Free Blue Light by Walter Mosley Page A

normal.”
    “But you could have found Ordé if you wanted, and you know we’re gonna have to go to him anyway.”
    “That’s okay,” Reggie answered. “It’s okay if I go with you.”
    We got to Ordé’s place a little bit before six. No one answered the front door, so we went around the back and knocked there. When he didn’t come out I took up the metal lid of a trash can and started banging.
    That got his attention.
    “I told you to go away, Chance,” he shouted through the closed door. “Take Scout and get as far away as you can. Run.”
    “Phyllis Yamauchi was murdered,” I said. “I have some of her blood.”
    As I said it, I realized that this was the first death of a Blue other than those that died on the first night that light fell. Reggie’s sister had died and so had Eileen’s husband. Ordé claimed that even they had not truly died. He said that their energy, along with who they had become , had separated from the body to carry their life force into the energy fields of Earth. But that was during the coming of the light. All the Blues that had lived were healthy, never sick, and somehow had the appearance of agelessness. Even Eileen Martel looked as though she could walk all day. Reggie and Wanita had grown some, but they were kids.
    While I was thinking about gods and death, the door opened. Ordé stood there in an untied terry cloth bathrobe. He was naked underneath, and Reggie stole glances at the man’s penis like any boy would.
    Ordé hadn’t shaved, bathed, or even pushed his hair out of his face.
    “Come on,” he said.
    His once sparse kitchen was now crowded. There were boxes of powdered milk and dried soup on the counter and a large-caliber rifle and a clip-loading pistol on the table. Under the table were boxes of ammunition.
    “You going to war, teacher?” I asked, stunned at my own brazen humor.
    Ordé sat at the table and held out his hand.
    “Give it to me,” he said.
    I took the rags from my pocket and began to unwrap the larger from the smaller. Ordé was impatient, though, and took them from me. He shook the tattered sheet around until the blood packet fell to the floor. He got down on his knees and pushed the whole thing in his mouth.
    He hiccupped once and then slumped down into unconsciousness.
    Reggie and I tried to wake him, but it couldn’t be done. I pulled the rag from his mouth and made sure that he was breathing. Then the boy and I dragged him to the cot in his bedroom.
    He was unconscious for nineteen hours. Reggie went home to his mother and Wanita (they had taken up residence with Eileen Martel in San Francisco), but he came back at about six that evening.
    At one the next morning Ordé gasped and scrambled to his feet.
    “Oh, my God!” he yelled, maybe with some kind of relief, and then ran to the bathroom.
    Reggie was sound asleep on the floor when the prophet awoke, but he was right behind me chasing Ordé to the toilet.
    We found our teacher studying his face in the mirror, running his fingertips around his cheeks and eyes. He was crying and laughing.
    “What is it, teacher?” I asked.
    Ordé turned to me, grabbed me by my shoulders, and asked, “Do you see me?”
    I nodded. He looked over at Reggie, and the boy nodded too.
    “I made it back. I fought him off. I’m still alive.”
    Ordé went to the toilet bowl and urinated with no shame. He turned to us halfway through and said, “We have a lot to do. A lot to do.”
    Reggie and I went out to Ordé’s living room. His couch was a long and backless wooden bench, and his chair was a piano stool. I turned on the light and then went to sit next to Reggie on the bench. There was a glistening effect to the light because of the aluminum foil Ordé had used to block out the windows.
    He came in after a few more minutes, dressed in jeans with his chest still bare, his long hair at least combed, and with a look of determination and fear in his eyes.
    “Thanks, Chance. You too, Scout. I was so scared