Deacon King Kong

by James McBride

Small jobs that didn’t last more than a day and didn’t require tools were perfect for him.

She was a tall woman, middle-aged, whose face was not etched with the stern lines of church folks who’ve seen too much and done little about it other than pray.

“But my folks were from Ireland.” “Is that an island?” “It’s a place where folks can stop and think. The ones with brains, anyway.”

She didn’t hate her husband. She just didn’t know him.

Sportcoat, who worked under the assumption that if anything went wrong in any white person’s house in any part of the world and he happened to be near it, why, there was no doubt on whose head the hammer of justice would fall.

“All intangibles are forgiven, I accept them and more—your faults, your dips and turns, everything, because our love is a hammer forged at the anvil of God and not even your most foolish, irrational act can break it.”

The white folks here just color it different. They don’t mind you sitting next to ’em on the subway, or riding the bus in the front seat, but if you asks for the same pay, or wants to live next door, or get so beat down you don’t wanna stand up and sing about how great America is, they’ll bust down on you so hard pus’ll come out your ears.”

That’s what Jesus did for me for sixty-seven years. He kept me sane, and on the right side of the law.

One of those guys who dies at twenty and is buried at eighty.

“Genesis twenty-seven twenty-eight says, ‘May God give you heaven’s dew and earth’s richness—an abundance of grain and new wine.’”

“Son, a blessing favors them that needs it. Don’t matter how it comes. It just matters that it does.”

You is like most white men. You believes you is entitled to something you ain’t got no hand in.