Three Days Before the Shooting ... (159 page)

“Hickman, he was marvelous to see and to hear. He was as tall as you and about your size, and when he laughed it was from deep in his belly to high in his head. And when he got to praising his God even an outsider like me had to admire him. Because for him the State folks’ God could be praised by laughing as well as by crying. Which made more sense to someone who’d lived the mixed-up mare’s nest of a life I’ve lived than the white folks’ God ever could. And no disrespect intended.

“I remember a cold Sunday morning when I heard Turner preach from the Book of Job. Times were hard, folks out of work, and snow on the ground, but when he came to the part where old high-class Job was complaining about all the boils on his butt Turner broke down and laughed for ten straight minutes by the church-house clock.

“Yao! He was a
mighty
laugher. He laughed and cried over Jesus’ weeping, and over Jonah rebelling in the belly of his whale. He laughed over Mary Magdalene’s transformation and a few loaves and fishes feeding a multitude of people and simple drinking water being turned into good-drinking wine. And he laughed ‘til he cried like a baby over his beloved Jesus crying on the cross like he was no less human than the poor natural men he was dying to save.

“Being a heathen I’m untrained in such matters, but I guess Turner’s laughing amounted to what Janey calls the sign of a mystery that’s holy. Anyway, he was a good man and a deep believer in his religion. Therefore I tell you verily: I have puzzled long over Turner’s life-easing laughing—and you can believe me!

“Anyway, while Turner goes on laughing this Prophet fellow waits politely until he quiets down and starts wheezing. Then he raises his long white hand like he’s giving him a blessing and would like to embrace him. Then, after bowing to Caruthers, he makes a turn and bows to the congregation, who by now are sitting in their pews looking dazed and exhausted.

“Maybe because by now Prophet looks even whiter than he did on the streets with that camera. But he just stands there with his crucifix dangling and his purple arm resting beside the big Bible while things get quieter and quieter.

“To me it’s like he’s turned Siamese twins and gone to debating what he’ll
say—Yao!—and out of which of his mouths he’ll say it. Then some old fellow lets out with a snore like a buzz saw and gets punched in the belly, and when he rattles his dentures and yells ‘WHO? WHERE AT?’ some of the little boys let out with a snicker. And that’s when the white-black one, Eddy Shaw Prophet, goes into action.

“Hickman, I want you to see him through the eyes of a heathen: He’s standing up there in that silk purple robe, and with that crucifix resting on his chest he looks like some kind of priest who’s strayed into the wrong part of town, landed in the midst of the wrong congregation, and finds himself facing us down out of sheer white-skinned gall and presumption. And as he looks out to the pews he sort of sways like he’s thinking deep thoughts on life, death, the final reckoning. Then he raises his arms and stares at the ceiling with his palms toward the pews and the wide sleeves of his robe making a wing-like flutter. And then, just as folks begin giving one another looks as if to say, ‘What’s happening?’ he speaks. Yao!

“And when he speaks he
moves
.

“And when he moves, I swear, it’s like I’m watching one of these jazz musicians who carries himself like a college professor.

“You know the type: On the street he’s a model of high-toned deportment, and when he’s sitting down playing along with his buddies he’s cool and collected. But give him a solo, and
Wham!
Next thing you know he’s up in the spotlight shaking his butt like a loose-jointed bear, honking like a gobbler and stomping the bandstand like he means to reduce it to kindling and set it on fire. Then, with folks still applauding, he’s tucking his horn, his weapon, under his arm with a bow. Then in a wink of your eye he’s back in his chair and a professor again—conked hair, sweat, and horn-rimmed glasses!”

“Oh, yes,” Hickman said. “Not only do I know the type but I’m now beginning to see why folks call you Love the Liar.”

“Maybe so, but being different from them, how would they know me? Or you, who you calls yourself a
Christian?
Anyway, that’s how it was with Prophet. Black-white or white-black, which
ever
the hell he was, he preaches up a storm. And as you’d expect, he starts out warning folks not to waste precious time in grabbing what he called their God-given chance to be
born
again. Yao!

“‘My friends,’ he says, ‘you must seize the day, and seize it
nooooow
!
‘

“And with that old Turner shakes his cotton-white head and stares at Prophet like he can’t believe what’s happening. Then when Prophet stretches out his arms and cries, ‘Please, sinners,
please
don’t let this harvest pass!’ that purple robe flounces and swirls like a cape in a bullfight. And with that Turner falls back in his chair, and I swear, it’s like he’s exploding with laughing gas. That’s right, but out of respect none of the deacons bothers to stop him.

“So then with things quieting down a bit Prophet turns and looks at Turner like he’s decided right then and there that if he can’t beat him he’ll use him. So
he stares at the ceiling like he’s filled with emotion, and when Turner takes off again he’s all primed and ready. And sure enough, before he can get rolling Turner lets out a laugh, and right on the beat Prophet sidesteps the poor man and downs him by switching his text from Matthew, Peter, and Paul to what he calls the life-saving role of holy black laughter, its uses and abuses. And Hickman, the way he uses old Turner to accent his thesis sounded like they’d rehearsed it. And I mean for whole
months
of Sundays!

“Next thing I know he has the church rocking with such a masterful example of State Negro preaching that folks are eating it up—skin, bones, and what’s left over!

“Hickman, not only did Prophet have the State Negro
style
of preaching, he had the
movements
! And what’s more, when he gave them hell about the way they laughed when they should have been crying, and cried when they should have been laughing, he even had the full range of State Negro
sound
. And I mean from threatening basso profundo to falsetto pleading! He rumbled like an engine and shrilled like a whistle, and once he’d laid down the cross ties and rails for his highball of a sermon he dragged Turner aboard and took off for what he called the promised land of true fulfillment. And with Tucker stoking the engine and ringing the bell he swept folks along like leaves in the draft of a Santa Fe special!

“He rocked and he rolled, he highballed and rambled, and next thing I know he has those State Negroes clapping their hands and yelling ‘Praise the Lord,’ and ‘Have Mercy sweet Jesus!’ And before he’s through he has the whole church swinging and everybody—choir, organ, congregation, and deacons—shouting
Well-a rock-a my soul in the bosom of Abraham!

“Where the hell Prophet learned to preach like that was a mystery, but
wherever it
was it made him the talk of the town. The word spread like lightning, and even folks who missed his performance were pleased and surprised. And the fact that this white-black one of the three from the East with the camera not only talked their talk but was a master of their style of preaching they took as no less than a miracle. Next thing I know he’s being invited to preach in other big churches, bootleg joints are serving him and his buddies drinks on the cuff, and sassy gals doing them all kinds of favors. All this I described to the boy who sat listening with interest, but by now my nose was bleeding again and the day getting shorter. So since anything serious demands a certain amount of strength and discipline I sat there staring at the boy and wrestling with the Eagle, my totem, against having to keep going.

“So I told him to ask Janey how it was, because being a woman she’d remember the things I didn’t. ‘Maybe so,’ he said, ‘but she’ll never tell me. Can’t you go on?’

“‘Not today,’ I said, ‘because I’m worn out with remembering. So go see her and come back tomorrow.’

“So he left, and so did the Eagle, and my nose stopped bleeding.

“Hickman, I was tired as hell, but once the boy was out of here a strange feeling came over me. And I mean strange even for a man given to strange feelings. But this was different, a feeling I hadn’t had since the People were still together and vigorous. Like back there when it seemed possible to work out a way of life which would suit us even with the white man overrunning the land. Of course it was a mistake; either that or we didn’t try hard enough after our warfare and resistance had failed us. Or maybe we lost courage and didn’t try hard enough out of our own inner rot, our demoralization.

“Then there was the greed and restlessness brought here by the State folks from the East. Over the years I had resigned myself to the great changes, had seen the results and lived alongside it. But just the same, after the boy left I felt some of the old promise returning.

“It had the feeling of times long past when the skies were so clear that the eyes could range unobstructed for miles. Hickman, this land is called flat, yet to the south there are mountains. They seem blue from the distance, and in the old days I’ve seen cattle grazing the grass high upon them. In those days there were great herds of deer, packs of wolves and coyotes, and great flocks of turkeys. There were pecan, pine, and hickory, and cottonwoods like those in the courtyard grew everywhere. And in the spring the blossoms of blackthorn trees drifted like snow and the perfume of it sent many a young buck out on the prod. There was blackjack, walnut, and wild persimmon, and endless cover for quail. Doves came in clouds and prairie chickens beat their tom-toms like Crackshot McNeal, the Blue Devils’ drummer, beating on his bass drum, cymbals, and snares. Yes, and there was coon, rabbit, and possum, and plenty of bear—

Ho! Yah! Big brown brother of the shiny nose Our guide to the honey that’s hidden in hollows,
     Ho Yah!

Thy velvet paws seek out the sweet hidden gold in the bee-trees, Ho! And thy black eyes gleam and you laugh when you
     raid the barrels of beer of the Choctaws—

“That’s what the kids of the Bear clan used to sing. And Hickman, you can believe me when I tell you that bears around here used to raid every mash barrel they could find. Come Choc-making time and you could see troops of them staggering through the woods like black Shriners and Elks on the Fourth of July. “Anyway, after the boy left I felt like I did in those times of many horses and had hopes those days might return. With the sky clear and the game roaming the land undisturbed. A time when men would be at peace, and our way—the way of the People—secure against a way which for all its iron and noise, its money and bigness, is no fit way for mankind to live….

“So having the boy return seemed like a good sign. And the same with the Eagle. After all, some things in life do continue, no matter how much men think they’ve changed. And that’s true no matter how much the State people junk up the land, kill off the game, and tell big lies to justify their viciousness and failure to achieve true civilization. Of course I was dreaming, but awake or dreaming, I am not of these, the State people. No, I prefer to be brother to old honey hands, Big Brother Bear. Yes, and servant to the Eagle. The dream I dreamed was empty, and when I awoke I thought of the street where I lived at the time the boy was taken away; and there where I killed my first deer, a buck and a big one, I saw a parking lot filled with junk and signs screaming, ‘Big John Krackenbaum’s Place’, ‘Let’s Make a Deal!’ ”

“I know,” Hickman said, “it’s sad, but life is change, so get back to the boy and the movie men. What happened after Prophet preached?”

“Here’s how it went: The next day he’s out early, shooting up the streets and talking more crap than the radio—Yao!—and stacking the deck like a riverboat gambler. And with folks even more excited by the news of his preaching they can’t wait to see samples of the shots he’d been shooting. So he takes some of the shots and joins them together then makes a deal with the Sunset’s manager to show them on the screen between the first show and the second. Then he spreads the word that for the price of the regular admission anyone can see firsthand how they’d look in the movie he’s planning.

“Hickman, Prophet and his boys were working like beavers and the State Negroes were stumbling over one another to be with them. That afternoon I get to the Sunset shortly after the main movie had started but had a hell of a time finding a seat. So I’m sitting there reading the captions as I try to catch up with the action of a Western in which the hero and his sidekick shoot it out with about sixteen outlaws in a dispute over range land and water. Now it happened that the actor playing the hero was Jack Hoxie, and the one playing his sidekick was a fellow named Morman Jackson—which is important. Because Jackson was a State Negro out of Kansas who broke into the movies years before by passing for white. So unknown to white folks he’d been acting any part he could adapt to, which turned out to be everything from renegade Indians, Rebel generals, railroad detectives, outlaws, sheep herders, Tex-Mexicans, to cowboys, Chinese laundrymen, and Yankees.

“Which made him a real-life hero for State Negroes who got a kick from seeing him turn the white folks’ game against them. Put Jackson in a movie and right away they had them a plot within a plot, a double feature which they could enjoy for the price of a single admission. And underneath whatever else was happening they had them their own kind of comedy!

“Anyway, at this point when I’m watching the outlaw tiptoeing toward Hoxie and Jackson with his gun cocked and ready, all hell breaks loose in the balcony—Yao!—and years before it was invented a movie in the Sunset exploded….”

“With
sound?”

“Yao, with sound! Because when a damn sign painter by the name of Tackett sees the Hoxie and Jackson characters in trouble he loses all control of his senses. Did you know Tackett?”