Baby Sis turned around toward the closed door again and shouted, "Try again, Buster, and don't tell me you is Saint Peter coming for Big Joe."

The three musicians kept ruing away in dead-pan trances, their fixed eyes staring from petrified faces into the Promised Land across the river Jordan.

"I tell you I am Reverend Short," the voice said. Baby Sis's laughing expression went abruptly evil and malevolent.

"You want to know how I know you ain't Reverend Short?"

"That's exactly what I would like to know," the voice said exasperatedly.

"Cause Reverend Short is already inside of here," Baby Sis replied triumphantly. "And you can't be Reverend Short, 'cause you is out there."

"Merciful God in heaven," the voice said moaningly. "Give me patience."

But instead of being patient, the hammering commenced again.

Mamie Pullen unlocked the bathroom door and stuck out her head.

"What's happening out there?" she asked, then, seeing Baby Sis standing before the door, she called, "Who's that at the door?"

"Some drunk what claim's he's Reverend Short," Baby Sis replied.

"I'm Reverend Short!" the voice outside screamed.

"It can't be Reverend Short," Baby Sis argued.

"What's the matter with you, girl, you drunk?" Mamie said angrily, advancing across the room.

From the kitchen doorway Alamena said, "It's probably Johnny, pulling one of his gags."

Mamie reached the door, pushed Baby Sis aside and flung it inward.

Reverent Short stepped across the threshold, tottering as though barely able to stand. His parchment-colored bony face was knotted with an expression of extreme outrage, and his reddish eyes glinted furiously behind the polished, gold-rimmed spectacles.

"Hush my mouth!" Baby Sis exclaimed in an awed voice, her black greasy face graying and her bulging eyes whitening as though she'd seen a ghost. "It is Reverend Short."