came to me in a flash. I saw him in my mind, like he was right before the cancer. Skin the hue of maple syrup. Veins in his thick arms looked like ropes. Moustache credit-card thin. Smelled like Dial soap mixed with sprinkles of Hai Karate. I opened and closed my fists, remembered the pain. I was in an alley standing next to Reverend Daddy, hands hurting from beating a man down. The man in question was around thirty. Six-two. Two-hundred. Hard talk, soft body. His name was Ulysses. Light-skinned. Hair in braids. He’d called Rufus a faggot in front of some of Reverend Daddy’s congregation. Had done that two months before. Long enough for retribution to be served cold. Reverend Daddy’s style.
“Shoot the motherfucker, Rufus.”
Ulysses had been beat down. Reverend Daddy had told me to do that, to tenderize that foolish man the old-school way. His eye was swollen the size of a grapefruit. Jaw broken like Ali’s after that fight with Joe Frazier. Nose twisted, broken. He’d peed his pants. Was begging. Pleading with Reverend Daddy to let him live. Apologizing for slandering his youngest son.
I was fourteen. Rufus, twelve. Rufus was just as tall as our old man. I was taller.
Rufus held the .38, the barrel shaking, each rugged breath telling how terrified he was. Scared to not shoot that man in the head because he’d have to deal with Reverend Daddy.
Ulysses found his God, prayed over and over, his pants drenched at the crotch.
Then my little brother changed. Looked confident.
Rufus pulled the trigger.
It clicked.
Rufus grunted and pulled the trigger over and over and over, frustrated.
The gun was empty.
Reverend Daddy put his hand on Rufus’s shoulder, got him to stop pulling the trigger, looked him dead in his eyes, almost smiled. That was as close to a smile as he ever gave Rufus.
We walked away. Ulysses’s moans and prayers faded with our every step.
After that Reverend Daddy cranked up his Buick, let Rufus ride up front that time, and took us to a place he knew about over on Central Avenue. Miss Thelma’s place. Reverend Daddy picked out the prettiest yellow girl he could find. Had that redbone take Rufus upstairs.
I sat down in the living room, hands aching.
Reverend Daddy put his hands on me. “You did good today. Real good.”
I’d beat down Ulysses the way Marvin Hagler had destroyed Tommy Hearns. My demonic right hand hit him so hard I thought he’d vaporize. Watched that man buckle and go down like a beach umbrella in the wind. Under my daddy’s eyes, I was brutal.
A pretty girl came back and left a glass of lemonade at my side. She winked at me. Reverend Daddy was taking in a glass of Jack, watching television and not watching it at the same time. He leaned my way, seasoned my lemonade with the spirits, then went back to the television. Pretty girls sashayed back and forth, smiling my way, the answer to that smile costing more than I could afford.
We waited for my brother to be transformed into Reverend Daddy’s image of acceptance.
Reverend Daddy said, “Son, I’m just doing what your momma asked me to do.”
I nodded.
He said, “Hate unites people. It’s almost like we need somebody to hate in order to pull together. When we stop hating, we all seem lost, like we have no direction.”
“I don’t hate my brother.”
“Wasn’t talking about your brother. Just going over my sermon.”
“Sure.”
“But your brother ... this thing ... this devil inside him ... he ain’t like us. Most people are sheep. They do what they are led to do. He has been led in the wrong direction. We have to look over him. Get him back on the right path.”
His speech faded. I went back to watching and not watching the television.
Rufus didn’t say much when he came back down. The pretty girl he had done his thirty minutes of therapy with, she closed her red robe and pushed her lips up into a whore’s smile.
Reverend Daddy stood, gave her the same regard as he did all women, his fedora in one hand, empty glass of whiskey glued in the other. He asked, “How he do this time?”
“Better than the last time.”
“What that mean?”
“He did good, Reverend.”
“He like it?”
“Yessir. He made me call Jesus so much I thought—”
“Don’t blaspheme, child. Remember who you talking to. I’m His representative.”
“Yessir. I apologize.”
They talked like Rufus was resting in a cot on the moon.
My eyes went to my brother. He saw how I was worried