The Death of Wendell Mackey (24 page)

“It’ll be all right,” the doorman said, touching the brim of his hat. He looked down at Wendell. “It’s gonna be just fine.”

Had she not moved, the line would have moved her. She and Wendell entered the doorway, painted blue by the neon sign just inside that read Holy Spirit Healing Assembly and had an arrow pointing to the left. In the main room were rows of metal folding chairs filling up quickly. Church members greeted each other with shoulder pats, women fished for Bibles in handbags, and three young men moved a microphone to the center of a plywood stage that rose two feet above the gray linoleum. Along the far wall, next to the step up to the stage, a crowd was beginning to coalesce into another line. Diane saw it, coughed twice hard, and then a third time to get something loose in her throat, clutched her chest, and heaved a sigh as she dragged Wendell towards the step.

“We can start the line here,” she said to the group, smiling, then coughing softly into her fist. A woman with glasses thick like shot glasses and a pronounced bald line splitting her red hair smiled, nodded, and stood behind Diane.

“You can sit down if you’d like,” the woman said to Wendell, reaching out to pat him on the head, then retracting when she saw his response. “You’re a healthy little boy. This line is for those who need God’s touch.” Her smile took on a wince at the edges, as if he reminded her of another child, long since a memory. Her hand extended again, stopping five inches from his face. Her eyes wrinkled at the corners, her lips pursed, and she seemed to stroke his face with her knuckles, without even touching it. Wendell backed towards the wall. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m so sorry.”

Diane pulled Wendell towards herself. “Let’s just form the line ma’am,” she said to the woman. “We’ll just wait for the Good Reverend.”

The Good Reverend Wallace Biddle. He was huddled in the corner with a group of men and women, their heads lowered but bobbing rhythmically as Biddle spoke in hushed words. Biddle, Wendell always thought, wasn’t the name for someone like the Good Reverend; better for some little old spinster, someone weak and small. Wallace was too big for his own name with a smile too big for his face, tall and broad, cutting a swath through any crowd standing before him. A high school wrestling standout, Biddle talked about being “tapped on the shoulder by God” in college, which lead him to seminary, and then into the military chaplaincy and the 82nd Airborne. “The Army gave him his Bronze Star,” the doorman liked to tell newcomers, “but God gave him that heart of gold.” It was a silly line, well-rehearsed and oft-used, no doubt meant for church publications. Biddle though, humble but rarely quiet, never mentioned his military service. Still, Wendell liked to imagine him, fatigues instead of a suit, with the same fire in his words and the same smile on his face, in some distant jungle or desert, preaching to men with guns and tanks.

Wendell watched the group huddled in the corner, hands on each other’s shoulders. There was something in the air that night, an electricity, and Wendell felt it building in the growing line behind his mother, in the pace of the footsteps shuffling on the linoleum, in the reverb hum of the microphone, and in the spontaneous claps and songs that, while emerging from conversations between friends, had been growing and solidifying into a group movement like a wave building and about to crest. Perhaps this was the breath of God, Wendell thought. As this electricity grew, the heads in the corner with Biddle bobbed quicker, affirmative nods to a question to which they all knew the answer. There was no need for someone to approach the microphone to call the meeting to order; everyone
knew
something was happening. All the seats were filled. The crowd now clapped in unison. Biddle provided the necessary spark. He clapped his hand on his closed Bible, and with a sharp “Amen!” ended his prayer meeting.

Biddle climbed the step on the side of the stage opposite Wendell, and the crowd ballooned up out of their seats. Claps and hoots were punctuated by “Hallelujah!”, “Praise Jesus!”, and “Father A-
men
!” Biddle surveyed his crowd, nodding his head, feeling the rhythm of the room as he walked in a slow arc, pointing to worshipers, smiling, holding out his right hand as if to feel the heat radiating off of them.

On the wall opposite the old store front, behind a long counter that once stood as the butcher’s counter, was a band: a guitar, bass guitar, and a plump woman in a yellow dress tight enough to have been painted on standing behind a microphone. The drum set sat at the end of the counter. The band began to play, and the woman behind the mike broke into song, soon joined by the people in the seats. Biddle sang too, casually conducting the crowd with one hand. One praise song rolled into another, and then another. When the singing stopped, the band’s music continued, though quieter, just background. Everyone waited.

Whatever it was, electricity or breath of God, it was palpable.

Wendell’s eyes went from the woman in the yellow dress up to the stage, to the Good Reverend Biddle. Biddle looked down at him. Wendell receded towards the wall, then stopped, and leaned forward. Biddle pointed at him, turned his hand to give Wendell a thumbs up, and smiled. No permasmile, no bravado or condescension, no “Smile for the ladies while I pick their pockets.” It seemed almost sincere. Almost real. And it reminded Wendell of his father, two years earlier, grinning from ear to ear as the cheese slid off his pizza slice, one of those dissonant memories that doesn’t seem to serve a purpose until it
does
, until it illuminates a dark period with the near forgotten notion that yes, yes there might be some good in this world. The mundane strikes a chord. And, as if dotting an exclamation point, Biddle winked. Wendell couldn’t help but smile.

Bible in his left hand, Biddle raised his arms up, parallel to the floor, and the crowd went silent. All that floated on the electric air were the faint strums of the base guitar.

“Welcome, my friends,” Biddle said into the microphone, still nodding. “Truly this is a day that our Lord has made, so let us rejoice, my friends, and be glad in it. Let us ask our Lord to bless us tonight.”

And without prompting, heads bowed across the room. Biddle began to pray. Wendell lifted his head slightly, opened his eyes and saw his mother, refusing to bow, staring at Biddle and smiling derisively.

“Amen,” said Biddle, lifting his head. “Now folks, today is a special day. You can feel it, I know.”

The crowd was quickly winding up again.

“And I can feel it. We can all feel it!”

Yes, there was
something
. Wendell felt something.

“Now y’all know,” Biddle continued, “we gotta start this night off on the right foot. And there’s only one way I know to do that.”

The crowd responded. Cheers, claps.

“Only way to do that is with an introduction.”

“All theater,” Diane muttered.

“And there’s only one introduction needed. Now I’m gonna introduce everybody here to somebody…” He shook his Bible lightly. More claps. An assortment of uh-huhs and mmm-yeses. Two women stood to clap.

“I want to in-tro-
duce
you to my friend…” and he pointed to his Bible. Again, he turned towards Wendell and smiled.

More people got to their feet. Some began hopping in place.

Yes, there was an element of theater, Wendell knew that. But at this point, he didn’t care.

“You know who he is,” Biddle said. “Y’all know who my friend is. Y’all know his name!” Each time he spoke, it was met with a flourish from the guitar.

“Buncha animals,” said Diane.

“Now you
know
that name, so you
tell
me that name!”

“Jesus!” they yelled.

“Brothers and sisters, Jesus!” Biddle said, and it came out
Jee-a-zusss
, and the guitar responded, and the crowd responded, and the neon sign by the door flickered and whatever electricity was moving in the air was snaking across the hairs on Wendell’s neck and heating those metal chairs to keep the people from sitting down. The assembly was no longer in the city. It had ascended, from among the rusted architectural hulks to somewhere within the clouds. Such were the fancies of young Wendell, at least. The woman behind him with the shot glasses over her eyes was weeping. Behind her was a man with patches of white on his olive skin holding hands with a woman bent over at a right angle, straining to keep her head up. Both were smiling, laughing.

Laughing. It should have frightened Wendell, this medical burlesque, this offense to nature in the face of such obvious pain, these wheelchairs and walkers and oxygen tanks attached to blackened lungs and corkscrew spines. But it didn’t. It was all entrancing, intoxicating. He watched Biddle continue speaking as the sweat began to form into beads on his forehead.

“So he rebuked her fever,” Biddle said, “
rebuked
it and sent it packing…”

The band was competing with the crowd. But it all seemed to function with a sort of order, the people’s shouts and the band’s rhythms, hardly cacophonous, but moving together, organic, each acting as the foundation for the other.

“…and then he took that mat of his, he rolled it up, tucked it under his arm, and danced his way home…”

“Get on with it,” said Diane, shuffling towards the step. She coughed into her fist again, and looked around.

Biddle continued for another few minutes, riding the wave of the crowd, speaking of Jesus putting mud on a blind man’s eyes and healing a woman with the hem of his garment. He ended with Jesus’ resurrection, a not so subtle signal to the crowd that his sermonette was over. Everyone was anticipating the next step.

“But now,” said Biddle, motioning for a few of the men from his prayer circle to come onto the stage, “
now
,” he emphasized, handing his Bible to one of the men, then taking off his suit coat and handing it to another, “now is the time for God’s presence to be
known
.” The line by the wall squeezed together, and then moved as one single unit, with Diane at its head. It snaked up a few paces onto the stage, stopping at two of Biddle’s associates. The doorman appeared next to Diane on the stage.

“What’s ailin’ you ma’am?” the doorman whispered. “You tell me, an’ I tell the Good Reverend Biddle at the mike.”

“I know how it works,” she said flatly.

He hesitated, unsure momentarily, looking down at Wendell and then back up to her, and nodded. “So then, what’s the problem?”

She spoke mechanically: “My name is Diane Mackey, and I have an embolism.” Two weeks earlier it had been a tumor on her kidney. She had gone to the New Faith Healing Assembly—thirty-six blocks from the apartment—for that one. It was good to switch the assemblies up from time to time, she thought, to avoid too many repeat offender skeptical eyes. Plus, New Faith served sandwiches and juice after their service.

“What’s that now?”

“An embolism. A blood clot passed through my heart, and now it’s in my lung—”

“So you got some breathin’ difficulties. I see.”

“No, it’s not just—”

He was already past Biddle’s two associates, and stopped next to Biddle himself.

“…and y’all know this isn’t magic,” Biddle continued, “this is the work of God,” emphasizing the words by jamming his right index finger into his left palm. He turned towards the doorman. “Now, Milt, who’ve we got to start us off tonight?”

Milt leaned in towards the microphone. “This here’s Diane, an’ she’s got herself some breathin’ issues.”

Biddle’s two associates parted, and motioned for Diane to pass through towards the mike. Wendell followed, and then stepped towards the back of the stage. He knew what would happen next, with the heathen she-wolf among the believing lambs, readying for her dose of holy-roller medication. Beneath that ceramic, faux devotee visage grew a serpentine smile, hidden to all but the one who knew her best, who had seen all too often that authentic Diane, that shadow of a flawed woman long since dead. He knew what was racing through her mind, a contradiction of desperation and mockery, arrogant disbelief and an almost mystical lust. Wendell looked at Biddle, his eyes clamped shut and hands extended, praying until it hurt.

“…and whatever demons may be lurking, Lord,” Biddle prayed, “whatever unclean spirits may be here right
now
, give us the strength—”

Diane closed her eyes. Three men positioned themselves behind her.

“—give us the strength to deny them a place, a home for them to pillage and burn…”

Right now
, Wendell thought,
right now there’s a devil in here
. He wanted to reach out for Biddle, for safety, for something immovable and secure. But he also wanted to warn him. She was stealing, Wendell knew. But she was also desecrating the assembly, as much defecating on the stage in front of the crowd as she was dragging their rites into her own selfish neurosis.

“And so we ask you Lord, we ask on behalf of our sister, Diane…”

There are devils…

Devils scratching on the windows, wrapped around parking meters, seeping like water through nail holes in the ceiling.

“…that you provide for her, you heal her of her maladies, that you—”

They’re all so nice
, Wendell thought.
Just wish I could…

“—cast out of her this evil that’s infecting her breath!” Biddle opened his eyes, stepped towards Diane, and put his hand on her forehead.

Silence.

And then, brought forth from some unknown recess, welling up through his belly, his shoulders and arms, came this—

Electricity
.

Something was uttered. A word, a sound, Wendell didn’t remember what. But this time it was different. A shudder passed through his mother. Fake or real, he didn’t know. Biddle hopped back. The crowd roared. The neon sign sputtered, and went dark. Diane fell back into the three men. And for a moment, the devils recoiled.

Biddle was smiling at Wendell again. “It’s okay,” he mouthed.

“Tomorrow’s sunrise will bring something new,” Biddle said to Diane. “As something special awaited Jesus’ disciples on that Sunday sunrise after his death, so too will something meet you tomorrow. You’re healed and whole, God’s new creation, and tomorrow’s a new day.”