Chapter Nine Fonsi #3
Then she was on the go again. Linda moved through the property, silent, fast. A feline.
Her phone out, she took pictures with a detached nonchalance.
Pastor Samuelson was a neat man, everything in perfect order.
Hats and jackets on hangers lined up in a perfect row next to the door.
A stack of cards by his desktop computer.
The place looked pretty innocuous to Fonsi. Linda snapped away.
They explored the entire house. It was too silent, Fonsi knew.
Which meant their visit was probably for nothing.
His Spirit Sense had been become so honed that he could usually discern the presence of ghosts dozens of feet away.
He was actually relieved, having built up in his mind the frightful things they might discover.
The nightmares of the Equinox, still lodged in his mind and heart.
The last place they entered was Jeremiah’s bedroom, which, to Fonsi, felt like a terrible invasion of privacy.
They walked in anyway, Linda in the lead. The bed was crisply made. There was more art, a couple of landscapes over each nightstand. Across from the bed, a portrait of a man. A big life-size portrait, six by eight feet if Fonsi had to guess. He walked closer to the painting and stopped.
The figure in the painting, Pastor Samuelson.
He was reclining nude in a sea of sunflowers.
His skin, a coppery bronze with hints of deeper brown.
His salt-and-pepper fade and beard, a contrast to the shining yellow of the petals.
The colors were so luminous that, for a moment, Fonsi wondered if the paint was still wet.
The sheer ecstasy on Mr. Samuelson’s face managed to outshine everything else.
The man was enraptured… by something. Maybe the rays of sun that bathed his skin.
Or the aroma of the sunflowers. Or simply the pull of nature, where he could be unencumbered and free.
Fonsi scanned the bottom corners of the piece and found the artist’s signature. D. Atkins. Right. A well-known painter who was the toast of the town last year in New York during his show at the Guggenheim. The style easily recognizable.
He surveyed the rest of the room. Smaller oil paintings were interspersed throughout the space.
In one by the closet, Mr. Samuelson sat on a bench, his head and arms upturned to the heavens.
A beatific smile on his face. In another, above the dresser in the corner, he was laid out in a second field of flowers, this time Aurelian lilies, his body splayed in a languorous pose.
And in a third medium-size portrait, he was in a black tank top, book in hand—a Bible?
—barefoot, reclining on a stool. Perhaps the most sensual image of a pastor Fonsi had ever beheld.
From the style of the pieces, Fonsi could tell they were all by D. Atkins.
“I don’t know if I’m speaking out of turn here… I mean, don’t want to stereotype,” Fonsi said, “but is Mr. Samuelson queer?” Fonsi glanced over at the largest portrait again. There was no way around it. Jeremiah was silver fox, Take me out and do me, pleeeeaaaase, Sugar Daddy fine.
Linda scrutinized the painting. “I think that’s a reasonable assumption.
Long-time bachelor, no public record of female partners, no kids.
But probably wasn’t out. Ebenezer Memorial has a trailblazing history with the Black community but is still pretty old-school with many of their traditions.
His sexuality might’ve been an open secret, something to be overlooked.
Standard MO for certain churches. Samuelson could have congregants over, entertain downstairs.
Always keep the bedroom door locked when there’s company, no reason for folks to be upstairs in the first place.
” She gazed upon the painting. “This is majestic.”
“Surrounded by the symbols of our blessed lady, Oshun,” Fonsi murmured, gesturing to the sunflowers.
He once again scanned the space as Linda took pictures of the rest of the bedroom.
Fonsi noticed the matching wooden nightstands on both sides of the bed and the drawers underneath an armoire he was sure contained a plethora of suits, shirts, and slacks.
He wondered what he would find if he were to open the drawers.
He remembered when he was a kid back in his South Bronx apartment, the first nudie magazines he’d managed to snag in the West Village before porn was a regular thing on people’s phones and computers.
Black Inches, Latin Inches… what mags might Jeremiah Samuelson have in his collection outside of the Ebonys downstairs?
Police must have done a search, probably came across all sorts of bits that spoke to the man’s intimate life.
Fonsi had been living out and sorta kinda proud for so long he’d forgotten there were men not so free.
A few minutes later, he and Linda left the house. Fonsi retrieved his knapsack while Linda nodded to the female officer with a curt, “Good day. Thank you.” Once they were a full two blocks away, she asked, “So, nothing?”
Fonsi shook his head. “I didn’t detect any spirits, no.
With apparitions, with the ghostly world, there are technically no set rules.
Even the most seasoned medium will say that occasionally they’ve stumbled upon a spirit who was previously undetectable.
We go by collective precedent to come up with our guidelines.
That’s why it’s so important for Guardianes to be in convo with each other, record our experiences.
” His words were low, reverential. “I mean, I think… I think there’s something special about what Mr. Samuelson set up for himself there.
There’s an unusual vibrancy in his home with all the art, certainly, but I didn’t sense anything supernatural. ”
Linda kept her eyes straight ahead as they walked. “Okay.”
“But there still might be a mystical explanation for his condition,” Fonsi continued.
“Even though I specialize in ghosts, I’ve tried to learn as much as I can about supernatural history in general, and I know some folks out there are saying he’s being run by a demon.
According to Guardián lore, what people call demons, like, you know, these nasty, fiery things spawned from hell, we classify as apparitions.
People who were once alive who’ve lived too long in the limbo known as El Intermedio.
At their core, they’re basically spirits.
Highly degraded, grotesque spirits in great pain. ”
“Which, again, you’d be able to sense?”
“Yep. I can sometimes even detect lingering traces of when a ghost once tethered themselves to an object but has abandoned the mortal realm, entered true death. It’s funny, people who are clergy attract spirits like crazy.
Ghosts are naturally attracted to crosses and other emblems of the divine because they’re powerful objects with great sentimental value.
People have been putting crosses all over the place after the Equinox, trying to repel ghosts, when, in fact, they’re inviting in the things they want to keep away. Spirits aren’t the same as vampires.”
“Could the rules have changed during the Equinox?” Linda asked. “When the ghosts invaded?”