Strivers Row (66 page)

“You said somethin' about girls—”

“Yes, I did,” Malcolm sighed.

He did think of Miranda then—of the money he needed to take to settle everything with Archie, and take her away. Money he could get only one place. He pushed himself up from the table, pulling Reginald along with him. Waving off Sammy, who sat half-slumped over the table, still urging them to have another scotch, and only just remembering to take up the .32-20, which had been laying right out in plain sight. Handing Reginald his own .25, and showing him how to hide it.

“Right down the center of your back—like this.”

“That's right! You learn good, boy!” Sammy the Pimp called encouragement from where he was crawling up to lie across the table.

Reginald solemnly hid the gun as Malcolm showed him—and then the two of them were walking out on the street. The bustling night world looking distorted and incandescent from the coke, and the gage they had blown. It was a dark night, cloudy, with no more than a crescent moon in the sky, which Malcolm took as a good sign for their job. He walked slowly, carefully, making a concerted effort to walk straight with his spaghetti, drunk legs. He winked at his brother, and turned toward downtown, starting for the ghosty men's house—only to see Reginald keep walking the other way, back in the direction of their hotel.

“Hey, bro', you got turned around!” he called after him, grinning, hooking onto his brother's arm and attempting to turn him back around. “The score I got in mind is
this
way—”

But to his amazement, Reginald simply shrugged off his arm, and kept going, walking rapidly back toward the St. Nicholas, Malcolm scrambling after him.

“Hey! You ain't lost your nerve already, have you, Cholly Hoss?”

“I ain't doin' any stick-up job, Malcolm,” Reginald said, his voice trembling but plowing on ahead.

“But you just said you would!”

“I only said it so I could get you outta there,” Reginald told him, stopping, finally, to confront him on the sidewalk. “Malcolm, I ain't no hold-up man, an' I ain't gonna jump ship. That's desertion, they could put my ass away for the rest of the war. An' I don't trust that Sammy's far's I can spit him.”

Malcolm remonstrated with him all the way back to the St. Nicholas, and even as Reginald stalked grimly around their suite there, collecting his things and piling them into his seaman's bag. Telling him again about how much money they could make, and how many girls they would get, and how safe he would keep him from the MPs, and the cops. But even as he spoke, Malcolm could hear how weak, and unconvincing, his voice sounded. Maybe it was all the blow and the liquor they had ingested at Sammy's that made him keep losing his train of thought, but there was also the voice he heard in the back of his head now that kept asking,
But when have you ever kept anybody safe? When did you ever keep even
her
safe?

At last, when Reginald was all packed up, he pulled the .25 from the small of his back and handed it back to him.

“Malcolm, I ain't doin' this,” he said, his eyes glistening. “This ain't like when we was kids. I don't think you should do it, either.”

“Just think about it. Another minute! That's all I'm sayin'—”

“No, man—”

“You think this ain't safe? They gonna
kill
you on that boat a yours!” Malcolm burst out, regretting it as soon as he saw how startled Reginald looked. Then Reginald slowly shook his head, looking him determinedly in the face.

“I gotta get to my ship. I'll let you know next time we're in port.”

He shook his hand, then pulled Malcolm to him in an awkward, tentative hug.

“All right, then. All right. But I'll still be here, waitin', if you change your mind on your way to the navy.”

“Good-bye, Malcolm,” Reginald said softly as he went out the door—looking back at him with the very same expression of alarm and concern he had had on his face that night outside the Levandowskis', years ago. “You go easy, now.”

“I'll be here! I'll still be here!” Malcolm called after him.

And when he was gone, when Malcolm finally heard his shoes echo down the hallway, and the elevator arrive, he had felt even emptier, and more lonely than he had any of those other nights, alone in his room these past few months. He went in to sit on his brother's bed, hoping that somehow Reginald might feel as bad as he did, separated from the last of his family again, and was even now hurrying back along the Harlem sidewalks.

But there was nothing—no bing of the elevator, or sound of footsteps headed back up the hallway. Malcolm bounced himself idly up and down on the bed to stay awake. Noticing how tight and firm the bedspread was, Reginald insisting on making up his own bed every morning just as he had learned in the merchant marine, and before the maid could even get in.

He pulled out Sammy's .32-20, and laid it on the bed next to him, then. The .25 Reginald had handed back to him, too, the safeties off both guns—telling himself he had to be ready if Archie came by. Then he popped a couple more bennies out of his stash, and started on another pack of sticks. Next he pulled out the little green book Prof. Toussaint had given him—thoroughly battered now, only the “X” remaining on the title page—and sat back down on the bed. It was almost dawn now, and he stopped and waited to watch the sun come up as it had on his first morning in Harlem, after his night with Miranda. Waiting until it turned the sky blue, then a dirty yellow through the grime-streaked window. Then he opened the little green book, and began to read the end of the story.

THE BIOGRAPHY OF ELIJAH MUHAMMAD

AS
TOLD
BY
“
X
”

The day that Master Fard left, Elijah had driven him on down to Chicago through the spring sunshine. Motoring along roads splayed with apple and lilac blossoms, the fields freshly turned for planting. They had kept mostly to the main highways nonetheless, never sure what they might encounter if they wandered too far down the back roads amongst the scenic farms and pretty, white country towns. Only after they had passed through Indiana did they stop for food, pulling off into a little grove by a watering hole. It was a pleasant spot, full of singing birds, where the car could be concealed behind the surrounding trees. There they had eaten the lunch that Clara had packed for them, made as always from the best food they had in their house, then dozed and talked for a while in the shade.

“You will be in charge until it is safe for me to return,” Fard told him sleepily, lying out on the ground beneath a high oak tree in his open vest and shirtsleeves, the jacket of his immaculate suit left back in the car for once.

“Yes,” Elijah said, but his voice sounded distracted, and Fard, alert as ever, looked over at him sharply.

“You know that you are the last of the prophets, do you not?” Fard told him very seriously, sitting up and trying to fix him with his eyes again.

“Elijah of Cordele,” he mused. “At least two-thirds of the true Bible—not the white man's Poison Book—is written about you, and it is you who will be judged first of all on the Judgment Day. Did you know that?”

“Thank you,” Elijah said automatically.

He knew that he should have been more attentive, but he was preoccupied at the moment. Thinking about the familiar, slender figure he had noticed, on the far edge of the weeping crowd that had seen off Master Fard that morning. He had picked him out at once: the Chinaman, Eddie Donaldson—in a hat and suit, and his usual sardonic smile, a slim, cardboard suitcase dangling from one hand.

“You know, I think that I will give you a better name than Ghulam,” Fard said, standing up and walking over to the car, where he took a towel that Clara had provided out of the backseat, and started toward the watering hole.

“I think that you will be called ‘Abdul' from now on—”

“Respectfully, I decline, Master,” Elijah said, and Fard stopped where he was on his way to the water, squinting slightly at Elijah through the dappled sunshine.

“That was the name that you gave Brown Eel,” Elijah said calmly, “who was my blood enemy. And besides, he was not faithful to you.”

“What do you mean by that?” Fard asked him sharply, but Elijah only looked calmly at him for a moment before replying.

“Where is he now?” he said, and Fard stared at him for another long moment.

“True enough, my most humble servant,” he said then, and smiled—that dear, warm smile that Elijah had always loved so much.

“I was only testing you, and as always you have passed the test. I will give you a better name yet. I will give you your own name back. And with it, you will take my original name. Muhammad.”

“Yes,” said Elijah, sounding it out in his mind.
Elijah Muhammad
.

“Yes, thank you,” he said, satisfied.

Fard looked at him again, then proceeded to the water, while Elijah got up and went back to the car. He had noticed that one of the rear tires was dangerously low, portending a blowout, and who knew what might happen to them then—two slight, well-dressed men of color, caught out alone on the shoulder of a public highway. He got the axle and tire jack and the spare out of the trunk, and was preparing to change it when he saw Fard kneel down by the watering hole and begin to pray.

Fascinated, Elijah began to walk quietly toward him, the tire-jack crucifix still in his hand. He had never heard the Master pray by himself before—but before he could hear what he was saying, Fard had finished and leaned down, splashing his face with water and then mopping himself with Clara's towel. Elijah was left to stare at the back of his olive-skinned neck, the pompadour of white man's hair oiled high on his head.

“What will you do in Chicago?” Elijah asked him, and Fard started, as if somehow he had not been aware of his presence so close to him.

“Oh, I don't know,” he said distractedly, still looking down into the water, producing a rubber comb and beginning to work it stiffly through his hair.

“It has been a long time since I saw my people. Maybe it is time I made a trip back to Mecca, the Holy City.”

“Yes,” Elijah said, listening now, and walking a couple of feet closer. He thought he could hear something rustling in the bushes—a bigger sound than could be made by any rabbit, or badger.

“I don't know when I'll be back, actually,” Fard said, seemingly oblivious to the noise, though Elijah didn't know how he could be. His voice sounded strangely light and animated, Elijah thought, as if he had left off some great burden.

“There are many places I should visit, to bring wisdom and enlightenment before the Last Days. You will have to be strong in my stead.”

“I will be.”

“You know, you must be careful how you judge others, my faithful one,” Fard went on. “You will find that within every man there are many different men, just waiting to get out. One of them can even be God, but that doesn't mean the other men aren't there.”

“Yes.”

“You will find this is true even within yourself,” Fard said, straightening up on his knees now, but looking straight ahead, out over the water. “It is true even with those you love, and trust the most, and you must think on this, and have mercy.”

That rustling again.
The Chinaman?

“Yes,” Elijah said, peering into the underbrush. “I understand.”

“Good,” Fard said, dropping his face to the water again. “I knew you would, my son.”

He weighed the heft of the tire jack in his hand, listening intently but hearing only the sound of the birds singing, the quiet splash of the water on the Master's face as he drew closer.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

JONAH

He had waited until the very last moment to bring him in. Until the processional had entered, singing the old hymn “What a Beautiful City,” and marched all the way up to take their place around the altar. The choir waiting for him there, standing, along with the assistant ministers, and the choir director. The congregation still standing, too—looking around at each other, wondering what the delay was about.

Only then had he entered the New Jerusalem, with his father on his arm. Walking down the aisle only as fast as the old man could totter forward, bent half over to the ground, clutching Jonah's elbow, but still refusing to use a cane. The congregation, still on its feet, watching them creep forward in awe. His father sneaking Jonah a ghost of a smile across his broad, rigid face, as if to show his appreciation of a dramatic flourish worthy of one of his own.

He reached the front pew, and settled his father very slowly there, in the seat next to the aisle. The head deacon scooting hastily over—right next to where Amanda always sat. Jonah still half-hoping that she would be there, though she had said that she would not be. He had snuck a look out at the crowd through the vestry door before the service, telling himself that maybe she had decided to come after all—but there was still no sign of her. They had spoken on the phone every day since she had left, with Jonah mostly listening. Trying to think of something that would convince her to come back but able to come up with almost nothing. Listening to all she had to say, her heartache and her worry, and her loneliness—after these ten years, living with him—and all he could find to say was,
Come see. I'll show you, just come see.

He looked out over the entire congregation again before he stepped on up to the pulpit—taking one last look for her. Taking the opportunity to look at all of them, the great, half circle of the faithful, gathered 'round. Still subtly and not so subtly separated by skin color, darker on his right, light-almost-white on his left. The church mothers with their grand, feathered hats. The gravely self-important deacons in the front pews, hands on their chins, nodding sagely over nothing at all. The ushers trying to stand at full attention, white-gloved hands behind their backs, no matter how old they were. The balconies fuller than ever before with young, truly serious-looking men in uniform—their mothers and girlfriends clutching their arms even now, as if they were afraid to let go of them for a second. He even spotted Private Bandy and his mother and fiancée, sitting up dead center in the balcony, and gave them a wink—the private grinning happily back at him.

He looked out over all the church—
his church
—and he wanted to laugh for the love of all of them. Seated there uncomfortably before him. Sweating in the heavy heat, fanning themselves with their programs, or rounded little rattan fans. No doubt thinking more of the ballgame later that afternoon, or the policy number they had bet, or how hungover they were from the night before. Thinking on whom they would marry, or what murderous corner of the Pacific or Africa they were about to be shipped out to. Thinking of sex and liquor, and the Good Book, and kindness and generosity, and how to hustle their neighbors, and the kind heart of Jesus, and how hot they were at just that very moment. All the good-bad things that human beings think of, a million times a minute. All mixed up together so that what sort of prayer could ever possibly go out to God, save for the entire, chaotic outcry of all His creation, all at once?

He felt the way he had that rainy Sunday, just the week before— only with much less of the melancholy now. Feeling that weight-lessness, that just-after-the-fever-has-broken relief that the worst had happened, and things could not possibly get worse. And that, even if they did, there was not a thing he could do about it. Thinking that God was a fever, leaving us in cycles fearful and despairing, senselessly ecstatic and burned down to a crisp of helpless tranquility. He stepped past the altar, up to his pulpit, listening calmly while the assistant ministers hurried through the announcements and the prayers, and the choir led them in another hymn. Pulling out the thin, folded sheaf of paper that he had read to his father the night before, wanting him to hear it first. Ready to take back his church.

“I want to talk to you today about the sign of Jonah,” he began straight out, speaking in a calm, quiet voice. Pretending to look down at his text, but not even seeing the words, knowing everything that he was going to say by heart.

“You all know it—I would hope. Know it from the Sunday school story, how Jonah was swallowed by the whale. But maybe you've forgotten just how it was Jonah got there, swimming in that raging sea. Maybe you've forgotten that Jonah was commanded by the Lord to go to the mighty city of Nineveh—a city the Bible tells us it took three days just to pass through—to go to that mighty capital of the heathen Assyrians, and to tell them that they had been found
wicked
in the sight of the Lord! Yes, he had been ordered by
God Himself
to tell the people of Nineveh that they were
evil
, and that the Lord would destroy them in forty days' time!

“Not a pleasant task,” he said quickly, drawing a light chuckle of relief from the crowd. Stopping to mop his sweating face with his handkerchief—looking up specifically at Private Bandy in his uniform then.

“Not a very pleasant mission, as we have so many of us been given unpleasant missions these days. Almost as unpleasant and as dangerous a mission as going to
war
—to tell a great people that they are wicked and that they are doomed, 'less they foreswear their wicked ways. In fact, it was so unpleasant to Jonah that he
refused
to do the Lord's bidding, and he rose and tried to flee to the ends of the earth, thinking that God would not find him there. He bought a ticket on a heathen boat, to sail him so far away that he would be out of the presence of the Lord.”

He paused again, taking a long drink of water from the glass on the podium before him—wanting to get the timing just right for what was coming next.

“But there's no place you can go that is beyond the presence of the Lord. No place beyond the will of He Who maketh all things, of He Who causeth the wind to blow, and the sun to rise. You can't
sail
out of the presence of the Lord. You can't
row
out of the presence of the Lord, though Jonah and his heathen sailors tried. You can't even take a modern steamship, or a car, or a train. You can't take the fastest plane there is—and escape from the presence of the Lord.

“The Lord found Jonah, all right. And He made a mighty tempest to rise up in the sea, so that Jonah's boat was in peril of capsizing and drowning all aboard. Jonah knew it was the Lord, too. He knew it the same way we
all
know it when we commit some sin— when we know we've done wrong. Jonah knew that
he
was the one responsible for making the sea churn, and the boat founder. Just as, to this day, we call someone we think is responsible for all our bad luck and misfortune
‘a Jonah.'
Just as many of you in this church today have thought
me
to be the cause of all our troubles—the one who is responsible for the shrinking of our spirit, and for our failure to love one another as we know we should.”

A stunned murmur rose up through the church then—not the usual call and response of approval or encouragement, but a babble of exclamations and pure shock. Jonah letting them have that moment, to voice their consternation over all the surprises of the day, the presence of his father and the absence of Amanda, and his own audaciousness in preaching a sermon on himself. Putting up his hand against it, but letting the sound run its course before he tried to speak again.

“You are not wrong to have thought so. I have to confess to you that there have been times when my spirit
has
been weak. There have been times, too, when like Jonah I wished I was many miles away from here, even at the ends of the earth. When I did not feel worthy of taking up the mission that the Lord gave me—that
you
gave me to minister unto you.

“Now the heathen sailors tried to have compassion on Jonah— just as you have had compassion on me. They weren't about to throw another human being overboard, into a raging sea—just as you have been good enough not to throw me out. They tried hard to row the ship back to land, but the Lord would not have it. It did no good for them to
sail
. Did no good for them to
row
. They didn't have a motor, didn't have a boiler—and if they had, they would have done them no good either,
for there is no power that can stand against the power of the Lord!
Finally Jonah had to
beg
them to throw him over the side. As I would have liked to beg you, many times when I felt unworthy, to throw me over.”

He spoke the last sentence in a suddenly hushed, soft voice, so that the whole church went quiet with him. All but hanging on his words now.

“Well, I guess you know what happened next. Once Jonah was in the water, the Lord sent a whale—a
leviathan
—to swallow him up.

And though it might seem
impossible
—though it might be
unlikely
— the Bible tells us that Jonah lived for three days in the belly of the beast. It tells us, too, that Jonah prayed to the Lord then. But he did not pray for help, as you or I would surely have done. He didn't pray to be
delivered
, as almost anyone would have done in his circumstances. He didn't pray, ‘Lord, please help me' in the present tense. Didn't pray as a bargain, ‘Please help me, Lord, and I will be good, I will do your will!'

“No, instead he prayed a prayer of thanksgiving. He prayed as if he already
had
been delivered, for so great was Jonah's faith that he had no
doubt
but that God would preserve him. He prayed, ‘
I called
—called!—
to the Lord, out of my distress, and He answered me.
' He prayed, ‘
I called from the belly of Hell, and the Lord did hear my voice.
' He prayed, ‘
I went down to the land whose bars were closed upon me forever, yet thou didst bring up my life from the Pit, O Lord my God. When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to Thee, into Thy holy temple
.' That is what he prayed. And the Lord heard his prayer, and He caused the leviathan to vomit him up on the shore.

“Now I know that many of you—that many of
us
—have felt that same way. Ever since the great beast vomited us up on the shores of this land, we have felt that way. We have called out to the Lord from the belly of the beast, and the depths of hell. We have called out from where the prison bars shut upon us, and where doors shut in our faces, for the Lord to
hear our prayer!
”

He paused abruptly for another drink of water. Weighing the response of the church before him, the rising, increasingly excited cries of
That's right! That's right!
and
Tell it! Tell it plain!
Hearing, he thought, the first rustle of the rabbit in the bushes.

“The Lord heard Jonah, and delivered him, and that is a great sign unto us all. Christ Himself tells us in the Book of Matthew, and again in Luke, that Jonah is the sign of that generation.
‘For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the beast, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.'
Before rising. Before rising out of hell.

“So, too, is Jonah a sign unto this generation. But oh, my brothers and sisters, so are we
all
a sign to this nation, to this sick world. For like Jonah, we are stuck in the craw of this mighty nation, this great beast. And like Jonah, we are not going away.

“We are the indigestible truth. We are the leavening in the bread—

and the nation cannot rise without us. We are God's hidden church in the Wilderness, which He has preserved for Himself as a witness, and
we
will be a light unto the world!”

Men and women alike were coming out of their seats now, laughing and shouting. Waving their handkerchiefs, and pointing toward him. Telling him,
Say it true! Say it true!
The rabbit, running at last.

“Right now we are engaged in a great, global war. It's a war that started mostly because some people over in Germany thought they could just expunge a great and ancient people from human history. But they will not succeed, for we will stop them. There are some people—not over in Germany, but right here in the United States of America—who would like to use the war to do the same thing to all of us. But they will not succeed, for we will stop them, too. Though it may seem impossible—though it may seem
incredible
—we have already labored in this country for over three hundred years, through slavery and Jim Crow, and
we are not going anywhere
. America is talking about making a new world now, but its conscience is still filled with guilt. It is not making anything—
it is not going anywhere
—until
all
Americans can sing a prayer of thanksgiving for our deliverance!”

The whole congregation was up on its feet now, repeating his words after him. The men punching the air, the women waving their handkerchiefs and calling out
Yes, yes, glory!
Jonah pausing to mop his face again, feeling the literal reverberation of their excitement welling up through the floorboards of his pulpit. Staring down then, deliberately, to the first pew, where tears were running down his father's face—and where his wife's seat was still empty.

“One more thing!”
he said, holding up a hand—stilling them, even at the moment of their greatest ecstasy. Stilling them, then slowly building back up again, banging his hand on the pulpit to mark the beat as he moved to the end.