Tony Johnson, for one, isn't about to shut them off. When churchgoers informed him that Jim Murray had been trying to scam money from them, Johnson says, he was disappointed but not surprised. "We know there are going to be roadblocks, that not everyone wants help," comments the pastor. "Even worse things are probably going to happen, but that's not going to stop us."
And Murray is still working toward a Class -- certification in trucking, which would allow him to drive eighteen-wheelers and other big rigs -- if he can find a job.
At the end of the service, Harriet Thomas unfolds two chairs at the front of the room and Pastor Johnson asks that anyone wishing to ask for prayer, or to become a member, or to be baptized, or to come back publicly to Jesus, come forward. "God wants you to know," Johnson says, "that beneath all the ashes there's still a spark."
"We offer Christ to you," the congregation sings softly. "He will give you new life/New life abundantly. . . . Oh, come just as you are."
Chicago takes off his baseball cap, rises a little awkwardly from his seat, and walks to the front, where Thomas leads him to a chair. They confer briefly, and he sits rocking back and forth, his baseball cap resting on his knees. Then Jim Murray comes forward, asking to be received formally as a member of the church. Then a woman who also has been attending regularly and wants to join the church formally.
Chicago wants to be baptized. "The way I've been feeling in my heart," he says in a shy voice that barely escapes from his body, "I haven't accepted Jesus into my heart entirely." Embracing him, Tony Johnson says, "We're going to accept you as one of our own and love you as a brother."
Chicago's baptism, it is decided, will take place in the waters of the Atlantic off Haulover Beach.
On the way back to North Miami Avenue, the Toyota and the Cadillac make a stop at a Church's Fried Chicken drive-through window. Everyone agrees it would be better to order individual dinners rather than a family-size bucket. The food stays in the big bags until the caravan of two pulls up at the curb, whereupon the passengers say polite thank-yous to their drivers and disperse. It is midafternoon, and a few feedings are going on up the street. People are everywhere, some barefoot, some barely clothed, some limping, some lugging over-stuffed plastic bags.
Jim Murray and Chicago take seats on overturned plastic milk crates on the Slab, next to a still-sleeping Sidney. "All these guys ever want to get is fried chicken. What's wrong with a hamburger?" Chicago complains good-naturedly, buoyed by the lingering effects of spiritual resolve and a three-piece chicken dinner. A tiny rhinestone twinkles in his left earlobe. His gap-tooth smile is cherubic.
