Deacon King Kong(43)
Bum-Bum, who had faithfully stood in line twenty minutes to play her number and who had lost her place twice since the party started and the line had been reduced to a line for whiskey shots, took umbrage.
“Why you spreading haints and spirits, Dominic?”
“It’s good luck,” Dominic said.
“He don’t need luck. He got Jesus!”
“He can have this too.”
“Jesus Christ don’t need no witchery. Jesus don’t need no ugly dolls. Jesus ain’t got no limits. Look at Soup. Jesus brought him home ’cause we was praying for him. Ain’t that right, Soup?”
Soup, in his suit and bow tie, towering over the party of folks drinking shots and a few now dancing to the horrific bachata of Los So?adores, looked uncomfortable. “Truth is, Sister, I don’t go to church no more. I’m a member of the Nation.”
“What Nation?”
“The Nation of Islam.”
“Is that like the United Nations?” Bum-Bum asked.
“Not really,” he said.
“They got their own flag, like the Stars and Stripes?” Sausage asked.
“Them Stars and Stripes ain’t mine, Brother Sausage,” Soup said. “I got no country. I’m a citizen of the world. A Muslim.”
“Oh . . .” Hot Sausage said, uncertain what else to say.
“See, Muhammad was the true Prophet of God. Not Jesus. And Muhammad didn’t use no little dolls like Dominic here.” Seeing the horror on Bum-Bum’s face, Soup added, “But I agrees with you to a point, Miss Bum-Bum. Everybody needs something.”
He was trying to be amenable, as Soup always was, but his words had a terrible effect. Bum-Bum stood with her hands on her hips, thunderstruck into silence. Dominic looked away in embarrassment. Sister Gee, Hot Sausage, and Sportcoat couldn’t believe what they’d heard. Joaquin, noting a lull in the activity among them, unslung his guitar, slipped into the front door of the building as Los So?adores chugged on, and emerged a minute later with a bottle of brandy.
“Welcome back, Soup. I saved this for you,” Joaquin said.
Soup took the bottle in his giant hand. “I can’t drink this,” he said. “This is the white man’s way of keeping the black man down.”
“With Dominican brandy?” Joaquin said. “That’s the best.”
“It’s piss compared to Puerto Rican brandy,” Miss Izi said from Joaquin’s window.
“Get out my window,” Joaquin hissed angrily.
“I’m making money for you! Like before! Rabbithead!”
“Get out my window and take the midnight broom out of town, hussy!”
There was a fat glass ashtray at Miss Izi’s elbow. She grabbed it and tossed it at her ex-husband. It was a mild, casual toss, flung like a Frisbee. She didn’t even mean to strike him, and she didn’t. Instead, the ashtray struck a pregnant woman in the shoulder. She was dancing near the front of the crowd with her boyfriend, and she quickly spun around and slapped Dominic, who was standing behind her, holding the doll. Being a gentleman, Dominic raised his hand to stop her from striking him a second time and inadvertently clunked the young mother’s boyfriend on the head with the doll’s hard battery head. In turn, the boyfriend reached his fist to whack Dominic, but instead his elbow struck Bum-Bum in the jaw, who had stepped over to help the young mother. Bum-Bum, furious at being hit, flung a punch at her assailant and struck Sister Gee, who fell into Eleanora Soto, treasurer of the Cause Houses Puerto Rican Statehood Society, who was sipping a cup of whiskey, which she spilled down the shirt of Calvin, the Transit Authority worker who had just given Sportcoat his five-dollar lunch money.
And just like that it was on. A fight, with biting, scratching, and kicking. It wasn’t a free-for-all, but rather a series of skirmishes that exploded and quelled, breaking off here, starting again there, with referees and peacemakers scattered about, some taking knuckles in the face themselves, all on a hot morning when they should have been celebrating. Several fought till they got tired, sat down on the front steps in tears and exhaustion, and then, once they’d caught their breath, started up again, just as enraged. Others cursed out one another until one or the other got struck by an errant fist, and then they too joined the fray. Still others fought silently, resolutely, in pairs, working out old grudges they’d held for years. They were all so busy that no one seemed to notice a tall figure in a black leather jacket, Bunch Moon’s enforcer Earl, a switchblade knife in his fist, slowly working his way from the back of the crowd to the front, slipping left and right, easing toward Sportcoat, who was still seated on the front steps in front of Los So?adores next to Soup, both of them watching the fight in wonder as the terrible band played on.
“This is my fault,” Soup admitted. “I shoulda stayed upstairs and watched television.”
“Oh, the cotton and weeds comes together from time to time but it ain’t nothing,” Sportcoat said. “These things is good. They clears the air.” As he watched the scrambling, cursing mob, it occurred to Sportcoat that Joaquin’s unopened bottle of delicious Dominican brandy, standing on the bottom step just a few feet away, looked lonesome, with nobody to keep it company. He also realized he’d have to get moving soon. He had to do some yard work for the old white lady over on Silver Street who needed him in her garden planting. He usually went on Wednesday, but he’d missed last Wednesday because . . . well, because. He’d promised to come today, Monday, and the old lady didn’t fool around, which made him determined. He’d even decided to skip playing Joaquin’s numbers that morning and head straight out to the old lady’s house, but Joaquin’s lousy band woke him up and derailed him. Now he had to get moving.