'Keep the bitch quiet,' he said.
Fats waddled over and put his bloated hand on Johnny's shoulder.
Pee Wee came from behind the bar and stood in the entrance.
Silently, Dulcy got back into her chair.
'Keep her quiet your God-damned self,' Chink said.
Johnny stood up. Chairs scraped as everybody moved away from Chink's table. Doll Baby jumped up and ran into the kitchen. Pee Wee moved toward Johnny.
'Easy, pops,' Pee Wee said.
Fats waddled quickly over to Chink's table and said, 'Get her out. And don't you never come in here no more neither. Taking advantage of me like that.'
Chink stood up, his yellow face flushed and swollen. Doll Baby came from the kitchen and joined him. As he left, walking high-shouldered and stiff-kneed, he said to Johnny, 'I'll see you, big shot.'
'See me now,' Johnny said tonelessly, starting after him.
The scar on his forehead had swollen and come alive.
Pee Wee blocked his path.
'That nigger ain't worth killing, pops.'
Fats gave Chink a push in the back.
'Punk, you're lucky, lucky, lucky,' he wheezed. 'Git going before your luck runs out.'
Johnny looked at his watch, giving Chink no more attention.
'We gotta go, the funeral's already started,' he said.
'We all is coming,' Fats said. 'But you go on ahead 'cause you is the number two mourner.'
9
Heat shimmered from the big black shiny Cadillac hearse parked before the door to the store-front church of the Holy Rollers at the corner of Eighth Avenue and 143rd Street. A skinny little black boy with big white shining eyes touched the red hot fender and snatched back his hand.
The black painted windows of what had been a super market before the Holly Rollers took it over reflected distorted images of the three black Cadillac limousines, and of the big flashy cars strung out behind the big cocky hearse like a line of laying hens.
People of many colors, clad in garb of all descriptions, their burr heads covered with straw hats of every shape, crowded about for a glimpse of the Harlem underworld celebrities attending Big Joe Pullen's funeral. Black ladies carried bright-colored parasols and wore green eyeshades to protect them from the sun.
These people ate cool slices of watermelon, spit out the black seeds and sweated in the vertical rays of the July sun. They drank quart bottles of beer and wine, and smaller bottles of pop and cola, from the flyspecked grocery stores nearby. They sucked chocolate-coated icecream bars from the refrigerated pushcart of the Good Humor man. They chewed succulent sections of barbecued pork-rib sandwiches, cast the polished bones to the friendly dogs and cats and the bread crusts to the flocks of molting Harlem sparrows.
Trash blew from the dirty street against their sweaty skin and into their gritty eyes.
The jumble of loud voices, strident laughter and the tinkle of the vendor's bells mingled with the sounds of mourning coming from the open church door and the loud summer thunder of automobiles passing in the street.
A picnic had never been better.
Sweating horse cops astride lathered horses, harness bulls with open collars and patrol cars with rolled-down windows rode herd.
When Johnny backed his big fishtail Cadillac into a reserved spot and climbed out behind Dulcy and Alamena, a murmur ran through the crowd and his name sprang from every lip.
Inside the church was like an airless oven. The crude wooden benches were jam-packed with friends who had come to bury Big Joe-gamblers, pimps, whores, chippies, madams, dining-car waiters and Holy Rollers-but were being cooked instead.
With his two women, Johnny pushed forward toward the mourners' bench. They found places beside Mamie Pullen, Baby Sis, and the pallbearers-who included a white dining-car steward; the Grand Wizard of Big Joe's lodge, dressed in the most impressive red-and-blue, goldbraided uniform ever seen on land or sea; a gray-haired, flat- footed waiter known as Uncle Gin; and two Holy Roller Deacons.
Big Joe's coffin, banked with hothouse roses and lilies of the valley, occupied the place of honor in front of the soapbox pulpit. Green flies buzzed above the coffin.
Behind it, Reverend Short was jumping up and down on the flimsy pulpit like some devil with the hotfoot dancing on red- and white-hot flames.
His bony face was quivering with religious fervor and streaming with rivers of sweat that overflowed his high celluloid collar and soaked into the jacket of his black woolen suit. His gold-rimmed spectacles were clouded. A band of sweat had formed about his trousers' belt and was coming through his coat.
' And the Lord said,' he was screaming, swatting at the green flies trying to light on his face and spraying hot spit like a garden sprinkler. ' As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten… Does you hear me? '
'We hears you,' the church members chanted in response.
' Be zealous therefore, and repent…'
'… repent…'
' So I'm going to take my text from Genesis…'
'… Genesis…'
' The Lord God made Adam in his image…'
'… Lord made Adam…'
' Therefore I'm your preacher and I want to make a parable.'
'… preacher make parable…'
' There lies Big Joe Pullen in his coffin, as much of a man as Adam ever was, as dead a man as Adam ever will be, made in God's image
…'
'… Big Joe in God's image…'
' Adam bore two sons, Cain and Abel…'
'… Cain and Abel…'
' And Cain rose up against his brother in the field, and he stuck a knife in Abel's heart and he murdered him…'
'… Jesus Savior, murdered him…'
' I see Jesus Christ leaving heaven with all His grandeur, clothing himself in the garments of your preacher, making his face black, pointing the finger of accusation, and saying to you unrepented sinners, 'He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword…' '
'… die by the sword, Lord, Lord…'
' I see Him point his finger and say, 'If Adam was alive today he'd be laying in that coffin dead and his name would be Big Joe Pullen…' '
'… have mercy, Jesus…'
' And he'd have a son named Abel…'
'… have a son, Abel…'
' And his son would have a wife…'
'… son would have a wife…'
' And his wife would be the sister of Cain…'
'… sister of Cain…'
' I can see Him step out on the rib bone of nothing…'
'… rib bone of nothing…'
Spit drooled from the corners of his fishlike mouth as he pointed a trembling finger straight in Dulcy's
