Russell Banks - Continental Drift

Bob turns and says, “Yeah?”

“You want something? Maybe you want a girlfriend, eh?” he says, winking and flashing a wide grin.

“No, thanks,” Bob says, and he steps outside to the street. Behind him, the youths laugh and start talking in Creole to the bartender, who ignores their questions and proceeds to grab up their glasses and empty bottles and hurry them out the door.

Down on Fifty-fourth, a few blocks east of where I-95 soars overhead, Bob spots in the distance a small clot of people, a few women and children, but mostly old men, shaky, decrepit-looking, dressed in rags and ill-fitting castoffs. The people have gathered on the sidewalk beside the open side door of a large brown and white Dodge van. Attached to the top of the van and running the length of it, like a political poster, a large, hand-painted sign cries: The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand! Repent! Matthew 10:7.

As Bob nears the group beside the van, he sees at the center a tall young white man, blond and wearing jeans and a hooded gray sweatshirt with Florida State emblazoned across the front. Inside the van, a woman, also in jeans and sweatshirt, with the hood pulled over her head like a monk’s cowl, hands the young man, in sequence, parcels wrapped in brown paper and then what appear to be paper cups of hot soup. The young man in turn passes the goods to the people gathered around him, first a parcel, then a cup of steaming soup, which the recipient, tucking the parcel under his or her arm and stepping away from the van, slurps down in relative privacy and furtiveness, as if hunger were a slightly embarrassing secret.

Bob edges up to the van, hears the young white man speak Creole to the people, who remain silent, who simply reach out, take the parcel with one hand, the soup with the other, and back away to make room for the next person to come forward. And in a few moments, Bob himself is the next person.

The white man is in his early twenties and extremely tall, several inches taller than Bob. He’s gaunt rather than skinny, a physically strong man overworked, and his short, straight hair is thin and already disappearing at the temples, giving his face an unnatural boniness for one so young. His bright blue eyes are small and deepset, a Swedish or Norwegian face, with large bones and delicate skin. Holding a parcel in one long hand and a cup of soup in the other, he says to Bob, “Praise the Lord, brother,” as if it were a command, the price of the gifts.

“Praise the Lord,” Bob murmurs, but he refuses the gifts and steps aside to let an old, bewhiskered fellow behind him take them. “I want to talk to you a minute.” “Oh?”

“Yes. It’s important.”

“Okay. Sure. Jennie,” the man calls to the woman inside the van. “Can you handle the rest yourself? There’s only a couple more.”

The young woman sticks her head outside, examines Bob, then the remaining Haitians. “Okay, sure, Allan. No problem.” She’s a pretty young woman, Bob notices, with freckles on her face and neck. She pushes back her hood, revealing long, pale brown hair tied in a ponytail that swishes heavily, healthily, as she hands out the parcels and ladles the soup from a large stainless-steel drum.

Allan walks around to the rear of the van, pulls open the door and sits wearily down inside, his feet up on the bumper. “Hi. My name’s Allan,” he says, extending his hand.

“Bob.”

They shake hands, and Allan says, “You wanted to talk. You look worried, brother.”

“I am. I need some help.”

“Of course. We all do. Are you saved, Bob?”

“What?”

“Do you know Jesus, Bob?”

“Jesus? Know him? Well, I guess not, no. I mean, I’m … no.”

“You haven’t given your life over to Jesus yet?”

“I guess not. No, not really.”

“That’s okay,” Allan says brightly. “You will, Bob.”

“I will?”

“What church do you belong to, Bob?”

“Well, none, I guess. I mean, I was raised Roman Catholic. But I haven’t been in a while. You know.”

“Things are pretty bad, though, aren’t they, Bob?”

“Yeah.” Then, impatiently, “Listen, I have to ask you how to do something for me … for these Haitians and all.”

“Okay, sure, Bob.”

“Well, you sort of specialize in helping out the Haitians, right? I mean, the refugees.”

“They’re the lost sheep of Israel. But we do the Lord’s work everywhere, Bob. Jesus said, ‘He that receiveth you receiveth me.’ So there you are. But yes, we’re helping the Haitians especially. They need food and clothes, so we find Christians who’ll pay for it, and then we give it out to them. Jesus said, ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a net that was cast into the sea and gathered of every kind.’ Do you know your Bible, Bob?”

“No. Not really.”

“Read it, Bob. It’s God’s word.”

“Yeah, I will. Look, Allan, I got some money here, a lot of money, and I want you to give it to the Haitians. These people here, people like them.”

“God bless you, Bob! That’s incredible, brother. Praise the Lord!” The man claps Bob on both shoulders. “God bless you!”

“Well, no, it’s not my money, exactly. It … it really belongs to them, see. The Haitians. And I’m trying to get it back to them somehow, that’s all.”

“How’s that, Bob?”

Bob studies the man for a second, then says, “You guys are like priests, right? I mean, I tell you something, it’s confidential, isn’t it?”

“I am a servant of the Lord, Bob, yes, but a far cry from a Catholic priest, I’m afraid.” Allan laughs. Then seriously, “Whatever you tell me, brother, I’ll hold in strictest confidence. Unburden yourself, Bob.”

Bob takes a deep breath. “Well, I’m a fisherman, see, and I brought some Haitians over from the Bahamas … a while ago. They paid me for it. Anyhow, well, some of them didn’t quite make it, if you know what I mean….”

“No. What do you mean?”

Bob lowers his voice almost to a whisper. “Some of them drowned. Coming ashore.”

Allan looks into Bob’s dark eyes for a long moment. “Some of them drowned? Coming ashore?”

“Yes.”

“You brought them over in your boat? And some of them drowned?”

“Well … yeah.”

“Then you … you’re that man in the papers with the boat, up at Sunny Isles?”

“Yes. I am.”

Allan brings his large hands to his mouth, lifts them to his forehead, and cries, “Oh, my God! That’s awful!” He gapes at Bob and whispers, “Lord have mercy on your soul, Bob.” He studies Bob’s face for a moment, as if to determine his sanity, then says, “I … I don’t know what to tell you. Except that you should get down on your knees, you should give yourself over to Jesus, Bob. Save your soul, brother,” he pleads. “Now, before it’s too late.”

“Look, I don’t want to talk about that right now. I got enough problems without worrying about my soul too. I got a wife and three kids. What I want is for you just to take this money and make sure it goes to some people who need it. Some of these Haitians.” He pulls out the wad of bills and shows it to Allan. “It’s way over a thousand dollars. Maybe two. I haven’t even counted it. See? I don’t care how you do it, spend it on soup or clothes, or just dole it out, I don’t care.” He pushes the money at the man.

Allan recoils and slides farther back into the van. “Put it away! People’ll see it!” He looks over Bob’s shoulder and repeats, “Put it away!”

Bob turns. In the distance, thirty or forty feet behind him, the youths from the bar are talking to one another under a streetlight, smoking cigarettes and lounging against the brick wall of a windowless building facing the street. They ignore Bob and Allan and the van, acting as if they’re alone on the street and bored and don’t want to go home yet. The largest of the four, the man with the denim cap who spoke to Bob in the bar, has his back to Bob and chats easily with the others, making large gestures with his arms as he talks.