“I probably should have. You looking down on me the way you do.”
“Looking down on you? I’m just happy I haven’t had to look across a mattress at you for the past forty-something years. It was more of a blessing than I’d thought.”
“You wasn’t no taste of sunshine, either, when I ran into your jacked-up self.”
Delilah abruptly stopped her impending barrage. I need to stick to my plan, she thought. If this is the way Jehovah has things set up, I can wait a little longer—but not much. “You know what, Thurgood . . .”
The deacon clasped his hands and this time he spoke slowly, cutting Delilah off before she could say something even nastier than before. He had already made plans to see Marty later that night, so the sooner he helped Delilah, the sooner they’d be divorced and the quicker he could get back to his life. “Forget all this. It’s not about me or you. It’s about family; Jessie and Tamara. They need peace in their lives, and if helping you get your car back so you can terrorize some other family, well so be it.”
Delilah didn’t respond. She chose to hold her head a little higher. This time it was her way of letting him know that whatever he had to say was beneath her. Yet it didn’t mean she wasn’t listening or didn’t know what the deacon implied.
“Look, Dee Dee—” Deacon Pillar caught himself. Why do I keep calling her that?
But that time he wasn’t quick enough to stop Delilah from interrupting and ripping into him.
“Look at what, Thur-no-good?” Delilah’s eyes darted around the room as she wrung her hands. Help or no help, Navigator or no Navigator . . . She didn’t try to hide her feelings. If she got her hands on something heavy, she’d knock him out. Frustrated, Delilah threatened, “What else you got to say?”
The deacon didn’t flinch. He ignored her question and asked one of his own. “Why do you have to refer to my former street name, Thur-no-good, because you’re antsy?”
“And I see you didn’t forget what you used to call me, either, when you’re trying to annoy me. You know I never liked that pet name, Dee Dee.”
“Don’t you fret none, it doesn’t have the same meaning as it did back then, when I’d come off the road from driving that old truck, or gigging, and want some special attention.” Deacon Pillar winked and allowed a smile to relax his face. “I mean it in a more affectionate but less sexy way now.”
“You’d better,” Delilah replied as she searched his face to see if he was lying. “Okay, I promise only to call you Thur-no-good when you work my last nerve.”
The deacon nodded slightly to signal he accepted the compromise.
But that was before Delilah added, without smiling and with just a hint of agitation, “I’m sure you’ll be working my nerves just as bad as you have in the past.”
They went at it again. Delilah and Thurgood, old enough to be closer to a dirt nap than to a sky-high calling, quickly forgot what they’d each asked from God and needed from one another.
“Give me an aspirin,” Deacon Pillar finally ordered as he held his head in his hands. “As usual, whenever I’m within two feet of you I get a headache.”
And as if there’d been no separation of time, or animosity between them, Delilah didn’t hesitate to move. On her way out of the room, she looked over her shoulder and asked softly, “You still chase your aspirin with your cousin Jack?”
That broke the ice as each began to smile and let their guard down. The two, without saying so, had again agreed to disagree.
Delilah shook her head and chuckled as she left the room to get the aspirin. She thought it was funny how she remembered their drink of choice. Even back then it was still whiskey. Within a few minutes she returned with the pills and an unopened bottle of Jack Daniel’s.
“You still know how to treat your man, I see.” The deacon licked his lips and wrung his hands, a sign of anticipation as he playfully snatched the bottle from her hand.
Delilah didn’t respond, choosing to ignore the reference to him being her man. Instead she watched in amusement as Deacon Pillar took two aspirins from the plastic bottle and laid them to the side. He then twisted the cap on the Jack Daniel’s top until the wrapper came off and poured some of the dark liquid into a glass. She resisted an urge to smile as he threw back his head, his conk surrounding his bald spot like a halo. With what seemed like a blur, he’d quickly taken the pills and drunk the whiskey chaser.
“You still think you’re the cat’s first and last meow, don’t you?” Delilah finally asked, with just a hint of fun in her voice. “Still can’t believe you’re a church deacon now. Old Thur-no-good Pillar working for the Lord while guzzling whiskey and aspirin. At least you keep it real and don’t blame the devil for your little revisit to the drink. Maybe that’s why that crazy concoction ain’t ever killed you.”
“I never said anything about blaming the devil for the way I take care of a headache,” the deacon replied. “Besides, the Bible says you should take a little wine for the stomach’s sake.”
“You’re drinking whiskey,” Delilah reminded him.
“Do you have any wine?”
Delilah shook her head and conceded, “No.”
“Then you should remember the old saying that if you’re a lioness who ate an entire bull, don’t chastise or roar—”
“What are you talking about, Thurgood?”
“A hunter might shoot you if you roar, so just shut up when you’re full of bulls—”
The truce ended, again.
It’d taken another thirty minutes before Deacon Pillar and Delilah calmed down enough to step outside her home without flailing at one another, and into his old truck.
They’d driven along the Long Island Expressway, hardly speaking, when suddenly the deacon broke the silence.
Out of the blue he said, “I’m still trying to figure out if God has a hand in all this sudden craziness. After all these years, and you’re sitting beside me in an old truck like we just came back from a show in Manhattan or something.”
“Well, if you can’t figure it out, you know I can’t.” Delilah wanted to get her car, not chat.
“All I can say is that it’s a good thing for you that I’m not broke, Dee Dee.” Deacon Pillar laughed softly before adding, “Since not having you in my life over the last forty years, pissing away my money, I’ve managed to save a little something.”
As hard as Delilah tried, she couldn’t help but laugh at his feeble attempt to have a rational discussion. “I was a financial drain on your wallet, wasn’t I?”
“Like a hungry newborn baby on a tit.” And much like his other uncontrollable urges, the old deacon smiled, reached across the seat, and took Delilah’s hand. “Don’t worry, Dee Dee. God’s gonna turn everything around for you.”
“God,” Delilah blurted as she yanked her hand out of the deacon’s grasp. “I thought you had the money! I thought you were gonna help me.”
“Calm down, woman,” the deacon snapped back. “I am gonna help you. I’m gonna also give you the address to another church up in the Bronx. Just because you can’t come around Jessie or back to New Hope Assembly don’t mean you can’t continue seeking God. I sorta like the way you’re trying to get to know Him. Trinity Baptist Church up there on 224th Street in the Bronx is a praying church.” He stopped and laughed. “I still can’t get over how you knew some of God’s nicknames.”
Without hesitation both the deacon and Delilah laughed at one another. The deacon laughed because whether she went to church or not, at the end of the day, he would give her the money to reclaim her car.
Delilah laughed for the same reason.
Two hours later Delilah and her insane dramas kept repeating like bad reruns. It was all the deacon could do to keep one hand on the steering wheel. The other he placed against his forehead to keep it from choking Delilah’s neck.
Delilah sat hunched in the corner of the passenger’s side, cussing. “Dayum, dayum, dayum.”
“Stop acting like a low budget Esther Rolle, De
e Dee. You do realize that you are still in my truck and you didn’t get your car, right?”
“I’m not crazy, Thurgood. I’m mad.”
“I can see and hear that you’re mad. We disagree on the crazy part.”
“Not now, Thurgood Pillar, not now.”
“Dee Dee, trying to pick up your car was a complete waste of time. What made you think you could drive it out of there with no insurance, even if you’d paid off the entire car note? You know you’re supposed to keep insurance on your vehicle. It’s the law. What if you have an accident or something?”
“Just shut up, Thurgood, please. I need to think.”
“You need to think.... You need to think? Well, Dee Dee, how’s that working out for you?”
He stopped pressing her. He still couldn’t get used to seeing her so defeated, despite the fact that he’d wanted to kill her earlier. “I’m sorry. It’s too late to try and get insurance today. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.”
“Forget about it, Thurgood. You can take me to my own home. I won’t be coming back here tomorrow or any other day.”
“Why not, Dee Dee?”
“I don’t get my social security check until next month, and I’m broke.”
“Delilah Dupree Jewel!” Deacon Pillar swerved and almost lost control of his truck. “What is wrong with you? You can buy all sorts of fancy clothes, and I’m sure you still wear pretty drawers, but you can’t insure your car?”
Delilah swung around with one of her tiny fists headed straight toward the deacon’s face.
The deacon’s street instincts from his old days of dodging bullets and fists after some outrageous gigs helped him to catch her fist in the palm of his hand while he managed to control his truck.
“Whoa,” the deacon snapped, “what’s it gonna be, car insurance money or bail money? I ain’t got both.”
So since Delilah couldn’t hit the deacon, she had to do something else. She grabbed the cup of Pepsi she’d been sipping and threw it in the deacon’s direction. The dark liquid spilled all over his beige and orange striped pants and left a stain that looked like he’d crapped all over hisself or had his pants on backwards.
After he screamed out several words which he was certain negated any recent prayer requests, he had to make a decision. There were too many cars on the highway and that meant too many witnesses. So he couldn’t toss Delilah out and leave her. She certainly didn’t have any men’s clothing at her place; at least none that he’d want to wear. The only thing he could do was turn the truck off at the next exit and head west, toward Brooklyn.
He’d driven only a few miles in blissful silence and red-hot anger and was about another twenty minutes from his home when it happened. The sticky soda had also seeped down and into the gearshift. In no time the gears had become a sticky mess.
For the first time in a long time, the deacon’s conk moved as his head bobbed and weaved in frustration. He finally pulled over, got out his phone, and called for road service. He was so mad he didn’t realize how loud and angry he sounded as his voice rose. The AAA road-service representative hung up on him twice before the deacon got the message.
The deacon became even angrier when he realized that in order for AAA to get to him he needed to get his truck off the highway and onto a public street.
He placed a second call to a highway towing company that’d tow him the five hundred feet off the highway. And then he sat back in the driver’s seat, angrily hitting his shoes against the pedals. His shoes sounded like he was clicking them three times and wishing Delilah back to Kansas.
Delilah, on the other hand, said nothing throughout his entire tirade. It was almost pitch-black by the time the second tow truck arrived. The deacon was still livid but not Delilah. He’d had no choice but to bring her back with him, and she was already plotting a way to hopefully run into Jessie and Tamara. She’d make use of any opportunity no matter how strangely it came her way.
Chapter 10
“Thurgood, is that you, dear?” The voice was almost a whisper yet had a little extra sweetness to the greeting. “I was just coming home from work and I thought it was you getting out of that tow truck,” Sister Marty said as she approached Deacon Pillar on the sidewalk outside of Jesse’s house. She saw the shadow of a second person and added, “I guess the Lord’s work is never done where you’re concerned.”
“Praise the Lord, honey.” The deacon looked at Sister Marty and the peaceful aura she always carried calmed him immediately. It also reminded him of the hellcat he’d left seated inside the tow truck.
He quickly glanced back toward the cab of the tow truck as its driver began to lower Old Lemon. And then, as though he were taking his last breath, he blurted to Sister Marty, “Honey, if you’re just getting home, I know you must be tired. We’ll get together some other time. I’ll let you go on inside your house and get some rest.”
He was thankful for the cover of darkness. He couldn’t have explained the stain on his pants nor did he want to.
Without waiting for Marty to respond to his strange behavior or see her shocked look, the deacon turned away. He’d done it just in time to see and feel the climate change in his life. Without a doubt he knew that Hurricane Delilah was about a level five and one minute away from a becoming a full-blown cyclone.
Delilah hadn’t missed a beat. She was too far away to see the woman and determine the threat level. It didn’t matter; a female standing so close to Thurgood wasn’t good. She needed him focused and available to help her get back into her son’s life. So Delilah did what Delilah always did when her upper hand was threatened. She lowered the boom.
One moment she was sitting in the tow truck acting like a stubborn old she-ass. The next moment, Delilah the she-ass broke out from the cab’s gate at a gallop.
When she arrived within a yard or two, Delilah slowed her gallop and changed it into a sexy slink. She slinked until she finally reached the deacon’s side.
“I’m so sorry, precious,” she purred to the deacon. “I thought I’d dropped that extra key to your apartment inside the truck.” Delilah then stood real close to the deacon, making them look almost like Siamese twins.
However, the deacon’s neighbor and current girlfriend was just as much female as Delilah, and then some. Just because she didn’t bust out cussing or swinging didn’t mean she wasn’t wise to what was happening.
It seemed Sister Marty had one-upped both of them. She’d been a little troubled by Tamara’s sudden visit the other night. When she later spoke to Jessie, he’d told her of the latest development involving the sudden appearance of his mother, Delilah. He’d also mentioned that his mother and the deacon went way back and might’ve had a real close relationship. And yet her supposedly saved boyfriend stood flat-footed in front of her while the low-budget Lena Horne wannabe felt him up. And he hadn’t said a word, nor did he look like he would.
Sister Marty just smiled at Delilah and then extended her hand. “Hello,” she said before quickly retracting her hand. She’d made it seem as though she’d just seen cooties on Delilah. “Thurgood never mentioned he had an older sister or an aunt.”
She didn’t give Delilah a chance to recover. Instead, she turned toward the deacon and smiled again. “Listen, Thurgood, honey, I’m certain you’ll let me know in time if our plans have changed.”
And that’s when old playa Deacon Pillar finally learned the true meaning of standing between a rock and a hard place.
And of course Delilah wasn’t a rock, she was a boulder. And she wasn’t a hard place, but she did carry around her own brand of hell, which she freely shared.
“I didn’t quite catch your name.” Delilah didn’t move an inch from the deacon’s side. Her gray eyes seemed to turn demon red and glow in the dark. “If Thurgood mentioned it before, I didn’t catch it. I guess we’ve been too busy.”
Sister Marty smiled. She wasn’t taking the bait. “You say you didn’t hear it clearly? Well, I’m certain Thurgood must’ve mentioned me�
�but they do say sometimes the ears and reality are the first things to go.”
“Well, you know what they also say,” Delilah said slowly. “The lion and the lamb shall lie down together.. . .” She blew a kiss the deacon’s way.
“I’ve heard that before,” Sister Marty smiled and replied. “Of course, when the lion sleeps with the lamb on my turf, the lion never closes his eyes.” Oh, enough with the games . . . Sister Marty smiled again and never flinched as she looked the deacon straight in the eye. “Thurgood Pillar, when you’re done with whatever this is, please come by and let’s chat, honey. If we’re to continue doing what we do, then I expect your word to be your bond.”
For the second time that night, Delilah’s wig felt the blast from her volcanic emotions.
And for the umpteenth time within the past few weeks, the deacon thought he’d heard God calling his name and saying, “Pillar, come on home where you’ll be safe.”
Before the deacon could gather his wits, the two women had gone their separate ways and left him standing on the sidewalk. He had one hand holding a chunk of his conk and the other his head, as he wished a migraine would just kill him before Delilah did.
Of course, there was always the possibility that either Jessie or Tamara would kill him first if they found out he’d brought Delilah back there.
Even if the deacon wanted to, he didn’t need to rush to catch up to Delilah. Like a lion crouching in the bushes for her prey, she waited in the shadows on the front porch. Delilah wasn’t going anywhere and she wasn’t saying anything.
Still giving him the silent treatment, Delilah waited for the deacon to open the front door.
“Let’s not wake anyone,” he whispered.
Delilah glared and continued the silence while they tiptoed up the stairs to his apartment.
No sooner had the deacon stuck his key in the door and opened it than Delilah entered ahead of him and stopped short. She curled her lips and glared.
The deacon was all set to tell Delilah about his relationship with Sister Marty and how he’d get Delilah a hotel room after he changed, but the words never came.
Don't Blame the Devil Page 7
