“She’s a beautiful princess,” I said. “I have a girl too. Nothing like this one but I’m sure they’d be the best of friends.”
“Easter Dawn doesn’t have many friends. I’m schooling her here at home. You can’t trust strangers with the people you love.”
This felt like a deeply held secret that Christmas was letting me in on. I began to think that his bright eyes might have the light of madness behind them.
“Where you from?” I asked because he had no southern accent.
“Massachusetts,” he said. “Newton, outside of Boston. You ever been there?”
“Boston once. I had a army buddy took me there after we were let go in Baltimore, after the war. Your family from there?”
“Crispus Attucks was one of my ancestors,” Black said, nodding but not in a prideful way. “He was the son of a prince and a runaway slave. But most importantly he was a soldier.”
2 3 0
C i n n a m o n K i s s
There was a finality to every sentence he spoke. It was as if he was also royalty and not used to ordinary conversation.
“Attucks, huh?” I said, trying to find my way to a conversation.
“That’s the Revolutionary War there.”
“My family’s menfolk have been in every American war,” he said, again with a remoteness that made him seem unstable.
“Eighteen-twelve, Spanish-American, of course the Civil War. I myself have fought in Europe, and against Japan, the Koreans, and the Vietnamese.”
“Here, Mr. Rawlins,” Easter Dawn said. She was standing at my elbow holding a glass of water in one hand and her father’s whiskey in the other.
Judging from her slender brown face and flat features I suspected that Easter had come from Black’s last campaign.
She carried her father’s whiskey over to him.
“Thanks, honey,” he said, suddenly human and present.
“Easter here come from Vietnam?” I asked.
“She’s my little girl,” he said. “That’s all we care about here.”
Okay.
“What was your rank?” I asked.
“After a while it didn’t matter,” he said. “I was a colonel in Nam. But we were working in groups of one. You have no rank if there’s nobody else there. Covered with mud and out for blood, we were just savages. Now how’s a savage rate a rank?”
He shone those mad orbs at me and I believe that I forgot all the problems I came to his door with. Easter Dawn went to his side and leaned against his knee.
He looked down at her, placing a gigantic hand on her head. I could tell that it was a light touch because she pressed back into the caress.
2 3 1
W a lt e r M o s l e y
“War has changed over my lifetime, Mr. Rawlins,” Christmas Black said. “At one time I knew who the enemy was. That was clear as the nose on your face. But now . . . now they send us out to kill men never did anything to us, never thought one way or the other about America or the American way of life. When I realized that I was slaughtering innocent men and women I knew that the soldiering line had to come to an end with me.”
Christmas Black could never hang out with the guys on a street corner. Every word he said was the last word on the subject. I liked the man and I knew he was crazy. The thing I didn’t know was why I was there.
2 3 2
36
Iwas nursing my water, trying to think of some reply to a man who had just confessed to murder and gone on to his quest for redemption.
Lucky for me there came a knock at the door.
“It’s Uncle Saul,” Easter Dawn said. She didn’t exactly shout but you could hear the excitement in her voice. She didn’t exactly run either but rather rushed toward the front of the house.
“E.D.,” Christmas said with authority.
The girl stopped in her tracks.
“What did I tell you about answering that door?” her father asked.
“Never open the door without finding out who it is,” she said dutifully.
“Okay then.”
She hurried on, followed by her father. I trailed after them.
2 3 3
W a lt e r M o s l e y
“Who is it!” Easter Dawn shouted at the door.
