The Quiet Game (51 page)

“I’m so sorry about this, Dr. Cage. Afternoon, Mrs. Cage. I’m Reverend Nightingale. Y’all come inside. One of these young mens will park your car for you.”

Annie climbs between the seats into my arms, and I hurry up the steps with her as the camera crews close around us. A cacophony of shouted questions fills the air, but all I can distinguish are names:
Marston, Portman, Mackey, Mayor Warren. . . .
As soon as we clear the church door, I turn and see my mother and father fighting their way through. A deacon slams the door behind them, leaving Kelly outside to help defend the entrance.

Two hundred black faces are turned toward the rear of the church, staring at us. People are jammed into the pews and packed along the walls like cordwood. The building seems to have more flesh in it than air. Only the center aisle is clear. Reverend Nightingale takes my mother’s arm and leads her along it, through the silent staring faces. Dad and I follow, me carrying Annie in my arms. The rear pews hold a bright sea of color, oscillating waves of blue, orange, yellow, and green (but no red, never red) and, like proud sails above the waves, the most stunning array of hats I have seen outside of a 1940s film. All the children are dressed in white, like angels in training. As I follow my mother, Ruby’s voice sounds in my mind:
You never wear red to no funeral; red says the dead person was a fool.
The nearer we get to the altar, the darker the dresses get, until finally all are black.

At the end of the aisle Reverend Nightingale pulls my mother to the left, and I see our destination: a special box of pews standing against the wall, protected by a wooden rail. Despite the throng in the church, this box is empty. It’s the Mothers’ Bench, seats reserved for “sisters” who have reached a certain age (eighty, I think) and accepted “mother” status. Today it has been reserved for us. As we take our seats behind the rail, I see an identical box against the other wall. The Deacons’ Bench. Behind its rail sits Ruby’s immediate family: her husband, Mose; her three sons (all tall men with gray in their beards); her daughter, Elizabeth, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief; a handful of grandchildren (all in their twenties) and two infants.

A single camera crew has been allowed inside the church to tape the ceremony. The logo on the camera reads WLBT, the call letters of the black-owned station in Jackson. As I pan across the crowd, I see several familiar faces. In the first row sits Shad Johnson, wearing a suit that cost enough to buy any ten suits behind him. A few feet down the same pew sits the Payton family: Althea, Georgia, Del Jr., and his children. Althea nods to me, her brown eyes full of sympathy. In the second row sits the Gates family, the most powerful force in black politics in Natchez for forty years, now upstaged by the urban prodigal from Chicago. Several pews beyond them sits Willie Pinder, the former police chief. Pinder winks as I catch his eye. And in the last pew, sitting restlessly in the aisle seat as though prepared to make a quick exit, sits a man who looks very much like Charles Evers. The former mayor of Fayette and brother of Medgar looks like a man who does not intend to be bothered by anyone.

Suddenly the back door opens and two white faces float through it, Caitlin Masters and one of her photographers, escorted by Deputy Ike Ransom in his uniform. Ike remains just inside the back door, like a sentry, while Caitlin and her photographer slip through the crowd at the back wall and stop beside the WLBT camera.

In the shuffling, sweating silence the organist begins to play, and the purple-robed choir rises to its feet, beginning a restrained rendition of “Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross.” The rich vibrato of two dozen voices fills the building, making the church reverberate like the soundboard of a grand piano. The whole congregation knows the words, and they join in softly.

As the last chorus fades, Reverend Nightingale makes his way slowly down the aisle and ascends to the pulpit. He is a small man, with fine white hair and frail limbs, but his voice has the deep, resonant timbre of the best black preachers.

“Brothers and sisters. Mothers. Deacons and officers. Visitors and friends. We are gathered here today to mourn the passing of Sister Ruby Flowers.”

A collective
Mm-hm
ripples through the church, punctuated by a couple of soft
Amens
. Reverend Nightingale touches the rim of his spectacles and continues.

“Everyone in this room knows how loyally Sister Flowers supported this church. She was born in 1917, and came to Jesus when she was nine years old. Reverend Early was pastor then. He was a godly man, but sparing with his praise. Yet as a boy I often heard him speak of how lucky he was to have womenfolk like Sister Flowers in his flock.”

Yes, Lord,
comes the reply.
Yes, sir.

“In the last few days a lot of reporters been asking me what Sister Flowers was like. Do you know what I tell them?”

Tell it.

“I say, ‘You know how when you got two people, and you got to carry something heavy for a ways? Like a big chest of drawers? There’s different ways you can pick up on it. You can pick up on it straight and level, with your legs and your back, and take your share of the weight”—Reverend Nightingale pauses, letting the image sink in—“or you can kind of
fudge
it. Pick up with just your arms, or pick up a little
high
, puttin’ most of the weight on the other person.”

Soft laughter, guilty recognition. But Reverend Nightingale’s face is set in stone.

“That was
not
Sister Flowers,” he thunders.

No, Jesus,
comes the chorus.
I know that’s right.

“Sister Flowers picked up square and straight,” he declares. “She picked up whenever she was asked to. And more than that, she picked up when she
wasn’t
asked to.”

Praise Jesus.

“Sister Flowers was not a rich woman,” the reverend says in a conversational tone. “But she gave unstintingly of the money she made. She had a generous heart. She bought flour and sugar and butter, and she baked cakes deep into the night to sell to raise money for the poor.” Nightingale raises his right
hand, forefinger extended toward Heaven. “During the Depression? Sister Flowers visited white families, collecting old coats and sweaters, hats, shoes, and mittens for the wintertime, bringing them out here to kids who didn’t have
nothing
between them and the cold.” The finger descends, admonitory now. “You children today smirk and turn up your nose when I say
old
coats and
old
shoes. But what you don’t know—and you better thank God you don’t know—is that when you’re
cold
, you’ll take what
ever
coat you can get, and praise Jesus for it.”

Lord, yes! Praise Jesus!

Reverend Nightingale turns to the Deacons’ Bench and remarks on what fine children Ruby raised. My parents always felt Ruby’s children didn’t do enough for her after they were grown, considering the sacrifices she’d made for them. But they did what Ruby most desired that they do, went North and found good jobs, raised families. Part of the price of their success may have been embarrassment at their mother’s humble position, or confusion at her unwillingness to leave Mississippi, a place they regarded as backward and evil.

“Sister Flowers was not seriously ill or afflicted,” Reverend Nightingale says soberly. “She was taken before her time, by the hand of a stranger. The police don’t know who set that terrible fire. But
I
know who it was.”

A gasp of shock from the pews.

“It was a man cut off from the Lord. That man is suffering right now. Today. And I hope he’ll soon see the only way to wash his soul is to come forward, confess his sins, and pay the price of justice.”

Reverend Nightingale grips the forward edge of the podium with both hands. “And I know
why
this man killed Sister Flowers. Because he wanted to stop Mr. Penn Cage from finding out who killed Brother Delano Payton.”

Silence blankets the room. Every eye focuses on me.

“Now, some of you may feel anger toward Mr. Cage because of what happened to Sister Flowers. But not one soul in this room should blame him. Because Penn Cage is doing what no man—white or black—has done in the last thirty years. He is putting himself and his family on the line to find out who murdered Brother Del.

“And why was Del killed?” Reverend Nightingale slams a hand against the podium with a report like a pistol shot. “To keep the black man in this community down! To keep honest black men from getting a leg up. To keep us from making a working wage at a good job. A job with some
dignity
.”

He removes a white cotton handkerchief from his coat pocket and wipes his forehead. The mass of bodies is turning the little building into a convection oven.

“You may wonder why Mr. Cage, a white man, is doing what he’s doing. He must be gonna make some money some way, right? He must want to get
on
Oprah
with a book or something. But that’s not it. No, sir. I’ll tell you why Mr. Cage is doing what he’s doing. He’s doing it because he was
raised
by Sister Flowers.”

My mother’s hand closes around mine.

“And he wasn’t raised by Sister Flowers alone. He was raised by Dr. Tom Cage. And Dr. Cage been takin’ care of black people in this town for nigh on forty years. If you couldn’t pay, did Dr. Cage turn you away from the door?”

A great tide of
No, sir! Lord, no!
issues forth from the congregation and rolls through the church, accompanied by shaking heads and murmurs of gratitude. When I turn to my left, I see a sight I have never seen in my life: my father sitting with his head bowed, staring resolutely at the floor, his jaw muscles clenched as tears run down his face.

“And
Mrs.
Cage,” says Reverend Nightingale. “Mrs. Cage was one of the ladies who helped Sister Flowers gather up them old coats in the wintertime, and made sure they got where they needed to get.” He smiles at my mother and goes on. “Thursday last, after that newspaper story ran about Del, I asked Sister Flowers about Penn Cage. You know what she said? She said, ‘Pastor, that boy was raised right, and he’ll do whatever he’s got to do to make things right about Del.’ ”

Ruby and I never discussed the Payton case. But the realization that she knew I was working on it, and approved, eases my conscience in a way nothing else could.

“Some of you older members may remember,” says Nightingale, “that Del Payton visited this church several times when he was a boy. Del was a member of Beulah Baptist, out to Pine Ridge. But that boy had too fine a voice to confine it to one house of worship. Several Sundays we were blessed to have Del solo here at Mandamus. And many a family”—Reverend Nightingale says
fambly
—“requested Del for solos at funerals. I know right now Del is beatifying Heaven with that sweet voice, preparing the host of angels to receive Sister Flowers.”

“Praise Jesus,”
answers the chorus.

“Right now we’re going to have a solo by Sister Lillian Lilly. Sister Lilly is a gospel recording artist from Jackson, and she’s come down to bless us with her talents. Afterwards, Brother Shadrach Johnson wants to speak to you for a few minutes. You all know Brother Johnson is running for mayor, and the election’s getting close. He believes what’s happened in the past few days is important to us all, and he’s gonna talk to you about that. Sister Winans?”

From the midst of the choir a woman in a flowing blue gown rises, folds her hands before her, and begins singing “Precious Lord” with such raw power and authentic faith that the initial cries of
Sing it! Sing it!
fade to awed
silence, and many of the elderly members of the congregation weep openly. When she takes her seat again, the air is brittle with expectation, and it is then that Shad Johnson stands and walks up to the podium. How must he look to this audience, in his two-thousand-dollar suit that shines like a deuce-and-a-quarter on Saturday night? He must look, I believe, like a savior.

“Brothers and sisters,” he begins in a gentle voice. “When I came into this church, I thought I was a stranger to Sister Ruby Flowers. But when I heard Reverend Nightingale’s impassioned eulogy, I knew I was wrong. I knew a hundred women like Sister Flowers when I was growing up here in Natchez. Five hundred, probably. Strong black women who sacrificed everything so that their children could climb one step higher up the ladder to a better life.”

Yes, Lord. . . .

Shad nods to his left, and the assistant I saw at his headquarters hurries toward the back of the church. He stops beside the WLBT cameraman and says a few words. The cameraman looks confused, but a moment later he shrugs and touches the controls on the tripod-mounted camera.

“Brothers and sisters,” Shad resumes, “I’ve asked that the camera be turned off, so that I can speak frankly to you. We all know what’s happening in this town. Why there’s so much agony in our hearts today. Sister Flowers died hard. She died scarred and in terrible pain. She died at the hands of a murderer. Undoubtedly at the hands of a
white
murderer. And the consequences of that act are tearing this community apart. At this moment two of our children are sitting in jail for taking the life of a man who once ordered the beatings and murders of African Americans. You feel anger over this. You feel
rage
. And that’s only natural.”