Globusz^® Publishing 

The Gethsemane Garden Baptist Church was on the corner right across the street from your house. The pastor was Clarence Higgins, Jr. The director of the children’s choir was Nancy Abercrambie. The boys called her Mrs. Applecrusher behind her back. The girls never did, but they always laughed with the boys when they did it. She was in her late twenties with a round face that still had the residue of teenage acne. She wore glasses, and she had what you thought were perfect legs and feet. You had such a crush on her that you could scarcely look her in the eye. Naturally, you thought she loved you, too, even though she was already married and you were only thirteen years old.

Her husband’s name was Marvin. He sang in the adult choir, and he had a wonderful baritone voice. He sang with such passion and conviction, that it was jarring to see him come home late on Friday and Saturday nights drunk and staggering.

The Abercrambies lived on the second floor of the two story, grey stone building behind the church. Reverend and Mrs. Higgins lived on the first floor, and Mr. Abercrambie was a source of embarrassment for everyone in that building. Everyone, that is, except Clarence the third.

You worked for the church on Saturday afternoons, sweeping the sidewalks and front hallway, and occasionally mopping. The arrangement you had was that you would do the few chores they assigned, and they would pay you a few dollars to be paid after Sunday services after the collection had been taken. Big Ma didn’t like the idea very much, though, because she didn’t trust that Reverend Higgins would pay you. In fact, Gethsemane was not Big Ma’s regular church. Her regular church was over on 36th Street near State Street. But since the move over here, that church was hard to get to on a regular basis. Gethsemane, on the other hand, was right across the street. It was easy for you and Janet to get to every Sunday. It was important that you and Janet go, because, as Big Ma put it, she already knew the Lord. On those occasions when she went to Gethsemane, she let everyone know that she disapproved of the arrangement.

Ultimately, she was proven right. The deacons paid you promptly the first two Sundays. On the third Sunday, they paid you about two-thirds of the original agreed upon wage. On the sixth Sunday, Reverend Higgins recommended that the privilege of working for Christ and the church should be payment enough for your services. That Sunday, Big Ma terminated the contract.

That was the week you met Clarence the third. On the previous Sunday, Reverend Higgins suggested that you give Mrs. Higgins a hand around the house. He recommended that Wednesday after school would be a good day. You didn’t tell Big Ma, because you knew she would have a fit. Instead, you simply went over at the appointed time. Mrs. Higgins, a short, light- skinned, dumpy woman with thick ankles and old lady comforts, had you mop the kitchen floor and empty the garbage. It struck you as odd that a man who preached that cleanliness was next to godliness would have such an incredibly filthy kitchen floor. That’s when Clarence the third walked in. He went to the refrigerator, took out bread and cheese and mustard and mayonnaise. He was tall and burly like his father with big hands and a full beard. His nappy hair was thinning on top, and he was funky like he hadn’t bathed in a couple of weeks. He gathered up the sandwich makings like you imagined a bear would gather them up, all at once. Meats, cheese, bread, condiments all gathered against his chest and held in place by a finger or a thumb. The mustard shifted, and he almost dropped it. He caught it by shifting his hip. He hobbled over to the cutting board by the sink, and let each item roll from the cluster onto the work surface. He had to catch the mayonnaise from rolling off.

“You must be the new hired help around here,” he said. His voice was surprisingly high. You had expected this big guy to have a deep base voice, but instead it was this little high thing not as deep as your own. “I guess so,” you said.

“Welcome to the mad house.” He reached his hand into the package and pulled out four pieces of white bread. He arranged them on the counter.

“How much are they paying you?”

You were ashamed to answer.

Sensing your hesitation, he said, “Let me guess. You’re working for the glory of the Lord. ”

You nodded your head yes.

“Ha,” he said, “I knew it. He used to get me with that one, too.

Only, since I was the preacher’s son, there was no way out. You still have a chance, though.” He slathered mayonnaise on two of the slices, then dropped the knife on the floor. He picked it up, leaving a glob of mayonnaise behind. He slathered the rest of the bread without wiping off the knife. Reaching for the cheese, he stepped into the glob of mayonnaise and squished it. His feet were bare. They looked like short versions of his hands, thick with stubby toes and heavy, uncut toenails. “Want a sandwich?” he offered.

“No.” Your answer sounded like it was delivered too quickly. “Suit yourself,” he said, stuffing a scrap of ham into his mouth. His sandwiches made, he left the kitchen tracking traces of mayonnaise in his wake.

Looking around at the floor, you began to guess at what some of the spills might be. Ketchup or barbeque sauce, gravy or chocolate, mustard or egg yolk. There were crumbs in all the corners. A small piece of cornbread lay by the stove next to a sliver of porkchop bone next to the broom. As you reached for the broom, Clarence the third startled you from the doorway. “Do you play chess? Of course you don’t. Stop up front when you’re done. I need to show you some moves.”

You swept the kitchen and mopped it and emptied the bucket. The water was black with filth. You emptied the garbage. You headed for the living room trying to make as little noise as possible. Clarence was waiting. “Sit down,” he said, gesturing to the large leather chair across the small table from where he sat in an equally large leather chair. You sat in the chair and discovered that it wasn’t nearly as comfortable as it looked. It was too big, and the seat was slippery. Looking at the row of brass brads that appeared to hold the leather to the shiny dark wood, you got as comfortable as you could.

“The first thing you have to learn is that life is not logical. I don’t mean in the sense that the existence of life defies reason, which it does, but, rather, in the sense that all day-to-day occurrences happen capriciously. The Bible said it best: The race is not to the swift. This is not a lament, merely a statement of fact. It’s axiomatic! Shit happens! So you’ve got to learn to live with it, even plan on it. It’s the only reasonable thing to do.”

“The second thing you have to learn is, don’t let people mess with you.” He looked you in the eye waiting for your reaction. You looked away and nodded yes.

“Look at me,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.”

“Yes, sir,”

“Don’t call me sir. Call me Clarence.”

“Ok, Clarence.”

“Chess is war. Chess is like life in America. In chess, white always moves first.”

“Why?”

“It’s the rule,” he said. “But moving first doesn’t mean you always win. ”

“Does white have an advantage?”

“Whites always have an advantage, but superior play by blacks can overcome that advantage. And then there is the luck or shit-happens factor.”

“What’s that?” you asked.

“That’s when God picks the winner.” He paused. “Here are the pieces, “ he said, “one king, one queen, two bishops, two knights, two rooks and eight pawns.” He arranges the white pieces on the board. “Put your pieces in place.”

You arranged your pieces to mirror his.

“The queen goes on the square of her own color,” he said.

“How does God pick the winner?” you asked, changing the position of your king and queen.

“That is the question of questions,” he said. “Nobody knows the answer, but I can give you an example. ”

You sat forward in your chair in order to better hear.

“I was in the navy on a ship in Korea,” he began as he sat back in his chair forgetting, for the moment, the chess instruction. His gaze was off to the corner of the room as he remembered. He ran his fingers through his beard as he spoke. “I was below decks talking with one of my white shipmates. We were standing maybe three feet apart. With no warning, a bomb dropped between us.” He shifted his gaze to you. “It was a dud. That’s why it didn’t explode when it hit the deck above us.” He moved his gaze to the corner again. “It tore a gapping hole in the ceiling above us and in the floor between us. I looked down and saw the bomb resting two decks below where we stood. Then I looked at the guy I had been talking to.” He looked at you again. “His eyes were dead,” he said. “Then I saw the thin red line running straight down the center of his body, and I realized that one of the fins on the bomb as it dropped between us had cut him in half.” He drew an imaginary line down his own body as he spoke. “The other two fins simply grazed by meˆ one on each sideˆ on their way down. I was never even touched.” He paused. “That’s how God picks.” “So what did you do?” you asked.

“Nothing,” he answered. “There was nothing to do right then. God picked me as the winner that time, but I knew that he would eventually pick me as the loser. If not today, tomorrow. If not tomorrow, next month. If not next month, next year. But sooner or later we all get picked the loser.” He paused. “After the battle was over, I sank into a cold sweat thinking it could have been me. Jimmy Joe was his name. He was a white boy from Alabama. He wanted to be a painter. He wanted to move to New York and paint like the great Flemish masters. All he did in his spare time was sketch. He had pads filled with pictures of the guys on board, and of parts of the ship. We nicknamed him Artie because he was such an artist. Everybody on board liked him, and he had more talent than anyone on board that I knew. After ourselves, we all wanted him to make it through so we could say we knew him after he got famous. He was the first one to die. That’s how God picks.” He sat forward in his chair returning his attention to the game. “Here is how the pieces move.” He carefully explained how each piece moved. Then, with his index finger, he began drawing small circles just above the four squares at the center of the board. “In the beginning, the fight is for these squares.” He advanced his king pawn two squares.

You remembered the fourth grade. You remembered Michael Sampson. Michael Sampson was the fat, white boy who always hung his head and looked depressed anytime anyone said the word ‘mister.’ Little bullet-head Sammie Wilson and fat lip Melvin used to chide him and say mister over and over again just to piss him off. After a while, he would try to hit one of them, but he was too slow and awkward. You often wondered what the problem was, but whenever you broached the topic, he would turn his sad eyes away and change the subject.

Finally, about half way through the school year, while on a field trip to Brookfield Zoo, you asked him, “Why does ‘mister’ make you sad?” At first, he looked at you suspiciously, squinting his sad, blue eyes. After all, bullet-head Sammie and fat lip Melvin were your friends. Then he said, “You have to promise to keep it a secret.”

You promised and he began his tale. He was sad because his grandfather had been killed that previous summer by a sixteen-year-old boy they had befriended earlier that summer who always called the grandfather ‘mister.’ The grandfather had been teaching the two boys how to hunt in the woods, and giving lessons on the safe use of a shotgun. It wasn’t clear to you how it happened, but apparently the boy left the gun loaded when he shouldn’t have. When confronted by the grandfather, the boy snapped that he hadn’t felt like it, and grabbed at the gun. The grandfather yanked the gun back to avoid the boy’s grab. The gun fell to the floor and discharged shooting the grandfather in the thigh. He bled to death in about ten minutes.

“Damn you, boy,” the grandfather had said as he and Michael fought to make the tourniquet hold in the mass of blood gushing from his leg. “You are going to pay for this. ”

Michael ended the story by pounding his fist on his knee and swearing the kill the boy if he ever met him again.

Oddly, or maybe not so oddly, Michael was insensitive to the loss other people suffered. About two weeks after the field trip, a substitute teacher came to your classroom. You remembered he was strange from the very beginning, because he didn’t merely walk in. He looked in first. There was fear in his eyes. He looked at you and the other kids in that room as if he were looking at a pit of vipers. He pulled his head back, waited two seconds, then walked in with an affected smile. Even his footsteps were cautious.

He asked you where you had left off in your geography book. You told him. He had you open to the appropriate page and begin to read aloud as he called on you one at a time. He called on Michael. Rather, he called on Mr. Sampson. Michael stood up, his sad eyes staring at the floor.

“What’s the matter, Mr. Sampson?”

“Nothing,” Michael had said.

“Don’t you like geography?”

“I hate geography,” Michael had said. “It’s got nothing to do with me. ”

“I used to think that,” the teacher said, “before I went to Korea. ”

He looked around the room. The fear in his eyes had changed to a measure of confidence as he convinced himself that fourth graders were not dangerous. Then his eyes changed again as he mentioned Korea. They changed to sadness. The man, tall and black and strong, almost began to cry. He searched each one of our faces for some degree of pity. “Korea was hell,” he said. “I lost my best friend there about two months ago. “We were walking among some trees when we came under fire from a North Korean tank. I jumped behind a big rock. Fred jumped behind a tree stump. I saw him eyeing a rock on the other side of the clearing, and I shouted to him to stay where he was. No, man, he said. I’ve got to get some better cover than this. He jumped up to run, and jumped right into the path of the next tank shell. It blew him into a thousand pieces right there before my eyes. Blood, fingers, ears, eyes, hair everywhere.” The man looked sadder than Michael ever had. His eyes were red and filled with water. He began to sniff to hold back the tears. That’s when Michael let him have it.

“Don’t nobody care about your old stupid friend. I’m glad he’s dead.” Instantly, self pity turned into fear. The vipers were back, and they were striking at his most sensitive parts. The teacher stood up. He bolted for the door. The sound of the class cheering as he left could only have been hissing to his ears.

Only one person in the whole class didn’t cheer at this rare and obvious victory of children over an adult. Adam Baker. Adam sat in the seat immediately to your right. You hadn’t known it before that day, but Adam was a lot older than the rest of you. Adam was a veteran. Adam had been in Korea. You knew he wasn’t like the rest of you even though he was short, because he smelled like a man. He wore the cologne men wore. And he didn’t start with the rest of you. He started in the middle of the term, only a week or so before the field trip to Brookfield Zoo. Apparently, he had just been discharged. He never played at recess. “You shouldn’t laugh at him,” Adam said to you. “I’ve seen lots of guys like him.” No one else in the class heard his words. Only you.

“That man is sick. He won’t be coming back.”

“How do you know?” you asked.

“I’ve seen this before.” Adam looked at you looking back at him.

“I’ve been to Korea,” he said.

“How old are you?”

“I’m nineteen,” he answered.

“What are you doing here?” The amazement in your voice surprised even you.

“I don’t read so good, so they put me in this class. I won’t be here long, though. I need to find a job. ”

“What was it like?” you asked.

“It was rough. A lot of guys I know didn’t make it. Some of them were killed. A lot of them ended up like teacher man. It ain’t no fun spending three days and nights in a foxhole dug in the middle of a grave. Smelling the shit, hearing the bodies moan. Eating cold beans from a can while sitting in your own shit. Watching guys get their heads blown off while running across a field. His body ran two more steps before it fell and shook. It ain’t pretty.”

“Did you ever have to kill anybody?”

“Once or twice.”

“What was it like?”

“It didn’t bother me, but some guys couldn’t do it.”

“I could do it,” you said, feeling brave. “I know I could do it. ”

You pause, then ask, “what was it like?”

“The first time, it was like jumping from in front of a car before you get hit. He was running at me with a bayonet. I was holding my rifle at hip level and I shot him in the chest. He took one more step, then dropped at my feet.”

“What would you have done if you had missed?”

“They teach you to fall on your back and kick the rifle barrel away with your feet,” he said. “But that doesn’t always work. I saw one soldier get his dick and nuts cut off trying to kick a bayonet away.”

“What did the man you shot look like?”

“I don’t know. As soon as I knew I was still alive, I ran for cover. I shot at a few people from behind a rock, but I don’t think I hit them.”

Your collective victory over teacher man seemed hollow now. Cheering that first seemed gleeful now seemed cruel.

Adam Baker dropped out of the fourth grade the following week. He found a job stacking corrugated boxes at the end of an assembly line. You advanced your queen-rook pawn one square.

“How does that move fight for these four squares?” Clarence the third asked.

“I don’t know.”

He sat back again in his chair. “Don’t be afraid to fight,” he said.

“My father is using you. Don’t let him do it.”

“What should I do?”

“What do you think you should do?”

“I think I should quit.”

“When did you get that idea?”

“When he first mentioned not paying me.”

“Why didn’t you quit then?”

“I was trying to be a nice guy.”

“Being a nice guy doesn’t mean spreading you cheeks. If anybody tries to spread your cheeks, break their nose for them. ”

“Should I hit the reverend?”

“Certainly not. In this case, quitting would be tantamount to breaking his nose for him.”

“If I quit, I won’t get to come over to learn chess.”

“Playing chess has nothing to do with cleaning the house.”

“You’ll teach me even if I quit?” you asked.

“I won’t teach you if you don’t quit,” he said. “One other thing, don ’t tell my father that I told you to quit. He might put me out.”

As you were leaving, Marvin Abercrumbie was coming in the front vestibule door. He looked right past you at Clarence the third standing in the apartment doorway.

“Hey, man,” he said walking by you, “you got my shit?”

“Of course,” Clarence the third said closing the apartment door behind Marvin as he walked in.

Even with the door closed, you could still hear what was being said.

“This batch is some good stuff,” Clarence said, “so I’ll have to charge you a little extra.”

“No matter,” Marvin said, “I’ll take it.”

Since Big Ma ended the deal between you and the church the following Sunday, you were spared the agony of having to quit outright. But that didn’t matter. By the next weekend, Clarence the third was gone anyway. Mrs. Higgins said that he had gone to New York to study chess under some grand master. Reverend Higgins only comment was, “Good-bye and good riddance.”