Andrew Klavan - The Identity Man

That Sunday, the reverend held his service in a storefront in the Five Corners. He and his deacons must've thrown the place together Saturday night. Nothing but metal folding chairs for pews and a card table for an altar. No light in the cramped room but the morning sun through the big window and a couple of desk lamps set on top of stools, their extension cords running to the outlets next door. They'd put out the come-to-meeting at the last possible minute, with phone calls and runners to keep it within the congregation. It was the only way they could outsmart Augie's inspectors and the bangers and the off-duty cops.

But Ramsey found them. Of course. Ramsey pushed gigantically through the door just as the sermon was beginning. He stood in the back of the room large as life and watched with his grim, threatening dignity hanging over the church like a vulture. The worshippers felt him there from the outset. They shifted uncomfortably in their folding chairs. They cast sidelong glances at him.

But not Skyles. Skyles had the spirit in him that morning. It was as if he had swallowed a Roman candle: he was jumping around and there were sparks flying out of him every which way. No lawman-and no man's law-were going to hold him back.

"The white man in America is full of sin and a man who is full of sin is full of shame. He's full of the shame of racism, the shame of slavery and Jim Crow. And he'll do anything to make that shame go away. He'll give you money-welfare money for doing nothing. He'll give you government jobs you didn't earn and don't deserve. He'll say: 'You wanna take drugs? You wanna get your girlfriend pregnant? You want to live without morality? Why, that's okay, little black man, you go right on ahead. I give you abortions to kill those babies. I give the mother money so you don't have to marry her. I give you some pro-grams for those drugs. Pro-grams, that'll set you right up. Just don't be calling me racist. I'll give you anything you want, just set me free of my shame.'"

In appearance, Skyles was a prim little man. Old-Lieutenant Ramsey noticed with some bitterness-old enough to remember segregation and the rest. Wore a three-piece suit. Had a receding hairline and wire-rimmed glasses. When he was standing still, he had the punctilious, slightly sour aspect of a man who sold ladies' underwear and found it rather distasteful-though in fact he ran a Donut Land franchise over on Pearl Street. But when the spirit was in him like this, he never did stand still. He jumped and strutted like a chicken on fire. Back and forth behind the folding table with the flames and sparks shooting out of him and the words bubbling out of his mouth in a high frantic rasp.

"You say to me, 'No, no, no-no, no, no, Reverend Skyles, we don't take nothing from the white man. We got the black man in power now. We got Augie Lancaster in power. He give us that money. He give us them abortions. He give us some pro-grams! We do love us some pro-grams, Reverend Skyles, they set us right up.' But I tell you truly. I tell you: Augie Lancaster is the white man. Augie Lancaster has made himself the tool of the white man's shame. He understands the agony of their sin. He goes right to Washington, he says, 'If you don't want me to call you racist, you better give me some of that money you take from people who earn their livings. You don't want that shame, you gotta give me some more jobs, some more pro-grams.' That's how he buys his homes and his boats and his mistresses. That's how he buys his friends-by giving them those jobs. And that's how he buys you, too. That's right. He buys you, too, just like the rest. And yes, I see his police thug standing in the back there-" he shouted suddenly. He didn't even deign to glance at the imposing Ramsey. He just shouted: "You don't need to be stealing looks back there at him, you keep your eyes on the truth! You keep your eyes on the Word!"

That got some amens going for a moment, little eruptions of them here and there. Annoyed, Lieutenant Ramsey let his eyes move sternly over the heads of the parishioners. I'm seeing you, he was telling them. I'm seeing your faces. The people cast their sidelong glances at him. Fear and anxiety tightened their lips. The amens petered out and died.

But Jesse Skyles went on, unstoppable. He had the spirit in him.

"Now the white man has enslaved you again, but it's worse this time, because this time you're his accomplice. Augie Lancaster is an accomplice, and you're an accomplice in your own slavery. You looking to massa to help you instead of helping yourself. You're taking his money and giving up your self-reliance. You take his abortions and give up your responsibilities. You take his pro-grams and give up your morality. You getting fat on the milk of his sin, on the honey of his shame. You get all that sweetness by blaming the white man, so you don't need to take no responsibility for yourself."

Ramsey continued to stand there, lithic and imposing, his hands folded in front of him, his roving stare picking off amens like they were ducks at a shooting gallery. He was aware of the anger burbling volcanically in the core of that tightly controlled self of his. He was beginning to see Augie's point about this loudmouth. What did he have to be saying this kind of thing for? Didn't these people have troubles enough? They needed those jobs and pro-grams Augie got for them. What else did they have? And who else would give them? So why make them feel bad about it? Why make them look bad to themselves-or to the white man if he was listening? And why make Augie look bad? Ramsey was beginning to understand why Augie was so intent on bringing Skyles down.

"Let me ask you a question." Skyles shot the words at his congregation, undeterred by their intimidated silence, hopping back and forth, back and forth behind the folding table. "Who is it who does you like this? Who gives you money but takes your self-reliance? Who gives you jobs but robs you of your desire for excellence? Who takes care of your babies for you but steals your morality and your dignity? Let me ask you this question so you understand: Who gives you the things of the body and lures you away from the things of the spirit?"

"The devil!" an older woman shouted from the folding chairs-the spirit had caught her and she couldn't help herself. Half a dozen worried sidelong glances went toward Lieutenant Ramsey. The woman realized what she'd done and half glanced at him, too. But then she must've figured it was too late. She settled back into her folding chair with a defiant sniff and an I-don't-care wiggle of her bottom.

And Jesse Skyles's spirit fed off hers. "The devil!" he answered back, riding a fine, high wave of indignation. "It's the devil who gives you the things of the world and lures you away from the soul things, the real things. It's guilty white folks trying to buy their way out of history. It's Augie Lancaster making his money and his power off their shame. And it's the devil himself. And if you ask me, they all three's the same!"

Lieutenant Ramsey shrugged into his blue blazer now and examined himself one last moment in the mirror. He had the effect he wanted: distinguished and commanding. He looked into his own eyes.

The nightmare was still in his mind and the memory of Skyles was in his mind, too, and out of the interplay between them, a truth came to him.

Down deep, way down deep, he had agreed with Reverend Skyles that day. He understood that now, only now. He had been angry at Skyles for defying him and for saying what he said, but down deep he had agreed. How could it have been otherwise? What Skyles was telling the people was no different from what Ramsey's mother had told him, what his mother had pounded into him as she sculpted his heart with that hammering Bible. Self-reliance, morality, dignity, self-control. Don't be looking to anyone else to take care of you. Pull yourself up and walk like a man.