Zombie, Illinois (14 page)

I file back into the crowded church. All eyes are on me. I have emerged from the pastor's private office. The
sanctum sanctorum.
People are wondering who I am and what I have to do with whatever is going to happen. The congregation is now silent, like music fans waiting breathlessly for a performance. Am I the man who walks onstage to introduce the performer?

No.

The men from Pastor Mack's praetorian guard motion me over to a pew in the front row. I quickly join them, planting myself on a well-worn wooden seat. I look up to the pulpit, waiting for Pastor Mack like all the rest.

Moments later, he emerges. Resplendent in his thousand-dollar suit and shining tie, Mack has the majesty of a dragon. It is otherworldly.

It suddenly feels impossible that this can be the same frustrated commuter I helped with a flat tire hours before. This man is powerful. This man is collected. This man would certainly have no problem getting a tire with frozen bolts off his car. Can it be the same person? Somehow it is. I look around. The people next to me are similarly transfixed by the pastor. Unlike him, they are wearing whatever they had on when the outbreak started. With the exception of one older woman who has topped off her Minnie Mouse sweat suit with an elaborate church hat, few have thought to dress for the occasion. Some people have on uniforms from their jobs or even pajamas. Initially, this gives the church a casual feel, as if it is being used as a community center or a giant AA meeting. But such is the power of Mack's suit that suddenly it is Sunday, and we are—all of us—sporting our finest. We are all made formal by his majesty.

For a moment there is silence—I mean complete, pin drop silence.

Then a woman in the back says, “Pastor!” in a voice that's happy, but also a little hurt. It's a tone that says, “How could you have left us for so long?” and “Please, don't ever leave again.”

Her voice is joined by others, and then others still. A ground-swell of cries and applause echoes off of the walls of the church. People shout, “Pastor, what's happening?” or “Pastor, save us”

Others simply stand and applaud. I find myself clapping along.

Mack holds a small leather-bound Bible and a pair of reading glasses. He frowns like a stoic gargoyle intended to illustrate resolve. He carefully puts on his glasses. They nearly dangle off the end of his nose.

Mack opens the Bible and places it on the lectern before him. He grips a microphone on an umbilical holder and bends it up to his mouth. Then he raises his eyes and looks out over the congregation. This is, apparently, the cue to fall silent, because that's what everybody does. There is electricity in the air. Every few moments, someone cannot contain herself and lets loose with another “Praise you, Pastor Mack!” and is hushed accordingly.

He begins to speak.

“Let us pray,” Mack begins, opening the good book.

“In green pastures you let me graze; to safe waters you lead me; you restore my strength. You guide me along the right path for the sake of your name. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”

“Amen.”

The church echoes with a resounding “Amen.”

For the first time tonight, I see hope in the eyes of people. Not alarm. Not confusion. Not fear. Hope. This opening invocation has not offered any specifics for how to survive a zombie outbreak, but the parishioners are relieved just to hear Mack's voice. Someone is in charge. Someone is explaining things. Daddy is here.

The voice with which Mack reads from the Bible is unlike his speaking voice. It's superior to his speaking voice. Not just different. Better. Sonorous and musical. It feels like it doesn't lie.

Mack closes his Bible, looks down at the congregation, and says, “Thank God.”

There is kind of an awkward silence. (One person manages a “Hallelujah,” but it's quiet and half-assed. Nobody knows what Mack means yet.)

“Thank God for this” Mack says.

“Is it the end?” shouts a congregant.

“Is it the Judgment Day, Pastor?” asks another.

Mack closes his eyes and raises a hand above his head.

“Brothers and sisters, I can't tell you what is happening. I can't tell you why—near as I can reckon—the dead are coming back to life. I can't tell you what has roused the sleeping from their slumbers and made them walk on earth once more. And yet surely it is so.You have seen evidence yourselves, haven't you brothers and sisters?”

There is a murmur of assent from the audience.

A very tall woman in thick glasses and a floral dress announces that earlier this evening, she saw her dead brother attacking people in the park. Then a man in blue work overalls shouts that he saw a dead baby crawling out of a dumpster in an alley. He knew it was dead because it was in two pieces. A grim silence descends.

“Now, I have seen things like this myself,” Mack intones. “And while no one could be pleased about it, I thank God
—I thank God
—that we are a congregation in a neighborhood like South Shore.
I thank God
that we have not been allowed to become dependent on easy things.
I thank God
that we have been tested.-.because it has made us strong.”

Several “Amens” echo through the church, though tentative and uneasy.

“I do not need to tell you that this city has failed you. I do not need to tell you the ways in which this . . .
place . . .
Chicago, Illinois.has aligned against us. And I have tried—oh how I've tried—to do the best I could for you.”

“You have, Pastor!” someone shouts. “You're a good man, Pastor!” says another. Others still murmur in nonspecific adulation.

Mack waves them off.

Then Mack looks at me. Right. At. Me.

“Even the forces in this city that claim to have an interest in truth and justice have failed you. Just the other day I was thinking xabout how the newspapers in this city disable the feedback on the internet every time they report on a crime committed by a person from our neighborhood. Now why is that? Why do they do that?”

The audience is silent. He has lost them. Why is he bringing up the internet when there are actual zombies knocking on our doors?

“Now.if you ask them, they say they don't want to provide a platform for racism. They say that it gives redneck chuckleheads from the suburbs a chance to write that they aren't at all surprised that blacks are killing one another, because blacks are ignorant, violent, and spoiled by a welfare state. Then that same Chicago newspaper will run front-page editorials about how we are a post-racial society and show us a picture of Obama out riding his bike with his little safety helmet. They will say because we elected a black man from Chicago's south side to the White House, things must have changed in Chicago. They say you don't see
real
racism anymore, not like you used to.

“Sure. You don't see it anymore . . . when you refuse to show it. But that radio silence—or internet silence—doesn't mean that in every collar county suburb there aren't legions of racists who still refuse to hire blacks. That doesn't mean that—even here in the twenty-first century—there aren't bigots teaching their children to hate people based on the color of their skin. That doesn't mean that it doesn't force us to rely on ourselves. To become strong. To become blessed.”

“Amens” echo off the church walls, but again, they are tentative.

Mack adjusts the microphone, pauses dramatically for an instant, and then continues.

“Nothing could be more helpful to an understanding of race relations in this city than for them to enable comments on stories about black on black crime, or black on white crime, or, for that matter, white on black crime, and Latino on black crime, and so on and so forth. Certainly, it would reveal more than any undercover expose.

“Will it ‘give racists a voice,' as they fear? Absolutely. And then people will be reminded just
how racist everybody still is.
They'll remember that racism is why young men in our communities aren't getting jobs. Why nobody wants to invest in our neighborhoods.

“Just because you don't read it doesn't mean it's not there. Doesn't mean it's not prevalent everywhere. Doesn't mean it's not determining how people vote, where they choose to live, and where they choose to open businesses.

“Can you imagine if it was the 1850s and the papers in the North thought the best way to fight slavery was to not report it? Can you imagine?”

This gets several “Amens” and one “Tell it, preacher!”

Mack continues.

“And yet, you have become resourceful. You have become like the heartiest plants that can thrive in the most inhospitable soil. You have learned to create community—a vibrant, beautiful, blessed community—in this hostile soil. You are surrounded on all sides like Elisha in the Book of Kings—and though you have been tested, your faith has not wavered. And tonight, I think, brothers and sisters . . . the good Lord is going to show you how blessed you truly are.”

Mack pauses, and there is a cautious swell of approval from the congregation.

“You've learned to survive in one of the hardest neighborhoods in Chicago. You know how to keep cool in the summer and warm in the winter,
without
any help from the city. You know how to keep safe from crime without help from police. We don't have security systems on our apartments . . . we have bars on the doors and ten different locks!”

Some Amens.

“We don't depend on the police to come when we call . . . so we call for Pookie across the alley to come over with his baseball

bat!”

Some more Amens.

“We do what we have to do. We do what
no
north side neighborhood in this city does—not Lincoln Park, not Wrigleyville, not Wicker Park, not Old Town. We
handle our business.
We depend on ourselves, on our friends, and on our neighbors to do what the city can't or won't. We know one another. We know what protects us, and we know it sure isn't the CPD!”

Cheers and Amens follow.

“Something profound is happening tonight. The dead are walking among us, and not as the people they once were. They are hungry for murder. They are cannibals or worse. Right now, alarm is spreading across the city. Along every alleyway and avenue, the call is going out. ‘Oh no,' the northside people cry. Hang on . . . if I cup my ear I think I can hear them in the distance . . .”

Gentle laughter as Mack cups his ear.

“Yes, they're crying out. They're saying ‘Help us Mister Mayor. Help us Mister Po-Lice Man; there are monsters on my street. Whatever shall I do?' But we aren't saying that, are we? Because we have monsters on our streets every damn night! We
know
what to do when killers are on the loose. And now we have the skills that everybody else in the city wishes they had. We are a loving, caring, righteous congregation that already knows how to handle its business when assailed on all sides. I don't know about them, but
we
will survive!”

Applause. Amens. Cheers.

“If we can survive the drug users roaming our alleys . . . if we can survive the gangstas and dealers on the corners . . . if we can survive the decades of neglect and underinvestment by the establishment . . . then I think a few punk-ass zombies are gonna be
no damn problem”

The congregation begins to applaud and cheer. I find myself cheering as well.

“Now, it's not all good news,” Mack says. He smiles but holds up a hand to stay his audience.

The applause dies slowly.

“It's not enough for us to simply
endure
this newest test. “Nonono. Anybody can
endure,
like a bump on a log. We must do more. We must reach out to those who cannot help themselves in this time of reckoning. No, I don't mean we have to drive north and help a rich lady whose security system isn't keeping the zombies from trampling on her thousand-dollar rug. Not at first, anyway. But I want us to take care of one another. Crenshaw Cemetery is closer than any of us care to think about right now.”

Serious nods and “Mmm-hmms” ripple throughout the congregation.

“We need to start by taking care of each other. That means what it has always meant. We don't hide inside our houses—or inside a church. Instead, we go out into the community. Those of us who are able, we check on the old, the sickly, and the infirm. We help them if they need help. We do what Jesus would do...in a zombie outbreak.”

Applause. Amens. A few folks raise their palms skyward.

“We've had to take back our streets from gangs and drugs, and tonight we're going to take them back from the walking dead. Those of you who need to seek sanctuary are welcome to stay in The Church of Heaven's God in Christ Lord Jesus. Those of you who are able bodied and willing to follow me, then come along. We're going to go take back our neighborhood—one more time.”

And it's here that I begin to feel a little faint, because I realize the full extent of what the man in the pulpit is proposing. As Mack briefly elaborates on the incumbency of going out to kill zombies—I try to consider the direct and subsequent upshot of his words. Those of us who are not sickly or infirm are being encouraged to follow him into the streets of South Shore and... try to protect it from zombies? Wait.really?

It is definitely a lightheaded-making prospect.

Mack begins reading once more from his father's Bible. An eerie stillness settles over the church. The parishioners are probably used to hearing his words accompanied by organs, choirs, and drums. Tonight, however, there is only his voice; sonorous and slightly fuzzy in the aging microphone. It's sort of like when a band turns off all the distortion and special effects and does an acoustic number. It really makes you listen.

After a final reading from the Book of Psalms, Mack closes the Bible and directs the parishioners to remain in their seats. A din of polite conversation breaks out, like the intermission at an orchestra performance. Mack stalks to the side of the altar and motions for me—and, I realize, the other men at the front of the church—to join him. We're a big group, maybe thirty or so as I look around. I don't know who got selected for it or why. Some are seniors—Mack's age or older —while others are still in their teens.