His daddy taught the both of us how to box. Fitz is a little older than me, but I’m a scrapper. ’Course, he still beats hell out me. Or has in the past. I’m kind of hoping age will catch up with him.”
“It hasn’t so far,” I said. “I saw him working a bag. He’s in shape. He can still hit hard. He drags his back foot in the bucket a little when he moves, but that could just be the way he works a bag.”
“You know something about boxing then?” Hiram said.
“A little.”
“Another man likes to get hit in the head,” MeMaw said. “I can’t figure it… By the way, how’s that little boy?”
It took me a moment to shift gears and know who she was talking about. Then it came to me. I said, “He died, MeMaw. We found him too late. The drugs snuffed him out.”
“Oh,” she said. “I’m so sorry. A child like that, in that den of wolves, he ain’t got no chance. What I’d like to know was where his mother was.”
I’d found out a little about the boy last night from Charlie and Hanson, and I told MeMaw what I knew. “He was a street kid, MeMaw. Name of Ivan Lee.”
“I heard of the Lees,” MeMaw said, “but I can’t say I knew nothing about them.”
“Ivan lived with an aunt,” I said, “but apparently there wasn’t much going on there in a family way. He was on his own. Wasn’t even going to school, hung out on the streets most of the time. He’d been picked up for little crimes here and there. He fell through the cracks.”
“Over here,” MeMaw said, “lots fall through the cracks. There’s always somethin’ pushin’ in on a person here. Bad people and bad things from all sides. A baby has got to have a shield from the world. Got to learn how to shield themselves. I’m lucky I raised all my chil’ren without none of them gettin’ messed up.”
“Don’t fret, Mama,” Hiram said. “That little boy was a goner from the start. Ain’t that right, Hap?”
“I don’t know anyone’s a goner, you get to them in time,” I said. “But there’s a line you can step across that puts you on a path of no return. In little Ivan’s case, I don’t know he stepped across so much as got shoved over it.”
“Maybe so,” Hiram said. “But if he runs with the dogs, he, well. .. ‘becomes like them that go down into the pit.’”
“I presume that’s biblical,” I said.
“Yeah, I guess it’s a way of saying birds of a feather stick together. Or if you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas. Whatever
… whatcha say, Hap? You gonna work out with me? We won’t be there long.”
I considered a moment. There really wasn’t any clear evidence, other than circumstantial, that Fitzgerald had done the things Leonard and I thought he had. There was still the possibility that Chester Pine and Illium Moon were what we thought they were being framed to be. Another look at the Reverend might be of interest.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m game.”
33.
We took Hiram’s van. It was a cluttered thing, and I had to move a small box of folded Texas flags off the seat to sit down. I sat them on a box of American flags in the back. Strewn on the floorboard, front and back, were booklets containing designs for senior rings and samples of paper to choose from for high school yearbooks and bulletins, and there were pamphlets advertising photocopying machines, typewriters, and the like.
“Yeah, I know,” Hiram said. “I’m messy.”
When we backed out of the drive and hit the street and the merchandise stopped shifting, Hiram said, “I didn’t want to say anything in front of MeMaw, but actually, going over to see Fitz isn’t always that wonderful. He’s a little quirky.”
“I thought as much when I met him. I mean, he was nice enough, just a little fanatic.”
“That’s not all bad. I mean, he’s a good guy. But that’s why I was hoping you’d come along. I’m not saying I mind boxing him or playing a game of chess now and then, but he can be a little much sometimes.”
“I understand.”
“MeMaw is just crazy for church and religion though, bless her sweet heart, so she always sort of invites me to go over there, I want to or not. She thought Fitz’s old man was something special. Had the hot line to God.”
“But you didn’t think so?”
“Actually, the old man could put up a good front for someone when he wanted to. I was around Fitz a lot when I was a kid, spent the night over there now and then, and I saw the old man was kind of a bully. Never let the kid really enjoy his childhood. Always had some kind of complaint. And he was very much a hands-on person. He was hard on Fitz ’cause Fitz wasn’t his child.”
“A former marriage?” I asked.
Hiram shifted gears and shook his head. “I can’t figure why the old man married Fitz’s mother. Didn’t seem a preacher’s type. She’d been a kind of sportin’ woman before they met. I guess he liked the idea of transforming her from a Jezebel to a woman of God. Though I don’t know she changed all that much. There were stories went around, and enough of them, so I figure where there was smoke, there was fire.”
“What about Fitz’s real father?”
“Don’t know nothing about him. Neither does Fitz. He was some guy who bought Fitz’s mother and did his job and left. Probably never even knew he’d made a baby.”
We cruised by the East Side Market. The old man who owned the place was sitting outside at the domino table, watching the street, perhaps planning his strategy for when the rest of the players showed up.
I said, “So the Reverend is actually illegitimate?”
“Well, he got his stepfather’s name, of course. But strictly speaking, yeah. I figure that’s what makes Fitz such a hardnose. He’s trying to live up to something. The old man never let either Fitz or his mama forget where they come from and what a big deed he was doin’ for them.”
I thought about the profile I had put together on the Reverend Fitzgerald. I was beginning to think I should pursue a career in psychology. Of course, when it came to putting together a profile on women, I’d have to pass. I understood the secret life of the hummingbird better than I understood women.
I said, “The mom still around?”
“Fitz’s mama disappeared. Probably ran off. The old man got some kind of cancer or something. Died slow. Lot of people thought God was paying him back for the kind of man he was. As for Fitz, well, he’s got his good points. He’s developed things to keep kids off the street. He’s real antidrug. He’s introduced soccer and boxing and baseball and the carnival.”
“Carnival?”
“Yeah, I like the carnival myself. I go every year ’cause I’m here at just the right time. There’s something about seeing black kids who can’t even afford to get across town being able to walk over to the fairgrounds and have a good time. And Fitz has a bus so he can pick up kids might not be able to make it, or might have to walk through a bad section of town. He takes them over there, and they haven’t got the money, he sees they get in and get some rides.”
At mention of the carnival, something had shifted inside my head. I said, “Saw a sign on the carnival. It’s next week, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“Does it always take place sometime during the last week of August?”
“Yeah, it’s just for one night. One night is all can be afforded. Fitz gets the local merchants to sponsor it, throw in donations. He raises money for it other ways too. The carnival owners sell tickets to get in and for the rides, but they’re cheap, so most anyone can afford it. It’s a little operation. Black owned. Goes around to black communities. Fitz heard about it and made the deal with them, so the carnival comes back every year. Wasn’t for Fitz, lot of the kids here wouldn’t have anything going for them.”
I felt a sickness in the pit of my stomach. “How long ago was it Reverend Fitzgerald set this carnival business up?”
“Let’s see. Nine, ten years ago.”
