Deacon King Kong(106)

“No wonder Hettie put up with you!” she guffawed.

“You knew my Hettie?”

It took a moment before she regained herself, moving her empty jaws in a chewing motion and chortling, “Course I did, son.”

“She never told me about you.”

“Why should she? You was a drunk and not listening no way. You don’t hardly remember nothing. I bet you don’t remember me.”

“A little . . .”

“Uh-huh. Men used to ask me to bed in eight languages. Not no more. You drinking now?”

“Not since I saw . . . no, not right now.”

“You look like you could use one. I bet you could.”

“Could indeed. But I’m trying to . . . uh . . . naw. I don’t want one.”

“Well, you set tight, mister, and I’mma tell you a few things that’ll drive anybody to drink. And after I’m done, you go ahead and do whatever it is you got to do. But first, where’s my cheese?”

“What?”

“My cheese.”

“I ain’t got no cheese.”

“Then that’s the thing I’ll tell you first,” she said, “for it is all connected. I’ll tell it this once. But don’t darken my doorway again if you ain’t got my cheese.”



* * *





Sportcoat sat calmly in a chair near the window, rubbing his jaw, taking deep breaths, after Sister Paul had motioned him to push her closer to the window where they could both see the sunshine. Once he had locked her chair as she requested and pulled a chair up to the window she started in:

“We all knowed each other,” she said. “Hettie, me, my husband, my daughter Edie, Sister Gee’s parents—they was the aunt and uncle of the Cousins, by the way. Nanette and Sweet Corn. And of course your friend Rufus. We all come up from various parts of the South around ’bout the same time. Hettie and Rufus was the youngest. Me and my husband was the oldest. We come up following Edie, who brung us out the South. Me and my husband started the church in my living room. Then we got the congregation, and after a while we got enough money together to buy us a piece of dirt just outside the Cause Houses. The land was cheap then. That’s the beginning of Five Ends. That’s how it got started.

“See, the Cause was all Italians in the forties when we come. They built them projects for the Italians to unload the boats at the harbor. That business was dead when we come. The boats left. The docks closed, and them Italians didn’t want us. Fact is, you couldn’t walk down Silver Street to go downtown. You had to take the bus or the subway, or get a ride—nobody had no car—so you’d just run past if you had to. You didn’t walk down Silver Street unless you wanted to lose your teeth, or if it was very late or you didn’t have no bus money.

“Well, we didn’t mind too much. The South was worse. Myself, I paid them Italians no more mind than I would watching a bird snatch crumbs off the ground.

“I did day’s work for a white lady lived up in Cobble Hill. One night she had a party and I worked late. Well, it was cold and the buses was running slow, so I walked home. I done that from time to time when it was late. I didn’t walk down Silver Street. I skirted the outside. I come all the way down Van Marl, and when I got to Slag Street, I turned and come that way, skirting along the harbor where the factories were. That’s how the colored walked home late at night.

“I was walking down Van Marl that night—I reckon maybe it was just three in the morning or so, and I seen two, maybe three blocks coming at me two men running to beat the band. White men. Hauling tail. Coming right at me. One right behind the other.

“Well, I’m a colored woman and it was dark and I know however that cobweb spins out, I’d likely be blamed for whatever wrong happened. So I hid in a doorway and let ’em come. They run right past me. The first fella zipped past, and right behind him come the second. That second feller was a cop.

“When they got to the corner of Van Marl and Slag, the first fella running stopped in the intersection and turned around and pulled a pistol on the second feller, the policeman. Caught that cop by surprise. He looked to blow that cop’s head off.

“And don’t you know, outta nowhere come this truck and boom! Hit that feller standing in the intersection. Cleaned him up good. Deadened ’em right there. Then the truck stopped and it got quiet.

“The cop ran into the street and checked out the man with the gun. He was deader than yesterday’s spaghetti. Then he went to the driver. I heard the driver say, ‘I never saw him.’ Then the cop said to the driver, ‘Don’t move. I’m going to a call box.’ He ran off to one of them police call boxes to get help. Ran clear around the corner and out of sight.

“Well, that was my time to go. I come outta the doorway and walked fast down the sidewalk past the truck. As I was scooting past, the feller driving the truck, he hollered, ‘Help me, please.’

“I wanted to keep walking. I was scared. That wasn’t none of my business. So I kept going a few more steps. But the feller driving the truck begged me. He said please, please, help me, begging me to help him.

“Well, I reckon the Lord said to me, ‘Go ’head on and help. Maybe he’s hurt or injured.’ So I goes to the driver’s side where he’s setting and I says, ‘Is you hurt?’