Kingdom Come and Gone
by Jay Spothelfer
The boys sat still beside the mold-black bridge on the back shore of the municipal golf course lake. Their bamboo poles blended with the reeds; Marlon had the idea to paint the bobbers dark green so if the golf pro rode over in his cart the red and white plastic wouldn’t jump out at him. Joey remembered two times it had worked while they’d both held their breath.
“So then ‘nigger’ is a cuss word?”
“Think so, yeah. Momma says whenever pop says it, ‘Goodness Waylon, have some self-respect.’ He says ‘sorry,’ till the next time he says it.”
“My dad says it a lot.”
“It’s more a cuss word when white people say it, I know that. Like, didn’t you know them boys was cussing at me that time at the wall?”
Joey had seen the 6th grade bully boys in a crinkle around Marlon, with Mike York yelling and pushing him down. He’d recognized the gathered hand-me-downs crease on the back of Marlon’s pants even before noticing that he was a Negro. Joey had picked up a pine bough, swung and caught Mike behind the knees, and crumpled him like a burnt up ant. Joey stood straight and slung the bough into a batter’s stance. The bully boys had carried Mike York off, cursing revenge.
“My dad says he was just another TV preacher. That there’ll be another one along with the next bus.”
“Momma calls him ‘doctor.’”
“He was a doctor?”
“I guess.”
“Why’d they kill him?”
“Momma says it’s ‘cause he was too holy. ‘Cause he knew the way and they wouldn’t let him live any more than they let Jesus live.”
“They who?”
“White people, I guess,” Marlon shrugged.
The boys turned their attention to the still poles, bent over the slime-shimmery green like wispy mendicants praying to a water god. Joey thought it over: he’d never kill a doctor, especially not a preacher doctor. He doubted his dad would either.
“You gonna watch the war tonight?” Marlon asked.
“Probably. You?”
“Probably, ’cept if momma and pop’s gonna watch the preacher’s news: then probably won’t. You still got cousins over there?”
“Yeah. They’re gone for a long time. Like a year or somethin’. Apiece.”
“A year? Man.” Marlon couldn’t think of anyone he personally knew who was on the TV war.
“I can’t exactly remember what Ronnie looks like.”
“Which one’s he?”
“The fat one. ‘Cept he lost, like, 500 pounds or something at Marines boot camp.”
Yellow shards through the leaves brought along a breeze to chop at the greasy surface of the lake, blowing off the stagnant fish smell.
Joey put down his pole. “Wanna go swimming?” They waded into the water, the plastic sheeting around the perimeter giving way to the muddy bottom. They sank to their shins. “Man, can’t move.”
“S’like quicksand. Like that Movie of the Week where that guy sank up to his chin.”
Distant smoke turned to haze on the breeze, but clung to the underside of the sky like lint. Sirens squealed to and away from the gunshots and dull thumps that came across the sky and up through the ground.
“S’what’s goin’ on over there?” Marlon stood, sinking to his shins in the duck-dooey mud. “S’like there’s—“ he dove with a quick breath, coming up with a green-black golf ball that seemed a miniature version of his own hair. He stuffed it into a pillowcase filched from the back hall closet.
“Bet it’s the war,” Joey said.
“Ever see them girls with signs on TV shouting over the war? The boobies shakin’—“
“Heck yeah! Dad says—” Joey ducked into the green, popping back a moment later with a syllabic exhale, “—bra burnin’ should be on Ed Sullivan!” Poopy water clung to his crew cut, bringing flies. “Titlelest! Red stripe!”
“Man,” Marlon said in admiration, “that’s a fifty-cent ball there!” which all by itself meant a soda to split and a candy bar apiece.
A fat pile of grey-white smoke they hadn’t noticed before rose from beyond the course, somewhere in the Negro part of town. It came to Marlon all at once, like the gray haze was whispering something sacred but beyond words: “Bet it’s the preacher getting shot dead. People’re mad enough to burn things up.”
“The preacher? Just one guy gettin’ shot? There’s like a hundred guys on the TV war shot every day. Why’d they get all crazy over the preacher?”
“Momma says ‘cause he been sent by the kingdom. ‘Cause Negroes got no other one sayin’ stuff to believe.”
“Dad says another one’ll be along on the next bus.”
“Momma said no. She was crying like forever was over with. Never seen her cry before like that,” which planted an unfamiliar kind of lump in Marlon’s throat.
“Dad says—“
“What’s your daddy know anyway! Negro could be president of America and he’d just be another nigger to your stupid dummy dad.”
“Quit calling my dad stupid! You’re stupid!” His dad was a stupid sometimes, and mean just for the sake of it. But it didn’t sit having Marlon say so.
“What do white boys know about it anyway?” There was something truer left to say, but Marlon wasn’t sure Joey was the one to hear it: He’d beat back Mike York.
“Anyway,” Joey said, wading in deeper toward the opposite bank, “Wasn’t my dad shot the preacher.” Toward the middle the crap-mud softened, clawing Joey to the knees and sinking him too deep to pick out the gems at his feet.
Marlon came from beneath the reed canopy, wading toward the opposite bank, closer in so the mud, still thick and grabby, would give up its treasure. Smokey haze snuck toward and fell upon the sun, turning everything gray. He shouted over his shoulder to Joey, now moving out of the deep muck toward the opposite bank, “Bet it’s the doctor preacher. They shot him, now people’re gonna wanna burn things.”
Jay Spothelfer: I’m a remodeling and restoration contractor and sometime-freelance writer from Chino Valley, AZ. As a writer I work primarily in business communications, most often in proposal writing and marketing collaterals. Contact Jay.
