Me, Myself and Him

by E. N. Joy

  Mary couldn’t get into the church quick enough for the 7:00 P.M. monthly church meeting. She marched in ten minutes early and sat right in the front pew, not the back pew where she usually sat after creeping in ten minutes late.

  “Well, Sister Mary,” First Lady Clevens said as she entered the sanctuary from one of the side doors that led to the church offices. “I’m surprised to see that you are the first one here. The mall close early or something?” She snickered. “By the way, that’s a cute little number you’re wearing. Shows every curve.”

  The first lady had always accused Mary of trying to purposely outdress her. She had even suggested to one of the Deacon’s wives, who she had under her thumb, that perhaps Mary wanted to take her place as the first lady.

  Usually Mary just brushed off the first lady’s snide remarks, flattered by her jealousy instead of hurt by it, but this time, her flesh seemed to be dominating, and so she fixed her mouth to reply. Just then, several other members of the church started to file in. First Lady Clevens quickly turned her attention away from Mary to go entertain them and perhaps slice up one or two of them with her tongue.

  “Hello, First Lady,” someone said and then coughed.

  “If you pray to get delivered from those cigarettes, you can lose that cough,” First Lady replied. “Besides, how you gon’ be up here waving your hand shouting ‘holyholy’ knowing you ’bout to use the same hand to puff on a Newport? Anyway, sweetie. Hello, and I’m glad you could make it out to the meeting.” She gave the woman a hug before all of her body parts fell to the ground after being sliced up like a character on Kill Bill.

  The first lady thought that every skirt at the church wanted to bed her husband, therefore she had to break them down with words to make them feel like they weren’t worthy of a man of his stature. No telling how many verbal battles she had had with the women of the church in front of visitors or people who might have been considering becoming members of The Baptist Saints Tabernacle. Matter of fact, had a new visitor overheard the comment the first lady had just made, it might have affected their decision to ever come back again.

  Before Mary knew it, the sanctuary was near full and the meeting was about to be opened in prayer. “Everything okay, Sister Mary?” Sister Aisha asked as she sat down next to Mary. “Your mind looks a million miles away.”

  “Oh, no, Sister Aisha. I’m just thinking about some things I need to speak on and asking for the Holy Spirit to give me the very words I need to say.”

  “Oh, Lord, if it’s something you need to keep your flesh out of, then it must be good.”

  “Everything that’s of God is good, Sister Aisha.” Mary winked as the pastor instructed everyone to rise for opening prayer.

  For the first hour, Mary just sat back watching the members go at it, unable to even agree upon the menu for the church anniversary dinner. No matter what subject was brought up, someone always had something to say about it. And then there was always somebody else who had something to say about what that other person had said. It all became a ball of loud noise and confusion until finally Mary couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Pastor?” She raised her hand. “May I speak?” she asked once he acknowledged her.

  “Certainly, Sister Mary,” he said, hoping she was volunteering to referee this fiasco of a meeting.

  Mary stood up from where she sat and asked to no one person in particular, “How would you like to be remembered after your death?” She looked to her left and then to her right at the blank stares. “Has anyone in here thought about what the epitaph on your gravestone is going to read once you are dead and buried?” Mary turned around and faced the congregation. “Sister Aisha, is your gravestone going to read: here lies a woman who would lay down her life for anyone?” Mary looked out into the congregation. “Sister Beverly, would yours read: here lies a woman who was warm and loving to all she came in touch with?” She walked over and put her hand on the first lady’s shoulder. “First Lady, would yours read: here lies a woman who had a kind and ministering word for everybody?”

  The first lady cleared her throat and tried not to show the embarrassment on her face. She knew her gravestone would say anything but that.

  “I’m not trying to call anybody out,” Mary explained in a loving tone. “I guess what I’m saying is that we have to be careful of the things we do to each other and the words we speak to each other, especially in the house of the Lord.”

  “Amen,” Aisha affirmed.

  With her hand still on the first lady’s shoulder, Mary said, “We are brothers and sisters.” She looked down at First Lady Clevens, who stared back up at her. “You are my sister. I don’t care what your birth certificate says. We have the same Father—our Father in heaven.”

  “Praise the Lord, woman of God,” the pastor said. “Speak into their lives this evening.”

  “I love you all because my Father loves you. Because you belong to Him—and just like I was telling sister Aisha a minute ago, anything of Him is good. So, we have to begin to treat each other good. We have to do better, saints. We have to make our daddy proud.”

  “Amen and amen!” a couple of people shouted.

  Mary removed her hand from the first lady’s shoulder and started back to her seat on the pew. Before she could get there, all of a sudden she felt a gentle tug on her hand. A warm, gentle spirit, almost childlike, was released from the hand. She didn’t recognize the touch at all. When she turned to look, it was the first lady’s hand she held in her palm.

  “Thank you,” the first lady mouthed to Mary as tears fell from her eyes. She tugged Mary closer and then stood up as the two embraced.

  Not once had the first lady ever initiated an embrace with a member of the congregation. Never once had she just broken down and allowed room for deliverance. Half the time, members thought she felt that she didn’t have anything she needed to be delivered from. While Mary and the first lady hugged, members prayed out, cried out and shouted out, for God had just moved up in there. A couple members still had the look of disbelief in their eyes that the first lady had actually been convicted and moved by Mary’s words.

  Mary, on the other hand, wasn’t in disbelief at all. She had showed up at the church expecting something that would seem impossible to some and short of a miracle to others. Mary had believed God for it. Nothing is too impossible for my God. Nothing at all!

  Chapter 31

  “What time is it?” Locksie yawned as she looked over at the clock on the nightstand.

  “It’s almost eleven. I didn’t mean to wake you,” Dawson said after having just crept in the bedroom door. He began removing his clothes as he made his way into the bathroom. The door closed behind him and Locksie heard the shower come on.

  Locksie sat up in the bed. “No, he didn’t . . .” She immediately snatched the covers off of her. “Oh, I know this fool don’t think he’s just going to come waltzing in the house at eleven o’clock at night without even the courtesy of a phone call to say he was going to be home late,” Locksie mumbled as she climbed out of the bed and walked straight into the bathroom.

  “Don’t you knock?” Dawson snapped. “I mean, you knew I was in here. How you just gonna bust in like somebody wasn’t even already in the bathroom?” Dawson clenched his towel around his waist.

  “Don’t try to be funny.” Locksie pointed, realizing that Dawson was simply throwing her own words back in her face. “It’s almost eleven. I didn’t mean to wake you,” she mocked. “You act like it’s eleven in the morning and not at night.”

  “And you act like you’re my momma.”

  “Oh, now I’m acting like I’m your momma, huh?”

  “Yeah, like you checking up on me. I ain’t got no curfew.”

  Locksie took offense. For years she had made it a point not to be like some of those women who were always riding their men’s backs; questioning their comings and goings and calling them on their cell phones trying to detect background noises so that they could confirm that their men
were exactly where they said they would be. She had trusted Dawson, and now he was doubting her trust that she had worked so hard to make evident.

  “I’m a grown man,” Dawson spat.

  His tone was one he had never used with Locksie. “Why are you talking to me this way, Dawson? You act like you don’t owe me an explanation. You never come in this late, and if you do, you call. I was worried sick.”

  “So worried that you couldn’t sleep, and that’s why you were sound asleep when I walked through the door? So worried that you blew my cell phone up calling to see if I was okay?”

  “I did call your cell phone. It kept going straight to voicemail so I figured you had it off because you were still at the gym or something.”

  “If you thought I was at the gym, then why you trippin’? I was at the gym. There, happy?”

  “I don’t deserve this, Dawson.” With hands on hips, Locksie cut to the chase. “Where were you? Who were you with? You’re supposed to be my man.”

  “Oh, so now I’m acting like your man? Step off, Locks.” Dawson brushed up close to Locksie. “The role of the jealous girlfriend isn’t becoming.”

  “I’m not trying to be a jealous girlfriend.”

  “You got that right. The last few months you really ain’t been that much of a girlfriend at all.” He dropped the towel, making sure his manhood brushed up against Locksie before he got in the shower, closing the door in Locksie’s face.

  “I get it. It’s the sex thing again.”

  “What sex? And I mean that literally. What sex?” Dawson began to lather and wash his body.

  “So, is that what brings you home at night to me? What’s between my legs?”

  Dawson sucked his teeth. “Don’t flatter yourself. I can count on one hand how many times I’ve been between your legs in the last few months. So if that was the case, you would have filed a missing person’s report on me by now.”

  Locksie knew Dawson was just trying to hurt her. It was his flesh talking, not him, she told herself. “I love you, Dawson.”

  “You’ve got a funny way of showing it, babe.”

  “Let me show you in other ways. Right now . . . where I am in my life . . . I just can’t . . .”

  “Can’t what? Make love to your boyfriend . . . whom you live with?”

  “It’s not that simple, Dawson. I’m afraid.”

  “Of what?” Dawson yelled out of frustration as he rinsed the soap off his body.

  “Of God! I’m afraid of God! What He’ll think! What He’ll do!” Locksie confessed as tears streamed down her face. There. She had said it. Now she could stop dodging Dawson’s sexual advances toward her or faking sleep when he got out of the shower. Now no more lies. She was a saved woman now and no longer wanted to have sex outside of marriage. “Dawson, I gave my life to His Son, and that’s a big deal. I may look the same to you right now, but I’m changing. I can’t say some of the things I used to say. I can’t even read some of the books I used to read. I can’t go some of the places I used to go, and I can’t do some of the things I used to do. And premarital sex with you is one of them.”

  It hurt Locksie to say those words to Dawson. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she didn’t want to hurt God either. She walked over to the shower, opened the door and rested her hands on each of Dawson’s cheeks. “Baby, even when I just think about you inside of me and how good you feel . . . it’s like this voice begins to convict me. And no matter how bad I want you, I just can’t—”

  “Stop it!” Dawson pushed Locksie away and closed the shower door.

  “I’m sorry, D,” she cried.

  Suddenly, the shower door flung back open. “You’re sorry? You’re sorry? So where does that leave me?”

  Locksie shrugged. She wished she knew what to tell him, but she was a babe in Christ herself. She could barely make sense of it, so how could she convince Dawson?

  “I love you, Dawson. That’s all I know.” Locksie gave him one last plea, hoping her words would melt him and he would try to see where she was coming from.

  “Well, I love you too, Locks. But sometimes love ain’t enough.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Dawson turned off the water, exited the shower and grabbed his towel. “Figure it out.” He stormed out of the bathroom.

  “I’m sorry to come over so late, and without calling, at that,” Locksie said as she brushed by her aunt and headed straight for the living room couch. “I just don’t know what to do. I had to leave. I had to get out of there.”

  “What, baby? What’s wrong?” Mary said, closing and locking the door and then joining her niece on the couch. “Is everything okay?” Suddenly, she became very serious. “Wait a minute. Did that fool put his hands on you?” Mary looked down at Locksie’s pajamas and flip-flops. “Did you have to run for your life?” She stood up and began to walk away in a haste. “Well, I got something for him. Madea ain’t the only somebody that believes that a piece of steel can keep the peace. You know what I’m saying?”

  “Aunt Mary, stop it! No, Dawson didn’t hit me. He would never do that.”

  Mary paused and slowly made her way back over to Locksie. “Then what else could a man have done to make a woman leave the house in pajamas and flip-flops?”

  After swallowing hard a couple of times, Locksie burst into tears as she exclaimed, “Dawson’s seeing someone else!”

  “Oh, honey.” Mary sat and put her arms around Locksie. “Oh, baby. It’s okay. It’s okay. Your auntie got this too.” Mary eased Locksie from her arms and then stood up.

  “Where are you going?” Locksie snorted.

  “To get the other steel. My bat. The other woman don’t deserve to be shot, but the tramp still needs her knee caps busted so that she don’t go sleeping around with another woman’s man.”

  “Aunt Mary!” Locksie said. “You’re a saved woman.”

  “Yeah, but I ain’t been saved all my life. I still know how to take it to the streets.” She looked up. “God forgive me,” she said as she headed toward her hall closet.

  “Aunt Mary, stop it!” Locksie exclaimed. Just then Mary turned around to face her, stared at her for a moment and then winked. They both burst out laughing.

  Mary rejoined Locksie on the couch and kissed her on the forehead.

  “Point taken,” Locksie said, feeling embarrassed by the way she had just stormed into her aunt’s house in the middle of the night.

  “Yeah, the same way I just overreacted on purpose is the same thing you’re doing—overreacting. That man ain’t even yours to be cheating on you. I done told you that already. Here he’s got you out in the middle of the night in your doggone pajamas.”

  “I know, Auntie. And trust me, I feel really silly now. But it’s just that . . . I love him. And I can’t believe he would do this to me.”

  “How long has Dawson been cheating on you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did he confess?”

  “No.”

  “Did you catch him in the act?”

  “No.”

  “Then how do you know that he’s cheating on you?”

  “I just do.”

  “Oh girl, get the H-E-double-hockey-sticks out of my living room before I go get my steel and use it on you.”

  “I know he’s cheating on me. He didn’t come home until just an hour ago. He didn’t call. He didn’t answer the phone when I called him. And the first thing he did when he did get home was take a shower.”

  “Locksie, the man is a personal trainer in the gym all day. He’s supposed to take a shower when he gets home.”

  Locksie buried her face in her hands. “Auntie, I don’t know if I can do this.”

  “Now, now, baby.” Mary put her arms around Locksie. “It’s going to be okay.”

  “I’m going to lose him. I’m going to lose Dawson.”

  “Dawson loves you.”

  “He j
ust told me that love ain’t enough. In so many words, he just told me that if I can’t perform my girlfriend duties, if you know what I mean, then he’s going to find someone who can. So, if he isn’t cheating on me already, he will be. And I don’t know what to do.” Locksie began to weep, her shoulders heaving up and down.

  Mary hated to see her niece crying, but she had to admit, she felt good knowing that Locksie was taking steps toward living the life God would want her to live. But she wanted to be sure that Locksie was saying what she thought she was saying, so she asked flat out, “So, you and Dawson have stopped having sex outside of marriage?”

  “Yes. But don’t go giving me too much credit because I tried to do it. My flesh wanted to do it. But I realized that no matter how many showers I took, I just couldn’t wash away the sin.”

  “Oh, baby, that’s because only Jesus’ blood can wash away our sins.”

  “I know that now. But for so long now, like you said before, I’ve lived trying to please Dawson. Well, now I want to live to please God.” Locksie began to cry even harder as she spoke. “Auntie, I just can’t explain it. It’s like He’s everything to me. God is everything to me.” A tear fell from Locksie’s eye. “He’s everything I touch. He’s everything I see. He’s everything I feel. He’s everything to me. I want to live for him, Auntie. I love Dawson, and I would die for him. But I want to live for God.”

  Pulling her niece in close to embrace her, Mary said. “See, you’ve just answered the question.”

  “What question?” Locksie said, pulling away, wiping away her tears.

  “You once asked me how is it that I always manage to bring God into everything.”

  Locksie thought for a moment and then said, “Because He is everything.”

  Mary nodded her head as tears fell from her eyes, joyous in her niece’s revelation.

  Locksie put her arms around her aunt and hugged her tight. Mary squeezed her arms even tighter around her niece. Then God embraced them both.