Dominion (70 page)

“Look like they were slammin’ or smokin’ weed?”

“No. Eyes looked clear—not drugged out. I thought maybe it was a hit brewin’, so when I went back in I took a good look at my nine, made sure it was loaded. Told my workers don’t go out back. It was strange though, just the two of ’em in that tricked out car. Saturday night, but like they had no place to go. Just waitin’.”

“You
sure
they had on black leather jackets. Didn’t see any red sweatshirts?”

“No. Red would stick out here on Crip turf. You don’t wear red unless you want people to know you’re Bloods.”

“When did they leave?”

“Don’t know exactly. It was late when I took out the garbage, maybe 11:40? But I checked again before I left, at five after midnight say. They were gone. Think this means anything?”

“It could,” Ollie said. “Thanks for your help, Herb.”

“Any time. I’m on your side of the law, you know. Hey, how about a couple of burritos, on the house?” Ollie’s eyes lit up as though he’d won the lottery.

“Cops are always welcome here. I give ’em free coffee or Cokes, toss ’em a taco or two. Figure if them bein’ here stops one robbery, it pays for twenty years of free coffee.”

“Yeah,” Ollie said. “Caffeine’s our drug of choice. Give caffeine to a cop and he’ll be your friend for life. Thanks, Herb.”

Ollie and Clarence walked out the door, burritos in hand.

“Clarence,” Ollie asked as they settled in the front seat, “you said Mr. Kim saw two guys, both in red sweatshirts, one short and muscular, fancy car, big weapon. Right?”

“That’s what he said.”

“Let’s go pay him a visit. I’m going to go show him a picture of a Lexus just to make sure, but I think Mr. Kim and Herb are talking about the same guys.”

“So,” Clarence said, “after these guys drop by Kim’s store, they change from red sweatshirts to black leather jackets? Why?”

“I’m not sure. It might mean nothing. It might be the key to everything.”

“But if they were the shooters, wouldn’t it have been awfully stupid to show their faces and this fancy car in a Taco Bell less than a mile from where they were going to commit a murder?”

“Maybe. But don’t rule out something just because it’s stupid. That’s how we crack cases. If people weren’t stupid, we wouldn’t catch them. Maybe these guys don’t know a Lexus with wire wheels sticks out like a sore thumb in Portland. Maybe they had another plan to minimize their risk. Maybe they were Bloods sent to do a job, and they didn’t want to look like Bloods so they changed into black leather before they did it.”

“That fits with what Gracie said. That Bloods did it.”

Suddenly Herb stuck his head out the door, looking around. Ollie flashed his headlights. Herb came over.

“Somethin’ else I just remembered,” Herb said. “I told you nobody knew these guys in the black leather. Well, it just came back to me. Somebody
did
know ’em. He came over and sat with ’em. I remember thinkin’ they must be big time, because this guy was a ghetto star, wouldn’t be meetin’ with just anybody.”

“Who was he?”

“Rollin’ 60s honcho. The guy that shot himself. Gangster Cool.”

Clarence stared at the painting on the wall. A beautiful seascape with brilliant colors, so real he could taste the salt air. He looked at the name written in the bottom right corner—Dani Rawls.

“Hello, Clarence.” The man’s voice sounded like a thunder clap in this small room. It seemed to bypass his vocal chords and come straight from his thick chest. Cairo Clancy was lighter-skinned than Clarence, large by normal standards, but smaller than Clarence.

“I called you here for a reason,” Reverend Clancy said. “But first, I just want to get to know you.” Clarence shifted uneasily. “I’m glad you’ve been comin’ to our church. I’m sure it’s a real change for you. Tell me what you like and what you don’t like.”

Clancy’s directness took Clarence by surprise. “Well, I like the music. And I like your messages. Not used to services over two hours, though. And it surprises me some of the things you talk about.”

“Like what?”

“Like reading off kids’ names for their school achievements.”

Clancy laughed. “Wait till honor roll comes out. I read every name. I want the kids to know that’s the way to make your rep, not as a gangbanger or a dope-head. If somebody gets a scholarship somewhere, I tell the church about it. If they get a job, we tell everybody. Some people just can’t see takin’ church time to do that, but I can’t see
not
takin’ the time. The church is a family, and families talk.”

Clarence nodded. “I do enjoy the church, mostly. Friendly folks.”

“Before I started this church,” Clancy said, “I was a young pastor at a Baptist church where folks was nice enough, but … if the 1950s ever come around again, that church will be ready.”

Clarence laughed. “Yeah, I was at a church like that in the suburbs. A few years ago we got a new pastor, and he said, ‘I’m going to lead this church into the twentieth century.’ A couple of people caught him on it and said, ‘You mean the twenty-
first
century.’ He looks at them and says, ‘Let’s just take it one century at a time.’”

Pastor Clancy chuckled. “Some churches are like the Amish, except they set their time limits at 1950 instead of 1850. Still, you’ve got lots of churches so concerned about being modern and up-to-date that anything old is automatically irrelevant. All they care about is being current with the times, when what people need is to be taken back to something ancient and eternal, the Word of God. Guess we have to find a balance. So … give me some more feedback on our church.”

“I like your sermons, but … they’re more emotional, maybe less theological than I’m used to.”

“Well, black churches are mostly in urban areas, but they’ve still got that rural soul. My people walk on asphalt, but their toes are more at home in red clay. Now,” Clancy’s eyes gleamed, reminding Clarence of his father, “the ol’ black preachers never used the word
omnipotent.
They just said to their people, ‘There’s nothin’ God can’t do.’ They didn’t say, ‘God is omnipresent.’ Just said, ‘God’s so high you can’t get over him, so low you can’t get under him, so wide you can’t get ’round him.’” He laughed. “Any questions about our church I can help you with?”

“I’ve been wondering how you handle people living in immorality,” Clarence said. “At my last church, it seemed like the leaders turned the other way and ignored it.”

“We don’t tolerate sin here. And I don’t just mean from the pulpit. Man gonna do drugs, beat his wife and children, sleep around, he won’t get away with it. Not here.”

“But what can you do about it?”

“Well, maybe two months ago we got a call that one of our men beat up his wife. I went over with two of the deacons, Harv Jolly and Jim Farrel. You know them?”

“Harv Jolly the linebacker?”

“Yessir. University of Washington, back in the seventies. And Farrel’s a former gangbanger. Two of the most godly guys you’ll ever know. Anyway, they were with me, and I warned this man, ‘We’ll do everything we can to help you, but nothin’ can excuse hitting your wife. Nothin’. You do it again, and my deacons are gonna get you.’”

“What do you mean ‘get you’?” Clarence asked.

“Well, for five weeks he didn’t hurt her—turned out to be the longest he’d gone in years. But one day he hit her again, and one of our deaconesses found out. I got the call, and I sent Jim and Harv to pay him a visit.”

“What did they say?”

“Didn’t say much at all. Just beat the livin’ daylights out of him.”

Clarence looked wide eyed. “Your deacons beat him up?”

“Yessir. He repented too, once he woke up. That man’s been comin’ to church ever since and hasn’t laid a finger on his wife for six months. Ol’ Harv disciples him. They meet for breakfast every Thursday. He’s comin’ along, that brother.”

Clarence stared at Clancy, who talked as if this was normal, as if he were talking about paving the parking lot.

“Okay,” Clarence said, “since you’re asking, I do have another question. The Sunday school rooms are full of posters of black history and black heroes. I see them, and they make me feel good, make me wish I knew this stuff when I was a kid. But still, isn’t there a danger? Doesn’t it teach our children to choose role models just because of their race?”

“I don’t see it that way at all,” Clancy said. “History’s been edited along racial lines, and our kids need to see there’s black heroes along with white ones. Last week I was talking to the children’s group, and I told them about the Isonghee abacus, a bone from prehistoric Zaire with markings showing it was used for calculations. Well, that bone shows the most ancient mathematics don’t come from Europe or Asia, but from Africa. Maybe you don’t think church is the place for that, but I think our kids need to hear it—lots of them have been brainwashed to think they can’t cut it in math class. That’s why we’ve started the Ebenezer School of Ethnic Studies. It’s not just a politically correct gimmick.”

Pastor Clancy stood up and gestured dramatically. “There’s a pathology of despair among our people. You know the conversations we have with each other that we don’t have with white folk. You know the undertones, the history, the suffering behind it. How can we face the future, how can we face the problems of our communities unless we know what we’re capable of? If a black child realizes black folk have made great accomplishments from the beginning of human history and great accomplishments in America, it gives him hope. If he thinks of black people as failures, it destines
him
to failure. I want our children to grow up believing they can succeed.”

“I’m with you there, pastor,” Clarence said. “I just think Afrocentrism can be as unhealthy as Eurocentrism.”

“I won’t argue with that—I mean, true Christianity can’t be centered on any culture, it has to be centered on Christ. But Eurocentrism pervades our society. We’ve got to counterbalance that somehow if the descendants of African slaves are going to take their rightful place here. I teach a class called Blacks in the Bible. I open up all these passages people have never thought about.”

“What passages do you mean?”

“Well, for starters, Ephraim and Manasseh are two of the twelve tribes of Israel, right? According to Genesis 41, they were the sons of Joseph and an Ethiopian woman. They were 50 percent black. The fathers of two tribes of Israel were
black.
Ever seen that in the Bible story pictures?

“Jethro was a Midianite from Southern Arabia, which was occupied by Ethiopians. He was the father of Zipporah, wife of Moses, who was a Cushite, an Ethiopian—says so in Numbers 12. Jethro’s family were believers, proselytes to the Jewish faith. Moses married this black woman, and when Miriam grumbled about this interracial marriage, God gave her leprosy to teach her a lesson.

“Or how about David? His great-grandmother was Rahab, a Canaanite, from the line of Ham, father of the black race. David’s grandmother was Ruth, a Moabite, another Canaanite tribe. By American standards, anyone with black blood is considered black. So, David easily had enough black blood that if he lived in America today he’d be called black.

“Solomon was David’s son by a Hamitic woman Bathsheba, whose name means ‘daughter of Sheba,’ an African. Zephaniah the prophet was a descendent of ‘Cush,’ a black man. And look at the messianic line of Jesus. In his legal genealogy, through Joseph, four women are mentioned—Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. Now,
all four
of those were descendants of Ham, the black line of humanity. All of them were black! Jesus’ mother Mary was also a descendant of Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth. There may have been other Hamitic blood in Jesus too, but as far as we know, there was no Japhetic blood, no white blood. Those who teach that having black African blood in you puts you under a curse must believe Jesus was under a curse—that the whole messianic line was cursed! By American standards, Jesus had enough African blood to be called black.

“This is important to me, Clarence. See, one evening when I was a young pastor I was reading the Bible story books to my daughter. She pointed to a picture of Jesus holding children in his lap. My daughter asked, ‘Daddy, does Jesus love white people more than he loves black people?’ I was shocked at the question. But then I realized that in the pictures, not only Jesus but all the children in his lap were lily white. I didn’t even know enough then to tell her Jesus really had dark skin, Middle Eastern Semitic dark, that along with his primarily Jewish blood he had considerable African blood in him too. I really believe if the Jesus in her picture book had looked like Jesus actually looked, she would never have asked that question. Of course, if Jesus were white, he’d still be my Lord. But he
wasn’t
white. And it’s Eurocentrism that’s remade him into a white image. I believe our children have suffered from that. No wonder the Black Muslims get away with saying Christianity’s a white man’s religion. It isn’t, of course, but it’s been twisted into looking as if it was.”