Paradise (19 page)

Soane, sitting next to Deek, listening to his heavy breathing, understood how grave her mistake. She was about to touch her husband on the arm to caution him from rising, when Misner lowered the cross at last and spoke the opening words of the ceremony. Deek sat back and cleared his sinuses, but the damage was done. They were right back where they’d started when Jefferson Fleetwood pulled a gun on K.D.; when Menus had to interrupt a pushing match between Steward and Arnold. And when Mable had sent no cake to the All Church Bake Sale. The peace and goodwill summoned by the announcement of the marriage were now shattered. The reception at her house would be a further digest of the problem, and most disturbing, Soane, unbeknownst to others, had made the mistake of inviting Connie and the Convent girls to the wedding reception. Having misread the warning, she was about to hostess one of the biggest messes Ruby had ever seen. Both of her dead sons were leaning against the Kelvinator, cracking the shells of Spanish peanuts. “What’s that in the sink?” Easter asked her. She looked and saw feathers—brightly colored but small like chicken feathers—lying in a heap in her sink. It made her wonder: she hadn’t killed or plucked any fowl and would never have put feathers there. “I don’t know,” she answered. “You should gather them up, Mama,” Scout told her. “That’s no place for them, you know.” They both laughed and crunched the nuts. She woke wondering what kind of bird was colored that way. When pairs and pairs of buzzards flew over the town, she thought that was the significance of the dream: that no matter what, this marriage would fix nothing. Now she believed her sons had tried to tell her something else: she’d been concentrating on the colors, while the point was the sink. “That’s no place for them, you know.” The strange feathers she had invited did not belong in her house.

When finally Kate Golightly touched the organ keys and the couple turned around to face the congregation, Soane cried. Partly at the sad bright smiles of the bride and groom, partly in dread of the malice, set roaming now, and on its way to her house.

It had long been noticed that the Morgan brothers seldom spoke to or looked at each other. Some believed it was because they were jealous of one another; that their views only seemed to be uniform; that down deep was a mutual resentment which surfaced in small ways. In their automobile arguments, for example: one’s fierce preference for Chevrolets, the other’s stubborn defense of Oldsmobiles. In fact the brothers not only agreed on almost everything; they were in eternal if silent conversation. Each knew the other’s thoughts as well as he knew his face and only once in a while needed the confirmation of a glance.

Now they stood in different rooms of Deek’s house, thinking the same thing. Fortunately, Misner was late, Menus sober, Pulliam triumphant and Jeff preoccupied with Sweetie. Mable, who had attended the ceremony, had relieved her daughter-in-law for the reception. The wedding couple were in line—glazed smiles in place, but in line nevertheless. Pastor Cary—soothing and jovial—was the best bet for keeping things steady. He and his wife, Lily, were treasured for their duets, and if they could get some music going…

Steward opened the piano while Deek moved through the guests. As he passed Reverend Pulliam, nodding and smiling with Sweetie and Jeff, Deek gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. In the dining room the food table drew appreciative murmurs but as yet no takers except children. The coos over the gift table seemed strained, excessive. Steward waited at the piano, his steel-gray hair and innocent eyes in perfect balance. The children around him shone like agate; the women were brilliant but quiet in their still fresh Easter clothes; the men’s squeaky new shoes glistened like melon seeds. Everyone was stiff, overly polite. Deek must be having trouble persuading the Carys, he thought. Steward reached for tobacco, silently urging his twin to try somebody else—the Male Chorus, Kate Golightly—quick before Pulliam took it in his head to pray them back into battle stations or, Lord help us, Jeff began reciting his VA grievances. Once that started his next target would be K.D. who had never served in the military. Where is Soane? he wondered. Steward could see Dovey unpinning the veil from the bride’s hair and his innocent eyes enjoyed his wife’s figure once more. In anything—Sunday dress, white church uniform or even his own bathrobe—the look of her body made him smile with satisfaction. But Deek was cautioning him now about distraction, so Steward left off admiring Dovey and saw the success of his brother’s efforts. Kate came toward the piano and sat down. She flexed her fingers and began to play. First a preparatory trill, accompanied by friendly coughs and murmurs of anticipation. Then Simon and Lily Cary arrived, humming, humming, while they considered what to begin with. They were a third of the way into “Precious Lord, take my hand,” smiles had turned toward the direction of the music, when they heard the horn blast of an ancient Cadillac.

Connie did not come, but her boarders did. Mavis drove the Cadillac, with Gigi and Seneca in the back and a somebody new in the passenger seat. None of them was dressed for a wedding. They piled out of the car looking like go-go girls: pink shorts, skimpy tops, see-through skirts; painted eyes, no lipstick; obviously no underwear, no stockings. Jezebel’s storehouse raided to decorate arms, earlobes, necks, ankles and even a nostril. Mavis and Soane, greeting each other on the lawn, were uncomfortable. Two other women sauntered into the dining room and surveyed the food tables. They said “Hi” and wondered aloud if there was anything other than lemonade and punch to drink. There wasn’t, so they did what a few other young people had already done: drifted out of the Morgans’ yard and strolled past Anna Flood’s store to the Oven. The few local girls already there clumped together and withdrew, leaving the territory to the Poole boys: Apollo, Brood and Hurston. To the Seawrights: Timothy Jr. and Spider. To Destry, Vane and Royal. Menus joined them, but Jeff, to whom he had been speaking, did not. Neither did the watching groom. Dovey was removing the fat from a lamb slice when the music hit. She cut her finger in the blare and sucked it when Otis Redding screamed “Awwwww, lil girl…,” obliterating the hymn’s quiet plea. Inside, outside and on down the road the beat and the heat were ruthless.

“Oh, they’re just having fun,” a voice behind Reverend Pulliam whispered. He turned to look but could not locate the speaker, so he continued glaring out of the window. He knew about such women. Like children, always on the lookout for fun, devoted to it but always needing a break in order to have it. A lift, a hand, a five-dollar bill. Somebody to excuse or coddle them. Somebody to look down at the ground and say nothing when they disturbed the peace. He exchanged glances with his wife who nodded and left the window. She knew, as he did, that fun-obsessed adults were clear signs of already advanced decay. Soon the whole country would be awash in toys, tone-deaf from raucous music and hollow laughter. But not here. Not in Ruby. Not while Senior Pulliam was alive.

The Convent girls are dancing; throwing their arms over their heads, they do this and that and then the other. They grin and yip but look at no one. Just their own rocking bodies. The local girls look over their shoulders and snort. Brood, Apollo and Spider, steel-muscled farm boys with sophisticated eyes, sway and snap their fingers. Hurston sings accompaniment. Two small girls ride their bikes over; wide-eyed, they watch the dancing women. One of them, with amazing hair, asks can she borrow a bike. Then another. They ride the bikes down Central Avenue with no regard for what the breeze does to their long flowered skirts or how pumping pedals plumped their breasts. One coasts with her ankles on the handlebars. Another rides the handlebars with Brood on the seat behind her. One, in the world’s shortest pink shorts, is seated on a bench, arms wrapped around herself. She looks drunk. Are they all? The boys laugh.

Anna and Kate carried their plates to the edge of Soane’s garden.

“Which one?” whispered Anna.

“That one there,” said Kate. “The one with the rag for a blouse.”

“That’s a halter,” said Anna.

“Halter? Looks like a starter to me.”

“She the one K.D. was messing with?”

“Yep.”

“I know that one there. She comes in the store. Who the other two?”

“Beats me.”

“Look. There goes Billie Delia.”

“Naturally.”

“Oh, come on, Kate. Leave Billie alone.”

They spooned potato salad into their mouths. Behind them came Alice Pulliam, murmuring, “My, my, my-my-my.”

“Hello, Aunt Alice,” said Kate.

“Have you ever in your life seen such carrying on? Bet you can’t locate one brassiere in the whole bunch.” Alice held the crown of her hat in the breeze. “Why’re you all smiling? I don’t think this is the least bit funny.”

“No. Course not,” said Kate.

“This is a wedding, remember?”

“You’re right, Aunt Alice. I said you right.”

“How would you like to have somebody dancing nasty at your wedding?” Alice’s bright black eyes searched Anna’s hair.

Kate nodded sympathetically while pressing her lips tight so no smile could seep through them. Anna tried to look seriously affronted before this stern preacher’s wife, thinking: Dear Jesus, I wouldn’t last an hour in this town if I married Richard.

“I’m going to have to get Pastor himself to stop this,” Alice said, and moved resolutely off toward Soane’s house.

Anna and Kate waited several beats before setting their laughter free. Whatever else, thought Anna, the Convent women had saved the day. Nothing like other folks’ sins for distraction. The young people were wrong. Be the Furrow of
Her
Brow. Speaking of which, where was Richard anyway?

Down on his knees, Richard Misner was angry at his anger, and at his mishandling of it. Used to obstacles, adept at disagreement, he could not reconcile the level of his present fury with what seemed to be its source. He loved God so much it hurt, although that same love sometimes made him laugh out loud. And he deeply respected his colleagues. For centuries they had held on. Preaching, shouting, dancing, singing, absorbing, arguing, counseling, pleading, commanding. Their passion burned or smoldered like lava over a land that had waged war against them and their flock without surcease. A lily-livered war without honor as either its point or reward; an unprincipled war that thrived as much on the victor’s cowardice as on his mendacity. On stage and in print he and his brethren had been the heart of comedy, the chosen backs for parody’s knife. They were cursed by death row inmates, derided by pimps. Begrudged even miserly collection plates. Yet through all of that, if the Spirit seemed to be slipping away they had held on to it with their teeth if they had to, grabbed it in their fists if need be. They took it to buildings ready to be condemned, to churches from which white congregations had fled, to quilt tents, to ravines and logs in clearings. Whispered it in cabins lit by moonlight lest the Law see. Prayed for it behind trees and in sod houses, their voices undaunted by roaring winds. From Abyssinian to storefronts, from Pilgrim Baptist to abandoned movie houses; in polished shoes, worn boots, beat-up cars and Lincoln Continentals, well fed or malnourished, they let their light, flickering low or blazing like a comet, pierce the darkness of days. They wiped white folks’ spit from the faces of black children, hid strangers from posses and police, relayed life-preserving information faster than the newspaper and better than the radio. At sickbeds they looked death in the eye and mouth. They pressed the heads of weeping mothers to their shoulders before conducting their life-gouged daughters to the cemetery. They wept for chain gangs, reasoned with magistrates. Made whole congregations scream. In ecstasy. In belief. That death was
life,
don’t you know, and
every
life, don’t you know, was holy, don’t you know, in His eyesight. Rocked as they were by the sight of evil, its snout was familiar to them. Real wonder, however, lay in the amazing shapes and substances God’s grace took: gospel in times of persecution; the exquisite wins of people forbidden to compete; the upright righteousness of those who let no boot hold them down—people who made Job’s patience look like restlessness. Elegance when all around was shabby.

Richard Misner knew all that. Yet, however intact his knowledge and respect, the tremor inside him now was ungovernable. Pulliam had fingered a membrane enclosing a ravenous appetite for vengeance, an appetite he needed to understand in order to subdue. Had the times finally gotten to him? Was the desolation that rose after King’s murder, a desolation that climbed like a tidal wave in slow motion, just now washing over him? Or was it the calamity of watching the drawn-out abasement of a noxious President? Had the long, unintelligible war infected him? Behaving like a dormant virus in blossom now that it was coming to a raggedy close? Everybody on his high school football team died in that war. Eleven broad-backed boys. They were the ones he had looked up to, wanted to be like. Was he just now gagging at their futile death? Was that the origin of this incipient hunger for violence?

Or was it Ruby?

What was it about this town, these people, that enraged him? They were different from other communities in only a couple of ways: beauty and isolation. All of them were handsome, some exceptionally so. Except for three or four, they were coal black, athletic, with noncommittal eyes. All of them maintained an icy suspicion of outsiders. Otherwise they were like all small black communities: protective, God-loving, thrifty but not miserly. They saved and spent; liked money in the bank and nice things too. When he arrived he thought their flaws were normal; their disagreements ordinary. They were pleased by the accomplishments of their neighbors and their mockery of the lazy and the loose was full of laughter. Or used to be. Now, it seemed, the glacial wariness they once confined to strangers more and more was directed toward each other. Had he contributed to it? He could not help admitting that without his presence there would probably be no contention, no painted fists, no quarrels about missing language on an oven’s lip. No warnings about meetings he held with a dozen or so young people. Certainly no public, let alone physical, antagonism between businessmen. And absolutely no runaways. No drinking. Even acknowledging his part in the town’s unraveling, Misner was dissatisfied. Why such stubbornness, such venom against asserting rights, claiming a wider role in the affairs of black people? They, of all people, knew the necessity of unalloyed will; the rewards of courage and single-mindedness. Of all people, they understood the mechanisms of wresting power. Didn’t they?