“Jesse!” Aunt Cee-Cee said as she stood up and hurried in front of him to block him from Gabrielle. “I told you to hush up!”
“Mom, I’m just trying to get as many people in this as possible. The more smurfs we can get, the more—”
Aunt Cee-Cee pressed her hand against his mouth. “Shut . . . up! Now!”
Jesse stepped away and did a quick dance. “Why do you want me not to tell Gabrielle what was all right to tell Uncle Bennie?”
“Yes, Aunt Cee-Cee,” Gabrielle said, turning her attention to her aunt. “Why might that be?”
“Because this is menfolk business,” Aunt Cee-Cee said.
“You’re here,” Gabrielle said. “And if I’m not mistaken, this is my house.”
“Okay, Gabrielle. I know you don’t care for me. But my brother is living here and I have every right to come by and check on him.”
“Cee-Cee,” Bennie said. “That’s enough. It’s time for you and Jesse to go.”
“But Angie is not due back to pick us up for another hour,” Aunt Cee-Cee said to Bennie.
“Well, you need to call her and tell her to get back here so she can take you home,” Bennie said.
“So you’re just going to put us out? Just like that?” Aunt Cee-Cee said to Bennie. “We’re family and, once again, we’re getting dissed just like before. Nobody would believe all that I did for you, Gabrielle, and for you, dear brother, when I took your child into our home and gave her shelter and fed her hungry mouth.”
Gabrielle raised her hand. “Please don’t attempt to go there, Aunt Cee-Cee. I really don’t want to hear it. Not today.”
“Of course, you don’t,” Aunt Cee-Cee said with a jeer.
“So, Cee-Cee, get on your little phone and call your daughter to come and get y’all,” Bennie said.
“It’s not going to make any difference. I can call Angie now, but I can pretty much say that it will still likely be an hour before she gets here. That’s how Angie is.”
“Well, then perhaps I can help you,” Zachary said, strolling into the den.
Gabrielle turned and looked his way. “Zachary.” She smiled and released a sigh of relief.
He strolled over and kissed Gabrielle on the cheek. “Is there a problem here?”
“No,” Aunt Cee-Cee said. “No problem. My son and I came over to see my brother and it appears we have overstayed our welcome.”
“Well, fortunately for you, I have my car right outside, and I’ll be more than happy to drive you home.”
Aunt Cee-Cee twitched her nose. “We wouldn’t want to put you out. Angie will be back shortly.”
“Tell you what,” Zachary said. “Call Angie and tell her not to bother coming. I’m taking you home. It will be my pleasure.”
Jesse’s head was twitching repeatedly to one side.
Zachary looked at Jesse. “Hey, my man, what’s up with you?” Zachary asked.
“I’m good. Just came to help my uncle out, that’s all.” He scratched his chest.
Zachary walked over to Jesse and looked him over. “What are you on? What have you been taking?”
Jesse laughed. “On? Taking? Man, I’m good. I’m a giver, not a taker.”
“No . . . you’re not good,” Zachary said.
Jesse suddenly started backing away from Zachary as though he was frightened of him. “Who sent you to spy on me?” He squatted down a little and looked around. “They sent you, didn’t they?”
“They who?” Zachary said, looking around as well. “Who sent me?”
“Those people who are always following me. You know who. You’re part of them, aren’t you?” Jesse began to slap his own face.
“Jesse! Jesse! Stop that,” Aunt Cee-Cee said, grabbing his hands and holding him still. She then turned to Zachary. “He’s ADHD. He needs medication. But without a job, he has no insurance so he can’t get the medication he needs. He’ll be all right.”
“So he’s self-medicating?” Zachary said.
“Man, I don’t believe in medi . . . cation,” Jesse said. “You can’t trust these doctors. They’ll experiment on you and you won’t even know it,” Jesse said.
“That’s not true,” Zachary said.
“Oh, yeah, yeah, right.” Jesse bounced around. “I keep forgetting you’re one of them. You’re a doctor. You’re in with them, so of course you’re going to deny it. But I know about the Tuskegee experiment with those men that time.” Jesse scratched his chest. “I know all about it.”
“Listen, you need help,” Zachary said. “You’ve been smoking meth, haven’t you? You have all the signs.”
“Man, you’re crazy. I don’t do drugs. My mama just told you that I’m just hyper or I have attention problems. And there are all of these bugs that keep crawling all over my body biting me. They’re making me itch. It’s where we live now. Everybody ain’t able to stay in a fancy house like my cousin here.” He turned to Gabrielle. “Ain’t that right, cuz?”
“Jesse, Zachary is right,” Bennie said. “You’re on something, and it’s messing with your mind in a bad way.”
“You know what, old man? Forget I came over here to help you. Mama told me you were in need of a job. I came over here to try and help you,” Jesse said. “And look how you’re turning on me.” Jesse turned to Aunt Cee-Cee. “Come on, Mama. We don’t have to stay around here and take this. Let’s go.”
“We can’t go. Angie’s not here yet,” Aunt Cee-Cee said to Jesse.
“I told you I’d be glad to drive you home,” Zachary said.
“Man, we ain’t going nowhere with you. You’ll probably try and take me to a hospital or worse, the police station. I know you’re with them people who are out to get me. But I’m not going to fall for it.” Jesse turned to Aunt Cee-Cee. “Come on, Mama. We can walk and Angie can pick us up along the way. But I’m not going to stay here with these crazy folks.”
Bennie came over and placed his large, worn hand on Jesse’s shoulder. “You need help, son. You’re going down the wrong road. If you’re not careful, you’re going to find yourself locked away. I’ve been there. And believe me: You don’t want to go there. You hear?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Jesse said. “I hear you. But I have no intentions of killing anybody, least of all my wife like you did. So I’m good, old man.”
“Jesse! That’s enough!” Aunt Cee-Cee said. “Come on, we’re going.” Aunt Cee-Cee grabbed Jesse by the hand and pulled him. He yanked his hand out of hers and picked up his backpack off the floor by the couch. Aunt Cee-Cee grabbed him by his wrist again and continued out of the den.
Zachary walked behind them. “I’ll drive you—”
“No thank you,” Aunt Cee-Cee said, continuing to drag Jesse along. “We’ll be fine. We don’t need your help or anybody else’s for that matter.” Aunt Cee-Cee threw a nasty look Gabrielle’s way.
“Cee-Cee, please don’t be like this. The boy needs help,” Bennie said.
“We’ll be fine, Bennie. We’ve managed fine all this time without you. We’ll manage fine now.” Aunt Cee-Cee stopped and looked hard at Gabrielle. “And you don’t have to worry. I won’t be gracing your precious little front door again.”
“Cee-Cee!” Bennie said.
“Good-bye, Bennie. When you find another place to live, somewhere your family is welcome, then let me know and I’ll come see you there.” Aunt Cee-Cee stomped hard, dragging Jesse to the front door as she shoved him out first, then slammed the door behind them.
Chapter 22
And when the barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on his hand, they said among themselves, No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live.
—Acts 28:4
“Mr. Booker, what are you doing?” Zachary said, clearly frustrated with all that had just gone down with Aunt Cee-Cee and Jesse.
Bennie looked at Zachary. “I knew what was going on. You think I just fell from the sky the day I showed up here at this house?”
&
nbsp; Zachary put his hands on his hips. “No. But you know you’re on parole. I’m sure when your sister and that son of hers showed up here talking about some kind of work, you should have figured out he was trying to rope you into something illegal. Do you realize they will throw you right back in prison for doing anything you don’t have any business doing?”
Bennie stared hard at Zachary. “You know, you haven’t liked me since the first day I stepped foot in this house.”
“I don’t like or dislike you. I really don’t know you, to be honest. I only know that you’re a mur—”
“Zachary!” Gabrielle shouted, then shook her head.
“It’s okay,” Bennie said. “Let him get everything out. Then maybe we can move on. I’m a murderer. That’s what you were about to say.”
Gabrielle placed her hand over her mouth.
“I just don’t understand how you could do something like you did,” Zachary said. “Then you just show up on the doorstep of the very person you hurt the most with your actions. And Gabrielle has such a kind, forgiving heart; she wasn’t going to turn you away.” Zachary put two fingers up to his forehead and shook his head. Taking his hand down from his head, he entwined his fingers, pressing the remaining two index fingers together and his two thumbs and bringing his index fingers up to his lips. After being quiet for a few seconds, he took his hands down and merely shook his head. “How? That’s what I still can’t wrap my head around. How?”
“I loved my wife,” Bennie said.
“And I love your daughter,” Zachary said. “And the thought of me ever putting my hands on her to hurt her in any way . . .”
“To be honest with you,” Bennie said. “Were you to ever put your hands on my daughter to physically hurt her, I’d likely be going back to prison for sure.”
“Yeah,” Zachary said. “That’s what I mean. You feel that way about your daughter, but you didn’t feel that way about someone else’s daughter? I’m not trying to browbeat you on this. It’s just—I’m sitting back trying to keep my mouth closed and let Gabrielle run things the way she thinks is right. And you’re doing stuff like having the very person who has done nothing but hurt Gabrielle come in her house while her meth-head son is apparently trying to bring you into the business of doing what?”
“He was saying I could be a smurf, which I only remembered as being those little blue cartoon characters that came on television when Gabrielle was a baby,” Bennie said.
Zachary nodded. “Well, I hope you know that a smurf, in today’s terminology, especially on the streets, is a person who buys things from the drugstore with pseudoephedrine—that’s a decongestant found in cold medicines as in Sudafed. You buy the pills and sell them to folks who have meth labs so they can cook up meth.”
“That was the other thing he was telling me these folks were in need of: a cook,” Bennie said.
“Of course,” Zachary said. “Because people who are cooks in the meth kitchen produce a higher rate of turnover in the ‘business.’ That’s because when you don’t mix the recipe just right, you tend to blow up the lab and yourself along with it. I’m a burn specialist and a good many of my patients these days are the few who manage to survive a meth lab explosion, if you want to call it surviving. They bring patients to us from all over Alabama. They’ve passed laws here in Alabama to try and curb meth sales and meth making. But mostly what they’ve done is made the ones determined to make it find other ways to get the ingredients they need. Therefore you end up with a need for a lot of smurfs, folks who use their now-required government-issued IDs to purchase what is presently a nine-gram limit of behind-the-counter medicine for the month.”
“Nine grams?” Bennie said. “I’m sorry, but everybody didn’t go to college and get a degree like you.”
“Nine grams is about seventy-five pills of the twelve-hour dosage package,” Zachary said. “If they can get enough folks to go in and buy the pills and sell those pills to them, then they can manage to work around the law.”
“Well, I used to hear folks talking all about this when I was locked up. But after I gave my life over to the Lord, I really didn’t care to be around much talk about stuff that I knew I’d never be interested in,” Bennie said. “Say what you want, but even before I went to prison, I was never dumb enough to want to do drugs or get involved in selling the stuff.”
“So did you know what Jesse was trying to get you into?” Gabrielle said.
Bennie looked at her. “I knew something was going on with the boy. I knew he needed help, and quick. And it was obvious to me the first time my sister came here to see me that she’s all about what will benefit her. But, she’s still my sister. I’m trying to live godly.” Bennie turned to Zachary. “So when I saw that young man twitching, jerking, and scratching like he was doing, I knew something was going on with him drug-related. If you had asked me to name the drug of choice, I wouldn’t have said meth. But I knew it was something. I was trying to gain his confidence.”
“Is that what you were doing?” Miss Crowe said, stepping into the room. “Really now, Bennie?”
Bennie turned to Miss Crowe. “Esther, I swear to you, that’s all. I know you might have heard some of what they were saying and you thought I was going along with them. But as I just said: I was trying to gain Jesse’s confidence so I could try and talk some sense into him.” Bennie then turned to Gabrielle. “You believe me, don’t you?”
“Of course, she believes you,” Zachary said, still clearly frustrated. “You’re her father. She wants to believe you’re on the right side.”
“I’m not running any con here,” Bennie said. He continued to look at Gabrielle. “I promise you, I would never do anything to hurt you. We’ve managed to move somewhat forward in our fragile relationship. I’m not going to do anything, if I can help it, to break the tie we’re beginning to forge. You believe me, don’t you, Gabrielle? Please tell me you believe me.” Bennie touched the elbow of her folded arms.
Gabrielle looked up at him and twisted her mouth a few times. “I asked you not to have Aunt Cee-Cee in my house when I’m not here. I know you think you can handle her, but you don’t know her, not the way I do.”
Bennie nodded. “You’re right. You did ask that of me. And I was wrong to have let her in. It won’t happen again. But I need to know that you believe I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you. I need to know that you know I love you.”
Gabrielle looked at him, then suddenly ran out of the room.
Zachary ran after her. She was in her bedroom crying.
“I want to believe him, Zachary,” Gabrielle said. “But what if he’s just playing me? What if he and Aunt Cee-Cee are in cahoots together? I mean they are brother and sister. But he’s my father. I want so much to believe he loves me and that I’m enough.”
“Gabrielle, you don’t need his approval. You are enough. In fact, you’re more than enough. I promise you.” Zachary lifted her off the bed, where she was lying face down, and he held her together by her shoulders. “For me . . . for Jasmine . . . for all the folks who have been blessed to cross your path in one way or another, you are enough. Your aunt Cee-Cee was a jerk. If you ask me, I say she still is.”
“And my father?”
“Your father appears to be sincere. My problem with him is probably colored by his past. I’m more on alert when it comes to you and him because I want to protect you. And if he’s really as slick as the devil, then I know I need to have my eyes wide open to pick up on any clues, no matter how subtle. If you ask me what I think after these few months of him being here, I would say he really cares and he’s trying.” Zachary smiled. “But when it comes to protecting the women in my life, the women I love, which includes you, Jasmine, and Aunt Esther in this house, then I’m going to stay on post. Understand?”
Gabrielle nodded, then hugged Zachary and held on to him for dear life.
At eight-forty-five, Miss Crowe rapped lightly on Gabrielle’s bedroom door. “Gabrielle, I just want you to know that I’ve put
Jasmine to bed and the kitchen is all cleaned up. Good night, dearest. And good-bye to you, Zachary.”
Zachary and Gabrielle both snickered. Miss Crowe didn’t have to worry about Zachary staying the night there. The two of them had made a commitment to God, and they were holding firm to it no matter how much there was the opportunity to give in.
“I suppose I should go and let you get some rest,” Zachary said.
“Could you hold me for just a few minutes more?” Gabrielle said. “It’s so peaceful right here. When you’re gone, all I’ll be left with are my thoughts. And for just a little longer, I’d rather not be alone with them.”
Zachary hugged her. “You haven’t said anything but a word.” He continued to hold her. She began to drift off to sleep.
Chapter 23
As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance.
—1 Peter 1:14
Bennie left early that morning (after Jasmine was off to school and Gabrielle was off to work) telling Miss Crowe he had an important appointment he had to make. She heard the horn blow outside and Bennie open the front door as he yelled back toward the kitchen that he’d see her later.
Miss Crowe didn’t care since she liked being in the house by herself. She had calls to make for the wedding, mainly to find out when she could expect the invitations to arrive since there would be two hundred of them to properly address and mail. Jasmine, a little computer whiz, had helped her design things right on the computer. They were able to print off what they’d done and get Gabrielle’s final approval before commencing mass printing. Miss Crowe couldn’t believe how much technology had changed things. Back in her day, you had to visit a shop, tell them what you wanted, wait for them to order it, and hope it was what you desired.
With this new computer technology, you could design what you wanted using the online company’s graphics and templates while being able to make it personal, even incorporating your own photos if you liked. She and Jasmine had had magnets made up with Gabrielle and Zachary’s engagement photo (which Miss Crowe and Jasmine had to force them to take with the photographer they’d lined up). The magnets were four by six inches and were created to put on the refrigerator to remind folks to save the date of the scheduled wedding. Miss Crowe had loved the idea when little Miss Smarty Pants Jasmine suggested it.
The Other Side of Divine Page 15
