Dominion (21 page)

“Zeke, let the girl settle in!” Nancy said. “There’s plenty of time for stories and introductions. We’ve got the welcome banquet ready, and as usual you’re just jab-berin’ away.”

Zeke and Nancy both flashed toothy smiles. “Looks like we’ve got a combined banquet, with two guests of honor,” Nancy said. “That is, if you don’t mind sharing the spotlight with Felicia?”

“Mind? That would be wonderful.”

As they stepped out of the birthing room, a boy walked in and stopped Dani in her tracks. It was a face she hadn’t seen since two years ago. But then it was a drained, troubled face and a shriveled body with plastic tubes running into it. He looked so healthy now, so much more healthy than anyone on earth could ever look.

“Bobby!”

She hugged the boy so hard she was afraid she’d hurt him, but hurting didn’t appear to be a problem here.

“Aunt Dani! I heard you’d come. I’m so glad to see you.”

“Me too, Bobby, me too!” She looked at Zeke and Nancy “Bobby’s my nephew, my sister Marny’s boy. He died of leukemia two years ago. He—what am I saying? You know all this, don’t you?”

They laughed.

“Oh, Bobby. Remember just a few days before you died when you told your mama you’d seen an angel? That meant so much to her. You said you’d seen a black angel. Remember?”

Bobby laughed and put his head against Zeke’s chest, knowing his great-great-grandfather wouldn’t pass up this chance to tell the story.

“The one he thought was an angel,” Zeke puffed out his chest in mock pride, “was me! He saw me through the portal as we were praying over him.” Zeke whooped as if this was the funniest thing.

“Elyon made a great promise to me and Zeke,” Nancy told Dani. “He said to us, ‘You were faithful to me. Therefore, in every generation that comes from you some will follow me, and it will be your honor to welcome them to my world.”

Dani and Bobby had locked arms, and she kept staring at him. “Oh, Bobby. We prayed so long and hard for you. It was so devastating to lose you. I wish your mama could see you, just for a minute.”

“I can see her,” Bobby said. “And we’ll be together again soon. Time here moves quickly because there’s so much to do, so much to see, so much to learn.”

“Bobby,” Nancy said, “take your aunt Dani to her banquet. We’ll be there soon. Just somethin’ we need to do first.”

Dani and Bobby walked away, reminiscing and laughing, while Zeke and Nancy bowed their knees to pray for one of their own, whom they now viewed through the portal. He was a huge man with huge pain.

It was a pleasant fall day, blue and green and bright, the sun unobscured. But Clarence’s soul was in late November, in cold wet dreariness minus the warm fires of Thanksgiving. What he could see ahead was only stark cold December minus Christmas, and a New Year minus hope.

Where was that hundredfold blessing Pastor Turlock always spoke of? “If you work hard and say your prayers and read your Bible, everything will work out fine.” Clarence had. It hadn’t.

The rules seemed crooked, the game tilted and rigged. Had a man done this to him, he could have come armed with lawyers to prove his case and demand compensation. But God did not let himself be accountable to men.

You move us like pawns on the chessboard. We suffer and you sit back and don’t even care about our pain.

Clarence spent an hour with his father in the living room, the old man spinning his old platters, the crooners. Nat King Cole, Brook Benton, Ben E. King, Johnny Mathis. Music that made you feel sad, yet somehow good. There was a certain obscure joy and hope in melancholy. Clarence could see it in his father’s eyes.

“Now them boys knowed how to sing,” Obadiah said, “Lordy, Lordy, did they know how to sing!”

Clarence felt only the empty sadness with no sense of joy or hope. The music took him nowhere but deeper into the black hole. He put on Chuck Berry, and even he couldn’t get him out. Clarence left his father in the living room and opened the front door.

“Where you goin’, baby?” Geneva called from the kitchen.

“For a walk.”

By the time she said, “I’ll come with you,” he was gone, the door shut behind him.

The world he had seen two weeks ago bore little resemblance to this one. It reminded him of the vacation he and Geneva had taken to Italy. One day they were in warm, sunny, musical, carefree Venice, in love and filled with laughter. They enjoyed it so much they planned to come back a week later, the day before heading home. But a week later it was different. Cold, dark, slimy. The semi-septic ooze of the streets stank dreadfully. The bright welcome byways had become menacing alleys threatening to swallow them up. Venice was both their most loved and most hated city in the world.

Clarence walked tonight in the second Venice, this time without even a companion to share the misery. He returned home an hour later, neither knowing nor caring how long he’d been gone. He retreated into his office.

Why are you silent, God? Is there something more I have to do? Do I need to work harder still?

The framed “I have a dream” speech on the wall mocked him.

That’s all it was, just a dream, never a reality. Martin’s gone. So’s Mama. And Darrin. And Dani. And Felicia. So’s the dream.

He emerged after an hour alone in his office. Everyone had gone to bed. He saw the Narnia books in their slipcase, lying outside Keisha’s door. He resisted the impulse to dump them in the garbage.

He retreated to the dark lonely basement, the mirror image of his soul. Clarence sat down on his mother’s old chair. For an instant her familiar scent comforted him. But in the next moment he flung his arm across the coffee table, knocking over a rack of coasters, a few magazines, and the family Bible. He looked at the Bible just lying there, propped open, misshapen and lifeless. He didn’t move to pick it up.

He walked up the steps and out the front door, grabbing his car keys from the fireplace mantle. He left the house without saying anything, got in the car and drove away, while Geneva, wide awake, prayed for him in their bedroom.

He pulled up to a Gresham tavern. He’d never been in it before. Hadn’t been in any tavern for ten years at least. He ordered a Jack Daniels on ice. Then he tried a bottle of Colt 45 malt liquor. It didn’t work either. The sweat, the stale perfume and cigarettes of this shadowy place held no attraction for him. He didn’t know why he was here unless it was to get back at God. He sat at the far end of the bar. A few times the bartender thought he heard him say something, but no one was there.

I thought you just gave the best to your children. All I wanted was a home in the country where I could enjoy my wife and kids and my sister and her kids, and they could be safe. Was that asking too much? Were my dreams too big for you, was that it?

In another place, the rough, eternally scarred hands of a Carpenter reached out toward one who pushed them away. No stranger to suffering, he heard the man’s words as if they were the only words being spoken in the universe.

“No, my son. This is not the time. That is not the place. Your dreams were not too big for me. They were too small.”

After a long day at the
Trib
, Clarence came in the front door and went straight to his home office again. He brushed by the kids and closed the door, ignoring the smells of pot roast.

Keisha came up to Geneva.

“How come Daddy’s mad at me, Mommy?”

“He’s not mad at you, honey. He loves you. This is just a real hard time for him. He misses Aunt Dani. And Felicia. He’s…got a lot of things inside. You need to keep praying for him, okay? Right now Daddy’s just mad at…the world.”

An hour later Clarence came out of his office and surprised Geneva by coming to her.

“We need to talk.”

“Good,” she said. “I’d like that. Then you can eat your dinner.”

“I’ve been thinking about what you said.”

“About what?”

“About staying at Dani’s place for a while,” Clarence said. “Maybe we should go ahead and move there, just for a couple of months until we can get in the new place.”

“Really?”

“Isn’t that what you suggested?”

“Yes, but… I was sure you’d say no. I never gave it another thought.”

“Well, I did.”

“What changed your mind?” Geneva sounded suspicious.

“You did. We’ve got to live somewhere. We can’t really afford to rent a place, and Dani’s house is just sitting there. For a few month’s rent we can fix it up a bit. If we leave it sitting there, it’ll just get ripped up and turned into a drug house or something. Dani always wanted us in her neighborhood. Celeste and Ty can keep going to their school, like the psychologist suggested. Just for a few months. Maybe this is the best thing after all.”

Geneva nodded, still not looking so sure, still wondering what was really going on in her husband’s head.

“Clarence? Ollie. Sorry to call you at home. Listen, I talked with your friend Mookie today.”

“What’d you think?”

“I don’t know. It’s a start, but he just didn’t get a good enough look at these guys. No scars, no tattoos, nothing. I talked to gang division. How many Hispanic males with dark brown hair you think live in this city? Light mustache? It could be shaved tomorrow, or by now it’s a heavy mustache. Lots of them wear T-shirts. What are we supposed to do, line up five hundred Hispanic males so Mookie can pick one out in a lineup?”

“What about the car?”

“Impalas and Caprices are the most common car type they’ve got. And low-rider? Would have been more distinctive if it wasn’t. There’s probably a hundred cars at least that fit the description.”

“You going to follow up on those that do?”

“Doesn’t seem real practical,” Ollie said. “Needle in a haystack.”

“A haystack that has only a hundred pieces of hay?”

“Good point.” Ollie hesitated. “Something else you should know. Manny isn’t so sure he believes Mookie.”

“Why not?”

“He’s just skeptical. Especially since you paid him a hundred bucks.”

“Or is it that he can’t stand the idea the killers were Hispanics?”

“Give him a break.” Ollie sounded disgruntled. “He has his doubts, but we’re still pursuing it, okay? I already fed Mookie’s info into GREAT.”

“Into what?”

“It’s a computer system. Stands for Gang Regulation, Evaluation, and Tracking. There’s some detailed gang information on the different sets and their homeboys. It’s for cross-linking. You can search for info by all kinds of criteria. Quite a few police departments input their gang info. Problem is, our input is still pretty vague. But we might get something. Keep your fingers crossed. And one more thing. The police armorer looked over a shell casing from your sister’s porch. He thinks he’s got a lead on the murder weapon. I’ve asked him to walk me through it in detail. He’s coming up tomorrow morning at nine. Thought you might want to sit in.”

“Well, I have to work on a column, but…yeah, I’ll be there. Thanks.” Clarence hung up, glad he had a head start on tomorrow’s deadline. He’d do some more work on it tonight.

He couldn’t get his mind off Manny.

Don’t want to work against your own kind, is that it?

“Were you always there with me, Torel?”

“Since you were a child. Elyon sent me to protect you.”

“Children really have guardian angels then?”

“Did not the Carpenter warn you not to look down on little children because their angels always behold the face of my Father in heaven? We seek to protect them. And we also plead their case to the Almighty when injustice is done to any child— male or female, black or white, born or unborn. We call upon him to bring vengeance.”

She trembled at the way he said this.

“I wasn’t aware of you, Torel. Although…sometimes I felt someone was there. Not only God, but someone else.”

“It was me you sensed. I was there every moment, never sleeping, always watching.”

Suddenly earthly images appeared and Dani saw herself asleep in the backseat of an old brown Studebaker, her head resting on Clarence’s shoulder. Marny was on Clarence’s other side, Daddy driving, Mama next to him in the front. They’d been visiting Uncle Elijah and Aunt Emily and got a late start home. It was about midnight.

“I remember! Daddy missed the turnoff to Puckett that night, and it was an hour before we got turned around. He was really disgusted with himself. And Mama and Clarence and Marny didn’t notice either. Of course, I was asleep.”

She watched the scene and suddenly saw five huge forms, five guardians hovering inside and outside the car.

“Torel. I see you there!”

“Yes, and my comrades.”

“The car’s coming right to the junction where Daddy was supposed to turn.”

She watched in bewilderment as all four angels seemed to cover the eyes of the waking passengers while Torel touched Dani’s right leg. She cried out in pain.

“I remember that! It was this terrible cramp. I woke up screaming.
You
did that to me?”

“Yes. Keep watching.”

Everyone in the car turned toward Dani, distracted by her panic, while they drove right past the junction. By the time she settled down and stopped screaming the junction was a quarter mile behind them. None of them had seen it.

Suddenly the view changed. She saw two cars piloted by drunk drivers racing down the road from Puckett, coming toward the junction they had passed. They occupied both lanes, drag racing at eighty miles an hour.

“You mean…?”

“This is what would have happened,” Torel said.

She watched still another scene, a replay of the original, but without Torel touching her leg and without the other guardians closing the family’s eyes to the road. Obadiah made the correct turn at the junction. Three minutes later he suddenly exclaimed, “What’s goin’ on?”

Four headlights abreast came at them. Dani felt she was right there in the backseat, suddenly waking up as Mama reached back to the children and cried out. Daddy flipped on and off his bright lights, swerved to the edge of the road, but couldn’t get out of their way. One of the cars smashed into them head-on. Dani saw the old Studebaker crumple and roll and burn. She saw herself and her family tossed and battered. Mama and Daddy were killed instantly, as was Marny. She watched as Clarence died a few minutes later. She alone still lived, unconscious, lying in that mangled heap of burning metal, bleeding to death.

She watched the scene in stunned silence. Finally she spoke.

“Thank you for giving me that cramp,” Dani said, her voice trembling.

“You are welcome,” Torel said. “Your leg was sore off and on for a few days. You could not run the race at the county fair that Saturday. You were very disappointed.”

“Yes, I was. But looking at it now…Torel, were there other times like this?”

“Yes. Many more.”

“Will you show them to me?”

“If you wish. But now there is much we need to discuss. What do you think of your new home?”

“It’s wonderful beyond belief. To have a body and soul free of the compulsion to sin. I can’t understand how disobedience ever appealed to me when it always hurt Elyon, hurt me, hurt everyone. Sin never did good. Why did I do it? I’d no sooner commit a sin against Elyon now than I would have drunk a gallon of motor oil on earth. It has no attraction—it’s just so repulsive. No envy here. No jealousy. I didn’t comprehend the depth of the darkness either of that world or the darkness within me. They waged war against who Christ made me to be. I feel as though I was on the
Titanic
, sinking, and I’ve been rescued. Rescued by Elyon and by you, my friend.”

Torel nodded his appreciation for the recognition of his role, belated as it was.

“I used to say that handicapped people would be especially glad for heaven,” Dani said. “No doubt that’s true, but I never realized until now how handicapped I was. Disabled by self-centeredness, self-preoccupation, self-pity, self-everything. Handicapped by the racial prejudice of others toward me, and mine toward others. Handicapped by reading in racial prejudice where there was none. Handicapped by indifference to many things that mattered to Elyon. Here I feel delivered from myself. Free to be the self Elyon intended me to be. Instead of the universe revolving around me, I am revolving around Elyon. He is my center of gravity.”

“Well said, daughter of Eve. Some of your people have told me this realm is not what they expected. Is that true for you?”

“In countless ways. For one thing, I didn’t expect I’d be able to go walking in the mud, squishing my toes in it.” Dani laughed hard and long, delighted at the experience and looking forward to doing it again. “I’ve already walked in meadows and forests like nothing I ever imagined on Earth. But the truth is, I seldom thought about heaven there. It seemed too ‘pie in the sky,’ you know?”

Torel gazed blankly, as if he didn’t know.

“Had I any inkling, I would have thought about heaven every hour. I see now that those whose minds are set on heaven serve Elyon most faithfully on earth— because they draw their beliefs and values and hopes from this world, not that one. Too often I thought of earth as the real place and heaven as something unreal. Now I see heaven is the real place, the substance. It is earth that seems intangible, shadowy, less real.”

“Many of your people,” Torel said, “seem surprised to find how earthly heaven is.”

“Yes, it
is
earthly, but in all the good ways and none of the bad ones. Maybe that’s why I love squishing my toes in the mud. I thought we would just be spirits here.”

“Elyon created you dust and breath, body and spirit,” the angel said. “That is what it means to be human. You do not become inhuman here, but fully human, all he intended you to be. You ate there, you feast here. You walked there, you run here. You snickered there, you laugh here. This is a physical world because it was made for you and you are physical as well as spiritual. If it is a place prepared for humans, as the Carpenter promised you, then it could only be a human place, both spiritual and physical. Your old body was destroyed by the ravages of sin and death. You will be reclothed in the resurrection body, but you now have a temporary body that allows you to experience this world, all the while awaiting the reclothing, the merger into your eternal body. You will not be complete until the resurrection. But you always have been and always will be human.”

Clarence left home early. He decided to treat himself to breakfast, to mull over the events shaping his life.

As he drove, his mind drifted to that foreign planet, Mississippi of the fifties, which he so loved and hated, which would always and never be his home. That unforgiving landscape, forever frozen in his mind, that place of Third World conditions where many blacks and some whites had lived in illiteracy, malnutrition, windows without glass, no running water, no electricity. Trips to the outhouse were as routine then as selecting CDs was for his kids now. Many couldn’t afford to take their children to the doctor.

In those days Mississippi was the slowest movin’ place on God’s green earth. When you went to the store and sauntered up with a Dr. Pepper and a dime, the friendly Gomer Pyle behind the counter would say something like, “Fixin’ta buy ya a soda, are ya?”