Her smile is just slightly yellowed from all the sugar breathed from bubblegum lips. She’s tall, not so tall to cast shadow over that sly serpent Teddy; but she stands high and regal like the queens who ruled history’s pale make-believe lands. So fine and upright that when honey mamma reaches down to tap your shoulder, you know you’re a hero just short of the gods in heaven.
Teddy must have claimed honey mamma after he turned to evildoing. Serpent served some 26th and California time after he first started playing with that dope—Burglary, Assault with Intent, some desperate something—and hooked up with the old-time concrete kings from Blackstone Avenue behind those bars. Vestibule says after his bid, Teddy returned to 79th Street and proved his soul in flowing blood and cash rolls, and before long the kings turned Sodom, Gomorrah, old Babylon Lounge off Stony Island, and the Zanzibar on the Isle, over to him. Almost twenty years later, he’s still the king with all the paper ends and crooked angles covered. Must be the game that won her over, that same street player’s game that lets the congregation know sly Teddy is the king on Reverend’s sin throne this third Sunday.
There his honey mamma goes, celebrating in Row D first balcony. The sweet mother of Jesus, halfway smiling in that faded yellow gleam, halfway smiling and halfway weeping, sharp bones jabbing through hands patted together soft in Reverend Jack’s pauses. Purple shame just now fades from her cheeks and these slant eyes cut into slices so her pupils hide from the good day sermon. Reverend just told the Mount all about her man, like they ain’t already heard the concrete tales. Yet honey mamma’s still gotta go through these sermon motions. She may have lost Paradise and fallen down from the Mount, taken by Teddy Mann’s sly way, but the fact that she’s here seeking to celebrate His Good News only goes to prove Reverend Jack’s main point about the iniquity of that black serpent, evildoing Satan.
Teddy told me this story about his lady while we rode out north to O’Hare. Her name is Eva, with the “a” from the reverend’s “feast” tacked on for the sake of the celebration. Back in the beginning of their thing, baritone Deacon Nate, who was Teddy’s cousin just up from Mississippi, long before he came about his saved seat in Row Two, he arrived in concrete Gomorrah and tried to convince the serpent how this heifer couldn’t be about nothing special, how she’d bring him down from his throne like all them other fake-ass mixed-nut tricks be doing a nigga trying to get his money right. Spewing hatred’s spittle, that’s how Deacon Nate talked before he came to know Jesus.
Or maybe Nate was such a hater until Teddy took him for a ride along 79th Street in the purple custom Jaguar. They kept riding the strip until they found Eva, then they rolled half a block behind, following her sweet strides. The Jag’s passenger seat and Teddy’s cousin’s Mississippi gabardines were all wet with shame, and Nate was babbling off at the mouth in baritone tongues as the light turned red at King Drive, praising the glory of His name and the wonder of His deeds. Then he begged the serpent for explanation.
“That’s what this life in the game is all about, brother… What’s your name?” Teddy’s black eyes reached over the cab’s sliding glass protector, burned into my dashboard ID card. “Moral? Hah. That’s a good black man’s name. That’s what I tried to tell my bumblefuckin cousin sitting there all stiff-nutted staring at my lady; a black man goes and gets into this game, right, and sets himself up proper, I told the fool. Get hold of as much knowledge here, as much cash as a nigga can on this Earth. Not cause being a smart nigga means a goddamn thing, Moral, or cause calling your black ass rich is worth shit in the end. Black man follows the path to treasure so he can get himself something beautiful in this life. Get him something so fine he knows he’s alive cause his limbs is stirring with fresh blood. So fine, he believes there’s a god somewhere, one who is good cause he gives life this purpose. A true god, not this quarter-wit bullshit they got ill pimps like Reverend Jack preaching up high on the Mount about, that bastard. Him and his cockamamie god standing on high with the kings, getting paid off lost souls. Ain’t talking about no lie to make niggas feel good about the chitlins down deep in their guts and the stupidity sky high in their minds; a true and real god who creates sweet, beautiful things for human beings. That god leaves you humble with his mighty eye for making beauty, humble but proud at the same time to be alive. Can’t help humble pride walking down 79th Street next to a living creation that fine, brother. Hear me? You gotta get that god knowledge so you grasp how to appreciate it. Gotta get that man’s paper so you can afford her, cause the god rule say she costs. That’s all we’re in this cockamamie quarter-assed game for, Moral. Told my cousin this as he sat next to me—know what that buzzard went and did right afterwards? Country fuck went and got religion on the Mount with the pimp. Deacon’s nuts ain’t got stiff since. Punk-ass plantation retard. But you hear what I’m saying to you, don’t you, Moral?”