The Black Mass of Brother Springer (19 page)

       Our second mass meeting closely followed the pattern of the first meeting with some important exceptions. There was more of everything; more people, more music, longer speeches by Dr. Heartwell and Dr. David, longer prayers by me, more enthusiasm from the crowd, and more money collected.

       After the meeting broke up at about nine-thirty, Reverend Hutto and I counted the money in the basement. There was a total collection of $1,272.37 for the meeting. Added to the donations received during the day and the night before, the sum was impressive. After I locked the safe and prepared to leave, Reverend Hutto returned to his desk to work on transportation schedules. I stopped by his desk on my way out.

       "Don't work all night now," I said kindly. "Remember, tomorrow is another day."

       "Don't I know it!" Reverend Hutto exclaimed. "But there are people who got to get to work at four-thirty in the morning. And if I don't get something worked out, a lot of white folks are going to miss their breakfast."

       "Better break in three volunteers to work three shifts around the clock. You can't do it all and we need you very much, Reverend Hutto."

       "Once I get it all worked out it won't be so bad."

       "You get some sleep now before morning," I said. "I mean it."

       "Don't worry, I will. You going home now?"

       "Yes."

       "You wait a minute and I'll get somebody to walk home with you."

       "I know the way," I laughed.

       "So do a lot of other people," Reverend Hutto said darkly. "You best take along some protection."

       "I'll be all right."

       "Dr. Heartwell told me about that cross in your front yard last night."

       "Teenagers." I shrugged indifferently. "Don't worry about me. You just take good care of yourself. Hear?"

       "Yes, sir. Good night." He bent over his papers.

       I had completely forgotten about the cross burning until Reverend Hutto reminded me. My cloth was a protective covering, but it wasn't armor, and in a dark street a great many things can happen to a man alone. But somehow I couldn't really worry about myself and about what might happen to me. A persistent feeling of unreality cloaked my every action and every word. Only once in awhile—like the conversation with the girl in the telegraph office—did I feel that I was the real me. The rest of the time I seemed to be outside myself, an observer, an anonymous member of a great movie audience watching some new kind of comedy on a life-sized screen, wondering how the plot would turn out in the end.

       The walk home was uneventful and I rather enjoyed it. There was a slight breeze for a change, and I was either getting used to the heat or getting used to my heavy, dark clothing. The temperature hadn't changed, and the humidity was just as heavy. I burned the tape in the kitchen sink and it smelled pretty bad. But I had no real use for it.

       After a shower, I sat listlessly in my shorts at the desk in the study. There were pencils, plenty of paper, but I didn't feel like writing anything. I didn't feel like doing anything except sitting, and I would have preferred sitting outside on the porch. But I knew that the mosquitoes would drive me inside in no time at all. With an effort I got out of my chair and switched off the light. The absence of light seemed to cool the room by an abrupt and magical ten or fifteen percent. I moved the swivel chair on its rollers over to the window, sat down, and looked into the night.

       The streetlight on the corner put a pool of light on the sidewalk, and a larger circle of light on the street itself. The slow-moving pedestrians, walking in the darkness, appeared to come from nowhere as they stepped into the light. One, two, three and on the fourth step they were through the circle and in darkness again. I smoked cigarettes and watched this phenomenon with absorbed interested for a long time. My eyes gradually got used to the darkness and the game lost interest for me as soon as I could pick out the pedestrians before they entered the circle of light. And then I saw a darker shadow against the blackness of the empty lot.

       This shadow didn't belong there. Staring through the window, I concentrated on the shape and inventoried the contents of the vacant lot in my mind. The lot was not an empty lot except in the sense that it didn't have a building on it. The lot contained piles of tin cans, weeds, a large patch of mother-in-law tongue cacti, gama grass, cardboard boxes and other debris, but unlike a Florida vacant lot, there were no patches of jungly growth, because traces of burning remained. Within the past year or two the lot had been cleared and burned over. The shadow I stared at was not a part of the regular inventory I saw every day.

       And then the shadow stretched.

       Fixing the spot in my mind, I slipped into my trousers and entered the kitchen. I fumbled through the kitchen drawers to the left of the sink until I found a butcher knife. I tested the sharpness of the knife with my thumb. Not too sharp, but then a knife didn't have to be exceptionally sharp to cut somebody's throat. I giggled foolishly with excitement, and then caught the hiccups. I breathed deeply with my mouth open and then drank a glass of water. The hiccups stopped as suddenly as they had started, and I was sobered and steadied by the deep breathing.

       Barefooted, I eased open the back door, and bending low to the ground I tiptoed silently around the house. At the corner of the building, I paused, and stared across the lot until my eyes found the dark figure. I couldn't tell whether he was facing toward the house or toward the street, but I crept forward, knowing that if I got close enough to use the knife, the way he was facing wouldn't make any great difference.

       The closer I got the louder my heart pounded. There seemed to be an audible drumming coming out of my chest, and although I knew there actually wasn't I slowed my pace until I only took one short step at a time, waited, and then took another. When I reached a spot less than ten feet away from the figure a match flared, startling me, and I blinked my eyes. I jumped forward, bringing the knife up as I jumped, but the fraction of delay had been too much.

       My wrist was seized, a chopping blow on my elbow numbed my arm clear to the shoulder, and I was flat on my back in loose sand, with two heavy knees on my chest. A match was lighted above my head and my burning eyes swimmingly recognized the face of Tommy Heartwell.

       "You're just a cocky banty rooster, ain't you?" Tommy chuckled, helped me to my feet. "I believe you was going to tick me with that knife!"

       "Yes I was, Tommy," I said, rubbing my numb and aching arm. "But I didn't know it was you. In fact, I didn't know who it was."

       "And you didn't care!" Tommy laughed again. "Come on, I'd better take you up to the house."

       The front door was closed inside by the bolt, so we had to enter by the back door. I turned on the light, and washed my hands and arms at the kitchen sink.

       "I better keep watch a little better than I been doing," Tommy said. "I didn't even see you till you was about twenty feet away."

       "Why didn't you say something, Tommy? I would certainly have killed you. You know that, don't you?"

       "I know it now. I'm sorry, Reverend. But I was glad it was me out there instead of somebody else. Daddy told us to set up a guard on account of them burning that cross, and another man takes over at midnight."

       "I don't need any guard on me," I said angrily.

       "That's what Daddy said you'd say. And that's why we didn't tell you anything about it."

       "I can take care of myself, Tommy. Go on home and go to bed."

       "I reckon we'll just watch a couple of more nights, Reverend," Tommy said pleasantly. "It won't hurt nothin'."

       "All right! Good night." Why argue with him?

       After another shower, and when I was flaked out on my bed, the knowledge that a friendly giant like Tommy was guarding my sleep was rather comforting, and within a very few minutes I was fast asleep.

Chapter Twelve

At first I couldn't understand what it was that aroused me from my slumbers. I am a sound sleeper, and a glance at my watch showed me that it was only six a.m. Much too early to get out of bed. I then heard an angry and hoarse-voiced whisper, followed by the mad cackling of Ralphine's voice. I was awake so I got out of bed, left my bedroom and padded to the kitchen.

       Ralphine and a young Negro were separated by the kitchen table, and the man was quite angry. His lips were poked out in a petulant pout, and he was scowling at Ralphine. She cackled as I entered, but it was a restrained and automatic utterance compared to her usual ear-shattering laughter. The kitchen table was littered with objects not usually associated with a kitchen. There was a small pile of chicken feathers dyed in primary colors, a neat pile of pig bristles, several tiny bleached bones, a fruit jar containing red dirt, (the jar was labeled RED DIRT) and a dozen or so dried and withered leathery objects which I couldn't identify. My appearance in the doorway had evidently halted a very interesting argument.

       "Good morning, Ralphine," I said, "what's all this?"

       "Nothin' Captain," Ralphine said. "I was just goin' to fix your breakfast."

       The young buck looked at me sullenly. He was still angry with Ralphine, but he was also embarrassed by my presence, and undecided as to what course he should follow. He glared at Ralphine for a second, and then turned to me.

       "I'm sorry, Reverend Springer, if I woke you up," he said, "but your cook owes me four dollars!"

       "I don't any such thing, Captain," Ralphine denied. "He asked me for a juju, and he done got a juju. 'Cause a juju don't work ain't no fault of mine. It was a good juju."

       "Juju?" I inquired.

       The young Negro was now sorry he had said anything and he edged toward the back door. "Never you mind, old woman!" He said bravely at the door. "I'll get my four dollars back! You just wait and see!" The screen door slammed behind him and he was gone.

       Ralphine gathered up the objects from the table and dropped them into an empty flour sack. She cackled twice, but her heart wasn't in it.

       "Crazy boy!" she exclaimed. "Crazy boy! You want your breakfast now, Captain?"

       "What was the argument about?"

       "I made a good juju," she said. "Man, he wear around his neck he never get VD! This crazy boy say he wear juju, get VD anyway. I say to the boy he never wear juju. He say he did wear juju, get VD anyway."

       "You mean venereal disease?"

       "That's what I say. You wear juju, you don't get VD."

       "I don't think my church members would approve of my having a witch making jujus in my kitchen," I said, laughing, "especially if they don't work."

       "Always work before," Ralphine replied. She filled a pot with water, poured a liberal amount of grits into the pot, clicked the burner on the electric stove.

       "How do you make such a juju?"

       "My daddy not from Jax. He learn how to make juju in Nassau, and he teach me before he died. That's why I always work for minister like you. Make juju in minister's house, juju powerful." She said simply.

       "How many of my church members come to you for jujus?"

       "They all come to Ralphine," the old witch said proudly. "I make all kinds of juju. Make babies, no make babies, win money, no win money, stop VD, get VD. I make all kinds of juju. Dr. Jensen buy juju from me all the time. He keep me on this job."

       "Dr. Fred Jensen, the trustee?"

       "Yes, sir. He buys juju all the time! He old, but he want to be young again!" Ralphine was now in good spirits again, and she let out a cackle that blasted my ears. "Dr. Jensen, he think juju help him make baby."

       "That's fine, Ralphine," I said happily. "You make all the jujus you want."

       I shaved in the bathroom, a new and daring plan forming in my mind. If Dr. Jensen was buying jujus from Ralphine he was in desperate straits. I was surprised. It was difficult to believe that an educated man could believe in such things, but then, Dr. Jensen was a Negro. And what did I know about Negroes? They were emotional, I knew that much, and even if they didn't believe in magic, perhaps they played it safe, just in case. Dr. Jensen had struck me as a God-fearing Christian and a sincere believer! I suddenly began to laugh and nicked my chin rather painfully.

       After breakfast I mixed a pinch of salt and a pinch of sugar together, crumbled an aspirin tablet into the mixture and scooped the tiny, glittering pile of white powder into an empty match box. I had made a juju. Only a test could prove its effectiveness. But what could I lose?

       Dick Ames, the Advertiser reporter-photographer, was waiting for me when I reached the basement GHQ of the League For Love, a wide grin on his inquisitive face.

       "This is turning into a terrific story, Reverend," Ames said, taking his camera off my desk, "and I've got some good pictures this morning. After I get a statement from you, I'd like to have a few poses of you and the other preachers out in the motor pool. You know, directing things, shots like that."

       "I liked the story you did in dialect, Mr. Ames," I told him. "It helped us more than a straight story would have done. But I don't want any more pictures of me in the paper. Dr. Heartwell is the president, and you'd better concentrate your stories and photos on him."

       "I see," Ames winked at me. "He's the real head, but you and I know different, don't we?"

       "No," I said seriously. "Dr. Heartwell is in complete command of the boycott. I'm just another member of his league."

       "Okay," Ames shrugged, "you have your way till you die, and then I'll have mine. How about a statement?"

       "We will be glad to give you a statement, Mr. Ames. Any kind of publicity, will help us win in the long run. But you'll have to get your statement from Dr. Heartwell. Keep your seat and I'll get him."