Dennis Lehane - The Given Day

So he went down to the Goose to keep the itching in his head from coming out through his eyes and when Jessie came in, that itch spread into a warm smile in his head because, boy, he’d missed their days together — just two weeks ago, but it felt like a couple years — when they’d all poured over the tracks from White Town and had them some play, had them some times .

“I went by your house,” Jessie said, pulling off his mask.

“Fuck you taking that thing off for?” Luther said.

Jessie looked over at Calvin, then at Luther. “You both wearing yours, so what’s I got to worry about?”

Luther just stared at him because for once Jessie made a bit of sense and it annoyed him that he hadn’t thought of it first.

Jessie said, “Lila told me you might be here. I ’spect that woman don’t like me, Country.”

“You keep your mask on?”

“What?”

“With my wife? You keep your mask on when you talked to her?”

“Hell, yeah. ’Course, boy.”

“All right then.”

Jessie took a sip from his hip flask. “Deacon needs to see us.”

“Us?”

Jessie nodded.

“What for?”

Jessie shrugged.

“When?”

“’Bout half an hour ago.”

“Shit,” Luther said. “Whyn’t you get here sooner?”

“’Cause I went to your house first.”

Luther placed his cue in the rack. “We in trouble?”

“Nah, nah. Ain’t like that. He just want to see us.”

“What for?”

“I told you,” Jessie said, “I don’t know.”

“Then how you know it ain’t bad?” Luther said as they walked out of the place.

Jessie looked back at him as he tied the mask off behind his head. “Tighten your corset, woman. Show some grit.”

“Put some grit up your ass.”

“Talking it ain’t walking it, Negro,” Jessie said and shook his big ass at him as they ran up the empty street.

Ya’ll take a seat over here by me now,” the Deacon Broscious said when they entered the Club Almighty. “Right over here now, boys. Come on.”

He wore a broad smile and a white suit over a white shirt and a red tie the same color as his velvet hat. He sat at a round table at the back of the club near the stage and he waved them over through the dim light as Smoke snapped the lock on the door behind them. Luther felt that snap vibrate in his Adam’s apple. He’d never been in the club when it wasn’t open for business, and its tan leather booths and red walls and cherrywood banquettes felt less sinful but more threatening at noon.

The Deacon kept waving his arm until Luther took the chair on the left and Jessie the one on the right, and the Deacon poured them each a tall glass of bonded, prewar Canadian whiskey and slid the glasses across the table and said, “My boys. Yes, indeed. How ya’ll doing now?”

Jessie said, “Right fine, sir.”

Luther managed, “Very good, sir, thanks for asking.”

The Deacon wasn’t wearing his mask, though Smoke and Dandy were, and his smile was big and white. “Aw, that’s music to my ears, I do swear.” He reached across the table and managed to clap both of them on a shoulder. “Ya’ll making the money, right? Heh heh heh. Yeah. You liking that, right? Making them greenbacks?”

Jessie said, “We trying, sir.”

“Trying, hell. Doing is what I see. Ya’ll the best runners I got.”

“Thank you, sir. Things been a little tight of late because a that flu. So many people sick, sir, they ain’t got no heart for the numbers right now.”

The Deacon waved that away. “People get sick. What you gone do? Am I right? They sick and their loved ones be dying? Bless us, Heavenly Father, it tries the heart to see so much suffering. Everyone walking the streets with masks on and the undertakers running out of coffins? Lord. Times like these, you puts the bidness aside. You just puts it up on a shelf and pray for the misery to end. And when it do? When it do, then you go right back to bidness. Damn sure you do. But not” — he pointed his finger at them — “ until then. Can I get an ‘amen’ on that, my brothers?”

“Amen,” Jessie said, then lifted his mask and ducked his glass under there and slammed back his whiskey.

“Amen,” Luther said and took a small drink from his glass.

“Shit, child,” the Deacon said. “You supposed to drink that not romance it.”

Jessie laughed and crossed his legs, getting comfy.

Luther said, “Yes, sir,” and threw the whole thing back and the Deacon refilled their glasses and Luther realized that Dandy and Smoke now stood behind them, no more than a step away, though Luther couldn’t have said when it was they’d arrived in that spot.

The Deacon took a long slow drink from his own glass and said, “Ahhh,” and licked his lips. He folded his hands and leaned into the table. “Jessie.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Clarence Jessup Tell,” Deacon Broscious said, turning those words into song.

“In the flesh, sir.”

The Deacon’s smile returned, brighter than ever. “Jessie, let me ask you something. What’s the most memorable moment of your life?”

“Sir?”

The Deacon raised his eyebrows. “You ain’t got one?”

“I’m not sure I understand, sir.”

“The most memorable moment of your life,” the Deacon repeated.

Luther felt sweat bathe his thighs.

“Everyone’s got one,” the Deacon said. “Could be a happy experience, could be sad. Could be a night with a girl. Am I right? Am I right?” He laughed, his face folding all over his nose with the effort. “Could be a night with a boy. You like boys, Jessie? In my profession, we don’t cast aspersions on what I like to call specified taste.”

“No, sir.”

“No sir what?”

“No, sir, I don’t like boys,” Jessie said. “No, sir.”

The Deacon showed them his palms in apology. “A girl, then, yeah? Young, though, am I right? You never forget ’em when you were young and they were, too. Nice piece of chocolate with a ass you could pound all night and it still don’t lose its shape?”

“No, sir.”

“No sir you don’t like a fine young woman’s ass?”

“No, sir, that’s not my memorable moment.” Jessie coughed and took another slug of whiskey.

“Then what is, boy? Shit.”

Jessie looked away from the table, and Luther could feel him composing himself. “My most memorable moment, sir?”

The Deacon clapped the table. “ Most memorable,” he thundered and then winked at Luther, as if, whatever this con was, Luther was somehow in on it with him.

Jessie lifted his mask and took another swig. “Night my pops died, sir.”

The Deacon’s face strained with the weight of compassion. He dabbed his face with a napkin. He sucked air through pursed lips and his eyes grew large. “I am so sorry, Jessie. How did the good man pass?”

Jessie looked at the table, then back into the Deacon’s face. “Some white boys in Missouri, sir, where I was reared?”

“Yes, son.”

“They come and said he’d snuck onto their farm and killed their mule. Said he’d meant to cut it up for food but they’d caught him at it and run him off. These boys, sir? They showed up at our house next day and dragged my pops out the house and beat him something fierce, all in front of my mama and me and my two sisters.” Jessie drained the rest of his glass and then sucked back a great wet hunk of air. “Aw, shit.”

“They lynch your pops?”

“No, sir. They done left him there and he died in the house two days later from a busted-up skull. I was ten year old.”

Jessie lowered his head.

The Deacon Broscious reached across the table and patted his hand. “Sweet Jesus,” the Deacon whispered. “Sweet sweet sweet sweet Jesus.” He took the bottle and refilled Jessie’s glass and gave Luther a sad smile.