Jessie watched the deacon leave the room. He was about to move away from the vent when he heard Delilah and Tamara again. But they weren’t laughing. He could’ve sworn that they were arguing instead. He wondered, What could’ve gone wrong in just a few minutes?
Chapter 36
Moments before, while they were in the basement spare room, Delilah and Tamara’s conversation had turned sour as soon as the deacon’s name flowed from Tamara’s mouth. Even as she followed Delilah up the steps and into the living room, she wouldn’t stop pushing.
“Don’t you care about the deacon?”
“Of course, I do. I’m a Christian now. I gotta care about everybody.”
It wasn’t so much that Delilah didn’t still care about the deacon. It was that she cared a little too much and hadn’t figured out how to do so without shortchanging God. So she’d just stopped visiting him any more than she had to. They’d been married in name only for a long time, and she didn’t know if there was an expiration date on that sort of arrangement.
“Grandmama,” Tamara pleaded as she fidgeted with one of the doilies on a shelf, “okay, if you won’t do it for the deacon’s sake, what about Daddy? We can’t keep telling Daddy how much we respect and love him but not tell him the truth. It’s not right.”
“Do you like the peace and quiet that Jehovah has provided for this family? Do you think Jehovah would’ve saved me and cleaned me up for my son, just so I could break his heart?”
“His heart’s been broken for years. And he has his suspicions.” Tamara’s voice rose as she continued to challenge Delilah. “Saved by God or not, I think you’re being selfish.”
“Watch your tone, sweetie.”
“I’m sorry, Grandmama. But you and the deacon have put me in the middle of something that could even ruin my relationship with Daddy if everything’s not out in the open. That’s not right.”
Tamara’s words pierced Delilah’s heart. How could she put such a burden on someone she loved now more than her own life? It wasn’t that she hadn’t thought about it before. She just hadn’t thought about it a lot since Jehovah took her into His inner circle.
“I’m sorry, sweetie. I truly don’t know what to do. And unless Jehovah has someone to open their big mouth and reveal that Thurgood is really your grandfather, I just don’t see it happening no time soon.”
Tamara walked over and put her arms about Delilah. “You and I can always tell him together. We’re Jewel women. We’re not afraid of anything.”
“Well actually, sweetie, since Thurgood and I never divorced, don’t forget I’m really a Jewel Pillar.. . .”
Deacon Pillar returned to his living room carrying two tall glasses of raspberry tea, one without the ice and not too cold. His hands shook just a little. All the time he was out of the room he’d prayed again, and asked God to give him the right words to say.
So it was up to him, and unless God had an ass to speak like the one in the Bible, there’d be no going back.
It took the deacon a moment to realize that Jessie’s complexion had reddened and it looked like his eyes were red, too. He wondered what could’ve happened while he was in the kitchen. He almost dropped the glasses.
“Brother Jessie”—the deacon rushed to his side with the glasses still in his hands—“what’s wrong?”
“Hypocrites,” Jessie shot back. “I can’t stand them.”
“Well, I’m not partial to them, either, but don’t let them upset you.”
“All this time it’s been secrets and more secrets and half truths.” He stopped and pointed down to the floor vent. “She knew what it meant to me and my mother never said a word about it.”
“Well, don’t be too mad at Delilah. She’s just gotten reborn. She hasn’t been at it as long as me and you. She’s bound to have a secret or two.”
“What about your secrets?”
The deacon thought it was a strange question, but he’d answer it anyway. He placed the glasses down and spread his arms wide open to prove a point. “I don’t have anything much to hide. Everyone knows I’m an open book.”
“Oh really, Deacon,” Jessie said slowly as he left the floor vent and sat back onto the sofa. “Then why don’t you come on over here and read your son a bedtime story.”
Chapter 37
Jessie never gave the deacon a chance to respond or to give a follow-up lie. He jumped off the couch and left quickly before he punched the old man.
He fled down the stairs two at a time, and then raced inside his apartment. No sooner had he gone into the living room than he saw Delilah and Tamara.
“Daddy, what’s wrong?” Tamara’s voice shook. Her father looked about as bad as he had during the weeks after her mother passed away.
“Jessie.” Delilah was a bit more seasoned than Tamara. The first thing she did was to look up at the ceiling. It took her only a moment to realize she and Tamara had stood there and revealed everything she’d wanted to keep a secret.
“Jessie, let’s pray about this.” Delilah couldn’t believe her own words. Her son looked as though he’d had his heart ripped out and all she could do was think about praying.
“Daddy.” Tamara started toward her father. “Please. What’s wrong?”
Jessie’s anger spared no one in the room. “Shut the hell up, Tamara. How many times you gonna say the word daddy? You’ve already called it out twice.”
“I don’t understand. You’re my father. Why are you upset with me?”
“I’m upset with you because you don’t have the right to call me daddy.”
“Jessie, don’t do this.” Delilah was beside herself. She didn’t know what else to say. If she wasn’t saved, she could’ve slapped him or knocked him out with something until he came to and made sense.
“Don’t you ever try and tell me what to do,” Jessie shouted at Delilah, “you selfish witch.”
And then, as if he’d seen Tamara for the first time, he lit into his daughter. “You have a daddy. Why wouldn’t you want me to have one, too?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Tamara thought her father was having breakdown. But what would’ve brought it on? And then she remembered the hints she’d given him weeks ago. She’d taken him to the edge of a lie and waited for the truth to save him. But it didn’t. The truth pushed him over the edge.
“All of you made a fool of me.”
Upstairs the deacon’s back was against the wall. He could hear Jessie screaming and accusing Delilah and Tamara through that hellish floor vent.
Without a plan of his own, but relying completely upon God, the deacon raced down the stairs to Jessie’s house. The anger inside Jessie’s apartment seemed to darken the hallway, but it didn’t stop the deacon from barreling through Jessie’s door.
Jessie spun around when he heard the door crash open. “Well, ladies, it looks like your cavalry has arrived.” Jessie snatched Tamara by her shoulder and almost flung her in the deacon’s path. “Here, take my daughter. She needs a daddy. I’ve never had one, so I won’t miss it.”
“If you put your hands on baby girl again, I’ll whup you like the daddy you need and not the one you want.”
“Thurgood, please stop. We all just need to calm down and talk this out.” Delilah was the only voice of reason in the room. That was enough to cause a break in the commotion for all of two seconds.
“Oh, I know damn well you’ve returned to crazy now.” Jessie started toward Delilah as if he were stalking prey. “I could kick my own ass for allowing you into my home and my life. You just couldn’t be satisfied ruining my childhood. You just had to come back and finish the job.”
That was enough for Delilah to place a temporary hold on her salvation.
“Jessie, I wish you would step over here and think I’m just gonna let some nigger throwing a hissy fit whup my ass.”
“So who’s gonna stop me—you?”
“Leave him to me, Dee Dee.” The deacon rushed toward Jessie. “You don’t have to like me or eve
n love me,” Deacon Pillar exclaimed, “but dammit, you will respect me and your mama!”
Tamara pushed the deacon to the side. “Don’t threaten my father, Deacon Pillar.”
“I don’t need your help.” Jessie tried to wave Tamara away.
“But I need yours.” Tamara stood with her feet planted and her hands on her sides. “Now I could cry like I want to, or I can be the adult and try to get some clarity about this.”
“Didn’t I just tell you to leave me alone, Tamara?” Jessie stepped back. He really didn’t want to confront her but he would.
“I don’t give a damn what you want, Daddy. This isn’t all about you.”
“Did you just cuss at your father?” Delilah’s voice suddenly rose several levels and she didn’t care if the whole neighborhood heard her. “You don’t cuss at your father. That stubborn ass I gave birth to is still your father.”
Either Delilah was backsliding into crazy or she’d found a way to make crazy work.
Deacon Pillar stood tall in the middle of the floor. He seemed to tower over them all. He looked like Mount Kilimanjaro with his salt-and-pepper conk sprinkled around the top of his head. “Both of y’all need to step back. This is between me and my son.”
That word son coming from the deacon shocked Jessie and sent him to a place inside his head where confusion reigned. It felt like the word handcuffed him and made him unable to move an inch. So he didn’t.
“I went to prison for my son. Neither of you did.” Deacon Pillar pointed to Tamara and Delilah. “I stopped pimping for my son. Neither of you had anything to do with that, either. I searched for God and found him, and God brought my son to New Hope. I became his friend because I thought that’s what he needed more than a long lost daddy!”
“Thurgood, what are you doing? What are you talking about?”
“Stop butting in, Delilah. This is between me and my son. I ain’t telling you again.”
The deacon turned to Jessie once more. Jessie hadn’t moved or spoken since the deacon called him son and handcuffed him with that word.
“Now you are a father, so you know Tamara didn’t come preprogrammed, and you sure didn’t come with a book of instructions when your mama gave birth, either. Me and that woman standing over there were in some kind of fix back then in Harlem.”
The deacon stopped and pointed to the other sofa where he wanted Delilah and Tamara to sit. “I’m coming back for you two.”
And then the deacon removed his belt and held it in his hands. Jessie was in his forties, a cop with a licensed gun, and the deacon was letting him know that it didn’t matter.
“Now I’m sorry for all the hurt you’ve been through. But you can’t sit here and tell a lie that whether I called myself your daddy or Deacon Pillar that I wasn’t here for you when you needed me.”
Jessie’s jaw tightened as he struggled to fight against the truth. He wanted to hold on to his anger to where he need not compromise or be kind.
“Now I could continue to go through our trials and joys, year by year, but I’m not. You ain’t having a meltdown or anything convenient like that tonight. You’re gonna be a man and take what I’m about to give you.”
The deacon took the strap and struck it a couple of times against his thigh as he walked toward Jessie.
“Thurgood, don’t you dare hit my baby!” Delilah jumped up.
“Didn’t I tell you to sit your arse down?”
There was something about the deacon’s tone and his stride that made a believer of another kind out of Delilah. She sat down on the sofa and took Tamara’s hand.
Jessie didn’t budge. “Gimme your best shot! I can take it like a man. I just hope you can take it like one, too.”
The deacon struck his thigh with the strap again. Just as he got to the edge of Jessie’s seat he threw down the strap and leaned over Jessie.
The deacon pulled Jessie to his feet and quickly wrapped his arms around him. “Take this like a man, son.”
Jessie was larger in girth and height than the deacon, but he felt like a feather in his father’s arms as Deacon Pillar gave him what felt like a bear hug of love.
Epilogue
One Year Later
The sun rose long before Delilah did. She stretched and looked over at the deacon. He’d finally fallen asleep clutching a month-old early morning edition of the Amsterdam News. There was a full-blown color photo of Tamara in the entertainment section. She was accepting her Stellar Award for the 2009 Best Gospel Jazz Album and Artist.
That Sunday night she, the deacon, and Jessie almost lost their minds when Zipporah called and told them Tamara had won. They’d been too nervous to watch the awards show on television.
Delilah laughed softly as she gave thanks to God for His favor upon her precious grandbaby. Tamara had gone further than Delilah had in the music business, and Delilah was not only okay with it, she was bursting with pride.
Hmmmm . . . Delilah touched a stiff strand of the deacon’s now part Afro, part conked hair and smiled again. With little effort she sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees. If there was stiffness in her limbs, she didn’t feel it.
She turned and looked at him. Covering her mouth, she struggled to keep from laughing aloud. He’d fussed a little yesterday when she’d finally returned from taking Mother Johnson and Sister Green to see Sister Green’s son. Although the deacon had testified on the young man’s behalf, he was still sent to Rikers Island. The deacon wasn’t too thrilled about the women paying so much attention to the crippled thug, as the deacon still called him, even if one of the women was the boy’s mama. But Delilah had learned the hard way about the ferociousness of a mother’s love, and if Sister Green needed her, she was going.
She continued to watch the deacon as he lay sprawled out across the other side of the bed. He’d suddenly started grinning while he slept.
“You’d better be dreaming about me, you old rascal,” Delilah whispered.
For the next few moments Delilah reminisced about the powerful love they’d shared so many years ago. And it was still powerful after they’d renewed their wedding vows barely a week ago. It was a beautiful ceremony at New Hope Assembly and, of course, she was a beautiful bride. Folks said she looked more like Lena Horne that day than Lena ever could.
She was certain there was also a lot of talk about why she and the deacon had to have such a large wedding party at their age. Because we can is what the deacon told those who’d dared ask openly.
“Thurgood, you certainly looked handsome that day,” Delilah murmured.
He’d had Jessie as his best man. He even had the word son typed on the wedding program right next to best man. And the deacon had had the pleasure of having Reverend Cordell DeWitt and his lovely wife, Janelle, along with her sister Chyna, the former First Lady of New Hope Assembly, fly in from California. Without hesitation the Reverend DeWitt had cleared his busy television schedule to fly in and be one of the deacon’s groomsmen. After all, the deacon had stood up for him at his wedding, too. To hear the reverend tell it, the deacon had saved his marriage even before he said the words I do.
And, of course, Delilah had had Tamara as her maid of honor. Sister Marty threw hint after hint to be one of Delilah’s bridesmaids. I’d have beat that heffa to the ground if she hadn’t been there, Delilah thought. She actually would’ve understood if Marty hadn’t been at the ceremony. But she’d never admit it. Yet the highlight of the wedding came when she and the deacon joined Tamara and Jessie in song. They turned the wedding out. It made Zipporah, who’d come with Sister Betty, start thinking about offering Delilah and the deacon a chance to record a track on Tamara’s next album. It’d worked for Mom and Pop Winans, so why not?
The alarm clock on the side of the bed chimed that it was eight o’clock. She didn’t need reminding of the time.
If she didn’t know better, the way the deacon made her feel last night, she’d have thought that time had stood still. It certainly wasn’t all one-sided, either.
/> Last night, several hours after she and the deacon had watched their favorite Harlem Nights movie, she started feeling like sunshine; a lot better than she had in weeks, perhaps even months. She’d sexually jacked that deacon up. He had to limp into third base.
But she couldn’t spend the entire day in bed. She was somebody’s wife and she had to keep her man happy.
Less than thirty minutes later, still smiling in the afterglow, Delilah buzzed about the kitchen that used to be for the deacon only. For years, she’d claimed she couldn’t or wouldn’t cook in a kitchen that wasn’t painted bright sunshine yellow, with plenty of counter space. Yet there she was, dressed in nothing but that smile and another one of the deacon’s old shirts.
Everything is mellow, she thought. One thing was for certain—if they came together as intensely as they had the night before, she’d have to cripple him before he’d ever let her go again.
“Good morning, Dee Dee.”
Delilah jumped. She was so engrossed in her thoughts she’d not heard him wake up or move about. And yet there he was.
The deacon stood in the doorway to the kitchen. He looked almost two shades lighter than normal and was dressed. He’d changed his usually tacky outfit into one that was even worse. He’d donned a purple and brown robe that barely covered the green striped trousers and red shirt. “I feel so good, I could eat a pig with his oink dipped in barbecue sauce.”
The sound of his satisfied voice earned him a pass on his crazy getup, and it put her back into a good mood. “Good morning, Thur-so-good Pillar.”
The deacon smiled so wide his jaws ached. Her praise had put to rest any doubts he had, and he’d done it without any help from a blue pill for a headache.
Delilah suddenly broke out in song. She sang over and over.
“Something and you certainly smell good this morning, my lovely wife.”
She loved the sound of “my wife.” It was enough to make her break out in song again.
“Something about my man, some don’t understand; it’s not that he’s so much bigger, it’s because he ain’t fast on the trigger.... If I put him in my kitchen, he can bake a mean ham. If I put him in my garden, he don’t stop until I drop . . . oh, oh, oh . . .”
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