***LOOKIE***

It had been many months since CJ last darkened the door of Sloan’s Lounge, a length of absence a year earlier that would have been impossible. This nine-month span was the longest he’d been without a drink since his first drink, and strangely he didn’t even have to fight the urge. On this day, he was all business. He needed to see Tulsa Jim. A sober CJ was more inquisitive, and he was troubled about something he’d overheard when he was a bar regular.   He was now focused on the church fires and he remembered words whispered by the men in the shadows.  It was eleven o’clock in the morning and he could see Jim’s large figure behind the stacked tables and chairs mopping the floor.  Wiggle, Sloan’s mixed Negro ‘n Mexican handyman and CJ’s use to be drinking buddy, was just leaving.  They say Wiggle got hit by a car when he was little, breaking his hip and leaving him bending his knee and dragging his foot awkwardly as he walked. At first, CJ thought people were making fun of his limp, but he soon found out that Wiggle preferred that name, the only name he wanted to be called. CJ greeted Wiggle at the door just before a booming voice grabbed his attention.

“Well, just look what the cat drug in,” Tulsa Jim yelled across the room as he broke a smile, his teeth holding his unlit, half-smoked cigar. “You’ve been a missing person in these parts.”

CJ took a seat on a stool facing away from the bar and looking toward Jim. “I just dropped by to chew the fat.”

Jim leaned the mop against a chair and made his way over to CJ.

“Can I get you a drink?”

“No.”

“I knew that’s what you’d say. You done swore off the stuff, but I got to be polite and offer.”

“How’d you know I swore off liquor?”

“Ain’t nothin’ ’round here I don’t know. Besides, when you went on your last binge, Lady Vye dropped off at your mother’s some of that pink tea. Some of that Congo mojo, kick-in–the-gut, nut-crusher concoction she makes up.”

“What?”

“Hell, you were goin’ through them shakes, dryin out; you probably don’t remember, but you drank a jar of that pink tea and after you drink that, you ain’t got to worry ’bout drinkin’ no more alcohol. That stuff could sho ’nuf put a man like myself in the liquor business, out of business.”

CJ didn’t have any idea what Tulsa Jim was talking about, pink-tea-concoction Congo mojo. As far as he knew, he finally dried out; he got on the wagon and has been there ever since. He and Sloan just stared at each other before suddenly breaking into laughter, embracing each other hard, so hard that Jim lifted CJ’s feet off the floor, so hard that another level of friendship was established without a word being spoken.

“Yes, sir, glad to have you back, you had me scared for a while, and I bet I know why you here.” Jim paused. “You here about business, you here for a story to put in that paper of yours. You want to know about that church over on Lincoln that burned down the other night.”

Jim had hit the nail on the head. The church fire was all the conversation in town, the burned-out ruins at Lincoln and Pepper still had Colored and even some white folk driving by gawking.

“You a smart man, you must be lookin’ to cash in on this.”

“You right, I could make a few bucks. I’ve had inquiries from black papers across the country, even Jet magazine, the kind of thing that if handled right could make a man’s reputation.”

“Well I don’t mind helping a good man make a few dollars, just don’t forget me when your ship comes in.”

CJ and Sloan got to conversing about the fire and the thing that had piqued CJ’s interest, hearing the name Lookie.

“Lookieman” Sloan jived with a smile. “You musta arrived on the late freight if you just now hearin’ ’bout Lookie.”

“So such a person does exist . . . his name keeps popping up, people saying, ‘Musta been Lookie.’ Now don’t get me wrong, most folks say it was some whites mad about the Supreme Court integrating schools, but I’m curious about this Lookie, some still say he burned down the church.”

“I’m gonna get me a cup of coffee. Can I get you a cup?”

Sloan poured two cups of coffee and took a seat across from CJ. A smile flashed on Sloan’s face; he was a natural storyteller and this was like comin’ home to pappy.

“Lookie was a hard-working country boy who damn near saved every penny he ever earned, and he’d earned a lot of pennies. His name is Leonard Brooks, but we called him ‘Two-Job’ Brooks. Two-Job had a house over there on Mountain Street that he built himself, a nice place. He’d be workin’ two, sometimes three jobs; the boy was tryin’ to make all the money. He had his own little home construction business in the day, and at night he had a janitor contract cleaning a couple of them banks down on Colorado Street. He kept two, sometimes three men steadily employed. All that work and he was stashing his money away, never wasting a dime, waitin’ for the woman of his dreams to come along and help him spend it.”

“One of those kind.”

“Yep. He’d come in the club the first Saturday night of every month just like train time, never have more than two drinks. He’d shoot a little pool for a few dollars on the side—he set a three-dollar limit on his self and never broke it, and that was all the gambling he ever did. And he went to church sometimes, but I wouldn’t consider him a religious man, he was probably just lookin’ for the right woman. And the women all knew he was a good catch, so naturally there were a few of them church women interested. They’d invite him over in the evenings to enjoy some home cookin’, they’d iron his white shirts; you know, little things like that. But them women weren’t what Lenny had in mind. He only wanted one kind of woman, one of them real pretty movie star types; you know, a woman who looks like Lena Horne or Dorothy Dandridge, the kind you see in Ebony magazine.”

“Hell, that’s every man’s dream.”

“Damn straights. Besides, to catch something that good-looking, you had to have looks your own damn self, and truth be told, Two-Job was one ugly Negro. I told him he needed to get one of them interested church women who would love and take care of him, but you know a man that’s got his mind made up don’t want to hear nothin’ like that. He was a chump ready to be taken and his fantasy, in the name of Miss Carla Bossioux stepped in right on time.”

“Carla Bossioux?”

“Classy lookin’. Funny how she just happen to show up. She was a singer from somewhere back East or New Orleans maybe, she was in her early twenties with looks like a magazine model.”

 “I see what you’re saying, the woman of his dreams just happens to drop in.”

“Let me finish telling you. Now I don’t know exactly how her and Lenny met, but from the first time I saw them together at the Greenbuck Cafe, I knew he was in trouble, the kind of trouble a man has when a pretty young thang is yankin’ on the ring she done put through his nose.”

“Thought you said this Carla was a classy woman.”

“No I didn’t, I said she looked classy, she knew what class was. She knew how to dress and act the part, and the girl could sing. She was tryin’ to git out of gospel, cross over as they say. She’d been with a traveling gospel group, show people, so you know she’d been around the block. Smart too. Smart but deceitful; if truth be told, she was a gold digger lookin’ for a fool to separate from his money and Lenny was the fool.”

“For sure?”

“Don’t get me wrong, not many men would have passed up a chance to be with a woman fine as Carla. But somethin’ wasn’t right here.”

“Too perfect?”

“You guessed it. I had a feelin’ all along Lenny was being set up.”

“But this Lenny fella thought it was love?”

“Damn straights. His nose was open so wide you could drive a Mac truck through it. I mean, the man was strung out, walkin’ somewhere up in the clouds.”

“Cut to the chase. What bad happened?”

“Bad! Can you believe the fool came right out and asked her to marry him? It must have knocked him as cold as a Ray Robinson punch when she said yes.”

“Married!”

“Yep. Two months after she stepped into his life, they had a big wedding at Reverend Theotis Cullpepper’s church, and for wedding presents, he gave her a set of rings with diamonds so big they looked like ice cubes. Plus he bought her one of those brand-new Buicks with chrome everywhere. She got so possessive of that Buick that she wouldn’t let Lenny drive or even ride in the car in his work clothes! But he didn’t care, he loved that woman so much he’d wax the Buick every Saturday so she could arrive at Reverend Cullpepper’s church in style on Sunday. Them church women were so envious they coulda popped, but Carla, she’d just smile while flaunting her good looks and Lenny’s money in their faces.”

“And Lenny?”

“Hell, he wasn’t part of that life; he wasn’t much for church or her singing. After workin’ two jobs, he had a another job on the weekend adding a room on to his house for the kids he was hopin’ for.”

“Kids?”

“Well, twin boys—”

“You mean—”

“Don’t make me get ahead of myself, this shit gets complicated. Now, like I said, she spent a lot of time with musicians over on Central, but gossip around the beauty parlor was that she was in love with the same Reverend Cullpepper and knew him before she met Lenny. And she was sneakin’ around with the preacher right under Lenny’s nose, even in Two Jobs house.”

“In the man’s house! Now that’s low down—”

“But Two-Job was so crazy for the woman, he didn’t see or didn’t want to see. You woulda been foolish to tell him Carla was steppin’ out, ’cause he wouldn’t have believe it. Besides, Lenny was a big strong Colored boy, looked liked he had the strength to rip your arms out they sockets or break your neck with one blow. He woulda damn near killed anyone who dared utter an ill word about his little miss cute.”

Sloan paused and looked at CJ.

 “Now some of what I just told you was mostly what I heard, but some of what I getting ready to tell you, Lenny told me or I saw with my own eyes. The woman had done drove the boy to drink, and one day he spilled his guts sittin’ right there. He said his wife made him beg for it and then she’d turn him down. And most of the time she made him sleep on the sofa. In the two years they were together, she’d done damn near went through all the boy’s money, mostly putting large checks in Reverend Cullpepper’s the collection plate on Sunday.”

CJ could feel himself getting upset.

“A woman couldn’t do me like that.”

“Hell, you ain’t met the right woman! They a killer out there fo’ every man, no matter how tough you think you is. But you right, Lenny was a pussy-whipped Negro, plain and simple.”

“Like they say, what a fool don’t know won’t hurt him.” Was CJ’s remark while shaking his head,

“But what happens when the fool comes home unexpected like?”

“Say what?”

Tulsa Jim now began telling the story about how it was one of those rare days when Lenny had left home with a smile; he’d made love to his seldom-receptive wife that morning, and he was hoping for more of the same that evening. He finished loading his Studebaker truck with his plastering and painting equipment and headed for his job site in L.A., where he found the construction material had yet to be delivered, so he returned to Pasadena still glowing with that morning smile. Turning the corner, he could see Carla’s Buick in the driveway, and as he got closer he could see the fin of a Cadillac that had pulled in alongside and parked partially on the lawn. He knew some of her girlfriends must be over so they could ride together over to the recording Studio in L.A. and he hoped that him showing up in his work clothes wouldn’t embarrass Carla. When he opened the front door, it seemed strange her friends weren’t sitting in the living room, nor could he see anyone in the kitchen; the house seemed quiet. Then he heard muffled sounds from the bedroom, which seemed somewhat unusual that they would want to visit in the bedroom—with the door closed. He tried to knock on the door to see if it was okay for him to enter, but his knock made no noise. He realized that the sounds on the other side of the door weren’t of women laughing or talk about music. He froze at the door while his mind sorted out what kind of sounds they were, the moans and sighs becoming louder and more intense. “Maybe Carla is letting her friends use our bedroom,” his denying mind so desperately wanted to believe.

His mind was jumbled confusion, shapes and designs drifting in and out; he was sweating profusely, he wanted to run, but like in a dream his feet wouldn’t move. He tried in vain to leave, get in his truck and pretend he was never there, but he just stood motionless. “Carla,” he said louder, but his voice never passed his lips. His silent knocks were drowned out by the joyous sounds on the other side of the door, exciting wonderful sounds that Carla had just made with him that morning.

“Carla,” he tried to shout again and again, but nothing came out of his mouth—the sounds from the other side of the door now seemed to rock the house, the floor was jumping, the walls knocking.

“YES, YES, ooh, baby, YES!”

Lenny slid down to the floor against the wall by the door with tears streaming down his face, yet not a sound could exit his mouth. The knocking slowly stopped, the floor became still, the cries of “ooh baby” had slowly become silent and only soft moans filled the air on the other side of the door. Lenny stood up in slow motion, feeling too embarrassed, too feeble, too in love, too something that made him just stand there petrified. While he stood there, the moans on the other side of the door turned to sighs and soft ooh babies again. The sounds became louder, and one overwhelming emotion suddenly snatched charge of Lenny’s pathetic body. His mind tossed out the weak feelings of confusion; now powerful feelings of anger and revenge took charge of his thoughts—the cold, plotting methodical anger boiled up and took control. His hand grabbed the door knob, twisted it slowly and pushed the door open. Lenny’s mind was now strong, strong enough to matter-of-factly process the images that his eyes were transmitting from the bed in front of him. Now he could see the source of all the moans, sighs, and ooh babies. Carla, her legs bent back and open, her pointed breasts being fumbled by her hands, her eyes closed, her head twisting slowly from side to side moaning soft sounds, “Right there baby . . . ooh, you on it . . . yes.”

Now he could see Reverend Theotis Red Cullpepper’s naked ass hanging half off the bed, his arms pressing her thighs open so he could bury his head deep in the secret valley Carla was making so available, the valley Lenny’s head never entered, the valley hard-working Colored men only entered the way the good Lord intended, the valley a decent Christian man would never pervert. Lenny’s feet easily processed his angry mind’s orders to step over to the dresser in catlike stealth and slowly open the top drawer so as not to disturb, to reach in the drawer and pull out his .44 pistol. His feet slowly stepped over to the bed where Carla’s eyes were glued shut in blissful ecstasy as the good Reverend continued feasting deep in the valley. Lenny stepped to the side of the bed, reached over, and began to press the cold steel barrel of the revolver behind the neck of the Reverend, causing the preacher’s head to abruptly stop moving.

“What’s wrong, baby, why you stopping?”

Carla’s eyes unglued and the image of Lenny staring down at her came into focus.

“Lenny! What you doing here? Aaah, this ain’t what you think . . .”

Lenny, a mountain of a man weeping like a child, suddenly became hard as steel. “DON’T MOVE. Y’all stay just like you are!”

“I’m not moving, baby, don’t be shooting anyone baby, you just gonna get yourself in trouble. I’m sorry baby. I can explain. Don’t hurt—”

“Hurt? Hurt?” Lenny shouted through tears.

The Reverend “Red” Cullpepper was gasping for air because the barrel of the gun was pressed so hard into the back of his neck that his tongue was right were he was told to leave it; he could barely make muffled sounds. To make sure the Reverend didn’t move, Lenny raised his big work-boot-wearin’ foot and slammed it down right in the split of Reverend Red’s behind. With his free hand, he grabbed the lamp off the nightstand and threw it at the window, shattering the glass as he yelled out to his neighbor across the hedge.

“Mr. Thompson, you and Mrs. Thompson hurry up and get over here, I got something to show you. Tell anyone else you see out there to come on in; y’all need to see.”

“What you gonna do, baby, please, baby? Let me explain—”

“Shut up fo’ ya make me do somethin’ I’m tryin’ hard not to do!”

Lenny moved the .44 slightly to the side of Red’s ear and fired a loud shot into the mattress, filling the room with lint and the smell of gunpowder. The two froze, locked together like a couple of mannequins.

The Thompsons, along with other neighbors, had been waiting for this day, morbidly anticipating the fireworks. They’d been standing outside their homes ever since they saw Lenny’s truck pull up in front of his house. They knew one day he was going to come home unexpected like, and he would learn for himself what they already knew about his wife of two years and the Reverend. Theotis “Red” Cullpepper had politely tipped his hat as he went up the walkway to Lenny Brook’s house, making a sick call, a prayer session with Sister Carla who always seemed to be a bit under the weather. Finally, this was the day Lenny was going to stumble home and interrupt the Reverend’s prayer session with Sister Carla.

The neighbors eagerly yet cautiously entered the house and made their way back to the bedroom where the Reverend and Sister Carla were still frozen in their unique prayer position.

“Go tell everybody to come see this. I want everyone to see the Reverend who performed my wedding adulterating with my wife. He’s not gonna lie his way out of this one.”

The word spread like a grass fire. So many people tried to get in the house that they were literally climbing all over each others’ backs in the bedroom doorway to see the two participants still locked in their “prayer” position and where Lenny still had the pistol at the back of the Reverend’s head.

“Get up! Put your hands straight above your heads.”

When Carla tried to drop her hands to cover herself, Lenny reached over and stuck the gun in her ear. She quickly put her hands back above her head. Then he marched his beautiful young wife and her preacher lover through the mass of humanity that had gathered in the hallway, out the front door, off the porch, through the front yard and out into the middle of the street. By this time, kids on bikes, scooters, and wagons were laughing and pointing. Old people just stood with their hands covering their faces, but they were still looking between the cracks of their fingers. People were jumping out of their cars, leaving the doors open and running, pushing and shoving so they could see and one little bad boy ran by and poked the Reverend’s private parts with a stick.

“Mama, that lady is naked! Can we look?”

“You kids want to look? Come on over here and get a good look, go ’head, you can look, everybody can look. You boys never seen a naked woman before, take a good lookie see . . . lookie boys. Get your hands up, Reverend. Everybody look!

“You’s a low-down dirty . . . you leavin’ here and don’t ever come back. You wearin’ what you come here with. Get out my sight fo’ I change my mind! I’m countin’ to ten. Get out my sight ’fore I blow yo’ brains out! Two, three . . . run, run, you, you no-count woman,” he shouted through his sobs. “YOU BETTER RUN! Six, seven!”

Now it was time for some of the church women Carla had flaunted in front of to get even. They stood along the curb stoning her with insults.

“Where’s your pretty clothes Miss Cute?”

“Triflin’ slut!”

“Lenny blasted two cannon-sounding shots from his .44 over their heads as the two, naked as jaybirds, ran like a couple of scared jackrabbits down the middle of the street while trying to cover themselves with their hands before eventually disappearing around the nearest corner. Then Lenny went back in the house, got the Reverend’s tailored suit, new Stacy Adams shoes, Stetson hat, and threw the handful in the middle of the street. Then he took the Reverend’s Fruit of the Loom drawers and hung them on the bush by the driveway. He walked back inside and got a large armful of Carla’s clothes and piled them up on the front lawn, got a can of paint thinner from his truck, doused them and set them on fire.”

Sloan leaned back in his chair, reaching for his cup of coffee. CJ was dumbfounded, shaking his head in disbelief.

“What’s the matter, Reporterman,” Sloan said, laughing. “You thought you’d heard everything, you bein’ from New York an’ all, but I bet you never hear of goings-on like that.”

“Didn’t any of the people out there watching all this happen try to help ’em, give them something to cover up with or make Lenny put down the gun?”

“Hell, most folks thought they got what they deserved. You wouldn’t believe the things those decent church women yelled at Carla. You could hear people on the street sayin’, ‘Shoot ’em, shoot ’em!’ They thought Lenny was lettin’ ’em off easy. And right after that happened, it come out that Reverend Red was havin’ prayer meetin’s with another woman in his congregation! The woman let the cat out the bag when she come around yellin’ at Red fo’ cheating on her with Carla.”

“I bet the church folks was about ready to string him up.”

“Nope. You ain’t gonna believe what happened next. They had a loud meetin’ at Red’s church—a few refused to believe wrong of Cullpepper while others were ready to forgive him, so a majority voted to keep his sorry ass as the preacher. Ain’t that nothin’! But that happened before word got out that Red and Carla knew each other before she met Two-Job. Like I said, this whole thing skunk; a good-lookin’ woman like her goin’ for Lenny an’ all. She was most likely Red’s woman, and he was just like pimpin’ her. I’ll bet my last dollar that the game was to empty Lenny’s bank accounts and leave him. But see how God has a way of punishing people up to no good.”

CJ, still just shaking his head in bewilderment,  “I’ll tell you what, he’d have to just shoot me. Even when I was drunk out my mind, I had more self-respect than to let someone humiliate me like that. He would have had to shoot me and be done with it.”

“Sho, you right. But hell, you don’t know what you would do until you in that situation. Besides, them two con artists didn’t have no shame, and when you don’t have no shame, you can’t be humiliated. Red weren’t a real preacher no way, he wasn’t nothin’ but a hustler and pimp that took-up prechin’, just like a lot of these other jack-leg preachers runnin’ ’round here. He told me to my face one night when he was sittin’ right there on that bar stool that preachin’ was like pimpin’—it don’t matter whether the woman lays on her back to git it or scrub toilets to git it, just as long as she brings him the money.”

CJ just sat there reflecting before again questioning Sloan.

“Are you lying to me, Tulsa? That’s one hell of a story.” CJ, still pondering his thoughts, “So that’s where the name Lookieman comes from?”

“You got it. When the kids would see him from then on, they’d say, ‘Here come Lookieman.’ They’ve been scared of Lenny ever since!”

“But why is it that some people connect him or his name to church fires?”

“Well, you see, Red—they called Cullpepper that because he was one of those red Negroes, you know the kind I’m talkin’ ’bout, nappy red hair with freckles and orange-like complexion—had a nice size congregation that grew too big for their little pillbox church, so they were in the middle of raising a building fund. Now it so happens that a few months after Reverend Red got caught with his head in the cookie jar, his church caught on fire and burned to the ground. It happened in forty-nine, about the same time Robinson was having that great year in Brooklyn. That’s why folks don’t mention that church burning along with the other prejudice goings-on against Jackie because a lotta folks think Lenny burned Reverend Red’s church down.”

“What do you think?”

“Hell no. I’d be the last one to blame Two-Job. That no-count Red most likely torched his own damn church. He’s the one who collected the little bit of insurance money, and the next thing I heard was that the building-fund money come up missing, and he done took off for parts unknown. He didn’t leave the church a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of!”

“So why do so many people think Lookie had something to do with the fire the other night at the Zion Hill Church? Hell, it’s been five, six years since all that took place with Lenny Brooks.”

“For a while afterward, some folks claimed they saw Lookie wandering the streets at night, that he got a vendetta against preachers, that he done turned into a crazy man. They scare the kids in Pasadena by telling that Lookieman, not the Boogeyman, is going to swing down out of the palm trees and get ’em if they go out at night. Hell, Lenny hasn’t around these parts in years.”

“So what happen to Carla? And you said she was expecting twin boys?”

“That’s right, but the twins weren’t born at the time all this took place. She wasn’t even showin’ when all this took place, and as a matter of fact, she gave birth some nine months after this took place.”

“What you mean she wasn’t showing? Was you were one of those out there in the street looking?”

“You damn straights, and you’da looked too. She was a good-lookin’ woman, had some cute titties if I do say so myself. And besides, he told us to look, and they ain’t nothin’ wrong with lookin’! So I looked her over as carefully as you’d do a fine piece of art. I had a notion to follow her down the street like some of the others did when she was running, just to see her jiggle!”

“Okay, okay, but what happened to her?”

“Most folk think she was so humiliated she just crawled in a hole and pulled the ground in around herself, and another rumor was that her and Red hooked up again. But I was one of the few who knew she was staying over at Lady Vye’s place on Palisade where she went through her pregnancy. Funniest thing, though, when she gave birth to the twin boys down there at Women’s Hospital, they say Carla like to died during the child birth. While the one baby was being born the regular way, they had to cut Carla open and take the other baby out her side at the same time.”

“Lenny wasn’t interested his sons?”

“This is what’s so curious about that whole situation. Them’s the damnedest twins you’ll ever see in your entire life. I swear, me and you look more like twins than those two boys. Lionel is a lanky little kid…could easily be Lenny’s, but the one they pulled out her side, named Rondell, he’s a chubby kid with nappy red hair and freckles. He’s a spittin’ image of Red. And when Lenny heard that one of the baby’s had red hair, he lost all interest in them boys bein’ his son’s, he just packed up and left town.”

“What about Red?”

“I heard a couple years back he crossed the wrong nigga back in Saint Louis and got cut real bad.”

“And Carla still with this Lady Vye?”

“Oh no, not for a long time. She weren’t never right after what happened that day in the street. She might’a lost her mind! When them babies were about two months old, Carla went to the corner store for some groceries some five years ago and never came back, just abandoned them boys. No one has seen or heard from her since. Wiggle said some woman supposedly looking like her was spotted on Cottonwood Road, up near Bakersfield, but Carla’s too sharp to be in a dirt hole like that. She might be in L.A. somewhere, or she could be in some crazy house.”

“The twin boys still living here in Pasadena?”

“Yep. Lady Vye kept them boys—”

“This Lady Vye, is she one an’ the same with the pink tea you talk about?”

“That’s her. Carla abandoned them babies at her house. Ain’t that a hell of a way to repay someone’s kindness. But Vye just kept right on raisin’ them boys as if they were her own.”

 “You think this Lady Vye has a way to get in touch with Lenny Brooks?”

“I doubt if she knows anything about Lenny. Once you meet her you’ll get a better understanding about what I’m sayin’. Now if you want to know about church fires or anything else in this town, you need to talk to Jesse Mae. She’s the cleanup woman over at Pebble’s Beauty Shop, and she can tell you all about Colored churches that burned in this town. She says that back when they built Metropolitan Baptist over on Waverly, Negroes had to stand guard with shotguns after whites twice tried to burn it down, likewise with Friendship and Scotts. Jesse Mae can damn near tell you anything you want to know about this town.”