Killing the Buddha Page 11

  “Hello, Reverend,” said one of the twelve. “My name is Deacon Dan Shannon, and these are my colleagues: Deacon Rueben, Deacon Simon, Deacon Levi, Deacon Judah, Deacon Zebulon, Deacon Issachar, Deacon Gad, Deacon Asher, Deacon Naphtali, Deacon Joseph, and Deacon Benjamin. We are all deacons for the Ethiopian United Federated Church of Christ in New York City.”

  “What can I do you for?” Carl couldn’t help but be impressed as the deacons filed into his office and stood against the wall.

  “That was quite a service, Reverend.”

  “You should see me at Easter.”

  “Yes, well, I’m sure that would be quite a sight.” Deacon Dan lapsed into lengthy silence, suddenly unsure where to begin with their proposal. Because of the glitter, the conked hair, the jewelry, they had all failed to recognize the most important aspect of the pastor before them. Carl Harpon was a true believer. His thought and purpose clear: There is none as holy as the Lord: For there is none beside thee: Neither is there any rock like our Lord. All donations were used for the church. He was as poor as most of his congregation and was proud of it. There was a reason why most of his parishioners behaved like zealots. He helped them file their taxes, filled out forms for Section Eight housing and food stamps. Every Sunday, 150 people gathered to pay homage to a man who not only sat down with them for dinner but helped them paint their houses and could unclog a toilet.

  “Okay, fellas. I don’t mean to rush you, but I got to pop my head in the Sunday school class. The kids get a real kick out of me coming in with my towel.” But that was said because of his rising unease with the silence, the indistinguishable suits and bow ties. Sons of guns sizing me up, he thought.

  “Oh, yes, and we wouldn’t want to keep you,” Deacon Dan said, clearing his throat. “Are you married, Reverend?”

  “No. No, the Lord—”

  “Yes, well, that could be taken care of in short order, couldn’t it?” And before Carl had a chance to answer, Deacon Dan delivered the pitch. The other deacons, on cue, belched out small bouts of laughter around the performance. “We don’t have frescoes, you understand, but we do have a relief or two that we are quite fond, dare I say, proud of.” But it was the presence of twelve mocha brothers in the same suit that swayed him in a way no other argument they gave could. Twelve. His congregation of 150 had only three deacons and two ushers. Twelve? Their idea of modest was something else in Harlem, he thought as he heard their offer. Least three hundred, I bet. He pressed and pressed, but the deacons wouldn’t give him an exact number, saying only, “We have a modest congregation in Harlem. But we do have great expectations. With your help, of course.” And Carl leapt at the chance. The deacons were running out of time, but Carl had his own private desires, too.

  And yet he should have known something was amiss when he could never tell the deacons apart and thus never got their names right. Every conversation he initiated had to be stopped and corrected before it had a chance to leave the ground. Their eighteenth-century smiles, able to quell even the most suspicious, convinced him to get on the train and settle into the small one-bedroom apartment next to their church. The living room window had been knocked in, the sink ran brown water, but he loved it. A delight he had never experienced overcame him when he realized he could buy lightbulbs, a stick of gum, and a mousetrap all from the same corner store. And more than anything he loved that the Ethiopian United Federated Church of Christ was an all-wooden church in the middle of concrete Harlem. The effort and skill, all in brown hues, inspired him. Some etchings weren’t deep enough to withstand time, a wooden carving of the Last Supper had worn away into an unrecognizable lump, but the engraved, double hammer-beamed roof, along with the mahogany pulpit, hinted at greatness. He sat in the pews at sunset and noticed that from the lone window in the church, sunlight refracted in such a way that in the large wooden relief of the Virgin and Child, Mary’s praying hands shaded baby Jesus’ face. None of the deacons had observed this carpenter’s feat.

  “Bunch of black guys got together and did this?”

  Their contemptuous smiles weren’t directed at Carl. “Yes, Reverend.”

  “I can’t wait to see the folks who praise the Lord here. Can’t wait.”

  During his first Sunday service Carl realized they had lied. A congregation of sixty was modest, not twenty-seven (three congregants had died while they searched for the new pastor), fifteen of whom who would be dead in less than three years from old age. Twenty-seven people, including the twelve deacons, and a six-hundred-dollar church endowment. From the vantage point of the pulpit, there didn’t seem to be a cousin, out-of-town guest, or even a wayward teenager who needed to be punished for being caught with a joint among them. Just a recent widow and octogenarian couples who shared oxygen tanks. Afterward, when Carl asked if any of the flock had grandchildren, the deacons shrugged with embarrassment and admitted they didn’t know.

  Carl set to work, bringing southern savvy to the Ethiopian and performing the Herculean task of leading the sheep back into the EUFCC fold. “Put your pride in your pocket,” he told the deacons. “I want each and every one of us to go and sign up for food stamps.” They were scandalized when Carl used the vouchers to buy breakfast muffins and coffee for the morning commuters who walked by the church. “Let me fill your stomach now, and come by on Sunday so I can fill your soul.” For four months while pouring coffee, Carl learned who had a hard time keeping up with their rent, how many women had children out of wedlock, and who was able to keep a steady job. And they liked him, not simply because he showed an interest in their lives and remembered their squabbles but also because he seemed to be as poor as they were. Every day he stood behind his long cardboard table in some outlandish suit, in dire need of a shave, without shame.

  Still the community resisted. Each Sunday, Reverend Carl preached to the same twenty-seven members. The mild pleasure the neighborhood experienced when morning after morning this new pastor remembered how each of them took their coffee didn’t scour away what they felt about the deacons. Cold men, cold, uppity men whose sole purpose seemed to be making them all ashamed of their predicaments. “Reverend Carl’s out there giving away breakfast, but where the fuck are those twelve motherfuckers?”

  What was needed, he decided, was a show. A kind of production the entire neighborhood would know in advance would be guaranteed entertainment. “Who’s the crazy in the neighborhood?” Carl asked one Wednesday.

  “Excuse me, Reverend?”

  “You know. You telling me ain’t not one soul in ten blocks of here ain’t crazy as a peach orchard boar?”

  “One of those southern sayings again, Reverend?”

  “Yeah. But we got one, don’t we, Deacon Dan?”

  “I’m Deacon Rueben, Reverend. Her name is Matilda Johnson. She’s four blocks down.”

  “All right, then.” Carl walked to the door, grabbing his hat.

  “You know, we deacons try not to attract that sort of element to the church.”

  Carl struggled into his coat and opened the door.

  Deacon Rueben called Carl back. “People in the community call her Twin, Reverend. And be careful.”

  He found her squatting on the steps of a failing brownstone with a long, heavy stick on her right side and more than a dozen empty Tab cola cans on her left. Twin was the size of two people, hence the nickname, and took up more than half of the step she sat on. She had lived on one of the ten blocks surrounding the Ethiopian longer than anyone could remember, and most called her crazy because her meanness often made itself manifest without reason. In the neighborhood she was known to be deadly, able to spit on a child three doors down if she had the inclination. And despite her size, this woman could chase down a smart-aleck teenage boy for more than six blocks, hurtling empty Tab cans with amazing accuracy.

  Without introduction, he said, “You mean old bitch, come on to church.”

  Though she had never come by the Ethiopian for breakfast, she knew about the new pastor who seemed to be handing
out goodwill as if it were free. “I got bad habits,” she said. “Been kicked out of six churches.”

  Carl rocked on his heels, then spit between his feet.

  “Well, it’s never too late to get religion.”

  “That’s what you say now.” She smirked at him, and without being told he realized she had heard this very statement before. In all likelihood, a score of previous reverends full of ambition had in turn stood just where he was standing now, asking would she come and grace their church in order to increase attendance. And when her mischief became too much to bear, when the very congregation her presence had helped build couldn’t tolerate the humiliation, they had cast her aside. It shamed him. She was the local freak show simply because her antics mirrored the God she knew. Galling though it was to realize that his very original idea was in fact an imitation of what every brand-new pastor had done, still he knew he had to have her. So he lied. “We got a soup kitchen on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and eggs, bacon, and grits for breakfast on Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays.”

  “Where this place at?”

  “Church, Twin.” He reached out and shook her hand, promising himself that if she showed up he would never ask her to leave. “It’s not a place; it’s a church. And I welcome you to it, Sister Twin.”

  The next morning Carl made sure to inform those on the way to the subway that Sister Matilda “Twin” Johnson would be attending Sunday services. The news reached the entire community before the end of the morning rush hour. As tempted as they were to see just what would Twin pull, only thirty-three teenagers dared to enter the Ethiopian that Sunday. Shoulder to shoulder, they filled the back three pews, while Twin sat alone in the middle of the church. His regular congregation took up the two front rows. “Morning, beloved.” Those who had come to see Twin giggled into their hands. “I can’t hear you. I said, Morning, beloved.”

  “Morning, Reverend Harpon.”

  “Just call me Reverend Carl. I see this Sunday we got new faces. Now just stand on up one by one and introduce yourselves.” He scribbled their last names in the margins of his Bible. “I got a message for you today, brothers and sisters. I know some of you have come out today not for the Lord but for a show.” They settled into an embarrassed silence. “I know it. What will she do today? y’all are thinking. So I got a message for you today.”

  “Tell it to us.”

  “I want each and every one of you to pick up your Bible. That’s right, pick it up from your lap and hold it close to your heart.” The sound of rustling paper and purse zippers creeping open filled the church. “All of God’s ways right between these covers, beloved.”

  “Amen.”

  “Now I want you to close your eyes while I give you the rest of this message today. I see some of you in the back. I said close them eyes.” He waited until the few who hadn’t did what he instructed. “There is the destruction of the wicked found in this good book. And the righteous being tried.”

  “Yes, Lord.”

  “And with all that: the love of the Lord and our Savior, the praises to His name…”

  “Yes, Jesus.”

  “His sometimes harsh judgments and yet the glory found therein…”

  “You tell it.”

  “But I got a hard message for you today, beloved.” He paused for a moment.

  “Sometimes you got to put down the book.”

  “Ooh.” Every eye opened, baffled. Even to the untrained ear, Reverend Carl’s command smacked of blasphemy.

  “Oh, yes. I said it. Sometimes you got to put it down. Can’t take the good word to work with you. And we all know there some things between man and wife…”

  “I know that’s right.”

  “Sometimes we get so big, so full of ourselves, that we all walk around thinking, I don’t need no book. Not that book no ways.”

  “Make it plain.”

  “I know that there are those of us who think, This book here can’t help me get no job, can’t help me with my Section Eight housing. So I want you to do this for me. Put it down.” Both those in the front and those in the back pews continued to stall, waiting for him to take back what he just said. “You heard me, beloved. This beautiful book and all its stories and all its goodness and all its wisdom…”

  “Amen.”

  “Put it down. Take it away from your hands, like you trying to take it away from your life. I want you to put down the book right now. Stand up, beloved. Take a step back. You feel it now, don’t you? Right now, right here, you longing to get that book back in your hands. Hold that feeling, beloved.”

  And then the moment they had been waiting for arrived. Sister Twin, sitting in a sea of empty pews, jumped up and hurled her Bible at Pastor’s head. Carl, too, had been expecting that moment and calmly ducked behind the pulpit. The Bible flew past his ear and landed with a thud upon the stage. Except for Twin’s heavy breathing, the church went silent. Carl stood up and straightened his tie. “And sometimes you got to pick the Good Book up. Let’s all turn to First Samuel, chapter two, verses one through ten.” He began to read. “My heart exults in the Lord, my strength is ex-alted in my God!” He stopped, looked down into the pews. “Sister Twin, look like you got to come up here and get yours.”

  So they came back. Sunday after Sunday they returned, their numbers growing exponentially as they waited to see how and when Twin would cut the fool or knock loose someone’s teeth. The same spell Reverend Carl had cast in Lafayette County, Arkansas, he wove in Harlem. Carl’s brand of religion called for an almost overwhelming love of the Lord, tempered by practicality. Simply put, it was in the community’s best interest that they attend regular services at the Ethiopian United Federated Church of Christ. Capable of fixing the very worst of their problems, he found affordable yet competent lawyers to represent their sons, helped them out of countless problems with their landlords. He had even helped one family buy a brownstone. During the first nine years the Ethiopian grew tenfold. Now they had 275 regular congregants, and that number swelled to 350 on Easter Sunday and the midnight service on Christmas Eve. The church could now sustain both a regular and a youth choir. Carl opened a homeless outreach program. For those willing to be baptized in the kiddie pool, graciously donated by Brother Elijah, breakfast or lunch was available directly after the religious rite was performed.

  Reverend Carl was busy. From dawn till night, some aspect of church business concerned him. But the deacons, too, were hard at work. As best they could, they changed him. Dark gray or navy suits were bought and given to him as nonholiday presents. The deacons offered to take his bright green and pale yellow suits to the dry cleaners and then paid the owner to lose them. The twelve even managed to have him married in less than two years. In 1976, Carl married Regina Taylor, a woman thirteen years his senior, widowed with three young boys, seven, nine, and twelve. Her pedigree and genealogy, however, suited the deacons. Like all their wives, she was an Alpha Kappa Alpha, and her family claimed to be able to trace their ancestry back to Columbus, though they didn’t like to discuss their family history before 1809.

  Just before they married, the deacons had asked her to perform only one task. “Obviously, Reverend Carl is a full grown man. We can’t ask that he grow taller, but perhaps you could try to put a little weight on him. Some girth on a man connotes power and respect. I’m sure you’re well aware of that, Regina. There are wonderful protein shakes available that we’ve heard are quite effective.” She never bought the dietary supplement, choosing instead to dive into southern cookbooks. Fried chicken wings smothered in gravy with grits for breakfast. Shit on a shingle and dirty rice for dinner. It took her five years to perfect fried pickles, but she did it gladly. The deacons had arranged the marriage, but in her own queer way Regina loved her husband. In her circle of friends and family, he was the only person darker than she was. Called burnt toast all of her life, she was more than grateful she wouldn’t have to fight the color battle in her own home. Her first husband had been high yellow, and he had never let h
er forget the reason they’d been allowed to rent a summer home in Myrtle Beach was because he was the only member in the family in need of a tan. And as much as she loved her new husband’s blackness, she adored that the attention Carl bestowed on his congregation he gave to her without prompting.

  Carl knew Regina’s favorite color and flower, smacked his lips when she called him to the table for dinner. He didn’t love his wife, but he treasured her matronly ways, and her children, now his children, were tolerable. King had been married with four children, and because Carl married a widow with three sons, he only had to worry about getting her pregnant once more. Each night he went to bed with the feeling that it was all coming together.

  The Ethiopian thrived under his direction. The only exceptions were the deacons. Secretive, manipulative, they seemed constantly to try to undermine him. He insisted Kwanzaa was a holiday worth embracing, but to no avail. They wouldn’t budge on the issue. Lately, he lamented being so engrossed with the numerous programs he had started at the Ethiopian, since they gave him little time to investigate what the deacons were doing with a portion of the church donations.

  The changes they made were gradual. Though the excuse was always the same. Woodworm. “We are being ravaged by woodworms, Reverend. Something should be done quickly.” Church funds were now being used internally, and bit by bit, the deacons replaced as much wood planking as they could afford with either limestone or treated brick. The baptismal pool, that bright blue plastic children’s pool bejeweled with teddy bear stickers that for years Reverend Carl had tried to convince the congregation were in fact a certain kind of cherub, was quietly given back to Brother Elijah and replaced with an Italian marble natatorium. The deacons had even turned to fashion. Sunday hats once so lavish they were almost impossible to understand were replaced by demure counterparts. Small black skullcaps with a touch of netting began to dot the pews. Their appearance was duly noted. “Oh, girl, have you seen Miz Sister Christian over there? Look like somebody’s trying to go white onus.” But the deacons were everywhere. They quelled censure and rumor before it had the chance to reach three people. Their admonishments were always firm yet polite, “Sister, please.” Well-placed Scripture kept wagging tongues in place.