Deacon King Kong(113)

He moved to the other side and had begun chinking away at the cinder block of Jesus’s right hand when the sound of the church door opening and the old man’s feet shuffling across the pavement stopped him.

“You gotta get inside to catch this cinder block when it falls in,” he said.

“I do?” Sportcoat said.

“Yeah. We’re looking for a box of soap. It can’t break. It’s valuable.”

“Well this ain’t soap,” Sportcoat said. He held up a dusty metal box.

“Why you trying to bust my cojones!” Elefante said, snatching it.

“Your what?”

“My balls.”

“I ain’t got nothing to do with them things.”

“I thought you said nothing was in there.”

“You said soap. This don’t look like no soap. It’s a box. It was mortared to the side of the brick.”

“Side of what?”

“The cinder block. Somebody put a metal plate on the side and fixed this to it.”

“I thought you said there was nothing in there.”

“You said soap, mister.”

“Stop calling me mister!” Elefante squealed in excitement, and dropped to his knees and thrust the flashlight at Sportcoat. “Shine it.”

Sportcoat complied. Elefante opened the box and pulled out a plump stone figurine, about four inches high, with large breasts.

“What do you know,” Sportcoat said. He resisted saying “a little colored lady.” Instead he muttered, “It’s a doll.”

“Just like he said. No bigger than a bar of Palmolive soap,” Elefante muttered, turning it back and forth.

“I seen country mice that was bigger,” Sportcoat said. “Can I touch it?”

Elefante handed it to him. “It do feel heavy,” Sportcoat said, handing it back. “She’s a hefty little woman. I seen a few of them in my time.”

“Like this thing?”

“Hefty women with big love knobs? Sure. This church is full of ’em.”

Elefante ignored that, glancing around instinctively. The yard was dark. There wasn’t a soul about. The Lincoln sat at the curb, motor idling. He had it. He was free. Time to move.

“I’ll drop you off. Then call you later. I’ll take care of you, buddy.”

Sportcoat didn’t move. “Wait a minute. You think, on account of me and Sister Paul helping you here, you could help me find the Christmas box too?”

“The what?”

“The Christmas box. All the Christmas money. Money saved up by people in the church to buy gifts for their children. My Hettie collected it every year and hid it in the church someplace. Christmas ain’t but a month away now.”

“Where is it?”

“If I’d known, I wouldn’t be asking you to help.”

“How much was saved in it?”

“Well, when you add it all up, and figure out the liars who claim they had this or that in there, I reckon it’s probably about three or four thousand dollars. Cash.”

“I think I can handle that, Mr. Sportcoat.”

“Come again? Mister?”

“Mr. Sportcoat.”

Sportcoat pawed at his forehead with a wrinkled hand. There was a clarity to the world now that felt new, not uncomfortable, but at times the newness of it felt odd, like the feeling of breaking in a new suit of clothing. The constant headaches and nausea that had been his companions after leaving the swigfest for decades had lifted. He felt like a radio tuning in to a new channel, one that was beginning to fuzz into range, slowly coming in clear, proper, the way his Hettie had always wanted him to be. The new feeling humbled him. It made him feel religious, it made him feel closer to God, and to man, God’s honored child. “I ain’t never been called Mr. Sportcoat by nobody.”

“Well what do you want to be called?”

Sportcoat thought for a moment. “Maybe a child of God.”

“All right. Child of God. I can handle it. I’ll get you a new Christmas box.”

Elefante moved to the car.

“Wait!”

“What now?”

“How we gonna explain this brick missing from the wall?”

But Elefante had already moved to the car. “I’ll have it fixed tomorrow. Just tell the church not to say a word. Tell ’em to ask Sister Paul. I’ll handle everything else.”

“What about Jesus’s hand? They gonna be mad about that. It’s gotta be fixed back.”

“Tell ’em Jesus is gonna get a new wall. And a new hand. And a new building if they want. You got my word.”





26





BEAUTIFUL



Sportcoat’s funeral twenty-two months after the Deems Clemens shooting was, without a doubt, the greatest funeral in Cause Houses history. It was the usual Five Ends Baptist Church catastrophe, of course. Reverend Gee was twenty minutes late because his new Chevy—six-years-old new—didn’t start. One of the flower delivery guys fell in front of the church and broke his arm, having tripped over a wayward brick left out in front that was part of the new renovation that seemed to be ongoing—money coming from God knows where. He fell through the open rectory door, sending moonflowers everywhere. The Cousins, Nanette and Sweet Corn, got into a hissing match in the choir pew over the ownership of a hat. The hearse carrying the body from the funeral home was late as usual, this time because old Morris Hurly, affectionately known as Hurly Girly, claimed he got in a fender bender on the BQE with an oil truck, which prompted him to do some quick rearranging of Sportcoat’s body as it lay in the casket inside the hearse, which was hurriedly parked smack in the middle of the church’s brand-new garden out back, for lack of a parking space in front. Several angry attendees, glaring out the church back door—including Bum-Bum, Sister Bibb, and several members of the now-bulked-up Puerto Rican Statehood Society of the Cause Houses, thanks to its new president, Miss Izi—watched in disgust, noting there were no bent or dented fenders on the shiny limo, and guessed correctly that when Hurly Girly saw the line of people standing outside the church stretching around the corner and into the projects courtyard, he panicked and decided to tidy up Sportcoat.