“Come and get it while it's hot,” Mrs. Gavin said. “Cold butter won't melt if you tarry.”
After Una's blessing and amen, they tucked in, grateful for the homemade meal. Ravenous, Wiley speared hunks of lamb and potato and tore them from the fork with his teeth. Between bites, he sopped biscuits in clots of gravy, eating so quickly that it spilled from the corners of his lips. More determined to savor the fare, Erica picked like a bird for the choicest pieces, and as she chewed, the flavors reminded her of winter nights at home with her parents at the dinner table, but she did her best to squelch the thought. In the chair beside her, the little girl watched her every movement, and when Erica's features stiffened, Una reached out to bring her back into the world. “I would've beat you,” she said. “I had all the good cards, and it's my best game. What's yours, Miss Nancy?”
Gathering dust in the attic: Monopoly, Parcheesi, backgammon, Chinese checkers, Mouse Trap, Tip It, Clue, Life. Her father loved the last one best of all. The tokens were tiny plastic cars with six holes for pegs, blue for boys, pink for girls, which you acquired by chance. One time he had a carful of pink pegs and asked with a wink, “Where to, ladies?” and her mother had given him the funniest look, acknowledging some story hidden behind the gag. Erica imagined he had a dark and risqué past, dancing girls and nights afire. “Life,” she told Una. “The game of Life.”
“Hah!” Mrs. Gavin banged the flat of her palm on the table hard enough to lift the flatware. “Game of life, indeed. It is no game, let me tell you, but a jigsaw that you never can finish. Always a couple of pieces missing, or one that fits in nowhere, and the cover to the box is gone, so you've no picture to offer a clue as to what it's supposed to look like.”
Without stopping his chew, Wiley answered her. “I've always thought of life as a struggle. Marx said, ‘Once all struggle is grasped, miracles are possible.’”
“Groucho Marx said that?”
Erica smiled at her confusion. “Groucho Marx said that ‘the secret to life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made.’”
“Never mind,” said Wiley. “Marx was wrong. It's from Mao's Little Red Book.”
With a clatter, her spoon slipped into the bowl. Mrs. Gavin squared her shoulders and looked him in the eye. “Are you a Communist, Mr. Wiley?”
“Me? No, ma'am, I'm an American, but I do believe there's a revolution coming where the poor will rise up against the powerful. Some people see it as a race war, but it is really a conflict between the classes, the oppressed versus the wealthy. And I truly believe that there will be much bloodshed on the streets before there are equal rights for the poor, for women, for people of all colors. The apocalypse is coming, and the new creation first requires the destruction of all that is truly wicked, and a cleansing of our sins. We've got problems in this country. Black men in Watts without jobs, poor people living like dogs, Tricky Dick Nixon in disgrace, gas shortages, and Whip Inflation Now buttons, and all you see is the rich man in the country club, the white-shirt crewcut Baptist, the jelly-doughnut-eating Mormons, the cannibalistic Catholics—”
Nothing but gape-jawed silence answered his outburst, and it seemed for a time that not a word would be spoken ever again. Erica stole glances at Mrs. Gavin, still and wild-eyed as she tried to digest his meaning, and at Wiley, who was reeling in his tongue. The three adults were hemmed in by their private fears of saying the next wrong thing. Only Una remained implacable and went back to her stew with gusto, pausing between bites to ask, “Are you a preacher, Mr. Wiley? A man of God?”
“No,” he said, with a smile. “I am lapsed.”
Erica leaned over to confide in the child. “A few days ago we met a man who told us not to pine after being alone in case you might get lost, and Wiley here, Mr. Wiley, he met a man who said if you take a man's life, you are bound to carry it with you for all eternity. Everyone has some holy message inside, some desire spoken only in their prayers.”
Inching closer, Una asked, “Are you a child of God yourself, Miss Nancy?”