Winston sat with a group of elderly men in an area of shade carved into the square by the low shanties, hiding the morning sun. He was working on a guitar that lay in his lap, its tuning post loose, unable to keep the tension in the string. He could have been doing this in Billy Lambert’s shack, but he liked listening to the old men talk, their funny patois, their conversations reminding him a little bit of home.
One of the old men—a talker with a patch over his left eye—was going on about cops walking the shantytown alleys, asking about a white girl found dead on the riverbank. The other men murmured their agreement. Winston kept on with his work, but he felt the heat in his arms and face.
One of the geezers, wearing a formless straw hat, said, “I hear they found another girl, night before last. This one was on the river where those boys fish. Right by the Community.”
Winston was confused by this, but kept his head down, adjusting the tuning posts and tweaking strings.
The man with the patch said, “I’ve heard no such thing.”
“I heard it from old Letourneau, who heard it from his boy what saw the police down on them rocks. Said he saw them pull away a body; a white girl, same as before.”
Winston realized that he was squeezing the tuning post hard, grinding it into the wood of the guitar neck. He eased off.
The man with the patch adjusted in his seat. “Like I said, I’ve heard nothing to that effect.”
The tuning post fixed, Winston played quietly, testing to see how his repair work would stand up to actual use. He was half-listening to the geezers, hoping and fearing that the girls would come up again. His real concentration was on the pitch of the guitar strings until he heard the old-timer with the patch say something about the young man and realized that he had now been brought into the conversation.
“Ask the young man. I’ve seen him playing that drum at the ceremonies.” The man with the patch banged a few times on an imaginary drum, his head cocked back. “He’s been there. Ask him.”
He was talking to a cat who was a little younger than the rest; skinny, very dark skin, with an accent Winston couldn’t place. Not Caribbean. African, Winston thought. Winston knew the man’s name was Glélé, but he’d also heard him called Samedi. He seemed to carry some weight in the Community, though Winston didn’t know why. He seemed to command the same respect that Winston sometimes received when he was onstage—a fierce, highly emotional adulation. But Glélé did not have to perform to earn it. His mere presence seemed enough. Winston had never spoken to him, but respected and feared him in the way that a stranger always fears men with power.
Glélé’s eyes were hidden by dark glasses, but he turned his head toward Winston. “You a religious man?”
Winston stopped playing. “I suppose.”
“I suppose not.”
Winston raised his eyebrows.
Glélé’s voice was direct, making statements, not expressing opinions. “Religious men don’t suppose.”
Winston nodded, keeping his eyes low, not wanting to look the man in the eyes.
“You don’t fall for the white man’s religion, no? You don’t pray to no white God, keeps you in your hole.”
Winston nodded. He felt his breathing go shallow. Glélé was right, though Winston hadn’t thought of it quite that way, that the church in his home had promised him a better life in the hereafter; that it kept people from seeking to improve their earthly lives.
The old-timer with the patch was grinning broadly now, apparently enjoying this interaction.
Glélé said, “Young man, you’ve been at the ceremonies, you’ve seen the African gods made flesh.”
Winston looked up at Glélé despite himself.
“You know. You’ve seen me mounted by Samedi. You’ve seen others: Legba, Senjak. Tell me you’ve not.”
Winston kept looking at Glélé. He wasn’t sure that he’d seen it, but he wasn’t sure that he hadn’t. He had no experience to compare to what he’d seen in the Square.
“What has the white God brought you? Huh? You see those young men in these here shanties, Samedi’s boys?”
“Your boys?”
Glélé spit theatrically into the dirt; the old men laughed.
“Do I look like Samedi to you? Do you think I’m mounted?”
Winston shook his head because he knew that was the correct response, though he didn’t know why.
“Samedi is an African god. He’s the Africans’ past and the Africans’ future.”
Winston went back to picking at the guitar strings, playing a faint tune.
“Think on Samedi, young man. Dream on him. Talk to his boys. Samedi brought me to this place from Africa. Samedi brought this Community here—to the City. There is a purpose. I have a purpose. The Community has a purpose. You can be a part.”
Glélé turned his attention from Winston, and after a brief silence, the geezers started in again with their gossiping. One of the men pulled out a pipe and lit it, the smell of mesca suddenly filling their little space as the pipe made its way around the circle.