Don't Blame the Devil

by Pat G'Orge-Walker

  “I . . . I.” Delilah found it hard to speak to the truth, so she didn’t.

  The deacon’s already dark complexion grew darker as he pressed, “There was a two-year-old child involved, Delilah. I didn’t want him to be without a mama so I married you. At that age a boy needs his mama. I gave up my freedom for Jessie.”

  Delilah felt trapped as she watched a sudden indignation and something akin to a feeling of deep dislike flood over Deacon Pillar’s face. He looked as though he was gulping for air and her presence was sucking it all out of the room.

  “I gave up my freedom for the boy.” The deacon’s voice rose with each accusation. “And you gave him up for yours. You didn’t nurture that boy, but you for damn sure nurtured your career.”

  Delilah’s heart raced. So much she wanted and needed to tell him, but her pride would not allow it.

  Deacon Pillar wasn’t finished and it seemed as though he never would be. “It don’t matter that you never wrote or visited while I did without in jail. I was a hustler, a musician who played the street game and lost, but that boy, Jessie, he wasn’t supposed to get hurt.”

  The deacon fought tears as he struggled to retain his composure. “I didn’t find Jessie until almost four years ago.” Deacon Pillar began to wring his hands. “Imagine how I felt when my place of worship became the same place of worship for Jessie. And then when I needed a place to live—oh my God. My God, I wound up on Jessie’s doorstep. When I saw him up close . . . I . . . I would’ve known him anywhere.”

  Delilah didn’t know when it happened, but she’d turned completely around to face him. Still, all she could say was, “I’m so sorry. . . .”

  “Shut up! I know now it was only the Lord that led me to him, but I didn’t know it then. And now I still don’t have the courage to tell him everything because after all these years I’m not sure if I truly know everything except what you told me back then.”

  Deacon Pillar couldn’t hold back his tears. He was almost completely wiped out as he continued. “And Tamara, his daughter, she looks just like you. It is as if Cindy gave birth to Jessie’s mama.”

  The deacon continued his outrage. Delilah’s sense of self diminished with every accusation.

  “. . . And I didn’t know what to do, Delilah, because I didn’t have you, Jessie’s mama, to discuss nothing with.”

  Delilah’s eyes widened as each word from the deacon continued to pierce her soul. Yet she was unable to defend herself with her own words, only her thoughts. I thought I needed fame to prove I was worth something. I had a baby and I had a dream, too. I just couldn’t hold on to both.

  As the deacon continued being her judge and jury, Delilah winced at the thought of how she’d become unable to take care of herself, much less Jessie, after Thurgood had been sent off to prison.

  How she’d spent so many years running after singing and modeling jobs between Los Angeles and Atlanta. And she’d gone from Washington, DC, and back to Los Angeles until she finally ended up back in New York. All that time she was always so close to what her soul thought it needed, when what it really needed she’d left in foster care. For now she’d have to take his outbursts.

  Deacon Pillar finally wiped the tears from his eyes with the palms of his hands and stood next to Delilah, this time blocking her escape.

  “Here it is, forty-something years later, Delilah, and nothing much has changed at all.”

  One thing was certain—their trip down memory lane had too many potholes. It was amazing neither of them broke a leg during the trip.

  And just that quick, Delilah went into survivor mode. That meant whatever he’d just said, she’d get back to it later. “Look, Thurgood, I probably shouldn’t have used your shower. I did. I probably shouldn’t be sitting here painting my toes, which seems to have either turned you on or made you lose your mind, but I did. I’m not about to say sorry again, and I’m not leaving when my son has invited me to stay.”

  Deacon Pillar was so outdone. “Lord, please help me maintain my sanity.” He was ready to leave his own apartment.

  As soon as Jessie parked and got out the car, he smelled it. “Tamara,” Jessie called out as he entered the house, “what’s that burning?”

  “I’m in the kitchen, Daddy.” Tamara walked slowly from the kitchen carrying a pot that was still smoking and sooty on its bottom. “I’m sorry. I tried to heat up something to eat and I let it burn.”

  “What is it?” Jessie was surprised because the one thing Tamara never learned was how to cook. He or Cindy always cooked. Since Cindy’s death they’d relied on mostly takeout, or ordered in, even though he kept freezer and shelves stocked. “What was it supposed to be?”

  “It was baked pork chops, mustard greens, and macaroni and cheese. I’ve pretty much ruined most of it and I’m starving. If I weren’t so hungry I wouldn’t have touched it.”

  Jessie took the pot from Tamara’s hands and headed back to the kitchen. “Why would you not eat it?”

  “Delilah cooked it.” Tamara made a face that showed how much she detested her newly found grandmother. “I don’t like her, but it smelled so good. She sure can burn in the kitchen.”

  “It looks more like you did the burning.” Jessie shook his head, smiling as he emptied the charred food into the garbage and set the pot in the sink. “So where’s mommy dearest?”

  Tamara explained again how Delilah wouldn’t wait until their shower was available and had insisted upon taking a shower in the deacon’s apartment. “You know I called Sister Marty to tell her to haul her sanctified behind down here before Delilah laid hands on the deacon.”

  Jessie didn’t try to hide his annoyance. “Why would you do that?”

  “Are you taking her side?” His reaction wasn’t what she’d expected.

  “We can’t let her jeopardize our walk with the Lord. I know your mother wouldn’t have acted that way. You see how I had to flip things around. I don’t know the last time I’ve fasted and prayed so hard.”

  “You think Mama would’ve met a scandalous mother-in-law halfway, too?”

  “Cindy wouldn’t have let anyone or anything steal her testimony or her joy. Not even if Delilah was Lizzie Borden.”

  “You’re right. Mama would’ve dragged Delilah’s little butt to church, drizzled some blessed oil over her, and let prayer burn out those demons.” Tamara started the dishwasher and began to smile. “Anyway, I’ve not heard any noises from upstairs—no yelling, no screaming, no bed springs creaking . . .”

  “Tamara!” Jessie had never heard his daughter talk that way. She’d always kept her adult conversation PG. “I’m too tired to get into it, but you and I need to revisit boundaries.”

  “I’m sorry, Daddy. I only meant that since Sister Marty didn’t answer, it’s a good thing I didn’t bother to leave a message about the deacon and Delilah on her answering machine.”

  “Thank God.”

  Their feet sounded like an army running down the stairs. “Hey, who’s trying to burn down the place?” Deacon Pillar rushed into the kitchen with Delilah almost fused to his heels.

  “Is everyone okay?” Delilah’s eyes swept over the stove where the remnants of the dinner she’d cooked lay about.

  “I’m sorry, Jessie.” Delilah’s eyes looked quickly at Tamara. Not that she wouldn’t have taken the blame, but here was an opportunity to get closer to her granddaughter. “It’s my fault. I must’ve left the stove on while I showered. . . .”

  “Tamara’s already told me what really happened.” Jessie wanted to say that it was okay. Instead he scolded Delilah. “Is a lie always the first thing to pop out of your mouth rather than the truth?” Jessie didn’t wait for an answer. He slammed another pot into the sink and left the kitchen. He shut his bedroom door so hard glasses in the kitchen cupboard rattled.

  If Delilah was floored, then Tamara and the deacon were doubly so.

  Tamara jerked the switch to the range fan so it would disperse the rest of the smoke and the odor. “I didn’t ask
you to take up for me like I’m some poor little toddler who can’t make a mistake and accept consequences.” Tamara’s show of gratitude was completely lacking. “I don’t need you trying to be a grandmother. You just need to spend the night and then move on and out.”

  Like her father, Tamara left the kitchen in a huff. She didn’t even bother to say good night to the deacon.

  Delilah became as still as a corpse. Her mouth gaped as Tamara fled the kitchen.

  “Damn, girl, you still got it,” Deacon Pillar said to Delilah as he chuckled and watched Tamara rush out. “First it was your only son, and now it’s your only granddaughter. Like magic, poof they’re gone. I have to hand it to you. I don’t know anybody that can piss off foes, friends, and family alike, quicker than you can.”

  Jessie turned on the air-conditioner in his bedroom. Even as he changed out of his clothes and sprayed the room with Cindy’s favorite deodorizer, lavender, to cover the smell of burnt food, he felt chastened. “Lord, all this fasting and praying and still I can’t let it go. Father, I need to let it go, but I don’t know if I want to.”

  Since Cindy’s death the ghosts of their life together moved in and took him over. He was hurt, but he didn’t want anger to enter into a room where it’d not existed during his marriage. There were disagreements between him and Cindy, as with all couples. But there was no space in that room for anger. They wouldn’t allow it. Only love was invited in to stay.

  And try as hard as he had since she died, everywhere Jessie looked in the home he and Cindy shared for more than twenty years, her essence lingered.

  Cindy’s handmade potholders hung on the kitchen wall; a flat-screen television she gave him last Father’s Day. Sometimes he swore he heard her strong, Aretha-like voice in the spare basement room. She’d turned it into her music room and added a sofa bed for houseguests, or for when she just wanted some quiet time with her God.

  Nighttime was the worst. He knew she was gone, but could still feel and smell her Red Door cologne. He reached across their king-size bed, imagining her next to him as he lay there. For the first few weeks after the funeral, he hadn’t even changed the sheets for fear of losing what part of her that remained. He’d completely broken down.

  “Why, Lord?” Jessie sighed. “When I can finally take a guilt-free breath, and accept your will for Cindy, another death comes to my door.”

  Delilah was his mother and when he had needed her she wasn’t there. He was a grown man before he had accepted that it wasn’t his fault. It took Cindy to make him believe that he was worth something. It took God to make him a man who no longer hated and could have compassion. And yet, every once in a while, his resentment surfaced and he’d have to go to God all over again because it was easier to believe Delilah was dead, than just gone away.

  I’m so angry with the deacon, but I can’t stay mad. How would the deacon know that Delilah was my mother?

  And then another thought came to Jessie. I wonder if the deacon knows who else Delilah was involved with. His long-held feelings of not wanting to know the identity of his natural father took a sudden turn. It was a long shot. I know I can’t rely on Delilah to tell me the truth. The deacon won’t lie. He’ll tell me if there was someone who could be my father.

  And with that thought in mind, Jessie found rest. And tomorrow he’d find a way to get along with Delilah. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” he repeated several times. How much trouble could she be, staying away from him and living in Garden City?

  Chapter 15

  Marty fingered through her Bible as she sat on her sofa and listened to the messages on her phone. She’d not answered her phone or door since the deacon left the other night. He’d called her several times. She just wouldn’t pick up the phone. She wasn’t sure if he’d gotten his truck back from the repair shop or not and she didn’t try to find out. And she’d not returned Tamara’s call either. And that was something she’d never done before.

  “Cindy,” Marty began again for the umpteenth time in two days, “girl, I don’t know what to do.” She didn’t have another friend as close as they’d been and she’d not tried to find one.

  Have mercy, I’m sitting around here trying to discuss the problems of the living with the dead.

  The deacon had a lot of nerve putting her in this position. She could be nice to Delilah if need be—she was somewhat okay with that. The question that haunted her was the possibility of the deacon being Jessie’s real father.

  Marty replayed the conversation over and over in her mind. Why didn’t he just come on out and answer my question about Jessie’s age and his marriage to Delilah? I was in such shock it just didn’t hit me right then to press him about it.

  He didn’t seem too concerned about who might be Jessie’s natural father was one thought she’d had. And then she thought, Perhaps he knows and just doesn’t want to get involved.

  One thing she knew for certain, ever since the deacon had moved into Jessie’s home, she’d come to view him as a part of Jessie’s family. Although she’d known the deacon in passing, there were five thousand members in that congregation, so they’d never really connected. Now they had, and she wasn’t about to deliver her family into Delilah’s hands. Her hands weren’t worthy as far as Marty was concerned. Plus she wasn’t in love with the deacon, but she was on her way. But life was short, too. She wasn’t waiting beyond the six-week deadline she’d set.

  Two days after Jessie, accompanied by the deacon, delivered Delilah all in one piece, with no scorn or scolding, to her Garden City home, she was still smiling. She went from room to room singing at the top of her still powerful lungs, God bless the child . . .

  No matter how the change in their attitudes started, she was thrilled it’d finally begun, after she’d spent a night in her son’s home. She would never have believed it would happen after she’d heard the cruel accusation of Thurgood that her best talent was to piss off foe, friend, and family alike.

  She recalled that later the other night, once settled in the spare room in Jessie’s basement, Delilah saw with her own eyes even more evidence of what she’d missed over the years. There were several photo albums of pictures taken on a cruise, which showed laughing, kayaking, and playful Jessie, Cindy, and Tamara. And when she saw smiling pictures of the deacon on the ship with them, she became sad. She wasn’t angry, just sad.

  And then it all came together for Delilah. She found a few DVDs of Cindy and Tamara which also featured, sometimes, Jessie and the deacon. They were singing and clowning around, having a great time singing gospel, jazz, and R & B. And their harmonies were sweet and their improvisations and riffs blew her away.

  Now here she was, two days later, happy as a clam in her home with nothing but hope in mind. She’d just picked up her Daily Word and was about to pray again when her doorbell rang. “I’m not expecting company. Lord, please don’t let it be a certified letter from some collection agency.” So imagine her surprise when she found the deacon standing in her doorway. He leaned against the door frame, grinning like he thought he was Denzel Washington.

  And it all changed once he set foot across the threshold. Peaceful means of coexistence magically disappeared once they laid eyes upon one another. And like champagne and chitlins, they didn’t match but seemed to end up on the same menu regardless.

  “Well now,” the deacon said as entered and spied the book of Bible verses she held. “I’m glad you’re in a prayerful mood.” Without asking if he could, he sat down on the sofa.

  “Hold up, Thurgood!” Delilah let her voice rise to show who was really in control. “Before you come in acting like you’re still better than somebody, this is still my home. I do pray from time to time. So if you gonna cuss, fuss, or insinuate, please don’t do it in my living room. This is the room I pray in.”

  “Woman, now I know you’ve completely lost your mind.”

  Her shudder was almost invisible, but it’d happened. Delilah struggled to keep a composed look upon her face a
t the mention of her mental state. He better hope I don’t flip out on him and show him what real crazy looks like.

  Any reaction by Delilah was lost upon the deacon as he leaned back on the sofa and chuckled. “I shouldn’t reprimand you for the way you pray. I guess I’m still adjusting to the fact that you actually allow God to come into this spotless living room and hear your dirty little secrets.”

  “Like I said, I do pray and the how and the when ain’t none of your business. But since you insist on knowing,” Delilah insisted as she sat down in her recliner and let it out, “I do it right here.”

  “You can’t confine God to any one place, Dee Dee. You think he don’t know what devilish things you’re doing throughout the rest of this house?” Laughing—he just couldn’t help himself—he decided to take it a step further and teased, “Dee Dee, tell me that you still do one ‘devilish’ thing. I’d sure hate to think that’s gone to waste.”

  Despite her need to remain in charge, Delilah almost lost control of her bladder. She laughed until she cried. “Thur-no-good Pillar, you still ain’t got the sense God gave a cricket. Some things are just like riding a bicycle.” She stopped and patted her hips. “But right now I ain’t offering no rides. Besides,” she said as she pointed to his head, “you’re still wearing a conk, which means your bicycle might still have training wheels on it.”

  “Yes, I do ride a bike without training wheels and yes, I am wearing a conk. Conked hair or not, I can still ride that bicycle and I still know when to switch gears. Hell, it don’t take a genius to spot a dog in the midst of a litter of kittens.”

  “If that’s true, then how in the world did you end up with that Macy character?”

  “Her name is Marty, and you know that.” The deacon regretted teasing Delilah because he suddenly felt guilty. It was like he was cheating on Marty. Why did he always allow Delilah to push his buttons? Yet he’d been the one who started it.