A Time to Stand

by Robert Whitlow

  “What do you mean?”

  “On the issue of whether it’s necessary for someone to ask forgiveness in order to be forgiven. Does Jesus forgive our sins if we don’t ask him to? I don’t think so. If that’s the standard he laid down, how can anyone, even Thelma Armistead, forgive someone who hasn’t admitted to doing something wrong and asked for forgiveness? Several of the deacons were telling me I have to publicly rebuke her.”

  Adisa jerked her head backward.

  “Yeah, that’s how I reacted,” Reggie said. “I’d rather Thelma believe something wrong about forgiveness than wound a woman who’s already hurting at such a deep level. But the head deacon claims I have to bring correction when necessary. Otherwise people will assume I agree with her and quit responding to the call for justice.”

  “I don’t know,” Adisa said slowly. “What Sister Armistead said challenged me in a good way.”

  “How?”

  Adisa hesitated. Reggie spoke first.

  “When I invited you to come tonight, I was going to ask you to grab a bite to eat with me after the meeting so we could relax and talk. Now I’d like to decompress with someone who isn’t a member of the congregation.”

  “Let’s do it,” Adisa replied immediately.

  While Adisa waited for everyone to clear the sanctuary, several people she knew came over and asked about Aunt Josie. When the last person left, Reggie joined her.

  “Where do you want to go?” he asked, loosening his tie.

  Adisa thought for a moment. There weren’t a lot of options for dining out in Campbellton at 8:30 p.m. on a Wednesday.

  “You pick,” she said.

  “What about the Lincoln Drive-In?” Reggie suggested. “It’s open, but we’d have to eat in the car.”

  “I haven’t eaten there in years. They used to have great milk shakes.”

  “And still do.”

  The Lincoln Drive-In had changed little since the days when Adisa was a high school student. The teenage boys and girls who worked as carhops wore Rollerblades to move around. Adisa drove and followed Reggie. They parked and she got into his car, which was spotlessly clean.

  “It doesn’t look like you’ve been squirting ketchup around in here,” Adisa said when she slipped into the passenger seat.

  “The night is still young.”

  A four-foot-square sign listed the items on the menu. Most of the pictures of the food didn’t look like they’d been updated in years.

  “I’m hungry,” she said.

  “I know you want a milk shake.”

  “For dessert.”

  “I usually get the same thing when I bring kids from the youth group here,” Reggie said.

  Adisa read the sign. “Okay,” she said. “Press the green button with the clown face on it.”

  Reggie reached out the window and pressed the enormous button.

  “What’s the story behind the clown button?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Adisa replied. “It’s been on there for as long as I can remember. I should ask Aunt Josie. She might know.”

  A chubby teenage boy with red hair rolled up to their window. Adisa leaned over and made sure she spoke loud enough for the boy to hear her.

  “I’ll have a cheeseburger with the works, add slaw, an order of chili cheese fries, a large limeade, and a small peanut butter chocolate shake.”

  Reggie, a surprised expression on his face, glanced sideways at Adisa.

  “I said I was hungry,” Adisa said.

  Reggie ordered a double cheeseburger with bacon, onion rings, and a drink.

  “I’m glad you ordered onion rings,” Adisa said when the carhop skated away. “That’s always been a dilemma for me. Chili cheese fries or onion rings.”

  “I’ll share,” Reggie replied. “I’ve never tried the chili cheese fries.”

  “You’d think it would be a soggy mess, but they use little string potatoes that stay crispy. You’ll love them.”

  Reggie took off his tie and laid it across the backseat.

  “I thought some more about Thelma Armistead,” he said. “I really don’t have the heart to say anything that would hurt her, especially during such a tough time for her family, so I’m going to talk about the issue of our forgiveness of others in a sermon without specifically mentioning what she said. The deacons will have to be satisfied with that approach.”

  “When she was speaking, I felt the Lord convicting me about my attitude toward the police officer.”

  “It can be a challenge to love a wrongdoer without usurping the Lord’s role as the only one who can forgive him,” Reggie quickly responded.

  “I wasn’t finished,” Adisa replied. “I was just taking a breath.”

  “Sorry.” Reggie turned slightly in his seat so he faced her. “Go ahead.”

  “I realized that I jumped to judgment without knowing much more than I read in the newspaper or heard from a neighbor. And when I made up my mind prematurely, it led to an attitude against Nelson that isn’t consistent with Jesus’ command to love my neighbor as myself.” Adisa paused. “Or with the presence of the fruit of the Holy Spirit in my life.”

  “You certainly need to make sure your conscience is clear, but I don’t think there’s much disagreement about the facts of the shooting.”

  “Maybe not, but neither of us knows exactly what happened, and until the full story is told, it’s not right to automatically reach the conclusion that the officer’s actions were racially motivated.”

  “Except for two hundred years of history,” Reggie replied flatly. “Look, you and I both know that the likelihood a young black man will be shot is much greater than for a young white man. That’s the sad reality of the world we live in.”

  “I’m not denying that. But Sister Armistead’s words made me consider the possibility that the shooting wasn’t about race at all.”

  “The officer will never admit that it was, maybe even to himself,” Reggie said. “But those attitudes run deep, and lots of white folks are unwilling to face the impact racism has on them in subtle ways. And against Deshaun the racism wasn’t subtle; it was brutal. You have to look to the past to understand the present.”

  “You’re probably right,” Adisa sighed. “And I hate that you are.”

  The carhop skated up with their order and balanced the tray on Reggie’s open window. Reggie distributed the food. They ended up with cups and bags all over the front area of the car.

  “I’ll pray a blessing,” Reggie said when they were situated.

  “Looking at all the calories in this food, it had better be a good one.”

  While they ate Adisa dropped the topic of the shooting. She was still trying to process the impact of the evening on herself and didn’t want to argue with the minister. However, as she munched on a chili cheese fry, she pondered his comment about the influence of the past on the present. And she sensed there was something the Lord wanted to say to her about that, too.

  Unable to sleep, Luke tossed and turned. He glanced at the clock on the nightstand. They’d been in bed for over two hours. Not wanting to disturb Jane, he slipped out of bed and headed toward the couch in the den.

  “I’m awake,” Jane said before he reached the bedroom door. “I think I woke you up.”

  “No.”

  “You’re wrong,” Jane replied. “You fell asleep for at least a few minutes. Believe me, I can tell.”

  Luke didn’t argue. He knew he was guilty of what he called aggressive breathing, otherwise known as snoring. He sat on the side of the bed. Jane propped her pillow up against the headboard. A full moon cast light through the cracks in the blinds of their bedroom windows.

  “Do you want to talk?” she asked.

  Luke’s mouth was dry. “I need a drink of water,” he said and left the bedroom.

  When he returned, Jane had turned on a lamp. Luke sat on her side of the bed near her feet. He looked down at the carpeted floor.

  “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about
the questions the reporter from the newspaper kept firing at me at the courthouse,” he said.

  Luke glanced up at Jane, who was looking at him and clearly not going to speak.

  “Do you remember what she asked?” he said.

  “Not really. I just wanted to get out of there and was glad Mr. Grayson did all the talking.”

  “She asked if I was sorry.”

  Luke’s chest felt tight. He pressed his lips tightly together. After a few moments passed, he felt Jane wrapping her arms around his shoulders.

  “I wish with all my heart this hadn’t happened. And I try not to think about Hamlin lying in a coma at the hospital with a bullet in his brain. If he wakes up, who knows how he’ll have to spend the rest of his life. I believed I was doing the right thing, but now it’s impossible not to second-guess myself.”

  Jane didn’t say anything. Instead, she pulled him closer. Luke knew there was nothing she could say. Her touch in his moment of weakness told him all she could. Whether his actions on East Nixon Street were right or wrong wouldn’t change the fact that she loved him. He felt himself begin to relax. Jane released him. Luke hugged her and kissed the top of her hand.

  “Thanks, I needed that,” he said.

  “Good.”

  “And are you sure it’s okay for me to tell you how I’m struggling without making you feel insecure and unprotected? I don’t want to burden you any more than you already are, and—”

  Jane reached out and touched his lips with her index finger to stop him from continuing. Luke returned to his side of the bed. Knowing he could go to sleep, he laid his head on the pillow. Jane turned out the light.

  It was almost 1:00 a.m. when Adisa reached the bottom drawer of the oldest chest in Aunt Josie’s guest bedroom. Over the past three hours, she’d waded through faded photographs of people she didn’t know and read letters written by people long dead. It was obvious that the family archives had ended up in her aunt’s house. She went down several rabbit trails of information that piqued her interest, but she didn’t find what she was looking for. She wasn’t sure it existed.

  Taking out a manila folder that was so old the yellow tint from the thick paper stock was almost gone, Adisa opened it. The last remaining fibers holding the folder together gave up, and she lifted off the detached top. Beneath it were several sheets of unlined paper covered with cursive writing in dark black ink. The title of the top sheet caught her eye—“Westside Free Church.” It was the church that had once stood beside the cemetery. In spidery black ink, a long-ago scribe wrote that the cemetery preceded the church by at least fifty years. The existence of a burial place for slaves before the church was built made sense in light of the legal prohibition against the public assembly of blacks in the antebellum era.

  Turning over the sheet of paper, Adisa found a list of over thirty names, some first names only, without any explanation of their significance. Her best guess was that the people recorded on the sheet were either early members of the congregation or deceased residents of the cemetery. Several had the last name Adams. Seeing the names of long-departed relatives made Adisa’s heart beat a little faster. These were her people, her heritage. Likely uneducated and illiterate, they were nevertheless the people whose blood ran in her veins. She ran her finger down the list, and the same tingly feeling that had swept over her at the cemetery returned.

  The next two sheets of paper included the names of early pastors and deacons at the church. There were dates by some names, but most were undated. Several men named Adams served as deacons but none as pastor. Several other sheets listed information about marriages and deaths. Toward the bottom of the stack she found a paper that should have been on top: “Compiled by Adelaide Adams—1921.” From the spindly handwriting, it was clear that Adelaide had prepared the other sheets as well. The very last sheet in the folder contained six sentences:

  The property for the church was deeded to the Trustees by Harold Grayson III around 1868 or 1870. I heard this from my mother but don’t know if it’s true. At one time the Grayson family owned a large farm in the area. Raphael Adams, my great-uncle, worked as a sharecropper for the Grayson family. I remember hearing Uncle Rafe preach at the church when I was a child. He never mentioned anything about this to me.

  Apparently, the connection between Adisa and the Grayson family went back much further than her summer job at Grayson, Baxter, and Williams. The entry raised the real possibility that some of her ancestors were slaves owned by Harold Grayson until they were forcibly freed at the end of the Civil War. Adisa sat on the floor, leaned her back against the wall, and tried to process how that made her feel toward the modern-day Grayson who’d offered her a job. Would that provide another rationale for refusing to work at his law firm? How did the challenge that came from Thelma Armistead’s lips about forgiving Officer Nelson factor into the situation?

  Half an hour later, Adisa fell asleep with Sister Armistead’s words ringing in her ears and images of long-dead ancestors toiling under the hot sun for the Grayson family swirling in her mind.

  TWENTY-ONE

  ADISA WAS UP before dawn. She threw on workout clothes and, with a fresh cup of coffee in her hand, left the house and returned to the Westside Cemetery. The sky was turning from gray to blue as the sun sent a few scout rays over the horizon. Adisa took a long sip of coffee before getting out of the car. The air was fresh, the temperature cool. She took a deep breath void of any tinge of pollution. Campbellton had its advantages over Atlanta.

  The remnants of the vibrant floral bouquets that had covered the cemetery in color were now wilted and dying. Adisa saw some of the dahlias she’d brought. What had been beautiful was now faded. The blossoms were turning brown, the stalks brittle. She began to pick them up. What was true for flowers was true for people. Adisa thought about the verse from 1 Peter chapter 1: “All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.” The words of Scripture rang true in her heart. But what was the word of the Lord for her? What did he have to say to her that transcended every competing voice? What did he think about the path before her? Only his will could withstand the relentless onslaught of time.

  Adisa reached the spot where she’d found the simple stone marker. She knelt in the damp grass and touched the cool surface of the rock. There was no way to know for sure, but she hoped she was near the grave of Raphael Adams. She bowed her head and offered up a prayer for guidance to the Lord whom her ancestor and others like him served in the midst of unfathomably difficult times. If they found a way to live in the enduring reality of the word of the Lord, there had to be a way for her to do so, too.

  And in that moment, Adisa felt a presence that flooded her heart with peace, confidence, hope, freedom, faith, and courage. It happened so fast that it took a few moments to identify what she’d received. Tears welled up in her eyes at the goodness of God.

  Adisa had been a Christian since childhood, but in that moment, on her knees in the cemetery, she entered a new realm of her faith. She realized in a deep way that like the children of Israel, she was the descendant of slaves, but now she was the daughter of a King, called to live in the land of his promises. Tears flowed from her eyes and onto the grass. After several minutes passed, she took a deep breath, wiped away her tears, and rose to her feet. Straightening her shoulders, she looked to the east where the sun peeked above the rim of the earth. A small smile crossed her lips. For a reason not rooted in analytical thinking or ethnic identity, she knew what she should do. Sometimes an inner witness speaks without need for a logical explanation.

  When Luke awoke, he enjoyed a split second of forgetful peace before the crushing weight of his circumstances returned. He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, and tried to figure out how to manage the next sixteen hours before returning to bed. The sound of Ashley whimpering in her bedroom was a welcome distraction.

  “I’ll check on her,” he said to Jane
, who had begun to stir beside him.

  “She’s wet for sure,” Jane said. “I’ll get up in a second and fix her breakfast.”

  “No, let me do it,” Luke answered.

  Jane rolled over in bed and looked at him with her eyes fully open. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’ve fixed her food before.”

  “I know, but . . . ,” Jane began and then paused. “No, that would be great. I’m going to try to sleep a few more minutes.”

  Luke went into Ashley’s room. The little girl was lying on her side facing away from him and whimpering into the back of her right hand.

  “Good morning, angel,” Luke said.

  Ashley immediately flipped over and faced him with a smile as brilliant as a sunrise on a clear day.

  “Thank you,” Luke said as he approached the crib.

  He changed the little girl’s diaper and took her into the kitchen. From her vantage point in her high chair, Ashley carefully watched him prepare breakfast. Noticing her attentiveness, Luke decided to entertain her.

  “Do you want rice or oatmeal cereal?” he asked, holding up both boxes and selecting one based on a vague wave of her hand that had nothing to do with an act of her will.

  He did the same with the other breakfast choices, including peaches and bananas, two different kinds of yogurt, and alternate brands of vitamins. When everything was mixed together, he sat down beside her high chair and began to carefully spoon the mixture into her mouth.

  “We’ll show Mommy what a neat baby looks like,” he said to the little girl as he scraped away stray cereal that had escaped the corner of her mouth.

  Ashley was as hungry as a lumberjack, and in only a few minutes reached the bottom of the bowl.

  “If you’re interested in working as a nanny, you’re hired,” Jane’s voice said from behind him.

  He turned and saw his wife standing with her arms crossed in the kitchen doorway.

  “But I’m not sure saying that you can do a better job than Mommy is the right message to send to a child,” she said.