Ezekial's Train, Chapter Seven

Lying in the spare bedroom, the threadbare but still soft quilt pulled up closely around him, Daniel shakes with chill as sweat beads on his forehead, the plate of chicken untouched on the bed-stand.


“Honey, we need to get that man to a doctor. He is runnin' a fever set to beat the drums.”


The Reverend looks down and rubs his temples with his thumbs, his face more worried than he'd ever let his parishioners see. Them or the man lying there in the spare bed. “Phil, you know this ain't no kinda sickness no doctor can fix. Only the good Lord will see Ezekial out of this fever.”


“I know you say that, 'Lijah but he is burning up!”


Ester slides between the two of them, a basin of cool, clear water straight from the well and a soft cotton wash cloth in her hands. She crouches by the bed and puts her hand to Daniel's head again before pulling it away as if it was hot a burning fire.


Phyllis watches her daughter as she gently wipes the sweat from the white man's forehead and pulls the covers back to check his pulse, sighing as she does. “'Lijah, that there man needs help, and it ain't the kind you an' me can give. Only the Lord'll help him, true, but do we gotta be there to hold his hand?”


“You know I had the visions and you know what this man is. What he gone do and what I'm gone help him do. You know I got to. You know I got to!”

Throwing her hands up she gives Elijah the stare of a long suffering wife. “Honey, I love you more than any but God and that girl there, but you gone be the death 'o me. Bringin' home strange white men with fever visions, what this house done come to?”

“Phyllis--”

“Don't you 'Phyllis' me!” Storming out of the room towards the kitchen she swings the door so hard that the handle bounces off the bare wooden wall. “Least takin' care o' that man'll give Ester somethin' to do!”

* * *

“Daniel, are you alright now? Your fever look like it passed.”

“What?” His eyes fluttering open in the bright light Daniel feels the blankets still tucked tight around him, wrapping him like a mummy in a tomb. It's hard to make sense of it with the heat of August in Florida, but as he pulls them down he still catches a chill. With a start he realizes he's lost his shirt at some point and Elijah's daughter is looking down at him, worried. “What happened?”

“You been under all yesterday and through the night, shivering and sweating by turns. It's been one hell of a feva' you been under.”

“Yah. . . I remember little after coming back to the Reverend's. . . Oh. You have been caring for me?”

Daniel notices the cold plate of food and the water basin near by as he looks around a for a moment and blushes. He pulls the blankets back up to his neck before realizing that it was probably the girl who undressed him in the first place. The concern in her face is real but under the demure and proper facade she put up yesterday he can see a certain depth and hardness there as well. “Somebody had to since papa brought you here. He wouldn't hear no word o' takin' you to a doctor, said only the Lord would help you though it.”

“He may have been right at that, I think. No human may help with this at any rate.”

Wringing water from the washcloth and setting the basin to the floor she gestures to the breakfast she'd brought in maybe an hour before. “Brought you some food but couldn't get you to come to 'til the fever broke. Them grits ain't gone be too good by now but the eggs and fat back will be. Mama picked some o' the best pieces just fo' you.”

“Thank you. Thanks to your mother as well. You people have been too kind to me.”

“That's what mama says too,” The hardness is gone as she chuckles to herself and that smile he remembers so vividly from the day before is back for an instant. “Mama says a lot though, and Lord if she don't like to complain. She say daddy's crazy for bringin' you back. But I ain't so shore, myself.”

Daniel sits up and lets the blankets fall once again, focused suddenly on the food before him, regardless of how tacky the grits might be and how cold the grease of the fat back. In between ravenous gulps of salty pork he speaks as clearly as he can. “Crazy you say? That he might be, to take me in, but no crazier than me I am sure. What do you think. . . Ester?”

She sweeps her hair back in a way shows her long smooth neck and droops her shoulders a little. “Well, I think a lotta things but daddy, he says you been sent by God. Says you got visions like his. That true?”

“What your father believes is his own accord. Visions I do have but from whence they come, I do not know. I have debated over the years and I have looked for guidance but even now I do not know. I suppose I have come to accept the visions as what they are and not question their origin.”

“That so?”

“Yah. I am tired of those visions now though, and your kind father Elijah, who I must say I owe mine gratitude, he has spoken enough of them. I am tired of such words.”

Before either of them has noticed the food is gone and the water as well. Ester stands silently and sends a quick smile in Daniel's direction as she gathers the dishes and leaves the room. Lying in bed alone he tries his best to reassemble the events of the last few days and what they may mean. The ache in his head is remote but the weakness in his arms is acute as the past week washes over his mind, fearful of another vision or memory. They've never come as brutally or as frequently as they have lately and he realizes he's been in a constant state of fear that another will arrive. And these poor people have taken me in. What great burden have they brought on themselves?

* * *

The sun is casting its last faint shadows through the warped glass window panes as Ester walks in and sets another plate down by the bed by a tall glass of fresh squeezed orange juice. “I take it y'all didn't mind the tepid water in the bath? It's hard for us to get it too hot here and all.”

“No, that bath, it was a godsend. It is good to feel clean again like as layers of sweat and fear were washed away by turn. I am afraid your family has done too much to help a man who is afraid.”

“Well, they ain't done too much.” A quick wink lets him know that she's kidding, or at least a little, even while her voice drops to a whisper. “But I done a lot. Mama, truth be told, she don't want nothing to do with you and papa, bless him, he been down at Thurgood's house all day talkin' bout takin' his boat out on the water to get you were you want to be.”

“Your father does that for me, while I lie here and take his charity?”

“Sure he does. That's just him, or don't you know?” She looks at him quizzically for a moment before smiling again, “But I guess you don't. I forget, Daniel, that while you and papa talk like you old friends, you just met. No wonder mama is so scared.”

“Scared? Of me?”

“Well, something like that. Tell me Daniel, these visions you get, whether you think they from the Lord or not, tell me what they are.”

Daniel shakes his head and looks down at the plate of chicken and black eyed peas, his appetite suddenly gone. “They take many forms, the visions. This last one the strangest of all. . . It is like whoever, whatever has been speaking to me is speaking much louder now, or at least they were until today.” He looks up at her and sees that she is rapt, hanging on his every word. “It occurs to me now that they have not touched me today. Strange. . . The last vision though, it was enough to last a while.”

“And that vision? What they tell you?”

“I. . . It is hard to describe in words, though they did to me.” He fumbles around. “My bag, my sketchbook, you could grab it for me, yah? I could show you then.”

Pulling it from under the bed, Ester hands him his largest sketchbook and a pencil, watching as his fingers fly over the paper, barely waiting for it to land in his hands. The images he draws, circles within circles and gears within gears, a type of tunnel of writhing spheres, it reminds her of something.

“That's what your visions are?”

“That is what they were this last time, yes. Though the words escape me, the images remain, as always.”

“This reminds me of something from the engineering books I been reading. Something about bearings and . . . something else.”

“Engineering? You? You have engineering experience? But that is my own--”

She laughs at him in a way that is both telling and light hearted, “Whoah, whoah, whoah, y'all don't think a colored girl in Florida can do no engineerin' do ya? I just read the books, that's all.”

There's a bit of sadness that comes in toward the end and he looks at the girl with new eyes, pausing before he asks, “How old are you, Ester?”

“Twenty two this past May. Why you askin'?”

“Why? Why? Why do you not go to school? You could learn these things at a People's College and much better than I or anyone else, yah?”

The laugh that confronts him is both deep and pained at the same time. “Y'all aint' spent much time south o' the Mason-Dixon, have ya? A colored girl goin' to college. Crazy talk you sayin'.”

He reaches out to her and as his hand touches her shoulder she looks down and he can see the pain in those eyes that he missed before. “Though that crazy talk passes my mind every hour o' every day, crazy talk it is. Ain't no where for me to be but married to a textile factry' worker and raisin' kids. That's just the way life gotta be, far as they say anyway.”

Squeezing her shoulder and lifting her chin with his other hand Daniel looks into eyes that seem to have seen even more than his own. He tries a weak smile. “And how do you know of engineering then, yah?”

She pulls away but with a hesitation and she stands, her shoulders squared and hard, her eyes losing their compassion and gaining a hard resolve. “Spend 'ery day at the library. They's a Carnegie close by for the coloreds and I spend most time there, but the books is mostly 'bout juvenile shit.” She notices his wince at the last word and softens a little, smiling. “Pardon my language and don't tell papa, but that's what it is. His Lord may not have much interest in me and I ain't got a whole lotta interest in him, but that's where we lie. Spend a lot o' my time at the library downtown but they gimme the stink-eye most a' the time since I'm a colored girl. I try to make it better by bringin' them old biddies cookies, but they still don't like it.”

Daniel looks into Ester's eyes with a new kind of respect, the first he's felt in years, and he marvels that he could have found it in such a strange place. “They eat the damn cookies though and most times, well, I cain't say I don't think o' poisonin' them damn cookies so them old bitches, pardon ma words Daniel, but they true, don't choke on the chocolate like I choke on they white bread.” She catches her breath as she realizes she's let herself get carried away and for a moment Daniel sees the passion the Reverend Elijah had the day before coming through her, albeit with a different direction. “But y'all don't care about that.”

“But I do, Ester, I do. Please, there is so much in mine mind and head that is hard to understand. Please tell me of your life; it is a distraction.” He wagers a forced smile and hopes that it is enough to urge her on.

“No. I done said too much. Why don't you tell me about what it's like in Europe? Papa said you been there, before the war I mean, 'fore it all went to shit. Oh, I mean before it all. . . fell apart.”

Daniel smiles in spite of himself and begins to tell stories about Denmark and France before moving to Pennsylvania and New York. Ester is like a an open well to every word he tells, hanging on ever word. For a time Daniel forgets the strain of the last few days and the troubles of the demons in his mind.

* * *

It's Thursday before Daniel sees Elijah again and when he peeks in the doorway Ester is standing by the bedside, rapt in attention at his latest story about a bear soldier in Italy. Daniel can only marvel at the fact he's spent three days without a vision or a flash of memory and for a moment he wonders if it might be the influence of the reverend or his daughter. At any rate, the ordeals have backed off and the time has been pleasantly spent. The visions will return at any rate, he knows.

“Ester, baby girl, y'all gone haveta leave for a moment. 'Ah need to talk to Mistah Ezekial.”

She looks at him for a moment, confused, before the words click into place and she steps away, a quick wink aimed at Daniel as she does. “Yes, papa. I'll be in the kitchen.”

“That girl. . . She done been takin' care o' you?”

“Yah, that she has. She is a good daughter, I should think?”

“That girl there? She got a good soul, she do. Got a good heart straight from the Lord, but my if she ain't a burden on my own heart half the time. I tell Phyllis evry' day she'd do better if she had brothas and sistas to keep her in line. She a headstrong girl, she is.”

“Brothers and sisters, you say? I take she is an only child.”

For the first time since their meeting at the train station Daniel sees a somber cloud fall over Elijah's face as he stares off into the wall. “Lord's will, she is now.”

“What do you. . .?”

Elijah rubs his forehead and the furrows that lie there, pulling his fingers through his course gray hairs as he raises his head in a sigh. “Since her brother passed, she's been a handful, I tell ya. Three years this April.”

Daniel looks about before casting his own sorrow, “Yah, I can sympathize. I was an only child myself. It is hard.”

“Oh?” For a moment the Reverend's eyebrows perk up and he looks at Daniel straight in they eyes, “You lost one too?”

Confused, he can only murmur the truth to his host, “My father died when I was very young. I barely knew him. . . My mother, she wanted many boys, yah? But it was only me she had. My grandpa, Lars, he was. . . a help to her.”

“That's a shame.” That glimmer of hope leaves Elijah's face only to be replaced by the implacable enthusiasm Daniel's seen there since day one. “Musta been a good man to bear a speaker of the angels such as you. A good man.”

“Yah. I guess that was him. I do not know how--”

“My son was a good man too, dammit. Woulda' helped his sister to be a good girl too.” A fire sparks in the Reverend's face and it is hard to extinguish as he looks Daniel square in the eyes, his heart longing for understanding. “A damn good man, taken too young.”

“So Ester was not always an only child then, yah?”

“No, dammit, and don't tell poor Phyllis I done let my tongue wag like this, but I trust you, 'Zekial, I do.” It's only a faint glimmer of a smile Daniel sees before the man goes on in pain. “That boy was so excited to join up in the Navy, go ride hisself a boat, he says he would, 'fore they put him to loadin' crates. Only fit job fo' a nigga, they says. He tol' me that in his letters an' I ain't never gone forget it.”

“I am not sure I am understanding.”

The fire from scant days before burns in the Reverend Elijah's eyes and he screams at Daniel in a way that shakes him to his core. “Course y'all ain't understandin'! Just like a white man y'all don't get it but they tore him up into pieces, they done! We got a sack like it was full o'sugar but it was full o' my boy, sent freight from California with a little piece a' paper say they sorry! Say it was a shame he got blowed up in the damn Chicago Pote' blast. Like it got anything to do with Chicago and nothin' to do with him being a black man.”

Daniel can see the tears welling from the Reverend's eyes as he looks down and grasps the side of the bed, his knee falling to the floor with a thud, much softer than the dripping sound of his tears striking the bedspread. “Poor 'Zeke. Such a good boy, took too soon.”

“He is--” It's only a few words before he's drowned out in the Reverend's yell.

“He's dead, man! Don't y'all get it? Killed by white men what don't care about colored's lives.” The tears are pouring down that strong man's cheeks as he pounds the bed beside Daniel's leg. “This here was his room. This bed his, empty these three years but for ma' own prayers and his mama's. Empty. . .”

“I. . . I see.” Daniel places his hand on the older man's shoulder and for a moment he sees a vision unrelated to his own stark demons. For a moment he sees the pain that humans can endure, regardless of angels or gods. For a moment he understands that pain.

“God damn them people, God damn them all.”

“Reverend? Elijah? Surely you don't--”

“God damn them for taking my Ezekial.”

“Your. . .” Daniel tries his best to make eye contact with Elijah, but it evades him. For a time the angels, the demons, the visions, and the trains are gone and all he can feel is the anguish of this one man, struggling in his own way to make sense of a painful world. “Your boy, your . . . boy. He is gone, but you must live in his stead, yah? You must live for your wife and daughter. Your Ester.”

The Reverend looks up at Daniel and any semblance of cheerfulness or faith is gone, only a steady resolve and determination. “Yeah, I'll live for them. And I'll make this world a better place for 'em too. Now it's 'bout time to go get on that boat 'a Thurgood's to take it out on the low tide.”

“The boat?”

“That's what you wanted, weren't it?” His mouth flat and even, Elijah's gaze shakes Daniel for a moment before he comprehends it all.

“Yes, that is what I must do. Yah.”

“Good.”

* * *