A Red Death by Walter Mosley Page B

litany.
    Together they, mother and minister, had us all squirming in our chairs.
    After a while he started talking about how war was a product of man and of Satan, not God. It was Satan who waged war against God in his own home. It was Satan who had men kill when they could turn the other cheek. And it was Satan who led us in war against the Koreans and the Chinese.
    “Satan will take on the guise of a good man,” Reverend Towne intoned. “He will appear as a great leader, and you will be blinded by what looks like the fireworks of glory. But when the smoke clears and you squint around to see, you will be surrounded by the wages of sin. Dead men will be your steppingstones and blood will be your water. Your sons will be wounded and dead, and where will God be?”
    He had me back on the front lines. I was choking the life out of a blond teenage boy and crying and laughing, and ready for a woman too.
    He ended the sermon like this:
    “My question to you is, what are you going to do about Wendell Boggs? What can you do?” Then he made a gesture toward the choir, and Melvin lifted his hands again. The organ started up and the choir rose in song. The music was still beautiful but the sermon had turned it sour. There was a collection by the deacons, but many people left even before the plate got to them.
    Everywhere people were grumbling.
    “What do he mean? What can I do?”
    “A minister ain’t no politician, that’s illegal.”
    “We cain’t hep it.”
    “Communists are against God. We gotta fight ’em.”
    Etta turned to me and took hold of my hand. She said, “Take me home, Easy.”

— 13 —

    T OWNE WAS OUT IN FRONT of the church with Winona, Melvin, Jackie, and a couple I didn’t know. The couple were older and they looked uncomfortable. They’d probably shaken the minister’s hand every Sunday for twenty or more years and they weren’t going to stop just because Towne gave one sour sermon.
    “Easy,” Melvin said. We knew each other from the old days back in the fifth ward, in Houston, Texas.
    “Melvin.”
    Jackie was wringing his hands. Winona was gazing at Reverend Towne. It was only then that I noticed Shep, Winona’s little husband, standing in the doorway. I hadn’t seen him in church.
    “That was a powerful and brave sermon, minister,” Etta said. She walked up to him and shook his hand so hard that his jowls shook.
    “Thank you, thank you very much,” he replied. “It’s good t’have you up here, Sister Alexander. I hope you’re planning to stay for a while.”
    “That all depends,” Etta said, and then she stole a quick glance at me.
    Winona stepped up and said something to Towne, I couldn’t make out what, then Etta asked, “How is that boy’s folks? You think I could he’p ’em?”
    I had to laugh at those women fighting over the minister. I think Etta was doing it just because she didn’t like to see Winona flirting there in front of her own husband.
    I saw Jackie and Melvin move to the bottom of the stairway. There they began to argue. Jackie was waving his hands in the air and Melvin was making placating gestures, holding his palms toward the handsome man as if he were trying to press Jackie’s anger down.
    I would have liked to know what they were fighting about, but that was merely curiosity, so I turned back to EttaMae.
    She had linked arms with the minister and they were walking away. Etta was saying, “Why don’t you introduce me to the poor woman, I could maybe do the cooking on some days.”
    I got to look over my shoulder to see Melvin and Jackie still arguing at the bottom of the stair. Melvin was stealing glances up at me.
    “Go get the car, Shep,” Winona said, casual and cruel.
    “Okay,” he answered. Then little brown Shep, in his rayon red-brown suit, went away to the parking lot.
    “Etta with you, Easy?” Winona asked before Shep disappeared around the building.
    “Say what?”
    “You heard me, Easy Rawlins. Is EttaMae your woman?”
    “Etta