Boys Life

broad-shouldered black man wearing a dark blue suit, a white shirt, and a tie filled up the doorway. To me he looked as tall and burly as a black oak. He had hands that looked as if they could crush bowling balls. Part of his nose appeared to have been sliced off with a razor. His eyebrows merged together, thick as a werewolf’s pelt.
    In seven mystic words: he scared the crap out of me.
    “Uh…” Mom began, and faltered. “Uh…”
    “Come right in, Miz Mackenson.” He smiled. With that smile his face became less fearsome and more welcome. But his voice was as deep as a kettledrum and it vibrated in my bones. He stepped aside, and Mom grasped my hand and pulled me across the threshold.
    The door closed at our backs.
    A young woman with skin the hue of chocolate milk was there to greet us. She had a heart-shaped face and tawny eyes, and she took my mother’s hand and said with a smile, “I’m Amelia Damaronde, and I’m so verra pleased to meet you.” She had bangle bracelets covering her forearms and five gold pins up the edges of each of her ears.
    “Thank you. This is my son, Cory.”
    “Oh, this is the young man!” Amelia Damaronde turned her attention to me. She had an electricity about her that made me feel as if the air between us was charged. “A pleasure to meet you, too. This is my husband, Charles.” The big man nodded at us. Amelia stood about up to his armpits. “We take care of things for the Lady,” Amelia said.
    “I see.” Mom was still holding on to my hand, while I was busy looking around. The mind is a strange thing, isn’t it? The mind concocts spiderwebs where there are no spiders, and darkness where the lights are bright. The living room of the Lady’s house was no temple to the devil, no repository of black cats and bubbling cauldrons. It was just a room with chairs, a sofa, a little table on which knickknacks rested, and there were shelves with books and framed, vividly colored paintings on the walls. One of the paintings caught me: it showed the face of a bearded black man, his eyes closed in either suffering or ecstasy, and on his head was a crown of thorns.
    I had never seen a black Jesus before, and this sight both knocked me for a loop and opened up a space in my mind that I’d never known needed light.
    The Moon Man suddenly walked through a hallway into the room. Seeing him so close caused a start for both my mother and me. The Moon Man wore a light blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a pair of black trousers, and suspenders. Tonight he had only one wristwatch on, and the white rim of a T-shirt showed instead of his chain and huge gilded crucifix. He wasn’t wearing his top hat; the splotchy division of pale yellow and ebony flesh continued up his high forehead and ended in a cap of white wool. The white beard on his chin was pointed, and curled slightly upward. His dark, wrinkle-edged eyes rested on first my mother and then me, and he smiled faintly and nodded. He lifted a thin finger and motioned us into the hallway.
    It was time to meet the Lady.
    “She’s not been feelin’ well,” Amelia told us. “Dr. Parrish’s been loadin’ her up with vitamins.”
    “It’s not anythin’ serious, is it?” Mom asked.
    “The rain got in her lungs. She doesn’t get along so good in damp weather, but she’s doin’ better now that the sun’s been out.”
    We came to a door. The Moon Man opened it, his shoulders frail and stooped. I smelled dusty violets.
    Amelia peered in first. “Ma’am? Your callers are here.”
    Sheets rustled within the room. “Please,” said the shaky voice of an old woman, “send them in.”
    My mother took a breath and walked into the room. I had to follow, because she gripped my hand. The Moon Man stayed outside, and Amelia said, “If you need anythin’, just call,” before she gently closed the door.
    And there she was.
    She lay in a bed with a white metal frame, her back supported by a brocaded pillow, and the top sheet pulled up over her chest. The walls of her bedroom were painted with green fronds and foliage, and but for the polite drone of a box fan, we might have been standing in an equatorial jungle. An electric lamp burned on the bedside table, where magazines and books were stacked, and within her reach was a pair of wire-rimmed glasses.
    The Lady just stared at us for a moment, and we at her. She was almost bluish-black against the white bed, and not an inch of her face looked unwrinkled. She reminded me of one of