WEDNESDAY, JULY 2, 2003
11 A.M.—DOWNTOWN CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
It might not be a champagne-colored Lexus, but Chanda George was having a hard time containing the bubbles of happiness threatening to uncork right there in the backseat of the North Suburban Yellow Taxi. Ooo, Lord, Lord.Thank You, Jesus. It felt good to climb into a car and say, “Take me to dis address, mon,” then sit back and let the cabbie drive her around, as if she were a pop star. She’d had it up to here with city buses and commuter trains—her only transportation since she’d arrived from Jamaica ten years ago with a green card and a toddler on her hip. Standing at bus stops and on el platforms in Chicago’s bitter winters with two, then three babies clinging to her skirts had defined her existence for the past decade. Single mom. Working poor. Tired.
Never again. She was going to call a cab whenever she wanted. Maybe even a limo. Till she got that Lexus with the leather seats, anyway.Wouldn’t be long now.
A giggle escaped. She’d won again. Not the lottery this time. But that nice man on the telephone told her she’d been “specially selected” to receive one of four major prizes. Mm-hm.Dis mama be one lucky woman, she thought. Can feel it in mi baby finger. She smoothed out the wrinkles in the silk print skirt hugging her thighs. Then she frowned and sucked her teeth. Nah, nah. Don’ you be takin’ all de credit, Chanda George. God’s favor be what it is. Smilin’ down on you like—
“Mama!” A tug on the sleeve of her silk print blouse jerked her back to the stale interior of the yellow cab, the smell of ancient cigarettes clinging to the upholstery. “Mama! Which prize you gonna get? ” Her twelve-year-old chafed at the tie around his shirt collar, which was rapidly turning damp in the July heat. “Hope you get that red SUV. It’s got a TV in the back an’ a DVD player!”
“You hush, Thomas.” She pronounced it To-mas, the way they called her daddy back in Kingston. “What we need dat big truck for! Mi take cash—or maybe dat free vacation to Hawaii. You like dat, now, eh? ” The taxi slowed and Chanda glanced out the window. “Oh. Must be we here now.Tuck your shirt back in, mister.”
The taxi double-parked, making traffic pull around them. Chanda looked at the red digits on the meter: $16.05. She fished a twenty out of her bulky purse and handed it over the seat. “Keep de change.”
Thomas was already out the door and onto the sidewalk. Chanda struggled out of the backseat, tugging at her slip and the silk print skirt, which threatened to hike up the back of her legs. She took in the building with shaded eyes. She’d expected one of the big downtown hotels—maybe even the press, taking pictures of “the lucky two-time winner” for the evening news. But the building was low-slung, plain, brick. Big green plants inside the doors. Downtown, but not the Loop.
No TV news vans lurking about.
But a cheerful printed sign taped to the double-glass doors said VACATION GETAWAYS—MAKE YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE. GLASS SLIPPER VACATIONS.WELCOME, PRIZE WINNERS! Chanda smiled and licked her lips. Shrugging her heavy bag over her shoulder, she grabbed Thomas with one hand and pulled open one of the doors with the other.
Didn’t matter if Glass Slipper Vacations handed her the prize money in a posh hotel or in a born-again warehouse. She’d won, hadn’t she?
This was her lucky day.
2 P.M.—CORNERSTONE MUSIC FESTIVAL,
BUSHNELL, ILLINOIS
Garbage detail. Gross.
Muttering under his breath, fourteen-year-old Chris Hickman pulled a full bag out of a can, tied it off, dragged it to the side of the service road, and shook out a clean plastic garbage bag. At least garbage pickup was one notch up from cleaning the showers yesterday. Now, that was nasty.
Still, once he put in his four hours each day with the work crew of kids from Uptown Community Church, he was free to hang out listening to the music fest bands. He’d counted a dozen music stages on the Cornerstone grounds, some of them starting at noon and going until midnight. The bands on the main stage each night really rocked—Relient K, Rez Band, a bunch of others—even with their Jesus-this, Jesus-that lyrics. Sound jacked up to damage decibels. Hands waving, bodies swaying. People diving off the stage. And they weren’t even stoned!
Chris grasped the neck of his green volunteer T-shirt and mopped the sweat off his face, glad that Cornerstone was a hundred miles from Chicago. It wouldn’t go down with his homies back on the bricks if they saw him wearing the wrong colors. He was still a “shorty,” a new recruit to the Disciples. Hadn’t proved himself yet.
Ducking into the next tent, a booth selling all kinds of Jesus T-shirts, Chris looked around for the trash can. But his eyes snapped to a guy with a spiky Mohawk on one side of the tent airbrushing caricatures onto shirts. Chris sidled over to watch. A white girl with tiny rings in her nose and her lip and a stud in her tongue posed for her caricature. “Make it say, ‘I love Jesus.’” She grinned. “That’ll freak out my parents.”
Chris watched the caricature take shape.Not bad. But he could do better. Had done better, though he usually had the wall of a building to work with. But the airbrush didn’t look that different from using a can of spray paint. “Can I try? ” he blurted.
The guy with the Mohawk looked up and frowned. He tipped his head at Chris’s green Cornerstone T-shirt. “You a volunteer? They send you over to help? ”
“Uh, yeah. I’m a volunteer.”
“You got any experience? How old are you, anyway? ”
Chris thought of all the el underpasses he’d decorated. “Yeah. Lots of experience. A bit different, but I can do this.” He ignored the question about his age.
The Mohawk guy handed the girl her T-shirt and took her twenty-dollar bill. “I dunno. Can’t afford to mess up any shirts.” He glanced up as a young guy,maybe twenty or so, bypassed the ready-made T-shirts and headed their way. “Need help, buddy? ”
“Hope so.” College kid. Clean-cut. “I’d like a T-shirt with a picture of Jesus walking on the water, you know, during the storm, and beckoning to Peter.With the words, ‘Come to Me.’ ”
“Look, man, we don’t really do—”
“I can do it.”
Mohawk guy and college kid both stared at Chris.
“I can do it. Let me try.” Chris licked his lips. Could he do it? He knew that story from Sunday school. Once he saw a picture in a Bible storybook. But the picture had been drawn from Peter’s point of view looking at Jesus. Something about it didn’t set right to Chris. He’d love to turn it around.
The college kid grinned. “Why not? Let him try.”
Mohawk guy shrugged. “It’s your money. If he messes up a shirt, somebody’s gotta pafor it.”
A white T-shirt was stretched on an easel. Chris tried out the airbrushes for a minute or two on some butcher paper, getting the feel for the colors, then set to work. A quiver of excitement expanded in his gut until his insides felt giddy. All he could think about was the picture taking shape on the material in front of him. The back of Jesus in the foreground, gnarly hair whipping in the wind, waves splashing about His feet, one hand reaching out toward a floundering boat in the background . . .
Chris glanced furtively at the college kid, who slouched easily in the chair the girl had vacated.The figure in the boat took shape, leaning out over the choppy water, hand outstretched, longing in his face.
A shadow fell over Chris’s shoulder as he started in on the lettering: Come to Me. Mohawk guy sucked in his breath. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
“What? ” The college kid got up. He came around and looked at the drawing on the shirt. “Why . . . that’s me stepping out of the boat.” He swallowed. “Wow.”
“There you are!” Chris jumped when he heard the familiar voice. “We’ve been looking all over for you,Hickman.” Josh Baxter entered the tent, followed by José Enriques and Pete Spencer. All in Cornerstone green. The garbage crew from Uptown Community. “Come on, man.We’ve got work to do.”
“Just a minute.” Mohawk guy held up a hand. “I could use this kid.”
“On his own time, then.We’ve got a ton of garbage to pick up. Now, Hickman.”
“Wait up. You draw this, amigo? ” José Enriques, fifteen, peered at the T-shirt on the easel. “That’s good, man—OK, OK, Baxter. We’re comin’.”
Chris flushed at the praise as they climbed into the waiting service cart, piled high with plastic garbage bags. José was all right. Latinos were the enemy back on the bricks. But that was there.This was now. And he’d just tagged the best piece of his life.
3 A.M.—CHICAGO’S SOUTH SIDE
The toddler screamed on her hip, his nose running, but the young woman holding him with one arm didn’t even try to soothe him as she hit the speed dial on her cordless. Please, Mom, pick it up . . . please, please . . .
“Rochelle!” A male voice yelled from the bedroom. “Can’t you make that kid shut up? I’m trying to get some sleep here.”
“Shh, shh,” she whispered to the little boy. Sure, her husband was trying to get some sleep—after coming in at two. With no explanation. He was the one who woke up the baby, turning on the lights, yelling at her, telling her not to mess in his business when she asked where he’d been. Oh, please, Mama . . .
But the answering machine on the other end kicked in. “Hello. We can’t take your call right now—”
She clicked the Off button. She couldn’t leave a message on their answering machine. They might return the call, and Dexter might answer the phone. No, no. She’d just have to go up there. But what if her mom wasn’t home? She couldn’t just wait out on the street, not with the baby—not at night.Not in this heat.
“Who you callin’ this time of night, woman? ” His voice was so close, so heavy with threat, that Rochelle jumped, dropping the phone. The toddler in her arms only screamed louder.
“I . . . I, uh—”
Her husband was wearing only his boxers, his body hard and lean from working out at the gym. They made a handsome couple, everybody said. And when he started putting on those muscles, her girlfriends really crowed. “Oh, girl, that man is so fine” . . . “You better watch out, some ho gonna steal him” . . . “You ever don’t want him, throw him to me!”
Slowly, deliberately, Dexter picked up the phone and punched a button, peering at the LED readout. “Your mother.” Sarcasm dripped off the words. “Now, girl, what you gonna go call your mother for this time of night? ”
He stepped closer. In her face. She felt his hand reach behind her and take hold of her hair—the long, thick fall of kinky curls every beauty shop in town envied—pulling her head back, back until her throat stretched upward and she was staring into his cold, narrow eyes. She could feel his strength. Pain shot up the back of her head from his tight grip on her hair. Fear dried out her mouth as one thought pulsed in her brain:With one snap, he could break my neck.
The toddler stopped screaming, as if mesmerized by the tension between his parents. In the sudden silence, Rochelle, frozen in his grip, heard Dexter’s voice next to her ear. Low. Menacing. “Don’t you be thinking about leaving me, Rochelle. Or taking my baby. Or you gonna regret the day you step out of this house.”