Malcolm had said Big John’s room was also the laundry room and the “gym” — a bench press and some free weights lay scattered around by the bed — he’d assumed this door led to a hallway that connected Big John’s room, the laundry room and the gym. But in fact those were all one room, which was much bigger than any of the others. It also had the fusebox and a storage area under the stairs.
Nowadays the basement was a halfway house that got eleven men living there. One was Big John, the groundskeeper of the church, who got a room to his own self. The other ten was split among five rooms. The room Malcolm showed him to was small, just a bed with a desk, a Bible, a shelf and a lockable foot locker for each resident.
He went to that last bedroom, the caretaker’s room, which was really just the laundry room. It stank of both dirty and clean clothes in there, and piles of both rose like haystacks in the center of the room. It was also the bedroom for Big John, the church’s caretaker and the longest resident of the halfway homeFrom Tyrell the Mandingo
Malcolm Chesway gladhanded up and down the sunshining churchgoers filing into Ebenezer Baptist. The men wore suits of pastel or white, and the women sported vibrant colors on elegant dresses and elaborate hats. Folk came through swimming in smiles and handshakes on this fine Sunday morn. They marched past the leaves dropped by the magnificent magnolia in the center of the parking lot.
Malcolm knew all them folk by name because he was the deacon at Ebenezer Baptist in Dynamite Hill, which meant he did lotta the day-to-day running of the church. He ran the scheduling for the meeting hall and basement, read the emails and arranged all the vendors for the annual fundraising drive.