The first lady preaches and the pastor, legs and arms crossed, beams from his seat. She finishes and the church applauds, big booming claps. The choir stands and sings “Soon and Very Soon.” The members sway in their dark blue robes with yellow stoles, the faces of praise. The women wear dark coats of makeup, the men sport beards edged just so. The pastor strolls up after the song and he thanks the choir and his beautiful wife for her kind and wise words.
Now, saints, he says, and saunters to the edge of the pulpit. I’d like to hear of the Lord’s good work.
The first to testify is a couple — the wife wears a diamond spec for a ring, the husband a crushed tie — who sit in my row. The husband thanks God for clothes, for a roof, for a decent car to get back and forth. God is good, he says. Praise Him.
A woman testifies next, tells the church how after her husband left, she stayed home a month straight trying to starve herself blind, says she would’ve whittled to dust if the pastor hadn’t came by and prayed her back to faith.
The next to witness is a man at the front of the church. He says that the Lord brought his daughter back after she’d been gone so long it gave him a stroke. He tears up, and there’s a certain part, a better part of me, that sympathizes.
The first time I was grown and joined a new church was after what happened to my cousin. She was younger by not many years and more of a sister. I introduced her to one of Kenny’s brothers and they dated against our family’s wishes. She went missing months later, and we all assumed she’d ran off with him, that Kenny’s brother had convinced her to prostitute. We didn’t believe otherwise until we found out the brother had been in jail. My cousin was gone from summer through fall. Then one night the news ran the story of a woman found in Overlook Park. The anchor said the woman had been stabbed dozens of times and left for so long her body had begun to decompose. The next morning the boys and I drove to Mama Liza’s. We hadn’t been there long when the police knocked, asking questions and I could feel right off why they had come.
The next Sunday I joined First AME Zion and gave my life to Christ, for my cousin, my sister, for what I’d done to my family, for what I must’ve known I’d do all too soon to myself.
The choir sings “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” The pastor dabs his face once more and waits for calm and glides again to the edge of the pulpit. Is there anyone here who needs prayer, he says, who wants to give their life to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?
An elder woman in a gray wig, a boy in slacks that stop too high, a man in an oversize double-breasted suit, they amble to the front of the church and kneel before the pastor and the cross. Those who stayed back hum and sway. My neighbor nudges me and asks if I’d like to go and I shake my head. If I was a girl, Mama Liza would lead me to the front and stay by my side. But she’s gone. The organist fingers chords and it’s a language all its own. More of the brave drift down and submit.
John 3:16, For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever should believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life, the pastor says. Father, we ask that You come into our house today. We ask that whatever is troubling the hearts of these men, these women, these children, your creations, Father, we ask that You come into their lives and heal it. Let us put our faith in You, Lord. Everything works together for the good of them that love You. The pastor strides from one side of the stage to the other and stops under a giant painting of Jesus. He drifts down the steps and lays a hand on those that have come forward to be born. He looks up and roves his eyes around. Then with his face shining and shining he starts up an aisle. It’s my aisle.
God, some of us have been before You once, but it wasn’t our time, he says. God, some of us have been before You twice and it wasn’t our time, he says. But dear God, this is our time. The pastor stops next to my pew. The organist fingers chords and the drummer taps his cymbals. Satan, the pastor says. You are no match for my God. You are a coward. I said, Satan, you are no match for my God. You are a coward. We rebuke you in the name of the Lord. The pastor stomps and shakes his fist and snaps his head back. We rebuke you, Satan, in the name of the Lord.
The pastor gazes along my pew. He reaches out. Reaches out to whom?
This time I want to turn away. This time I can’t.
He wades into my row and they part. Come, come, my saint, he says.
Chapter 16
Good sense says I’ve hurt her too much to keep her.
Here’s the story that changed my mind about this love shit. Not by itself, but still. This happened back in high school, so it goes: me and the homies went to see the new black flick (you know how they do us. We had to roll to the outskirts to catch it; not that that matters, but it matters), and while I was in the lobby buying a Slushie and some ransom-priced popcorn, this super lame guy I’d seen in traffic bopped up. He asked me if my girl was my girl and grinned. I told him yeah and asked him, what about it? Bro, I ain’t no snitch, he said, but she’s in there with another dude.
This wouldn’t have been so bad if my girl wasn’t distinguished, if she hadn’t been the only girl in the history of my postpubescent fuck spree — which began in earnest in eighth grade and was full tilt by that point, who had ever inspired me to pass on a shot of ancillary pussy. We (the we being me and my homeboys, whose fatmouthing made a worse situation worser) found her in the theater sitting with this supernaturally pale half-a-nigger who hooped (I told y’all we all hooped) for a private high school in the burbs. So how did a fledgling Don Giovanni handle such trials? I tapped old girl on the shoulder and beamed high-watt and sat behind her and the half-a-nigger the whole flick, making a symphony of sucking down my Slushie and smacking my popcorn with true ambition. The credits rolled and I let them empty into the aisle and followed, trading big-ass guffaws with my boys. For the rest of the day and thereafter, I played like wasn’t shit wrong, that I was cool as the temperature (it was like they double-dutied the joint for storing cadavers) in that theater that day, though the truth was I was an emblem for grief.
Wouldn’t you know, when I got home, Grace was nowhere to be found. MIA until days later, when she slumped in too looped to lend advice of any kind of efficacy. When she finally got right, I told her what happened, expecting the kind of coddling my young self was too old for even then. That’s what I wanted, but this is what I got instead: Son, if you’re going to risk your love, save all the space you can for hurt.
Beth answers barefoot in a silk robe with music playing in the background, a surprise since I called her crib not an hour ago and she didn’t pick up. She lets me in, heads for the fridge, pours a glass of wine. She sways into her room and through her robe, through the silk-something under it, you can see her ass cheeks jump — picture two koala bears wrestling — just like I lust.
Damn, I say.
Damn, what? she says.
The kitchen’s light is lush. I weigh the dope, mix it with soda, and set a pot to boil. Then it’s back and forth from the kitchen to the peephole, my hands no good for anything steady, the sound of my pulse not the sound of a pulse. This happens every time I chef. It happens and I mind it or else. Beth ask me to top off her glass and I pass again by the peephole. This is intervention, no less, which is a priority when you’ve had dreams like mines, sleep wrecked for weeks with visions I can’t even speak on.
I take the pot off the stove and let the work lock.
I dump the water and let the work sit on a paper towel to airdry.