“Daddy, I’m so sorry.” Tamara wanted to take back every word she’d said about the deacon and Delilah’s marriage; especially since there was stress growing between him and Sister Marty. I wonder if Daddy said anything yet.
Jessie waved away Tamara’s apology and turned back to Sister Marty. “I’m just not in the place where I need to be to accept Delilah. At least until I know the whole truth.”
“Truth hurts, Jessie. Remember that. I think we need another one of our son-mom chats.”
“Oh Lord, I don’t believe this.” Tamara didn’t explain, she just pointed.
When Sister Marty left Delilah, she’d never returned and seen Mother Johnson and Delilah together in the intake office. But she did see them walking arm in arm as they walked into the little sanctuary.
Delilah threw her head back and winked at Jessie, Tamara, and Sister Marty. Then she and the old church mother walked together into what Delilah thought was a food committee meeting.
Delilah was livid. She dropped Mother Johnson’s arm with a thud. Instead of seeing a bunch of women with chef’s hats or whatever they wore to a food committee meeting, she saw some folks kneeling and others gathered in pockets holding hands where they stood.
It took a moment or two, but it became obvious that it wasn’t the meeting she’d looked forward to. There was too much prayer going on. Delilah knew that’s what it was, because before she’d set up her mobile church routine, she’d attended a few prayer sessions. But that only happened when she’d gotten to church too early or too late. She’d never attended one on purpose.
Mother Johnson, out of respect for the prayers going upward, didn’t say a word to Delilah. She walked to one of the altar railings and knelt down to pray. Without Mother Johnson to hold her down, Delilah turned to leave the sanctuary.
Delilah ran straight into the path of Jessie and the others.
“Delilah, where are you going?” Jessie asked the question with an authoritative tone that Delilah didn’t appreciate at that moment. “With all those Bibles you have as decoration in your home, I thought you’d feel comfortable inside here.”
And then it was Tamara’s turn. “Grandma Delilah,” Tamara said softly and as reverently as she could while inside the sanctuary, “I really didn’t know the meeting was cancelled. You might as well stay for prayer. I am.”
Delilah looked around the sanctuary again. Oh Jehovah, why do you keep moving the chess pieces around? You keep dangling my family before me like a carrot. “Okay. I don’t have a choice. I took the bus over here, but I’d planned on riding back with you, Tamara.”
At that same moment, Sister Marty became as confused as she’d ever been before. She looked at Delilah standing between Jessie and Tamara and it suddenly seemed right and not threatening. And at that moment in time, she also realized what she’d always confessed. Whatever God has for me is for me. From the very beginning she should’ve shown Delilah that same love and care Jesus had shown her when she was once a lost soul, too. She should’ve just loved the hell out of Delilah.
Jessie watched as the others prepared for the devotional service to begin. Of course, there were little cliques that always sought out one another for prayer and comfort. But then he saw Mother Johnson walk over to Tamara and Delilah. He couldn’t hear the conversation, but he could certainly imagine it. The old church mother and Tamara were going from one member to another. He saw hands extended to Delilah and wondered if Tamara had introduced her as her grandmother. That was something he certainly hadn’t done, nor had he tried to. Instead, he decided he needed to stop trying to one-up God and allow the Master to play things out in His time.
“I wanna thank the Lord for His goodness and all He’s done for me.” That was one of the most readily used testimony starters, and it’d started with Mother Johnson. “Oh, if it were not for the Lord, where would I be?”
From around the sanctuary others called out, “Tell it, Mother Johnson.”
“I made a new friend in the Lord this afternoon. Oh, we shared so much in common. We both were wretches undone, with one a little more undone than the other. . . .”
Delilah was with her newfound fan until she went there. Who is she talking about? Delilah looked about the sanctuary until her eyes found Sister Marty standing off to the side alone. Oh, okay. It must be Marty. I didn’t think Mother Johnson was talking about me.
And then after several more platitudes along with legitimate praise, Mother Johnson brought Delilah to the stage. “Would you like to testify or sing a song?”
There wasn’t a Martin Luther King fan waving as Delilah stood. She knew how to work her audience. She hadn’t worn her signature wig, but with her snow white hair cascading about her face, she turned the prayer meeting out!
“Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah” was part of her first set. Her rendition was flawless and she drew the skeptics into her corner, including the pianist, who had started crying. Then she followed with a rousing rendition of Vicki Winans’ “Long As I Got King Jesus.” Her long white tresses took over and the way she was shaking her hair and her “pocketbook,” those assets could’ve backed her up. But it was when she became so caught up in her own myth and screamed, “Give the drummer some . . .” that Jessie, Tamara, and Sister Marty almost passed out.
“There’s no way I’m telling these folks that Delilah is my mother,” Jessie whispered to Tamara. Any outing of their dirty laundry would stay in the family hamper that night.
Marty didn’t know what to think. One minute she wanted to hug Delilah like Jesus would, and the next she wanted to go Jeffrey Dahmer and just go cannibal on her.
By the time the prayer meeting was over, Delilah was so happy she’d hung around. She didn’t know it could be so entertaining. Delilah delivered her testimony, without prompting, diva-style. By the time she’d finished her customized account of God’s goodness with a healthy dose of her celebrity status woven out of fact and fiction cloth, New Hope had a star.
But the star still needed a ride home.
Chapter 26
Delilah rode in the back of Jessie’s car wondering why the others weren’t feeling as good as she did. “Lord, have mercy. I truly enjoyed that prayer meeting tonight. Is this the way it always is?”
“No,” Tamara hissed, “it’s usually a bit more authentic, not quite so Showtime at the Apollo.”
Delilah was sandwiched between Sister Marty and Tamara because the trunk was full and they’d had to put some things in the passenger-side front seat. “I just love that Mother Johnson. She knows her church stuff.”
Jessie stopped trying to avoid a headache and just went with it. At least the pain would keep him from killing her.
“So, Delilah,” Sister Marty asked as nicely as she could, “did you ever decide what dish you and I should cook? Remember, we both were going to bring foods that complemented each other.”
Delilah thought about the question. Any other time she’d say something offhanded, but not tonight. She was still feeling the spirit or something akin to it. “Well, Sister Marty, what’s your best dish? We can start with that, because I can pretty much cook anything.”
Tamara kept her eyes straight ahead, almost piercing the back of her father’s neck with her stare. Only now and then, when loud, piercing sounds of a fire truck or a police siren blasted as they raced to wherever they were going, did she turn her head.
As Sister Marty and Delilah went back and forth over what recipes and foods should go together, Jessie drove on, wishing both the women would just shut up.
“It’s getting late. Anybody heard from the deacon?” Jessie asked the question aloud because he’d just realized that he hadn’t.
“I haven’t even thought about old Thurgood all day, except when Mother Johnson brought him up.” A scowl appeared on her face for a second, but Delilah wasn’t letting anything rain on her parade. He could wait.
“I was supposed to hear from him earlier, but I haven’t,” Sister Marty said.
“Has everybody
checked their cell phones?” Jessie asked as he used his still aching hand to pull his from his pocket. He needed to keep his good hand on the wheel.
“There’s no sense in me checking mine,” Delilah replied. “My BlackBerry is in the red.” She stopped and laughed at her own joke, knowing she hadn’t paid the bill because she couldn’t.
That left Tamara and Sister Marty to check theirs. There were no messages.
The car became quiet. Too quiet. But the deacon was a grown man, free to come and go as he pleased, Jessie thought. Either that or the old man was avoiding him. “Let’s see what’s happening.” Without thinking, Jessie turned on the police scanner he kept connected to his dashboard. But the question still hung in the air. “Let’s give the old dude his space. What trouble could he possibly get into? Aren’t I riding with all the troublemakers in his life?”
That last statement broke the ice and the women laughed. One by one, each of the women raised her hand. “I know I’m a troublemaker.” Delilah burst out laughing even harder than before. Marty and Tamara followed suit and claimed the same status. “I guess we’re the bane of that poor man’s existence,” they all said together.
But no sooner had the laughter from the backseat begun to die down, than Jessie turned up the sound on the scanner. Without another word or checking to make sure the women in the back had on seat belts, he did a sharp U-turn and sped back toward New Hope.
Chapter 27
Jessie hadn’t realized he was using both his good and his bad hand to drive. All he knew was he’d heard over the police scanner that unit cars had been called to New Hope Assembly. It was the code that meant serious trouble was happening at New Hope. As long as he was a cop, on duty or off, nobody would violate his church. The women hung on for dear life as Jessie weaved in and out of traffic with one hand laying on the horn.
Not one police car pulled him over, not even as he followed close behind a NYPD swat unit. His gut instinct told him something bad had happened. He was going against his police training to let on-duty police answer the call.
Arriving at New Hope, Jessie pulled up as close as the police would allow. “Y’all stay in this car,” Jessie told the women as he hopped out.
The women watched Jessie rush over to one of the police officers who was apparently in charge of crowd control. They saw Jessie pull out his shield and duck under the rope.
Jessie had barely cleared the rope before Delilah, Tamara, and Sister Marty were out of the car.
The ladies sprinted over to be near the rest of the crowd. The first church member they saw was Mother Johnson, and she was talking to a detective with his shield hanging off his belt. It shone even in the darkness. Mother Johnson appeared animated as she flailed around. By the time they reached her, she was almost out of breath.
“He’s not one of our regular crazies,” Mother Johnson explained to the detective. “I tried to tell him the center was closed, but he didn’t want to hear it. And then one of the deacons walked in and the boy pulled out a gun. The deacon tried to fight him off. . . .” She started swinging her pocketbook. “It was a good thing, too, because I was gonna whup that young boy’s arse in the name of—”
Mother Johnson stopped in midsentence. As soon as she saw Delilah and the other women she beckoned them over. As well as she knew both Tamara and Sister Marty, it was Delilah—her new best friend—whom she spoke to first. “Oh Lord, Sister Delilah, now don’t you worry none. They gonna save him as soon as they can locate him. . . . I know your prayers and worship are still circling heaven ’bout now.”
“Worry about whom?” Delilah asked, knowing full well that the two women had only one man in common. “You can’t be serious.”
Delilah was short enough not to have to duck too low to get under the rope, so she didn’t. And neither did Sister Marty or Tamara. They didn’t need any special discernment to figure out what Delilah knew.
Evading the police barriers was easy for Delilah. She’d had years of experience avoiding the police for one scrape or another. Her mind spun. She wasn’t familiar with the area. There were too many bushes and undergrowth, and the streetlights were dim. She’d outrun Tamara and Marty. She wasn’t quite sure where she was, but it didn’t seem like it was that far from New Hope. She couldn’t see that well in the dark, but she could hear. The sounds of the police seemed distant. Oh Lord, did I run the wrong way? She spun around almost like a top and still didn’t hear any signs of Tamara or Marty. Dammit, Thurgood, where did that fool take you?
Could it be the young man was spaced out on drugs and would hurt Thurgood? “Jehovah-shammah, in your name,” she prayed, “I don’t want anything to happen to either Thurgood or that crazy young man. They’re both your children, Father. . . .” Yet as hard as she prayed, she still didn’t know where to start looking for the deacon.
Yet Jehovah, being almighty and omniscient, heard Delilah’s prayer just as He had weeks ago when He’d set things in motion. But then, God never left anything to chance. And so things had happened to bring her to where she stood; knee-high in some low bushes that were clawing at her legs.
“You don’t wanna do this, young man!”
The voice was low and Delilah didn’t know how close she was to them, or if it was Thurgood she’d heard. So she pushed her body like a sprinter, circling the higher bushes so as not to make any noise. She made her way toward the direction of the voice.
Delilah couldn’t believe her eyes when she stopped and looked behind the bushes.
Under the moonlight she could see vaguely that the young man didn’t look any older than Tamara. But he was dressed up in a business suit. Who wore a business suit to a crazy interview? He had dreadlocks pulled back into a ponytail. She would’ve certified him crazy without paperwork. He had a maniacal smirk as he held what looked like a gun at the deacon’s side. It scared Delilah speechless.
He looked completely insane as he pushed the deacon ahead of him as they walked out from behind the bushes.
Like a deer in the headlights, Delilah still hadn’t moved. Not even when Jessie stumbled upon her and found the deacon in trouble.
“Stay put this time!” Jessie hissed. He was in full cop mode without his police radio and only a gun as he shoved Delilah to safety.
Jessie almost missed his chance. He’d crouched just before looking the deacon straight in the eye when the young man suddenly looked away. He could almost hear the sigh of relief as the deacon, with his hands raised in the air, nodded just slightly. Jessie knew the deacon had seen him.
“. . . Like I’m trying to tell you, young man. It’s not worth the headache. I’ve been to prison myself. I know.”
“Old nigger, please. That line won’t work with me. I’m a grown-ass man—I’m no baby. I can do a bid. Can you do death?”
“I ain’t worth shooting, son. Hell, I’m still wearing a conk.” Where that came from the deacon would never know. It just sounded like the right thing to say at that moment.
For the first time, the young man laughed. “Is that what that is around the old dome? What happened to the inside of it?”
Wasn’t a damn thing funny about that. The deacon kept his arms up and his mouth shut.
The young man suddenly swung his head to the side as his eyes darted around the area. The moon was getting brighter by the minute. They couldn’t remain where they were and he was tired. Hunger pangs shot off noisy rumblings from inside his stomach. He needed to find someplace where he didn’t have to use his hands to control the old man. But he wasn’t putting down the gun and he knew, hands up or not, the old man would continue to put up a fight.
The shed nearby was small, but the young man could tell it wasn’t locked. It looked as though someone had removed all the donated clothes and whatever else folks had thrown away to clear their consciences.
It took the young man another second to realize how bad that idea was. There was only one way in and out; so what was the point. He’d become trapped in some bushes like a wolf with an old goat.
As much and as often as the deacon testified about trading in his gangster for a Bible, he realized at that very moment that he should’ve reserved just enough of his gangster for such a time as this. Jessie was probably less than twenty feet or so away, and the deacon wasn’t sure what to do.
He had at least forty years or better on the kid. The deacon hadn’t had a physical in almost six months, but even he knew he couldn’t take the young man down and live. If he moved wrong he’d either get shot by Jessie or the kid, or have a heart attack.
Another movement caught the deacon’s attention. He didn’t react at first, waiting to see if the young man had seen it, too. Deacon Pillar craned his neck to make it seem as though he were getting a cramp, and then he saw her. It was Delilah peeking over a bush. He’d know that white mop of hair anywhere. Should’ve known my old ride-or-die gal wouldn’t be too far away from our son.
“Look, young man,” the deacon conspired, “my arms are tired and I gotta take a leak. Don’t you feel like pissing, too?”
The young man said nothing. It was too late. They’d been discovered. The deacon and the young man saw the prayer posse at the same time. It took several members of the prayer posse peeking out from the other side of the shed to take things to another level. The police had done a miserable job of trying to control a crowd of determined church folks.
The New Hope Assembly prayer posse quickly held hands and quietly prayed, and would’ve remained that way if they hadn’t seen the gun. Seeing the weapon took their beloved deacon’s dire situation to a new and more dangerous level. They cut and ran so fast it was as though they’d never been there.
At least they alerted the police before they left the area completely. Some of them made it to the New Hope Center and rushed inside yelling, “The deacon and the gunman are outside by the old clothes bin.”
Tamara took off, with Sister Marty trying her best to keep up. Neither remembered exactly where the clothes bin was located. They’d gotten to the third barrel before they bumped into Delilah, who immediately gave them the evil eye. “Where y’all been?” she whispered and then pointed over to Jessie. He’d just raised his gun, prepared to fire.
Don't Blame the Devil Page 18
