by E. N. Joy
But Drake knew that he could no longer continue lying by omission to his brother—or any one else in the world, for that matter. A couple weeks ago, the pastor at his church had preached a word about how Christians should openly share their walk with the Lord and their testimonies to others, so that they may be witnesses to God’s work and what He can do. “If another person sees that He did it for you,” the pastor had preached, “then they will think, surely He can do it for me.” It was time for Drake to be a witness; and who better to be a witness to than his own brother?
“I don’t mind being a witness to someone else, so I don’t care who hears me. By not being embarrassed about living according to God’s Word, maybe I can make the next man want to do the same.”
Dawson just stood there shaking his head. “I can’t believe you ain’t never got you no trim. And how come all this time I’ve never known? How come you never told me about your problem until now?”
“Trim?” Drake was too distracted by Dawson’s initial comment to address his questions. “That’s something you do to hedges, not a woman. See, brothers are too embarrassed to even say the words make love. That’s why most of y’all just having sex.” Drake continued on to answer Dawson’s question. “And you’ve never known until now because you’ve never asked.”
“Well, I just assumed that you were getting some tri—Look . . . call it what you want to, but you are definitely a better man than me. I couldn’t go without sex. But then again, it’s probably easier for you not to partake in something you’ve never had. You don’t know what you’re missing, so you don’t miss it. But asking a man who has already gotten him a taste to just stop altogether . . . puhleez!”
“Easy my foot. I’m still a man,” Drake reasoned. “Man, you think I didn’t want to stop and holler at those women out there in the gym? Do you think that I’m so far gone that I don’t notice them in those little leotards and Spandex shorts? Well, I do. But if I acted upon my feelings, that would be nothing more than my fleshly desires. And when I get with a woman, I don’t want it to be about flesh. I want my spirit and my soul to crave her, not this.” Drake pointed at his private area.
“My spirit and my soul do crave Locksie, but so does this.” Dawson repeated Drake’s action. “And I can’t help that.”
Drake smiled at his brother’s sincerity. “You really love Locksie, don’t you?”
“Yeah, man. I never thought I would ever say that about a woman, but I do. I love Locksie. That’s my baby.” A proud smile spread across Dawson’s face as he thought about his woman.
“Well, I’m sure Locksie loves you just as much, but from the sound of things, I believe a change is about to occur in Locksie’s walk. Trust me. I’ve heard enough testimonies from women who have turned their lives over to God to know so.”
“Her walk?” Dawson had a puzzled look on his face.
“Yep. Her walk in life, and if I’m putting my finger on it correctly, her walk with Christ.”
“So, what does that mean for us—me and her? What does that mean for me?”
Drake looked down at Dawson’s sneakers. “It means you gon’ have to go out and invest in another pair of shoes if you plan on keeping up with her pace. Because trust me, once someone finally decides to take Christ’s hand and allow Him to lead them through life’s journey, for those who might try and block the path, it’s keep up or be dragged.” Drake looked over at his brother. “Or even worse, get left behind.”
Chapter 7
“God’s a jealous God,” Mary told her niece as they sipped on a cup of the new gourmet coffee she had purchased. “And I honestly think that’s why your mama acts the way she acts.”
Locksie almost spit out the sip of coffee she had just taken. “Are you trying to tell me that my mother is so afraid that God will be jealous if she doesn’t eat, sleep, drink, breathe or talk about Him twenty-four/seven that she’ll go to hell?” Locksie was almost mad at herself for thinking that Mary’s explanation would be something profound, not ridiculous.
“From past conversations I’ve had with your mama, I feel she believes God thought that she loved your father more than she loved Him. God got jealous and took your father away from her, and it was God who sent your daddy off to be with that other woman and her kids, never looking back at the family he already had.”
Locksie quickly became serious as she continued to take sips of the delicious blend. “Nonsense,” Locksie said. She was trying to convince herself that God didn’t have the power to place or remove a person as He saw fit.
“Oh, now, don’t think for one minute God can’t take it away just as quickly as He gives it. Let Him bless a man with one of them fancy sports cars and watch what happens if that man starts to do more for, and with, that car than he does for God. See if that man can drive that car around on a nice sunny Sunday morning, but can’t go to church and thank the Lord for it . . . or even just drop to his knees and give thanks. See how quickly God can take that car back and get that man’s attention.”
“He wouldn’t,” Locksie begged to differ.
“Child, I don’t know what kind of God you pray to, but my God can, and will, do anything as He so pleases. You remember that line in Diary of a Mad Black Woman? The one where the woman’s mother told her, ‘God can come down and show you who’s God’?”
Locksie, almost in a trance, nodded her head as she recalled the line her aunt was referring to.
“Trust me, you don’t want God to come down and show you just how powerful He is. God respects no man. He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords.” As if her aunt Mary had been touched by the Holy Spirit, Locksie watched her flinch, close her eyes and just barely mouth, “Thank you, Jesus.”
Mary opened her eyes to see a frozen Locksie, who didn’t know how to react, staring at her. “Anyway,” Mary said, deciding to put her initial train of thought back on the track. “See, Locksie, your father wasn’t really a God-fearing man. I mean, he wasn’t an atheist, but he wasn’t a saint neither.” Aunt Mary chuckled as if she were reminiscing on some of Locksie’s father’s ways. “He couldn’t see what it was that your mother saw in church and praying and whatnot. He was always complaining about how she spent more time in church than she did with him. And he’d have a fit when he’d get the bank statements and see how much money she was giving in tithes and offerings. If you ask me, he too, just like God, was jealous; only I think your father was more jealous of the preacher man than he was of God.”
“Doesn’t surprise me any,” Locksie said. “I think Daddy was jealous of me. If mama spent too much time combing my hair, he got mad. But I still don’t understand what any of that has to do with your sister being a holy roller.”
“See, Locksie, what you need to understand is that God will remove things from your life that He feels are interfering with you submitting to Him . . . including people.”
Just then a burst of thunder filled the air, which made Locksie jump out of her seat. “Is it raining?” she questioned, walking over to the window over the kitchen sink. “It can’t be. The weatherman didn’t say anything about a chance of rain, and it was clear as a bell when I drove over here.” Locksie pulled the curtains back and she and Mary watched raindrops hit the window. She turned around and faced Mary. “I swear the sun was shining and everything on my way over.”
“Guess that just goes to show who the weatherman really is.” Downing the last of her coffee and then standing, Mary shrugged her shoulders and replied, “See how quickly God changes things?” She winked as she brushed by her niece to put her cup in the sink. “Come on, girl, let’s get out of here.” Mary couldn’t help but laugh inside at the frightened look on Locksie’s face and God’s sense of humor.
Without saying a word, Locksie placed her cup in the sink and followed Mary to the door. Her aunt’s words to her today were more intense than they had ever been. Although they weren’t meant to scare Locksie, they had. Perhaps this is what God-fearing means, Locksie thought, looking outside at the rain
that seemed to have just come out of nowhere—as if God was making a point. If she hadn’t before, she certainly feared Him now.
Chapter 8
Locksie felt good to have a day off during the week. She had started it by going to the gym with Dawson, but that idea wasn’t long-lived. After only ten minutes on the treadmill, Locksie was sweating and out of breath. She felt embarrassed because the woman Dawson was personally training, who had to be twenty years older than Locksie, didn’t even seem fazed by the movements Dawson was prescribing for her.
“Look, babe, I’m going to head on out and knock my errands out of the way,” Locksie told Dawson as he coached his client on some arm curls.
“Already?” he questioned then turned his attention to his client. “Five more. Four more . . .”
“Yeah, you go ahead and work. I’ll see you this evening.”
“You sure? I’ll be done with Mrs. Wilson in about thirty, and then I’ll have an hour before my next session. You can just ride the bike or something for the next half hour and then—”
“No, really, I’m fine,” Locksie was quick to say. A whole half hour pedaling fast but going nowhere? An entire thirty minutes? One thousand, eight hundred seconds? No, thank you, Locksie thought.
“Love you.” Locksie pecked Dawson on the cheek and made her exit to the women’s locker room to change out of her Spandex shorts and oversized sweatshirt and into her street clothes.
Dawson spotted Locksie walking out of the gym and blew her a kiss. She loved when he made sweet little gestures like that. She loved him, but she didn’t love working out, so even though she would have loved to stay in the presence of her man, she’d much rather spend it in the presence of the shoe clerk at Macy’s.
After her ten-minute drive from the gym to Eastland Mall, Locksie dug through her purse for her Macy’s shopping pass, allowing shoppers twenty percent off purchases when they used their Macy’s credit cards. This particular coupon was one with very few exclusions, so that meant designer purses were fair game.
Locksie touched up her face with her bronze 607 dual-coverage powder foundation, which matched her complexion to the tee. She wanted to remove any shine that remained from her strenuous ten-minute workout before heading into Macy’s for her real workout—hitting every corner of that store. After tucking away her make-up compact, Locksie put her purse on her shoulder, got out of the car and started her trek through the packed parking lot.
Locksie looked down at her watch. It was five after ten in the morning. It wasn’t even lunchtime yet. Locksie wondered why it was so crowded. Didn’t anybody have to work today?
Locksie interrupted her own thoughts to say hello to the attractive woman who was heading to her car with Macy’s bags in hand. Locksie made it a point not to walk by a person, especially after making eye contact, and not speaking to them. Sometimes just a friendly “Hello” or “How you doing?” from a stranger could make someone’s day. Even just a smile. It had done that for Locksie on plenty of occasions, so she decided to return the inexpensive gift to whomever was placed in her path to receive it.
“Hello to you, too, sister,” the woman replied with a loving smile. She reminded Locksie of Hannah, only this woman was no doubt 100% Caucasian. “Be careful in there. You see how much damage I did.” The woman struggled to raise her four large shopping bags.
“Not to worry,” Locksie assured her. “I don’t even think my credit limit is that high.”
Both women laughed as Locksie kept stepping toward the entrance doors.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” the woman called to her. “Do you know that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior?”
Caught off guard, Locksie stopped in her tracks and mumbled, “Yes.” Locksie didn’t know this personally for herself, but at least it’s what her aunt Mary had told her.
“Good, then you’ve accepted him into your heart?”
Locksie forced a fake smile along with her eager head nodding.
“Praise the Lord,” the woman said, lifting her hands to the sky as if now those bags she was carrying were weightless. “A saved woman in God. If I don’t run into you again in this lifetime on Earth, I’ll see you in our eternal life. Have a blessed day.”
“Thank you. You too,” Locksie said as she hurried toward the store just as quickly as she had hurried out of the gym. “Ugh,” Locksie said once she was safe and sound inside the store.
That woman had ruined her day with all that Jesus and woman of God stuff. On top of that, she had forced her to lie—yet another sin to add to her collection. What else was she supposed to say to the woman? “No, ma’am, I haven’t accepted Jesus into my heart, and right now all I care about is getting inside of Macy’s before some other unsaved soul snatches up the last pair of eight and a half shoes in my size.”
Locksie placed her hand on her head in an attempt to soothe her growing headache. Remind me not to speak to another soul the rest of my life . . . the ones on earth anyway. Because I’m certainly going to hell now.
Chapter 9
Hannah splashed a little cologne onto each side of her neck as she stood at her dresser mirror, admiring her brand new negligee. According to the calendar, she was ovulating, which meant her chances for conceiving were at their highest.
Not wanting her husband to feel as though the only reason she wanted sex was for making a baby, Hannah decided to add a little spice to the evening. She hated to admit it, but her ultimate goal for the evening, in fact, was just to conceive. But Elkan didn’t have to know. All he had to know was that his wife desired him.
Hannah raced downstairs to their nice-sized kitchen and checked on the baked salmon. “Umm, delicious,” she said as she inhaled the aroma and turned off the oven. “What next?” She looked around the room. “Oh, yes, the wine,” she reminded herself.
She made her way over to the pantry and retrieved a bottle of wine. She then went to the cupboard and pulled out two wine glasses and placed them in the freezer.
“Okay, let’s see . . . the salad is made. The lemon meringue pie is ready. I guess that’s it.”
Hannah took a deep breath and decided to go relax in the television room and wait for Elkan to come home from work. It was already later than he had been coming home lately, so she knew he’d be walking through the door any minute. He’d probably just stopped on the way home to get gas or something.
After about an hour, Hannah tried calling Elkan at the office to see if he had left yet. When she got his voicemail, she assumed he had. She then tried his cell phone and was quite shocked when it went straight to voicemail. “Hmmm, he never turns his cell phone off,” Hannah said.
Hannah began to flick through the television channels to keep herself busy—or rather to keep her mind from thinking the worst about where Elkan could be. Eventually she decided on a glass of wine while she waited. By the time another hour had gone by, Hannah was up to four glasses of wine.
After having tried Elkan’s cell phone several times to no avail, with a growling tummy, Hannah ate dinner without her husband. By midnight, she was fast asleep on the couch, and instead of caressing her husband, she caressed an empty bottle of wine.
The next morning, when Hannah awoke, still on the couch, she was covered with one of the spare blankets from the linen closet. She grabbed her throbbing head and tried to remember the events of the night before. That’s when it hit her that the night before had been quite uneventful.
She recalled waiting up all night for her husband to come home so that they could enjoy a romantic dinner followed by some baby-making lovemaking. Anger swelled up in her as she thought about how he had never made it home. But recalling the blanket on her when she woke up, she knew that he must have eventually made it home.
Rising to her feet, set on going to tell Elkan about himself, Hannah grabbed her head and stumbled. “Get it together, girl,” she coaxed before retreating up to the bedroom.
The short trip up the staircase didn’t give her much time to prepare the words she would say
to her husband, so by the time she reached the bedroom, she simply yelled out, “And just where were you last night?”
There was complete silence, and soon Hannah realized that she was talking to an empty room. She stomped into the bathroom only to find it empty too. She could hear the shower head dripping. She pulled back the shower door. “How many times have I told him to turn the water off all the way?” Hannah fussed as she tightened the knob to shut off the water.
Hannah went back into the bedroom and looked at the clock. It was after ten o’clock in the morning, so Elkan was probably at work. But one thing to Hannah was obvious, and that was that Elkan had come and gone. He had covered her up and had taken a shower. But Hannah wondered when he had taken a shower. Had it been last night or just this morning? Did he even come home last night?
Hannah had enough of wondering, so she picked up the phone and called his office.
“This is Elkan,” he answered.
“This is your wife,” Hannah replied with a sharp tongue.
“Oh, hey, baby—”
Hannah cut him off. “Don’t ‘hey, baby’ me. Where were you last night? I waited up all night for you. I cooked a special dinner, bought new lingerie, and to top it all off, I was ovulating!”
There was a pregnant pause.
“You done yet?” Elkan said calmly.
“As a matter of fact, I’m not! Why didn’t you call? And why was your cell phone off?” Hannah continued her rant.
Elkan knew that Hannah was normally soft spoken, so he concluded that the bottle of wine he had pulled from her clutches when he covered her up was responsible for her sizzling tongue. “Look, there was an emergency with—”
