Part 10 (2/2)

Pandemoniuan having convulsions

”_Murderess!_” Reverend Short screamed in a frenzy

”murderess” the church members responded

”It ain't so!” Mamie shouted

”_Adulteress!_” Reverend Short screaation responded

”You lyingher voice

”Let him rave on,” Johnny said, his face wooden and his voice toneless

”_Fornication!_” Reverend Short screamed

At the mention of fornication the joint wentat the , ”Fornicationfornication”

Men and women wrestled and rolled Benches were splintered The church rocked The coffin shook A big stink of sweating bodies arose ”Fornicationfornication” the religious,out of here,” Dulcy said, getting to her feet

”Sit down,” Johnny said ”These religious folks are dangerous”

The church organist began ja the chorus of _Roberta Lee_ on the church har-car waiter cut loose in a high tenor voice:

”Dis world is high, Dis world is low, Dis world is deep and wide, But de longes' road I ever did see, Was de one I walked and cried”

Thoughts of the long road brought the fanatics to their feet They brushed off their clothes and sheepishly straightened up the broken benches, and the organist went into _Roll, Jordan, Roll_

But Reverend Short had gone beyond restraint He'd left the pulpit and coer in Dulcy's face The undertaker's two assistants threw him to the floor and knelt on him until he'd calmed down; then the business of the funeral proceeded

The congregation arose to the harmonium strains of _Nearer My God To Thee_ and filed past the coffin for a last look at Big Joe Pullen's mortal remains Those on the mourners' bench were the last to pass, and when the coffin lid was finally closed Mao, Joe, don't leave me here all alone”

The undertaker pried her loose, and Johnny put his ar her toward the exit But the undertaker stopped hi at his sleeve

”You're the chief pallbearer, Mr Perry, you can't go” Johnny turned Ma with her,” he said

Then he took his place with the five other pallbearers, and they lifted the coffin, bore it down the cleared aisle and between the lines of police on the sidewalk and slid it into the hearse

Mee were lined up in parade foralia of scarlet coats with gold braid, light blue trousers with gold stripes, and headed by the lodge band

The band broke out with _The Co with the choir

The funeral procession, led by the hearse, fell in behind theManiie Pullen in the first of the black limousines

Johnny rode alone behind the third li open-top fishtail Cadillac

Two cars behind him, chink and Doll Baby followed in a blue Buick convertible

The band was playing the old funeral chant in swingtime, and the trumpet player took a chorus and rode the staccato notes clear and high in the hot Harlem sky The croas electrified The people broke loose in time But they ging, their bodies gyrating to the rocking syncopation They went rocking and rolling back and forth across the street, between the parked cars, up and down the sidewalks, so alone to theand dancing to the rhyth to the feeling of the swing, and still keeping up with the slowly hth Avenue to 125th Street, east to Seventh Avenue, turned the corner by the Theresa Hotel and went north toward the 155th Street Bridge to the Bronx

But at the bridge the band pulled up, the an to disperse, the procession thinned out Harlee, and only the principals crossed into the Bronx andjourney out Bronx Park Road, past the Bronx Park Zoo, to Woodlawn Cean playing an organ recording, the thin saccharine notes drifting back over the procession froateway into the huge ce line behind the yellow clay rave while the pallbearers lifted the coffin from the hearse and placed it upon a rave

An organ recording of _Swing Loeet Chariot_ began playing, and the choir sang a otten hirave, intoning in his croaking voice: ”_in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it was thou taken: for dust thou art, and Unto dust shalt thou return_”

When the coffin touched the bottorave, Mamie Pullen screamed and tried to throw herself after it While Johnny was holding her, Dulcy suddenly crue of the pit Alamena clutched her about the waist, but chink Charlie stepped forward frorass Johnny caught a glimpse of them out of the corner of his eye, and he pushed Mamie into the arms of a deacon and wheeled toward chink, his eyes yelloith rage and the scar on his forehead livid and crawling with a life of its own

chink saw hi, stepped back and tried to pull his knife Johnny feinted with his left and kicked chink on the right shi+n The sharp bone pain doubled chink forward from the head down Before the reflex motion had ceased, Johnny hit chink back of the ear with a clubbing right; and when chink fell reeling to his hands and knees, Johnny kicked at his head with his left foot, but razed chink's left shoulder instead His lightning glance saw a spade in a grave digger's hand, and he snatched it out and swung the edge at the back of chink's neck Big Tiny frorabbed at his ared to turn Johnny's are hit chink in the rave, on top of the coffin

Then Tiny and half a dozen other ravel drive behind the plot of graves

Johnny was circled in by his underworld friends, with Fats wheezing, ”God das That wasn't nothing to get that htened his disarranged clothes ”I don't want that half-white motherraper to touch her,” he said in his toneless voice

”Jesus Christ, she'd fainted,” Fats wheezed

”Not even if she's dropping stone--cold dead,” Johnny said

His friends shook their heads

”You have hurt hih for one day anyway, chief,” Kid Nickels said

”I ain't going to hurt hito take theot into his car

A moment later the music ceased The undertaker's equipan spading in the earth The silent mourners slowly returned to the cars

Maot into the back of Johnny's car with Alamena Baby Sis followed silently

”Lord, Lord,” Ma but trouble on this earth, but I know ”

10