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Ninety Days Inside The Empire: A Novel by William Appleman Williams

Afterthoughts

Page 57

"Just a mite. You know us preachers; God gets us the word one way or another. I even heard you're from Philadelphia, so we got us a hometown together."

Reis thought on that a moment. "Well, parts of a hometown anyway. I was a baby up around Temple, but...."

"The brownstones...."

"Yes, Sir; but my mother moved to Baltimore before long."

Griff filed that, too, as Run-Run skipped away from that subject.

"Back to the sermon, Reverend. I've never heard one like that before and I'm...."

"You flatter me. Your faith has a moving ritual and prophets that put me to shame."

Run-Run looked away and Griff started to apologize.

"No, no, Reverend, it's nothing like that. My family wasn't orthodox, and so I don't know the prophets as well as you do. But I'm sure my father...my step-father...would like what you had to say. He taught me that you should live the values every day, and he does very good at that."

Reis was now outside himself, wondering about the things he was saying.

"Kind of like Cat's grandmother, Reverend. I never knew a lady quite like her, not even my mother. Cat told me once that she raised him on two rules: 'Always remember to give the lowers to the living,' and 'Be careful what you wish for because you are almost sure to get it.' Your service reminded me of her somehow and it struck me that it was the right thing to do to take your communion."

If Run-Run had never talked in public like that, then Griff had never heard those things said to him by a white person. He had to fight the urge to embrace Reis.

"Not mine, Nathan, the Lord's Grace...."

Both were saved, as it were, unintentionally by the blunt question asked by the young Negro.

"Are you a Zionist, Lieutenant?"

Griff needed time and bought it with a clumsy introduction.

"Run-Run, this is Mr. Lee. He and his wife Elizabeth are the managers of the big store that whites built us up in what they call Nigger Town." His eyes were flame throwers.

Reis recovered far more quickly. He lifted the corner of his mouth. The question did not bother him. He had heard it asked and debated in his home so many times by so many people that he felt he could win any debate on the subject-whichever side he was assigned.

"It's all right, Reverend."

His mid-fielder's visceral take-charge toughness startled everybody in the group.

"That's not really the issue, is it, Mr. Lee? Israel is now a nation state, so the question is what kind of country it will be. I worry about that, Mr. Lee, because if they follow some of the Jewish prophets and keep on using some of the methods they have used to create the state, then their means will destroy the dream."

Other conversation ended. Cat was the only one, save perhaps Susan, who smiled in secret knowing. Run-Run was not to be confused with flight. Griff recognized that in his own way.

"That's just right, Nathan. That's really what we're supposed to be thinking about after communion: what is the Lord's way for us to walk in? What should we do, and how do we do it in the right way?"

That triggered a flurry of urgent and sometimes angry suggestions.

"We need to be able to see doctors who will treat us right before it's too late."

"We want sewers."

"We got a right to some police down here."

"Shit, police just make it worse."

"We need 'em anyhow."

"Jobs is what we need."

"Just put up some street lights."