deacon king kong sparknotes

The next day, the painting of Jesus goes up over it (“Jesus’s left hand, is right on the cinder block where that soap is.”). Beanie (Randall Collins) is dead. Bunch realizes he’s losing control of that area and wants to flatten things out. Just before fall starts, giant ants tend to appear in the Causeway, often attacking the free cheese which Hot Sausage is responsible for storing in Building 17 (Sausage works for the Housing Authority). Sportcoat shows up with a hideous get-well-soon doll from Dominic. Haroldeen is 29 and has lived a hard life. May God hold you in the palm of His hand. Earl awakes to find himself on a bench of an empty subway platform. However, neither the Governor nor Elephante knows where it is. As a result, Bunch brings in a dangerous killer, "Harold Dean" (which turns out to be Haroldeen), to deal with Sportcoat, Deems and Peck. As she leaves with the cash, Bunch realizes he’s been betrayed as Joe Peck bursts through the door. Sister Paul, her husband, her daughter Edie, Hettie and Sister Gee’s parents were all friends. His big shipment from Lebanon is due in nine days, but the Vitali Pier is crawling with cops because of the shooting. Sister Gee tells Potts that everyone in the Causeway knows Jet is undercover, so they should just go ask him for the name, and confirms that Sportcoat is a deacon here. Sportcoat promises Sausage that he’ll turn himself in to the police so they don’t give him trouble. Three days post-shooting, Sportcoat goes to see Rufus Harley, Sportcoat’s second closest friend, in the Watch Houses to ask him for advice about it. Kevin “Potts” Mullen, the lead investigator in the shooting. He shipped it back to himself piece by piece over time, but sold very little of it. He was the star baseball player on their team, but when his grandfather died, he left it to sell drugs. May the wind be always at your back. But he's also a drunk who has had a rough life and whose wife Hettie died two years prior. Potts tells Elephante about when he first met his father, Guido. It involved a young Guido Elephante preventing a young Officer Potts from getting shot. He was born in Possum Point, South Carolina, and got the nickname Sportcoat after his mother was convinced by a medicine man that not saying his name for 8 months would help his back teeth grow in. Sportcoat is disoriented and doesn’t seem to know about the shooting. Potts shows up at Elephante’s place to talk to him. Sister Paul decides to tell Sportcoat the story of the founding of Five Ends. Sister Gee tells them the police are looking for a “Thelonius Ellis.” Hot Sausage is annoyed, since it turns out Thelonius Ellis is his name (another one one of his aliases is Ralph Odum). The following version of this book was used to create the guide: McBride, James. The Governor’s younger brother, Macy, was an allied solider stationed in Austria following WWII, who found a stash of Nazi loot. Twenty-two months after Deems’s shooting, Sportcoat passes away. The result was “horrible,” but at least he “had emerged a Negro.”) Elephante asks more about the painting, and Sportcoat happily answers. The other half is due when the rest of the job is completed, but she betrays him instead and leads Peck to him. Bunch wants to handle this themselves instead of getting Joe Peck involved because he wants to cut Peck out and get their own supplier. Available copies. An incredibly satisfying read. The Governor says that Guido stored it for him long ago, but he doesn’t know where. He spent a lot of time being operated on by medical students and dental students who needed practice. (It’s implied that in the interim they figured out that Sportcoat had come across the information that Elephante had been seeking.) Deems tells him to come back when he’s sober, but he insists. Peck adds that Potts said something about a female shooter, and Elephante says he’ll talk to Potts. Finally, Sausage tells him that Sportcoat wanted to warn him about someone named “Harold Dean” (which turns out to be Haroldeen, a female name) coming to get him. However, after his grandfather died, Deems left to deal drugs and is now part of a network of dealers controlled by Bunch Moon. Potts insists that whatever Sportcoat got mixed up in, it’s dangerous. He imagines running a country store with her by his side. Peck fills Elephante in on the details (which learned from the cops that he bribes). Sister Gee tells Sportcoat to turn himself in, but Sportcoat refuses. REVIEWS: Deacon King Kong NY Times The Washington Post GoodReads Book Companion One of TIME Magazine's Ten Best Novels of the Year. Dominic has been “accidentally” running into Bum-Bum since Soup’s party, which was a week ago. Deems’s cousin, Rooster started selling. She also tells Elephante that the security guard at Brewster Memorial has been paying for her stamps and envelopes to send tithes back to the church every week for the last twelve years, so she asks him to get him some Mars Bars which he likes. Dominic is Sportcoat’s Haitian neighbor. Synopsis In Deacon King Kong, Cuffy "Sportcoat" Lambkin is a 71-year-old deacon for a church in the projects. Soup explains that he was knocked out, and they checked his pockets for an address. She talks about how she left South Carolina after the nice lady she was a nurse for was dying. Elsewhere in the Causeway, Tommy Elephante (the "Elephant") is a guy who deals in storing and moving contraband, though he refuses to mess with drugs. Thank you for this site! The Elephant meets a mysterious elderly Irish man named Driscoll “the Governor” Sturgess. She explains to Sportcoat that she needs pokeweed, and they spend the day looking for it and bringing it back. This tool was a lifesaver! The Cause Houses were all Italians then. Earl reminds him that Peck is part of the Gorvino family, but Bunch says that the Gorvinos aren’t what they used to be. But their crew got sent to juvy (Spofford). He goes to visit Sister Paul, one of the original founders of Five Ends Baptist. Veronica Gee, or Sister Gee as she is usually referred to, holds the Church together as she begins flirting cautiously with Sgt. The daughter and son-in-law wanted to get out of paying her. Deems falls in the water and nearly drowns, but Sportcoat saves him. At the Five Ends choir rehearsal, “the Cousins“, Nanette and Sweet Corn, are arguing — as they have been for the past 23 years — when two white cops show up, Sergeant Potts Mullen and Officer Mitch Dunne. Dominic Lefleur, a Haitian-American man with a superstitious streak pursues a romance with Church usher T.J. Billings, or “Bum-Bum” as she is called. Previous selections include The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates, American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins, and Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker. In gratitude, the Elephant uses the money he made from selling it to not only renovate several parts of the Church, but also pays for the full amount of the missing Christmas Club money. In September 1969, a fumbling, cranky old church deacon known as Sportcoat shuffles into the courtyard of the Cause Houses housing project in south … On one side of the five-sided box, there’s a stick figure with a circle around it. Tommy Elefante’s (“the Elephant”) men fished her out of the water and made clear that he was not responsible. Author Bio • Birth—September 11, 1957 • Where—New York, New York, USA • Education—B.A., Oberlin College; M.A., Columbia University • Awards—National Book Award • Currently—lives in New York City and Lambertville, New Jersey. He offers Elephante 8 grand for one hour’s worth of work. Cuffy “Sportcoat” Lambkin, a deacon at the Five Ends Baptist Church, shoots 19-year-old drug dealer Deems Clemens at the flagpole, Deems’s usual selling spot. In September 1969, a fumbling, cranky old church deacon known as Sportcoat shuffles into the courtyard of the Cause Houses housing project in south … When the others got out, Bumps hired the rest of the crew, including Deems, to sell for him. Deems ended up getting back at Bumps by crippling him (Deems made some customers think Bumps had screwed them, so they beat Bumps up). Deems has been trying to discreetly get things in place so he can approach Peck with his plan to cut Bunch out of the equation. Jet’s old partner recognizes him but arrests him as a potential suspect to prevent blowing Jet’s cover. They have a warrant, but it’s for for someone named Thelonius Ellis, which was the name they were given. It’s beautiful.”. After some research, it’s determined that the Venus of Willendorf is apparently a limestone carving that is the oldest known three-dimensional object in the world. When they turn it back on, they hear a grunt, the lights come on and they find Bunch’s triggerman (Earl) sprawled out. When the Governor’s attractive daughter (Melissa) walks in, Elephante sees his future. After the pier shooting, Sportcoat realizes he wants to get sober. Sportcoat and the Elephant manage to retrieve the statue. Lightbulb thinks it’s just a matter of time before their rivals (the Watch Houses) come try to horn in on their territory. Earl wakes up 20 minutes later in the alley. Peck thinks Sportcoat showed up with Sausage to finish Deems off (and, because he got his intel from the cops, he thinks one of them drowned and one got shot). On one side, it has a picture of the Cause docks from the 1940’s. The Governor has a buyer offering 3 million for it, and he wants Elephante's help so they can locate it and sell it together. The reasons for this desperate burst of violence and the consequences that spring from it lie at the heart of DEACON KING KONG. And through this all, Deems begins to question his role as a drug dealer and his life choices in general. For a non-spoiler version of the plot synopsis, see The Bibliofile's review of Deacon King Kong by James McBride. Guido is the one who started delivering free cheese each month after the church opened, and it kept getting delivered even after he died. When Rufus returns, Sportcoat asks him about the old days and where to find Sister Paul (“Out in Bensonhurst. Then, Guido offers to give them the land (they’d only paid $400 out of $6,000) if they let him put something on the back wall of the church. Sister Veronica Gee works as a cleaner for a house that is across the street from a bar Sergeant Potts frequents, Rattigan’s, so she recognizes him. The novel is, in other words, a … He and his right hand man, Earl Morris, are concerned about how the shooting is going affect their sales in that area with cops around and Deems out of commission. Sportcoat has been hiding out in Rufus’s basement since the shooting. (Bum-Bum is the nickname for T.J. However, there was one small, valuable statue of a fat girl he kept, the Venus of Willendorf. They start digging out the foundation with shovels, but it’s very slow. She tells him that Deems was the star player on the baseball team Sportcoat coached, but he’s been selling a drug around the projects the last few years that’s ruining people’s lives. 11 of 13 copies available at Sage Library System. He was raised by his stepmother and father, who didn’t particularly care for him (he was “admired by all whom he knew in Possum Point save the two people responsible for his well-being in the world”). Deems falls into the water, but doesn’t know how to swim. Potts tells her Sportcoat will be safer if he’s arrested by the police, since they’re more interested in going after the drug dealers, but Sister Gee counters that Pudgy Fingers will be taken away by social services if that happens. In Deacon King Kong, McBride brings to vivid life the people affected by the shooting: the victim, the African-American and Latinx residents who witnessed it, the white neighbors, the local cops assigned to investigate, the members of the Five Ends Baptist Church where Sportcoat was deacon, the neighborhood's Italian mobsters, and Sportcoat himself. Elephante tells Potts that he didn’t know Sportcoat (or “Sport Jacket”, as he calls him), they trade the little information they know. (They’re into each other.) In Deacon King Kong, McBride brings to vivid life the people affected by the shooting: the victim, the African-American and Latinx residents who witnessed it, the white neighbors, the local cops assigned to investigate, the members of the Five Ends Baptist Church where Sportcoat was deacon, the neighborhood’s Italian mobsters, and Sportcoat himself. There were 16 people who saw Sportcoat shoot Deems, but none of them said anything to the cops, not even the undercover cop that was present, Jethro “Jet” Hardman. It's September 1969, just after Apollo 11 and Woodstock.

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