Neal Pollack

“But why’s the world still so wicked if the Lord God sent His One Son down here to die and save us from sin? Let the Reverend explain the mystery to you—”

Reverend Jack’s Satan changes every first and third Sunday. God is always the father, Jesus is his namesake son, and the Holy Ghost is that daytime creeping soul who slips inside the good Calvary Baptist lady in the satin dress, takes hold of her up in row ten after the reverend drops the sermon’s main point. Twists her skull at the base of the neck, bends her in half, then snaps her holy rock-head front to back with the drum sergeant’s beat; until the Ghost is done with her and he tosses the top half of this lady free so the end of her spine slams into wood pew.

She never cries or screams in pain as the Holy Ghost works her fierce like so; saved lady just shouts in this thrusting rhythm, “Praise you in me, Holy Ghost. Stay up in me, Holy Ghost. Deep up in me, Holy Ghost. Glory. Praise you in me, Holy Ghost,” and then again, before she hops into the aisle, mist rising from cocoa forehead, arms and legs flapping against each other while her neck snaps backwards without wood to interrupt the flow of ecstasy. There she goes with that sanctified chicken jig, same dance every other Sunday of the month.

Mount Calvary Missionary Baptist has sat just west of 77th and Jeffery Boulevard since the real Jews first let dark folks on these blocks fifty years back. Deep Down wanderers brought the Mount with them from Mobile County, Alabama, or some such burning place, so this is really Mount Calvary Second Baptist, too many words to get in before crooning an alleluia and interrupting the mission. The church used to be a rickety wood frame worship-shack blending in perfect with the houses leaned sideways by lake wind, siding smudged orange-brown by the burn of the wicked city’s July sun, same as the Rothschild Liquor store across from the church parking lot. That old mud-weed lot where the Cadillac hearses parked whenever one of the Section C heads who sit under haberdashery and Easter brims passed on from this world to that better place prepared for them in the Kingdom.

But that old Deep Tuscaloosa–style shack didn'’t shine sufficient for the Good News. So Reverend sent me to the alderwoman’s main ward office in the old Gold Medallion cab, carrying five large from Calvary’s tithe right after Mayor Harold died. Handed the flock loot over to that elected bag lady in exchange for imminent domain over half the row of homes just east of Jeffery, and the mud-weed lot too. City crashed down them shacks that used to line 77th long before they swore in Gomorrah’s new king. Then the church board started passing around a second collection pot on the second and fourth Sundays. They called it “the building reserve special blessing fund.”

“Give what you can, Church,” Reverend told the flock then. “Know times is rough for folk round here right round now, but sacrifice is remembered eternal—and remember, you sacrificing for the One who gave the greatest sacrifice, who made that path into Glory with His own blood. If you can’t give to build up a new place for celebrating Him, there’s still gon be a place for you on the Path, Church. I promise it. Still gon be a place for you in His new house. Somebody say amen. ”

Before hardhats started pouring foundation to the new temple, Reverend had to payout six weeks worth of bingo proceeds to the bag lady, just so she’d change the title to this block of 77th Street into his name. Original paperwork claimed the Lord, or the Mount itself, or the flock, as the new church land’s owner. “Naw, that ain’t right,” Reverend moaned back then. “All deeds got a price, Moral.” Then he pointed me toward the bags of bingo gold, and watched as I piled them into my cab’s trunk.

So the Church got to building its shining palace on the north side of 77th Street, foundation laid by the sacrifice of the flock, bricks stacked by the real big-time loot kicked back from D.C. in ’93, after the reverend sent us around in the bingo vans and the hearse to collect all the living and dead souls, bring them on back to the rickety old shack to cast rightful vote for our good brother, slick Willie C. That honorary deacon on the Mount never would have sat on his high throne not for the tireless work we put in here in the city, and the new church never could’ve afforded its masonry not for the deacon’s big payback.

Like the reverend say, “Rejoice and be exceedingly glad: for great is our reward in the Kingdom. That’s from the Good News, Church.” No trouble understanding that sermon, not even in my dwarf ears.