I started laughing. “I’m sorry. But hearing that phrase coming out of your mouth just took me a little bit by surprise.”
“Oh, so you think I’m too stuck-up to say something like that?” He had a serious look on his face.
“No,” I said as I quickly cut off my laugh. “No, I’m sorry. It’s just, if you don’t mind me saying, you are a little nerdlike. Especially with those glasses on.” I pointed to them. “I thought you said you didn’t need them to see. But every time I see you, you have them on.”
“Would you prefer I take them off?”
I sat there beside him remembering how I felt the first time I saw him without his glasses. “No, I think you should keep them on.”
“And what do you mean, I’m a little nerdlike?” He cocked his head to the side.
I glanced at the stack of papers he had placed on the coffee table. “Okay, every time I see you, you have your briefcase with your serious look and those glasses. You just remind me of this guy I went to school with who was always studying, forever raising his hand whenever the teacher asked the class a question. And trust me: he was a serious bookworm. In fact, he used to tutor the other kids who couldn’t get what the teachers were teaching. Especially algebra, of all things. Who tutors folks in algebra?”
“I used to tutor folks when I was in school. Algebra, in fact.”
I smiled. I could tell he enjoyed this back-and-forth.
I took a deep breath and made a show of letting it out. “While I’ve got my foot in my mouth, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
“Shoot.”
“Why did you get divorced?”
He stroked his chin. “I don’t mind answering any questions you might have about me. I met my ex-wife when I was in high school. She was a cheerleader and one of the most popular girls in our school. I was, as you like to put it, nerd-lite in school.”
“Now, see. You’re wrong for that. You shouldn’t be taking my words and using them against me,” I said playfully. “Nerd-lite? I like that.” I giggled.
He sat back on the couch. “I’m not using your words against you. It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve ever been called a nerd. Anyway, my ex-wife and I didn’t date until we were both in college.”
“Did you attend the same college?” I asked.
“No. She went off to Howard University while I stayed here in Birmingham and attended UAB. With my SAT scores I could have gone to any school I wanted. In fact, I was accepted at MIT. Boy, was I excited when I received that letter in the mail.”
“Then why didn’t you leave and go to a college out of state? Was it too expensive?”
“Actually, I had been offered over one hundred and sixty thousand dollars in scholarships.” He took in a deep breath and released it slowly as he twisted his mouth several times.
“Since I can remember,” he continued, “I’ve watched my mother struggle as she raised us, practically single-handed, working hard to put food on the table and keep a roof over our heads. I told you about my younger brother whom I love dearly. T. J. was forever finding ways to get into trouble. He hated that we didn’t have the money to buy the name brands of the world and other things the other children at our school had, let alone the little things he felt everybody was entitled to. Things like not having to worry about the lights being cut off. He hooked up with the wrong crowd, started selling drugs, among other things. Somebody was killed. They claimed my brother was in on the deal. He was close to seventeen at the time. It was the summer I graduated. They decided to try him as an adult.”
I could see how much telling me this was affecting him. I wanted to reach out and touch his hand but I fought the urge.
Marcus looked down at his hands before looking back at me. “Fourteen months later, he was found guilty of second-degree murder—guilt by association. It took the jury eight hours to decide what to do with possibly the rest of my brother’s life. He’s in prison now. T. J. was not a bad kid. He just needed direction, a father figure with a strong hand steering him in the right place. I suppose my hands weren’t strong enough to do that.
“His conviction broke my mother’s heart. I didn’t want to leave her, not while all of that was going on. So I decided to stay in town and attend UAB. After he was sentenced to twenty-five years with the possibility of parole, it didn’t feel right leaving her here still struggling to pay the bills in addition to paying the lawyer she’d hired. So I continued to stay, attending college while holding a part-time job on the side.”
I realized that my asking him about college had taken him off the path to telling me about his ex-wife. But I also sensed that he needed to tell me about his brother and his mother. The more I talked to Marcus, the more I was seeing his true heart. And he did appear to have a big heart.
Marcus smiled at me. “I’m sorry. You ask me why my ex-wife and I divorced and I wander off into my other family troubles.”
“I asked you about college as well. And honestly, I appreciate you for being so open and honest about your brother and your mother. It makes me feel good to know you’re that comfortable with me that you feel you can tell me something like that.”
“It still makes me mad when I think of our young black men becoming old black men in prison. There’s got to be a better way for us to approach this problem,” Marcus said. “There’s got to be.” I heard the quiet anger in his voice.
“Yeah, it’s definitely causing a hardship on us women out here. I have a friend whose boyfriend is in jail right now. On the one hand, you wish our guys would stop putting themselves in the position for them to even be caught up in that situation. My friend’s boyfriend robbed a store. They know this stuff is wrong. And they know they’re likely to get caught. So why even try it?” I asked rhetorically.
“The young especially feel invincible,” Marcus said. “They believe they will be the one person who outsmarts the system. I tried telling my brother that, as did my older brother, Ronnie, in the navy. It’s hard enough, even with all the strides we as a people have made these days, to be black and not find oneself in trouble with the law. Ask any black man whether he truly feels okay driving while black, especially at night in certain places. He’ll tell you the embedded fear you have when it’s dark and a police light flashes behind you.”
“Driving while black,” I said.
“Absolutely. I was pulled over once, simply because I was in a white neighborhood and I happened to be black. They pulled me over for a bogus reason, asked for my ID, then told me I looked like someone they were looking for. Mind you, it was nine o’clock at night, dark, and no way for them to see my face until they pulled me over. But I looked like someone they were looking for. I had my daughter in the car with me. Afterward, she wanted to know if I had been bad and if that was why the police had stopped me. Broke my heart for my little girl to see that, particularly when I’d done nothing wrong.”
“Wow,” was all I could say. “I’ve only been stopped by the police once in my life, and even then, they let me off with a warning.”
“It’s different for black men, that’s for sure.” He shook his head slowly, then clapped his hands once. “Okay, but you asked about Sasha.”
“Sasha?” I acted like I hadn’t heard her name before, although in truth, I had overheard him when he and Brent were talking about her the night of the rehearsal.
“Sasha’s my ex-wife’s. So, why did she and I divorce?”
“You don’t have to tell me,” I said. So far I had caused him to be sad about his brother, his mother, and the plight of the black man.
“Yes, I have to tell you. If I want to move forward with any kind of a relationship with you, I need to put everything on the table.” He turned more squarely toward me as he stared, then broke into a full smile. “Melissa, I really want to get to know you better. There’s something special about you. And your laugh is infectious. The first time I saw you sitting there at that desk, I saw how special you were. I think if we can get past some of t
he things that concern you regarding my past, you and I just might have something going here.”
“Marcus, I don’t want to mislead you. I do like you. In fact, the more I’m around you, the more I find to like about you. But I grew up believing it was wrong to divorce. As I grew older and began to read the Bible for myself, I found that maybe it wasn’t divorce that was the problem so much as remarrying after a divorce. Being with a divorced person, according to how I interpret the Bible, is to commit adultery with them. Adultery to me is a very serious offense in the eyes of God. And from what I’ve read, God hates divorce.” I took a deep breath.
“Now, I know there’s the exception due to fornication that Jesus spoke about in that passage of Matthew I read to you over the phone the other night,” I said. “And that may well be what happened with you. I don’t know. If it is, then maybe it would be acceptable for the two of us to get together.”
Marcus began to smile. “So, you’re saying you would be interested in dating and even possibly marrying me?”
I looked at him and tried not to smile. He had an uncanny way of taking my words and going to a whole ’nother place with them. “We’re adults. I don’t know where things would lead if we took it a step further, but being adults means we need to think some things through before we just dive into it.”
“Count the cost,” Marcus said.
“Count the cost?”
“Yeah.” Marcus readjusted his body, getting even more comfortable as we sat on the couch together. “The Bible says before a man decides to build, he should count the cost. That’s a metaphor to use in life. Too many people do things without first thinking about it and counting what it will cost in the end. That includes dating a person. I believe, and it just may be only me”—he placed his hand on his chest—“but I believe if you’re thinking about dating a person, you need to think it all the way through. That includes the possibility of marriage. Count the cost up front. Minimize surprises later.”
“Women do that more than men. I mean, we are bad about seeing a guy and then letting our minds leap ahead to the wedding day, the kids, and the home to follow,” I said.
“Men need to do more of that, especially when it comes to dating. But we’re wired differently. People believe men are only moved by sight. Women are definitely moved by feelings. But men are also moved by feelings.” I noticed that Marcus tightened up a little as he spoke. “We care a lot more than women will ever know.”
“Would you like to tell me about your ex-wife? Would you like to tell me what happened with you and Sasha?” I touched his hand. He looked at me with the most sincere look in his eyes. He then nodded.
I sat back and made myself comfortable.
Chapter 18
For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it.
—Habakkuk 2:11
Before Marcus began, I got him a can of soda. He took a sip, put the can on the coaster on the coffee table, then turned back toward me. “I don’t want this to sound like I’m placing my failed marriage on Sasha’s shoulders, because I’m not. I just wanted to say that up front. We were both young and inexperienced. I think we had fantasies about what married life would be like. My mother tried to tell me real life was different.”
He picked up the can again and took a few swallows before he continued. “In fact, when I told my mother we were going to get married, she thought we should wait a while. Sasha’s mother told her the same thing. When I talked with Sasha’s father privately, he tried his best to talk me out of getting married, at least until I’d had time to save up enough money. He told me that having money problems was the leading cause of most marital problems, so the more money I had, the better my chances would be at making our marriage work, especially when it came to his daughter, who had learned ‘at the feet of her mother.’ His words, not mine.”
“So he thought marriage was about money?” I asked.
“No. He was saying that love alone would not sustain the marriage.”
“I don’t think I agree with that. I think if you love someone, it doesn’t matter if you have to do without sometimes. Love shouldn’t be conditional. It shouldn’t be based on your income or what you possess,” I said.
“I agree,” Marcus said. “But love doesn’t pay the bills. Love doesn’t put a roof over your head. Love doesn’t put food on the table and clothes on your back.”
“I don’t know if I agree with that. Love is what paid the bills in our house. Love put food on our table. My mother was a widow, but she loved us richly.”
“I think you’ve misunderstood what I’m saying. I know love will do all of that. I saw my mother do just that, and she did it with love. I’m talking about in a marriage. You have two people who may have had some lust going on. But the level of love that’s needed to be able to stand the test of hard times may not have risen to where it’s needed yet to withstand the reality of life.” Marcus took another sip of his drink. He held on to the can this time as though occupying his hand made him feel better.
“Case in point,” Marcus continued. “I loved Sasha. I absolutely did. But I had not long graduated from college when we decided to get married. I was looking for a job and told her we could get married after I found one. Her father got me an interview at the investment company where he worked. I didn’t really want to work there, but because I loved Sasha and she wanted to get married in a hurry, I took the job. I knew we couldn’t afford a house, so I found an apartment. After the wedding, Sasha seemed fine with us living there. Two months later, she was going ballistic to get a house. I told her we couldn’t afford a house just yet. We needed to save up, which I figured would take until our one-year lease on the apartment was up. I had plenty of love, but I guess that wasn’t enough for her.”
He shook his head as he smiled. “Next thing I know, her mother is over to our apartment handing me the keys to a house she and Sasha had picked out and she’d put money down on. It turns out she and Sasha had gone and found the house ‘they’ liked. I tried to tell both of them it was too much house for me and my salary alone. That the way they had done that wasn’t right.”
“Sasha didn’t work?”
“No. She was supposed to be finishing college. She had transferred to Miles College after six months of being at Howard.” He set the empty can down on the table. “Her parents were paying for her college even though I told them as her husband she was my responsibility now. Sasha wasn’t serious about finishing college. Part of Sasha’s problem came from her mother still trying to run her life. If you hadn’t known better, you would have thought her mother was purposely trying to sabotage her. It was like she didn’t want Sasha to be happy, almost like she was jealous of her own daughter. After I figured out what was going on, I tried to tell Sasha her mother had a spirit of Jezebel.”
“Spirit of Jezebel? I thought Jezebel was like a floozy or something,” I said.
“That’s what most people think when they think of Jezebel. The truth is a Jezebel can be male as well as female. Jezebels are religious, which generally fool people into feeling comfortable enough to let their guard down. Jezebels are intimidating. Jezebels tend to use authority that’s illegitimate.”
This was fascinating. To think that Marcus came over to teach me about divorce and what the Bible had to say about that, and I was now learning things about Jezebel that were different from what I’d ever heard before. “Illegitimate?” I asked, wanting to know exactly what he meant. “Can you explain that for me?”
“Okay, let’s take Sasha’s mother as an example. She had a husband. However, she never allowed him to be the husband. It was her way or no way, although in public she let people believe she was the good wife who dutifully followed and supported her husband. In reality, she gave that man a run for his money. Then, when her daughter got married, there she was in our marriage trying to run things. She was acting like she was the husband in our marriage and Sasha and I were under her authority.
“A Jezebel
spirit usually gets what it wants, mostly through manipulation. Someone with a spirit of Jezebel will get other people to do their dirty work for them. They are extremely jealous, always know better than you, know what’s best for you and you’d better do it or else. And should you give in to someone with the spirit of Jezebel, he or she will take from you and you’ll find yourself living in lack and without. Jezebel’s name means ‘Where is the Prince?’ referring to Baal, a false god. In Hebrew, the word Jezebel means ‘without cohabitation.’
“Jezebel will not live with or cohabit with someone he or she cannot control and dominate. It’s all about control or getting you to do what he or she wants. And when that comes into play—I’m talking about manipulation and control—whether folks realize this or not, that is a form of witchcraft. Jezebel stays in the background, but don’t be fooled. It’s Jezebel who’s calling the shots.”
“This is really something. I’ve never heard Jezebel put in quite this context before,” I said.
“You can read all about Jezebel starting in First Kings around the sixteenth chapter, verse thirty-one, through chapter twenty-one. Then go to Second Kings and read the entire ninth chapter. Pay attention to how Jezebel influenced all those around her, especially her husband, Ahab. How she even had the prophet Elijah fleeing for his life purely through intimidation.” Marcus shook his head as though he were trying to shake loose something inside him.
He continued, “Jezebel was having prophets killed, and the words Elijah was speaking were coming against what she was doing, so she wanted to silence him, just like the Jezebel spirits today want to silence those who would speak God’s truth. But people have to recognize it’s a spirit. The same spirit Herodias had in the New Testament when she came after John the Baptist. Manipulating and using her daughter to have John the Baptist beheaded. That spirit is referenced with Jezebel’s name in the book of Revelation two-twenty. Queen Jezebel just became the poster child for this controlling, evil spirit.”
Practicing What You Preach Page 11
