Five-Carat Soul

The narrator, a successful vintage toy dealer named Leo Bankskoff, uses an “absentminded professor” persona to acquire valuable collections. His lawyer friend, Milton Schneider, sends him the portfolio of a Reverend Spurgeon Thelonius Hart of Queens. Inside, Leo discovers a faded photograph of the legendary Under Graham Railroad Box Car Set, an 1859 toy train of immense historical value. The one-of-a-kind set was commissioned by General Robert E. Lee for his son, Graham, who died before he could play with it. The train, which contained advanced steam technology that could have been weaponized for the Confederacy, disappeared from Lee's home along with a female slave who escaped north via the Underground Railroad. Convinced the photograph is authentic, Leo launches an exhaustive research effort.

Leo contacts the Hart residence and speaks with Mrs. Hart, who dismissively confirms they have the "old piece of junk." He drives to their modest home with $90,000 in cash and meets the formidable, devout Mrs. Hart. She shows him the train, stored in a shoebox in perfect condition, and insists her husband said Leo could have it as a gift. She explains that Reverend Hart is too busy with his ministry and multiple jobs to meet. Determined to acquire the train legally, Leo tracks the Reverend to the Domino Sugar factory in Brooklyn, where he works the night shift. The Reverend, a quiet, rail-thin man, dismisses the train as a "silly earthly thing" and insists Leo take it, asking only that a trust be set up for his son, Junior. The deal is finalized, making both men millionaires. The train is sold to a private collector and stored in a Swiss bank vault. Haunted by the untold story behind the train, Leo eventually finds the Reverend in a Brooklyn hip-hop club, where he performs as the legendary rapper "Dr. Skank." In a powerful performance, Dr. Skank raps about generations of historical injustice, implicitly telling the story of the train and his family's history. Leo understands that the Reverend maintains his humble life of service while using his artistic persona to deliver his own form of redemption.

The next four stories are linked and narrated by Butter, the organist for The Five-Carat Soul Bottom Bone Band. In "Buck Boy," the band witnesses Mr. Woo, the local grocer, shoot and kill a teenage delinquent named Buck Boy Robinson during a robbery. An opportunistic preacher, Reverend Jenkins, frames the shooting as a racial incident, inciting protests that lock the band out of their rehearsal space above Mr. Woo's store. At the boy's funeral a week later, it is revealed that his mother stole the donation money and that Mr. Woo had paid for the suit and a proper casket, though only the suit could be procured in time for the funeral. That evening, the band and Reverend Jenkins find Mr. Woo grieving alone at his grave.

In "Ray-Ray's Picture Box," the band's leader, Bunny, tricks Butter's best friend's mentally challenged younger brother, Ray-Ray, into giving him a shoebox of their absent mother's pornographic photos. Bunny sells the photos to other boys, including members of a rival gang. When Ray-Ray's older brother, Dex, finds out, his strict father, Mr. Ernest, gets involved and brutally beats one of the boys who taunts him. The incident isolates Dex's family and causes a rift in the band. Years later, Butter learns Ray-Ray is sick with a growth in his head and complains of a constant "roaring" in his ears.

In "Blub," Butter befriends a shy, mumbling boy named Blub, who is devoted to Butter's younger sister, Sissie. When Sissie's cat, Thursday, appears to have been killed by a car, the boys bury it to spare her feelings. The cat reappears alive two weeks later, but Sissie, preoccupied with another boy, rejects Blub. Some time later, Butter reads in the newspaper that Blub, now seventeen, has been arrested for the brutal murder of a minister and his wife, though their baby was left unharmed. During the sentencing, Butter testifies to Blub's gentle nature by telling the story of the cat. Blub's accomplice receives the death penalty, while Blub is sentenced to forty years to life. Later, Butter finds that Sissie has carved Blub's name under hers on a tree, a sign of her affection.

In "Goat," the band's drummer, Goat, is a gifted runner, but his victory at a track meet is nullified because he lacks a birth certificate. His English teacher, Miss McIntyre, visits his home and learns his mother, Mrs. Shays, is illiterate and also fears her oldest son, Minnie Jug, will be drafted for the Vietnam War. Miss McIntyre helps Mrs. Shays get birth certificates for all her sons and secure a draft deferment for Minnie Jug by falsely claiming Mrs. Shays is a widow. Butter is tasked with reading the documents to Mrs. Shays and discovers that Goat's father, Mr. Popcorn, is also Mrs. Shays's son, making him both Goat's father and his half-brother.

In "Father Abe," a Union soldier in recently captured Richmond jokingly tells a five-year-old, mixed-race orphan named Abraham Henry Lincoln that his father, the president, is coming to see him. Taking the joke seriously, "Little Abe" runs away and is found by another regiment of Black soldiers. Their sergeant, Abe Porter, is sympathetic. When a white captain confirms President Lincoln is indeed visiting, he dismissively refers to the boy as "contraband." Moved by the child's innocence and reflecting on the unacknowledged sacrifices of Black soldiers, Sergeant Porter deserts, taking Little Abe north toward freedom just as the president arrives.

In "The Moaning Bench," five recently deceased souls in an afterlife waiting room must argue their case before a foul-mouthed, hooded Gatekeeper. After dismissing three souls, the Gatekeeper is challenged by a charismatic boxer, Rachman Babatunde. The Gatekeeper's powers fail against him, and he reveals his face to be that of Blue Higgins, Rachman's boxing rival. He proposes a fight for the souls of everyone on the bench. Rachman wins, but the Gatekeeper tricks him, pulling him through a door to hell to capture the "big fish." Offered a return to life, a coal miner named Wayne Goines refuses the unjust freedom and chooses to follow Rachman, an act of solidarity the other souls join. The scene shifts to Earth, where Rachman has just won the championship. He approaches four strangers, the earthly counterparts of the souls, and delivers the story's central message: he loves the evil in all people because in doing so, he can love the evil in himself enough to surrender it to God to be washed clean.

In "The Christmas Dance," a Ph.D. candidate named Herb interviews two WWII veterans of the all-Black 92nd Division, Walter "the Judge" Booker and Carlos Lopez. They are evasive about a disastrous Christmas Day 1944 battle where their company was nearly wiped out. Carlos eventually tells Herb the true story: their commander, Lieutenant Clifford Johns, was sent on a suicide mission to a church tower. To halt a German advance, Johns ordered Carlos and the Judge to fire artillery on his own position, sacrificing himself and his squad. Herb learns from Johns's widow, Lillian, that in his last letter, her husband had promised to take her dancing every Christmas Eve at Minton's Playhouse. The story ends with Herb watching the Judge, Carlos, and Lillian dance together, fulfilling the thirty-year-old promise.

In "The Fish Man Angel," a grieving President Lincoln, mourning his son Willie, hides in the White House stables. He overhears a stable hand, Simmie, tell his son a story about a "Fish Man Angel" who gave his mother four "magic words" that would one day bring freedom: "here... thenceforward... forever-more... free." Deeply moved, Lincoln later delivers the Emancipation Proclamation, which contains those same four words.

The final story, "Mr. P & the Wind," is narrated by a lion named Hal living in a zoo. A new zookeeper, Mr. P, arrives who can communicate with animals using "Thought Speak." He befriends the animals and lets them out of their cages at night for gatherings. An elderly gorilla, Rubs, tells a story about a woman who prayed to "the Wind," a taboo, ultimate power. The Wind appeared and killed the woman for her impertinence but spared Rubs. Mr. P becomes obsessed with contacting the Wind himself. He and Rubs try all night, and the next day Rubs is dying from the effort. A week later, a grief-stricken Mr. P returns with a gun, begging Hal to kill him. When Hal refuses, Mr. P shoots and kills Hal's friend, a panther named Scratch. Enraged, Hal kills Mr. P, sparking a riot among the animals. Hal is shot and killed by zookeepers. He awakens to find that he, Scratch, Rubs, and Mr. P are now together as the Wind itself, finally free.