“But you didn’t see it, though?”
Faust waved that away.
“There’s this other colored man up from the South, some civil rights, militant person—a Mr. Paul Fenster? He got here right around the time it happened. Calkins knows him too, I guess, and writes about what he’s doing a lot. Now I would guess this guy probably has some decent intentions; but how’s he going to do anything with all that George Harrison business, huh? I mean it’s just as well—” he looked around—“there’s not too many niggers left in Jackson.”
He resolved annoyance and curiosity with the polite question:
“What started it? The riot I mean.”
Joaquim bent his head far to the side. “Now you know, nobody has the story really straight. Something fell.”
“Huh?”
“Some people say a house collapsed. Some others say a plane crashed right there in the middle of Jackson. Somebody else was talking about some kid who got on the roof of the Second City Bank building and gunned somebody down.”
“Somebody got killed?”
“Very. It was supposed to be a white kid on the roof and a nigger that got shot. So they started a riot.”
“What did the paper say?”
“About everything I did. Nobody knows which one happened for sure.”
“If a plane crashed, somebody would have known.”
“This was back at the beginning. Things were a hell of a lot more confused then. A lot of buildings were burning. And the weather was something else. People were still trying to get out. There were a hell of a lot more people here. And they were scared.”
“You were here then?”
Joaquim pressed his lips till mustache merged with beard. He shook his head. “I just heard about the newspaper article. And the pictures.”
“Where’d you come from?”
“Ahhhhh!” Faust waggled a free finger in mock reproval. “You have to learn not to ask questions like that. It’s not polite. I didn’t ask nothing about you, did I? I told you my name, but I didn’t ask yours.”
“I’m sorry.” He was taken back.
“You going to meet a lot of people who’ll get all kinds of upset if you go asking them about before they came to Bellona. I might as well tell you, so you don’t get yourself in trouble. Especially—” Faust raised his beard and put a thumb beneath his choker—“people wearing one of these. Like us. I bet if I asked your name, or maybe your age, or why you got an orchid on your belt…anything like that, I could really get your dander up. Now couldn’t I?”
He felt the discomfort, vague as remembered pain, in his belly.
“I come from Chicago, most recently. Frisco before that.” Faust reached down to hold out one leg of his belled pants. “A grandpa Yippie, yeah? I’m a traveling philosopher. Is that good enough for you?”
“I’m sorry I asked.”
“Think nothing of it. I heard Bellona was where it was at. It must be, now. I’m here. Is that good enough?”
He nodded again, disconcerted.
“I got a good, honest job. Sold the Tribe on the corner of Market and Van Ness. Here I’m Bellona’s oldest newspaper boy. Is that enough?”
“Yeah. Look, I didn’t mean—”
“Something about you, boy. I don’t like it. Say—” Eyelids wrinkled behind gold-rimmed lenses—“you’re not colored, are you? I mean you’re pretty dark. Sort of full-featured. Now, I could say ‘spade’ like you youngsters. But where I was comin’ up, when I was comin’ up, they were niggers. They’re still niggers to me and I don’t mean nothing by it. I want all the best for them.”
“I’m American Indian,” he decided, with resigned wrath.
“Oh.” Joaquim tilted his head once more to appraise. “Well, if you’re not a nigger, you must be pretty much in sympathy with the niggers.” He came down heavy on the word for any discomfort value it still held. “So am I. So am I. Only they won’t ever believe it of me. I wouldn’t either if I was them. Boy, I got to deliver my papers. Go on—take one. That’s right; there you go.” Faust straightened the bundle under his arm. “You interested in rioting niggers—and just about everybody is—” the aside was delivered with high theatricality—“you go look up those early editions. Here’s your paper, Reverend.” He strode across the sidewalk and handed another paper to the black minister in pavement-length cassock who stood in the church door.
“Thank you, Joaquim.” The voice was…contralto? There was a hint of…breasts beneath the dark robe. The face was rounded, was gentle enough for a woman.
The minister looked at him now, as Joaquim marched down the street. “Faust and I have a little game we play,” she—it was she—explained to his bemusement. “You mustn’t let it upset you.” She smiled, nodded, and started in.
“Excuse me…Reverend…”
She turned. “Yes?”
“Eh…” Intensely curious, he could focus his curiosity on no subject. “What kind of church is this, here?” He settled on that, but felt it hopelessly contrived. What he wanted to ask about, of course, was the poster.
She smiled. “Interfaith, interracial. We’ve been managing to have services three times a week for a while now. We’d be very happy if you were interested in coming. Sunday morning, of course. Then again, Tuesday and Thursday evenings. We don’t have a very large congregation, yet. But we’re gathering our flock.”
“You’re Reverend…?”
“Amy Taylor. I’m a lay preacher, actually. This is a project I’ve taken on myself. Working out quite well, too, everything considered.”
“You just sort of moved into the church and took it over?”
“After the people who were here abandoned it.” She did not brush her hands off. She extended one. It might have been the same gesture. “I’m glad to meet you.”
He shook. “Glad to meet you.”
“I hope you come to our services. This is a time of stress for everybody. We need all the spiritual help we can get…don’t you think?”
Her grip (like Joaquim’s) lingered. And it was firmer. “Hey, do you know what day it is?”
She looked down at the paper. “Wednesday.”
“But…How do you know when it’s Sunday?”
She laughed. It was very self-assured laughter. “Sunday services happen when the paper says Sunday. Mr. Calkins confuses dates, I know. But there’s never more than one Sunday every seven days. Or one Tuesday, either. Now, Thursdays slip up. I went to see him about that. A very polite man. And very concerned about what goes on in his city, despite what some people find a trying sense of humor. I had noticed about the frequency of Sundays myself. He explained about Tuesdays; but he held out for arbitrary Thursdays. He quite nicely offered to declare a Thursday any time I asked—if I would give him twenty-four-hour notice.” Her perfect seriousness ruptured with a smile. And she dropped his hand. “The whole business is funny. I feel as strange talking about it as you must hearing it, I’m sure.” Her natural hair, her round, brown face: he liked her. “Will you try and come to our services?”