Iron Balloons (20 page)

“So little lion,” said Jah Mick, “what you defending today?”

I didn’t answer. My tongue was in my throat. Eventually I said, “Nutten.”

He laughed and said, “You can’t defend nutten, little lion. You mus’ always defend somep’n. If you don’t stand for somep’n, you wi’ fall fo’ anything.”

“So how the magazine coming?” I asked.

He shook his head and said, “Not so good. That’s why you see me here trying to hold a vibes. The music kinda loud. Come talk to me in the room.”

The room was where he slept and worked, and it had a velvet poster of Haile Selassie on the door. There were lots of soccer posters on the wall—Pelé, Beckenbauer, Eusébio, and Cruyff—and furniture that looked like mine.

The prefab walls had dulled the music to a blobby throb, but the layout on the drafting table buzzed. He kept his books in the other bedrooms. Books that I’d borrowed and read in secret … Garvey, Kenyatta, Fanon …

“I want to talk to you,” I mumbled, as he sat on the edge of the bed.

“You cool?”

“No … no. That’s why ah need to talk to you.”

Fifteen minutes later, after I’d started and stopped many times, he said strongly, “Talk up, man. Talk up. You mother never teach you fo’ talk up?”

“My mother,” I began, “my mother …”

“Yes?”

“My mother …”

“Say it.”

“My mother say you mus’ …”

“Mus’?”

He stood now and went over to the drafting table. He stood in a way that put his back to me. All of a sudden I could talk.

“My mother say you mus’ turn down the music.”

Without looking, he asked, “And if I don’t?”

“She goi’ …”

“Goi’ wha’?”

“Well, she say …”

“Say wha’?”

“She say she goi’ call Sammo and tell him you have ganja over here.”

He turned to face me now and I turned my back to him.

“I have ganja over here?” he blurted. He sounded like a young head boy who’d been accused of cheating on a test. “I have ganja over here? Your mother say she goi’ tell Sammo I have ganja over here?” His voice deepened into anger now. “So wha’? You support that?”

I turned around to face him. “Wha’ you t’ink?”

He stepped right up to me and put his hand on my shoulder, which made me jerk and wince. I woulda understand if him did lick me.

“No ganja not here. I doh smoke and I doh allow nobody fo’ smoke over here. And you know that. So how you coulda come to me with a message like that?”

“Doh act like you don’t know how she stay,” I replied with irritation. “You make it seem like is my fault that you turn dread and she turn to the Lord. The two o’ oonoo come in like crosses to rass. Just turn down the music, nuh. Just make live easy, nuh. She is an old lady. She can’t change. Certain kinda music goi’ burn her. And when it burn her, is me she take it out ’pon. Is not you. You is a big man. You live by yourself. Me still live with my mother and she taking your fat and fry me.”

“So wha’?” he said pointedly. “Is my fault that your mother is a pagan heart? Miss B. used to be a nice lady, then she make this church thing fly inna her head, and now is like ah living in a prison. Every Friday evening is this singing and praying and talking in me head. Eleven o’clock o’ night sometimes and them still going on. Is wha’ so, El Paso? Them doh have any consideration? Them only business ’bout themselves?”

Before I could answer, he pressed on.

“And is not me alone complaining ’bout it. Is nuff people in the area start to complain that people knocking on their gate and when they go out there is somebody want to give them a pamphlet or invite them to a meeting. Bredrin, none o’ this was going on before your mother found the Lord, so everybody know is because o’ she. Most people round here grow up Anglican and Catholic. They doh too like this Jehovah Witness t’ing.” He dropped his voice into a whisper now. “Not that I’m passing judgment … but … you know, people have it as a cult.”

“So what you want me to do?” I asked, then puttered around at the drafting table as if the conversation was done. The layout was in trouble. If he needed music to inspire him, he needed to turn it up some more.

“You know, if the police come here they goi’ bring ganja to find …” he said matter-of-factly.

“Yes.”

“So what you goi’ do?”

“I already do it. I tell you what she asked me to tell you, and now is up to you.”

“Yes, you do it, but you more than do it. You done it too.”

He took a deep breath, and then blew it slowly through his mouth. Our friendship was over and he wanted me to think that it was all my fault.

“Turn off the set when you leaving,” he said, and sat down on the bed again.

“You not fair, Jah Mick. You not fair.”

“Just turn it off,” he said slowly. “Just turn it off. I have to go back to work. And I need peace and quiet for that.”

“So is my time to leave?”

“Not saying that. Just saying is my time to work.”

Before I closed the door to his bedroom, I said, “So you have me up now, Jah Mick?”

“Shame o’ you, man. Shame o’ you. Jah love everybody. You know that a’ready. Tonight before I and I go to sleep, I and I goi’ pray for you … ask Jah fo’ protect you in the midst of the heathen. Fret not thyself, little lion. When revolution come, all pagan heart goi’ get what is theirs.” He smiled now and pointed to the hair beneath his tam. “But by dem time deh, you wi’ truly know yourself and grow your covenant. So when the judgment come, Jah Jah wi’ watch over the I. You let me down still, but I and I overstand. You living under pagan influence daily, so some o’ it must rub off. Stand firm till such time though. Stand firm. Vengeance is mine. So Jah say. Vengeance is mine.”

I could have said a lot of things before I left. But what would have been the point? After that I didn’t pray for a very long time.

A LITTLE EMBARRASSMENT FOR THE SAKE OF OUR LORD
by Konrad Kirlew

Y
our father will be ordained tomorrow,” Mrs. Riley announced to her children, during their Fridaynight family devotion.

“Why are they ordinating him?” Justin asked.

“Ordaining. The word is
ordaining
. After you’ve been a minister for a few years and proven yourself, then you get to take more responsibilities in the church.”

“Like what?”

“Like baptizing people and marrying people.”

“Does this mean that you won’t be at my recital next Sunday, Daddy?” Barb asked.

“I wish I could hear you play,” Pastor Riley said, “but I have a church board meeting next Sunday.”

“Couldn’t you have it another time, or start it earlier or something, Daddy?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t do that.”

“Why not? You’re the minister!”

“Listen to me very carefully.” His voice rose into boss mode. “You kids don’t seem to understand the importance of the Lord’s work. I can’t make all of your events, okay. And that’s just the way it is.”

Pastor Riley glared at each of his children to make sure they got the message. Pauline looked as if nothing had happened. Barb screwed up her face. Justin glanced at the cover of the Bible in his hand. Even Freddy, their two-year-old brother, looked sheepish. Sis, their helper, patted Barb on the shoulder as if to say,
Hush, never mind
.

“Let’s finish this discussion and not spoil a good worship,” the pastor continued.

Mrs. Riley told the kids that they would be going to Montego Bay tomorrow and their father was going to preach, so they had to wake up early for the drive from Black River.

Justin was excited. Tomorrow’s trip was going to be important. He could tell this from his parents’ voices. As they said their prayers at the end of worship, he prayed for all their friends and relatives, especially his eldest sister, Sheila, who lived in Canada. He also prayed that Jesus would help him to be a good boy, which wasn’t always easy, and watch over them while they made their way along the country roads tomorrow, and help Daddy to preach a good sermon tomorrow for the ornamentation.

Pastor Riley sat on the platform of the Montego Bay church, the biggest and most important church of his denomination in that part of Jamaica. It was a concrete block building with an impressive vaulted ceiling, a baby grand piano, a small pipe organ, and stained-glass windows. The church was packed. It was hot, despite the overhead fans and the open windows. Some of the congregation halfheartedly waved paper fans with wooden handles that looked to Justin like giant popsicle sticks. From his seat in the front row Justin could see his father sitting in the big chair reserved for the preacher, directly behind the pulpit. His father was wearing a new black suit, a starched white shirt, and his favorite tie, which was the color of dark wine and had a subtle paisley print.

Justin thought his father seemed a little nervous when he was being introduced. The introduction was made by Pastor Ed Townsend, the president of the western region of the church. Townsend was tall and burly, black as coal. He had a booming voice and what some people called a military bearing. Everyone referred to him as “Uncle Ed” or “The Chief.” But never to his face. People were afraid of him. And not just unimportant people. Ministers as well.

“Pastor Riley is a son of the soil,” Townsend bellowed, “and the husband of one wife. Sister Riley is an outstanding nurse and the Lord has blessed them with four lovely children.” He asked the Riley family to stand.

After they sat down, Justin told his mother softly, “He made a mistake. There are five of us. He didn’t count Sheila.”

She looked up at the ceiling fans, thought a bit, then scribbled on a piece of paper,
He probably forgot
.

Justin reached for her pen and began to write a question, but his mother took the piece of paper and crushed it. With a quick pat on his leg, she implied that they could talk about it later. But not now. In church.

When Pastor Riley finally approached the mike after the Chief’s operatic introduction, Justin wondered what it felt like to be called to speak in front of so many people. He’d seen his father speak in church many times, of course, but the thought always came to his mind. Whenever his father spoke in church, he seemed to grow somehow. It was as if he changed into a bigger man. His shoulders. His chest. His voice. Barb called it the preacher voice. It was deeper, slower, and had pauses that conveyed a strong effect. Each pause would bring you forward … draw you in.

What did it feel like to change that way? thought Justin. The thing that caused the change, were you born with it? Was it a blessing? Do I have that thing inside myself?

When little Freddy heard his father’s voice, he shouted, “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” broke away from Sis, and ran to the pulpit as fast as his little legs would go.

The congregation sighed and laughed, and Pastor Riley offered, “Was it not our Lord who said, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven?’” He stepped away from the pulpit, lifted Freddy, and gave him a big, warm hug, and joked, “This one will be a preacher.”

He called Sis to come and get the child, but when she came the child began to fuss and wail. There was an anxious moment there in which the pastor had to choose between being looked at as a man who loved children or a father who knew how to control a child, and he smiled right through it. But when the moment passed without appearing like it was about to end, he took the child away from Sis and set him on the big chair behind the pulpit.

“I want you to be very quiet,” he stage-whispered. “Listen carefully and take good notes.” Freddy nodded solemnly, quieted down, then quickly fell asleep, giving Pastor Riley more material for a joke.

As Justin watched all this, he thought, I could never get away with that. He was jealous and a bit annoyed. But minutes later, Pastor Riley told a story that annoyed him even more.

“There was once a little boy who had misbehaved, and his mother said, ‘When your father gets home, I’m going to tell him.’ Now the little boy knew that once his father came home, he would surely get a spanking. When the father arrived and his wife gave him the news about the son, the father called the little boy into his room. Before his father could even remove his belt, the little boy started singing, in a quivering voice, a song his parents had taught him. You may know it.”

Pastor Riley started to sing, and not having a very good voice, really sounded like a kid who was in trouble.

God can do anything, anything, anything,
God can do anything but fail.

Justin knew the story. It was one of those family stories parents think are cute and which their children hate.
He
was the little singer boy. He had heard his father tell it before, but never in church.

“Well, when he started singing, the father’s heart just melted. There was nothing he could do but smile and put away his belt. That was faith. He had repented, and had faith that God and his parents had forgiven him, and that he could avoid a spanking. Of course, the father pointed out to his son that if he misbehaved again he would be spanked, even if Gabriel himself came down and played the song on his golden trumpet.” Everyone laughed. “We can apply faith to every aspect of our lives, even occasionally to get out of the trouble we’ve put ourselves in. We need the simple trusting faith of a child.” He continued, “I won’t say who that little boy was, but he’s someone I know very well.”

Justin felt as though the entire church was staring at him and giggling. His father might as well have stripped him naked and paraded him around the church to show how healthy a child could be on a vegetarian diet, another of his new kicks.
Note the well-formed limbs, the clear eyes, the strong teeth, and the perfection of his circumcised manhood. Vegetarianism: If you’re serious about the kingdom of heaven.
Justin wanted to die, but only after his father had been strangled slowly in painful ways.

Barb hummed the first line of “God Can Do Anything” in Justin’s ear. He threw her an elbow. She threw it back. Mrs. Riley gave them one of her don’t-you-dare looks and they calmed down. Justin made plans to poison the entire family when they got home.

Finally, church was over. As they were ushered out, Justin kept his head down, refusing to look anyone in the eye. The family stood outside and took pictures and shook hands. “Smile nuh, man,” Pastor Riley said at one point to Justin, who was pouting and scowling the entire time.