drinking. Most of the time I was too drunk to worry about it. But late at night the demons would come at me.
I was a part of the murder of a man’s father. Me, Ezekiel Rawlins, the man who worried after his own father for years. It’s not that I cared for Reese but murder is a sin that burns your soul.
And to help a man murder his father...
People came to my door but I didn’t answer it. They’d knock and call my name but I’d lie in the bed and bite my pillow. I’d shut my eyes tight against the sound and finally they’d leave.
Mouse would come to the door and call me. He’d rattle the doorknob and bang away. He talked to me as if he believed I was in, but I didn’t answer him. Our business was over with. There was nothing left to say.
Even today, six years later, I feel guilt and fear. The same fear I had when I thought my father knew everything that I did wrong; every thought that I thought wrong.
How could I have known? I asked myself.
How can anyone hold me responsible for the death of that man and that boy?
But then I’d think of standing there with Miss Alexander looking down on that wasted frame of flesh on brittle bones. A man who I helped to torment; a man whose murder goes unavenged.
I was unworthy. In my misery I told myself that that was why my own father never came back for me.
My mother was a churchgoer but I never had much use for it. Just as soon as I was old enough to hold back I fought with her on Sunday mornings so I could go out exploring the country and see my friends.
On Sundays my friend Holly, short for Hollister, and I would go to Tyler’s place out John Street because on Sunday mornings Lucy Jennings, the whore, would be there entertaining all of the husbands who got out of going to church. We hid in the bushes outside of her window and watched. I remember holding my breath when Robert Green would stand in front of her with his thing standing straight out; it was so big that we couldn’t believe it - Lucy told him that it was the most beautiful one she had ever seen... When I got home I felt guilty but I couldn’t tell my mother about it, it was so dirty and depraved.
I couldn’t tell anyone about Reese and Clifton either.
For the first time I thought about God. I wondered if he’d forgive me like Reverend Peters said. But I didn’t see how he could. I wasn’t going to the law, I wasn’t going to give myself up. I loved freedom and life and the only thing that would come from confessing was prison and death.
I took Mouse’s money. It’s true I was afraid not to take it but I didn’t throw it away. I could have found a worthy cause and given up my loot for that but I didn’t, and I wasn’t intending to do it.
All I could do was to lay up in my room and drink.
If things had continued like that I would have died there in Houston all those years ago; I’d’ve never learned to live with my guilt and remorse.
But then something happened.
Every time Mouse had come to the door he talked, as if I were in, about the wedding and how they wanted me for best man. I couldn’t talk to him. I sure couldn’t stand in a room full of people knowing what I knew.
Then one day a knock came at the door. It came again and a voice said, ‘Easy?’
It was EttaMae.
‘Easy, I know you’re in there,’ she said. ‘And I’m gonna wait here at the door until you open up and let me in.’
That’s all she said. I put my ear against the door and after a while I heard a rustle, so I tiptoed to my bed and bit the pillow. After what seemed like a long while I snuck back to the door and listened; and just when I was sure she’d gone I heard her sigh.
Etta was going to wait until I was ready to open up.
I moved quietly to the window but when I looked outside the sun was so bright and there were people in the street that knew my name; I went back to the room. As quiet as I could I went around picking up the clothes and trash from the floor; I pushed it all under the bed and into the closet. Then I went to the door she was still there.
I got the pan of water from the closet and tried to wash away the smell of two weeks without bathing. And then I hanged my clothes. All I had decent was an old pair of cutoff shorts and a flannel shirt. I rolled up the sleeves because it was so hot.
When I opened the door she was standing there; I was planning to act surprised like I had just gotten up but I knew when our eyes met that there was no sense in lying.
‘Easy.’ She smiled. Her dark brown eyes and deep brown skin were so beautiful. It seemed like years since I had seen her but she was still the same. Big and beautiful and so tender that I knew I would have crossed Mouse to have her for mine.
‘Can I come in, honey?’
I stepped back and she walked by me. She was wearing jasmine, I remember. I never thought much about perfume before but right then jasmine became my favourite.
‘Ev’rybody been lookin fo’ you, Easy. How come you been hidin’?’
‘Kinda sick, Etta.’
‘Raymond said that you come down wit’ sumpin’ in Pariah,’ she said. ‘He said that’s why you took so long out there.’
We sat down together on the bed. She put her arm around me and pressed my head down on her shoulder.
‘You gonna get well to be our best man?’
