The Star and the Liar

Reverend Ragland had always been a good liar. Not the standard—schoolyard—liar who barely managed to keep a teacher off his back, no. He was the kind of liar who could mint a new cryptocurrency, get hundreds of people to buy into it, and get away scot-free while convincing everyone he too had no idea what happened to the coin. He could take a dive on a wet floor that lacked a sign and get even the employee he fell before to believe he had bruised his hip. His greatest lie, however, was making even the people who knew better believe he was a reverend when the only proof was the ordainment he had written and printed himself.

Ragland would head down fifty-second avenue, across the stone bridge that made downtown meet “the bad side” of town, and make his way into Greenie’s apartment complex while she was at work. She had pressed a spare key to his naked chest nearly ten years ago under the sweltering, Chicago, sun, and he had waited until now to use it. He could only be there from 2-5 p.m., so she had said, but that was more than enough time for him to set up shop. Residents began to expect to see the reverend with his fake-leather boots, $10 dollar dinner jacket, and black slacks darkening the hall on the way up to their rooms. They would smile when their eyes came across his—yellow-toothed—grin and a dime or two would fall into his outstretched bowler hat.

“Thank you kindly. God sees every offering. The church thanks you.”

He knew a kind word was enough to get someone to come back and donate again. He had even created The Episcopal Church of the First Son for when someone asked for specifics. Of course, if they checked the yellow pages, they would find no such church or even a Reverend Ragland no matter how long they looked. However, Ragland was sure everyone trusted his words. He was certain. At least, until the girl with the star tattooed over the corner of her lip looked him in the eye.

           It was during Ragland’s second week of crashing Greenie’s complex that the woman came waltzing through the hall. Somehow, the pair had never seen one another.

           “Care to spare some money for God?” Ragland went with his usual spiel. “The lord appreciates even the smallest of offerings.”

Ragland began to give her the pleading look that had cracked even the hardest of hearts, but, when their eyes met, he surrendered his motivations without meaning to. He looked her up and down too quickly. He clocked the gold watch which clashed with her $10 dollar—bargain bin—dress while she sported a fur-skin scarf that couldn’t have been cheap. He could smell money from her perfume. Even the clack of her heels seemed to ring like coins in a bucket. He couldn’t see how she could be living in an inner-city apartment like this one.

The woman’s eyes peered between her chestnut curls like green snakes in brown grass as she said, “that hat looked so empty when you were standing out by the Walmart on forty-fifth street. Or maybe you were the guy trading a brown envelope for a plastic bag of green with the bouncer at La Luna?”

The corner of Ragland’s mouth twitched, but his visage remained friendly. “Maybe you’ve seen me around ma’am, but I ain’t no swindler.”

“I never said you were.” The woman smiled at Ragland. She even stepped onto the stairs so her eyes were on level with his. “I just find it interesting how you can afford Mary Jane from a lucrative club but don’t have enough money for god.”

The birds began chirping outside as if to say “ooh, she got you!” as Ragland’s smile retreated behind his lips. “I could ask you the same thing. You’re living here with a watch like that and clothes like those.” When the woman didn’t waver, Ragland pressed. “In fact, I done seen you at the Luna myself. You was backstage with the other whores.” His eye twitched, and he cursed himself for letting his accent come out.

It was a shot in the dark for the “reverend”, but the snakes narrowed behind the woman’s curls. Her heels clacked when she came up another step, and the birds outside grew quiet as she towered over Ragland. “Whore is a colorful word for bartender.”

He had been close despite having never been inside the Luna. “Excuse me ma’am. I just figured if we was assuming things about one another then I would guess what seemed most appropriate.”

The woman’s chest heaved as a breath escaped from her lips. She then rolled her shoulders as a smile crept onto her face. “Alright I’ll bite. What’s the money for, deadbeat?”

“Don’t everyone need a bit of money? I can spare you a couple dimes if you’re looking to make some of your own.”

The woman placed a hand on her hip as she peered into the bowler hat. Ragland watched her face closely but found nothing in her expressionless gaze. Instead, he pressed the smile back on his face while she straightened up.

“If I was a whore I’d make more than you, that’s for sure,” the woman said.

“And the Lord would see that money returned, I’m sure.” Ragland shook the hat and the few coins within clanked together.

The woman sighed and began to pat down her dress as if she had pockets. “Ah, sorry, looks like I left my whore money in my whore pants,” she said.

Ragland chuckled, for real, and tried to play his laugh off as a cough to no avail. He peaked up from his fake coughing at the woman and the star was still half-raised up her face from the smirk.

“You want to come inside? I’m on the second floor,” the woman said. “Do you live here?”

Ragland thought for a moment. He looked past the woman, through the glass door that was gated by a screen door, into the street filled with passersby. No one was looking their way nor was anyone in the lobby area. He was already working on his grift, maybe he could get a bit more coin by indulging her.

“I live here just as much as anyone else.” Ragland held up the spare key which even had the green tag that denoted that the key was from the complex.

“Right,” the woman began, “well then you can keep begging your neighbors for money or you can come inside. Either way, we won’t see each other again.”

The woman walked past Ragland into the second-floor hall. He wanted to shout after her but decided to follow instead. He threw the bowler hat on his hair, and his black-gray afro caught the coins.

Ragland approached over the creaking wood as the woman opened the door. “Oh wow, you actually got up,” the woman said.

“Well, you offered.”

The star raised once again coupled with flashing—white—teeth. “I know, come on in.”

Ragland had seen Greenie’s apartment several times over the past ten years, yet it looked nothing like this one. The woman had dressed the walls with posters ranging from Louise Armstrong to Miles Davis to Freddie Mercury to Malcolm X. Though they were performing in many of the posters in others they seemed to stare ahead and look into Ragland’s soul. The floors were the same wood as the hallway, but the woman had hidden most of the square footage underneath rugs ranging the entire visible light spectrum. Her furniture too was mostly covered in animal print blankets.

“Sit anywhere you like, except the floor,” the woman said.

“Nice place,” Ragland mumbled as he approached the living room. The coffee table had metal coasters next to fake flowers next to a glass bong next to a few pamphlets sporting a hammer and sickle next to Richard Right’s Native Son. 

“Looks like you like the classics.” Ragland unconsciously reached for a pamphlet before switching to Native Son when he noticed the woman’s eyes on him. She was staring from the corner of the room while hanging the scarf in her closet.

“You can read?” the woman teased.

“You’re a communist?”

The air had already been rather stagnant, but it grew thicker when Ragland spoke. He had always been good at reading people and expected a wave of emotions to come over her. Instead, the woman walked over with an unchanged expression and sat in a tiger-skin chair across from the couch where Ragland sat.

The woman shrugged. “I wouldn’t say that. I just like to think.”

“Think, right.” Ragland picked up the pamphlet and flipped it to the back. He clocked the name Sons of Luna before returning the paper to the table. “Well, I don’t want to be caught, uh, fraternizing with no commie.”

“Rag, can I call you Rag?” The woman waited for Ragland to open his mouth—knowing he would object—before continuing. “It’s not the 1950s. No one’s going to run you down.”

Ragland shook his head. “You should know as well as me,” he paused to gesture to his skin tone, “that we’ve been run down for less.”

“Fair,” the woman said.

The silence returned. Eventually, the woman brought out a rhythmic tap of her foot to break the air. Ragland couldn’t discern what she was emulating. It was jazzy, though, and he began tapping his fingers to meet her halfway. 

“You don’t strike me as a music man.” The woman began to drum her purple nails on the table.

Ragland noticed the additional noise but was hardly keeping time as it stood. “I’m a reverend. Gotta have a bit of rhythm for church time.”

The woman nodded. “Well, Rag, want a hit?” She gestured to the bong.

Ragland looked the bong over. It was mostly glass with some ceramic pieces to make it a bit more solid. It was green and scaled like a reptile.

“Forgot it,” the woman said. “You’ll probably have to leave soon.”

“What makes you say that?”

The woman gestured to the clock which read 4:26 p.m. “Didn’t you read the pamphlet?”

Ragland ran his eyes over the front of the pamphlet but saw nothing in the deep red or the hammer and sickle. Without breaking eye contact, he reached out and took the paper into his hand.

There were several planned meeting dates. Ragland hadn’t heard of most of the locations on the first page, but the second drew his eye. Listed as Apartment 213 on 33^rd street, the room was about to be a secret meeting for The Sons of Luna at 4:30 p.m.

“Didn’t you say you just liked to think?” Ragland swallowed the butterflies that fought to free themselves from his stomach.

The woman took the pamphlet off the table while studying Ragland’s expression. “I didn’t lie. You probably would have noticed being the liar you are.”

Ragland had become acutely aware of the ticking clock, and he fought the urge to avoid glancing at it. Would they let him go? He couldn’t tell what the woman was thinking.

“I bet you’re wondering if I’ll let you walk out of here,” the woman said. The star twitched as she smiled.

Ragland began scratching at the stubble on his neck. “Would you?”

The woman leaned close. She gazed deep into Ragland’s eyes. Her smile had gone, and the pamphlet sunk back onto the table as it left her grasp.

Then, as Ragland began to bend away from her, she said, “of course. What do you think we are? This is a meeting of the like-minded.” She flopped back into her chair while Ragland nearly sighed in relief. “If you’re not interested then there’s no point in keeping you around.”

He began to get up, but her cold hands gripped at his wrist. “If you’re willing to stay,” she began with a curling grin, “we can teach you a thing or two.”

“We?” Ragland froze in place despite the screaming desire to pull his hand free. “Are you important to those Sons of Luna?”

The woman let Ragland go while waving him off with the same hand. Ragland noticed the clock, it was 4:29 with seconds to spare, but he couldn’t get himself to move.

“I knew you were a swindler, but you haven’t even been into La Luna, have you?”

Ragland shook his head, no, but it didn’t matter. The lock began to turn at the door, and he stumbled back as it creaked open. Two men both larger and darker than he looked him over with several more packing into the small hall behind him.

“Luna, who’s the dead beat,” one of the men asked.

Ragland turned, making the connection just as the woman opened her mouth. “He’s no one. Just a neighbor.” Her face contorted into a wide smile that stretched the star further than it ever had. “He was just leaving, right?”

Ragland locked eyes with Luna who smiled with pearly white teeth. He then pushed past the two men, stumbled through the rest in the hall, and nearly collapsed in the street outside the apartment complex. As his knees met the pavement, the coins contained in his afro spilled out onto the asphalt. He didn't notice as his heart burned and he gasped upon meeting open air. Then, with one look back, a part of him swore to never tell a lie again. Especially knowing what monsters of manipulation lived in Chicago.

End