I Say a Little Prayer

by E. Lynn Harris

  “There is no story and no more wine,” I said as I picked up the scrapbook. “I just showed you this because I want to sing again and I’m going to need your support.”

  “You don’t have to ask me that, baby. You know I got your back. What do you need me to do?”

  “Right now all I want you to do is to be honest with me when you listen to my songs,” I said. “Then I want you to tell me what you think.”

  “Are you going to listen to me? Because you know I’m going to tell the truth.”

  “Of course.”

  “Good, ’cause the Lord knows if a certain female singer had listened to me, we never would have had to find out that all that glitters ain’t gold,” Skylar said.

  I simply smiled and took in one more look at the city.

  After Skylar left, I went back out to the terrace. A dark sky with a handful of stars covered Atlanta. I was wondering if I’d lost my mind. Would pursuing a career I had given up in my youth really be possible? Would words and melodies come back and clutter my head with ease?

  Fear, is that you? I thought as I strolled back into my house and did something I hadn’t done in years. The piano that dominated the living area and that I rarely touched glowed under the subdued ceiling light, and I felt drawn to it.

  I played a few chords of Stevie Wonder’s “Overjoyed.” My fingers danced across the keys as if I played that song every day. Minutes later, I played and sang one of my favorite Richard Smallwood tunes, “The Center of My Joy,” a song that managed to bring tears to my eyes every time I heard it. Tonight was no different. The quiet of the night settled around me, but my voice filled the living room as if I were performing on the main stage at Carnegie Hall.

  Sometimes the heart recalls things better than the head. While singing, I remembered how too much joy could sometimes lead to sorrow. I began to play a melody I was hearing in my head. Then I started to sing.

  “It was an ordinary morning,

  I should have seen the warning,

  The air was clear, the sky not as blue.”

  I hummed to myself as I waited for the words to emerge painfully, yet powerfully.

  “There was a coldness to your kisses.”

  I felt an excitement as chords continued to come to me and flow through my body, to my fingers as they caressed the piano keys.

  “Was it my imagination?” I sang.

  Hours later and in the wee hours of the morning, I had done something I hadn’t done in years. I had written a song.

  Wednesday came and I was on a roll with my songwriting, having completed three songs. I was sitting at my desk studying the lyrics of my latest song when Ms. Gladys walked into my office.

  “I’m getting ready to leave and I wanted to check and make sure you didn’t need anything,” she said.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  “A little before seven.”

  “It is? I need to get out of here and get home and get something to eat,” I said as I stood up and stretched my body.

  “What’s been going on in here?” Ms. Gladys asked as she looked around my office with a suspicious look on her face.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Well, you have been holed up in the office all day, and Celia and I were wondering if you were okay. I even came and listened at the door to make sure you were in here and I knew you was because I heard you humming so loud it sounded like sanging,” Ms. Gladys said.

  “It did?”

  “Indeed. What you making, some sanging cards now?”

  “Oh no, but I’ve been busy working on some things and sometimes I hum to myself. It’s a habit I’ve had since I was a little boy,” I said, deciding against telling her I was writing songs again.

  “So all you plan to do is fill that belly of yours this evening? Why don’t you come and go to Bible Study with me at my church?” Ms. Gladys asked.

  I knew she meant well and I knew Ms. Gladys attended one of Atlanta’s colossal churches where the midweek Bible study was almost as well attended as Sunday service. I wasn’t about to fall back into the trap of going to one of those big megachurches.

  “Thanks for asking, Ms. Gladys, but I think I’m going to try and finish up my little project. Has Celia left?”

  “Yeah, she and a friend left about an hour ago. I tried to get her to come with me, too, but I could tell by the shirt and high heels she changed into that she wasn’t going to no church,” she said as she raised her eyes in a way my own mother did when she was trying to prevent herself from saying something biting.

  “Did she look nice?” I asked. I saw Celia earlier in the day, and she was dressed in a nice pantsuit.

  “She changed out of that pantsuit and into something else. It might be some people’s taste but it sho’ ain’t mine. I had to bite my tongue to keep from telling her something my beloved mother used to tell me.”

  “What was that?”

  “If the shoes don’t fit, then they ain’t yours,” Ms. Gladys said as she turned and walked out the door.

  I shook my head and laughed heartily as I thought what a funny card Ms. Gladys’s mother’s saying would make.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  In a lot of ways I am a creature of habit. On most given days of the week, there is something that I always do, even if it’s something like having sushi every Tuesday for lunch. Every Sunday night after supper, I call my family back in Greenwood. I start with my parents, Cleotis and Alma Greer, two proud African Americans who people refer to as the Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis of Mississippi due to their forty-plus years of marriage and deep, abiding love for each other. Not to mention Alma’s role as choir mistress and lead soloist at the Bethel Baptist Church. You could say I get my singing genes from my mother and the ability to ignore what I see from my father.

  My parents are both retired now and spend most of their time spoiling their grandkids and traveling to places like Canada, Florida, and nearby Biloxi, where my younger brother, Jonathan, lives with his wife, LaKeshia, and his four-year-old son, Canyon. Sometimes I pass on calling Jonathan, not because I don’t enjoy talking to my knucklehead brother, but because almost once a month his cell phone number changes or, shall I say, gets disconnected. Being the baby of the family left Jonathan without the responsibility gene, so I am never surprised to get a call from him asking if he can borrow a couple of dollars until payday. I always lecture him about keeping a budget, but in the end, I always acquiesce. It’s gotten to the point that when I go to the service counter at my neighborhood Kroger, Jolene the manager smiles and just hands me the yellow Western Union form to fill out.

  My older sister, Belinda, still lives in Greenwood, where she is married to the first and only man she slept with. She is the mother of twins, Hannah and Hudson, and is the principal of the Hattie McDaniel Middle School.

  Belinda got Mama’s singing genes as well, and she has sung for years with the Mississippi Mass Choir. She attended Jackson State and could have been the first black Miss Mississippi if she would have become more comfortable wearing four-inch heels while strutting her stuff in a swimsuit. She was second runner-up when she went to the state pageant in Vicksburg as an eighteen-year-old and everyone encouraged her to run again. But Belinda was not having it and was anxious to give up her virginity and marry Patrick Walker, the too-smart-for-his-own-good valedictorian of Greenwood High. Good thing she’d already run for Miss Mississippi, since she got pregnant after having sex for the first time. She lost that baby, but was doubly blessed years later.

  Sometimes it’s a little harder to get in touch with my parents due to their traveling, even in the age of cell phones. I still can’t get over the sight of my father playing golf or fussing with my mother as she tries to get him to use an earpiece on his cell phone. I almost fell out of my chair when I got an e-mail from the “Traveling Grands.” After I realized it was from my parents, they informed me of their travel schedule for the month.

  When I picked up the phone tonight, I dialed Belinda’s number
instead of my parents’. Every now and then, I try to break out of one of my habits and do something different, even though I know I’ll return to my old ways a week or two later.

  After a couple of rings, Belinda picked up the phone and in her usual cheerful voice said, “What it be like, baby brotha?”

  “I’m fine—and how are you?” I said as I wondered how people had ever lived without caller ID. No more mystery when the phone rang.

  “You know, doing what I do. Picking up after my kids at school and at home. Trying to get my husband to realize that being married don’t mean you can’t still do things outside the box,” Belinda said.

  “How are my niece and nephew?”

  “Growing like weeds.”

  “And Patrick?”

  “In love with his newest computer gadget.” Belinda laughed.

  “I haven’t called Mama and them. Did you see them at church today?”

  “Honey, they are on a cruise in the Bahamas. Didn’t you get the latest e-mail?”

  “Oh yeah, I forgot,” I said.

  My sister was the only one in my family who accepted the fact that I would never add any grandkids to the Greer family brood, but even she had a hard time asking for specific details about my dating life. She just wanted me to be happy, even if it meant spending my life with a man. My parents, especially my father, just didn’t talk about my preference for men.

  On the rare occasion when my parents visited me or I took someone home, they were cordial, like the good Christian folks they are, but ignored the elephant in the room—my orientation toward men. But I didn’t let that bother me, because I knew that no matter what, my parents loved me and my siblings dearly.

  “Have you met anybody new lately?” Belinda asked.

  “I’m too busy with my business. Have you talked to Jonathan?”

  “He called me the other day and left me a message asking for a couple of dollars. I haven’t called his begging ass back yet.”

  “You can call him. He hit me up the other day, so his money should be all right,” I said.

  “You know we got to stop doing that. He’s never going to grow up if we don’t stop bailing him out,” Belinda said.

  “Yeah, I know, but I don’t want Canyon to suffer or to look up one day and see him on America’s Dumbest Criminals trying to steal an ATM out of the Piggly Wiggly.” I laughed.

  “I hear you, but if his lazy-ass wife, LaTakia, would get a job he wouldn’t be coming to us for money,” Belinda said.

  “It’s LaKeshia, darling, but baby brother needs to break some of his bad habits,” I said. There was a time we were worried that Jonathan was hooked on drugs or something, but I finally got him to admit what his addiction was. Strippers. My baby brother loved putting dollar bills into thongs and buying drinks for skank women, both black and white, at the casinos in Tunica near Memphis. He even took me there once when I was back home, and he assured me that it was just a hobby. He said he would never cheat on LaKeshia. I believed him, because he wasn’t dumb enough to do that. LaKeshia was the kinda ghetto country girl who would kick his ass and any type of mistress she might find. People still talked about the time LaKeshia whipped the captain of the cheerleaders and the most popular girl at Greenwood High during halftime of a football game when she found out the girl had called Jonathan, who was not only good-looking but a star athlete in both football and basketball.

  Belinda hated Jonathan’s attraction to strippers, but it didn’t bother me as much, since I’d been known to stick a dollar or two in a jockstrap a few times myself.

  “Don’t even get me started talking about those skanks,” Belinda said.

  “Don’t worry, Jonathan will grow up one day,” I said.

  “He better, because I have warned him that I was going to tell Mama what he’s been up to and he knows she will have his butt in church 24/7 on his knees praying,” Belinda said, laughing.

  “I know she will,” I said as I joined in with Belinda’s laughter, imagining Jonathan on his knees praying, not to God but to some Amazon stripper woman instead.

  “I love you, Chauncey, but I need to find out what my babies are doing,” Belinda said.

  “I love you too, sis. Kiss the kids for me.”

  “Will do. Bye.”

  “Bye,” I said. I hung up the phone for a few seconds and then picked it up to call and leave a message for the Traveling Grands.

  On a beautiful Thursday afternoon I was reminded of why I loved living in Atlanta. I was at Starbucks on Peachtree Road, jotting down lyrics and waiting for Skylar, who was meeting me to show me some of the outfits he’d picked out for Celia.

  I was sipping my caramel macchiato when I noticed a man with a traffic-stopping body ordering at the counter. He had a broad chest with a six-pack on display through a sheer black tank top and faded jeans that looked like they were molded only for his ass and thighs. Add to that a perfectly shaped bald head that Michael Jordan would envy and a face that would prompt the question, Boris who?

  I was wearing sunglasses but I took them off so I could get a clearer view. He noticed me looking—okay, staring at him—and he smiled as he picked up his order. Damn! How long had it been since I’d kicked Jayshawn out of my bed? I looked away and saw Skylar getting out of his car carrying a couple of garment bags. I was going to go outside and help, but I noticed the stranger walking in my direction. I felt my stomach rumble, and I grabbed my cup, then quickly put it down when I thought that my breath must smell like coffee.

  “Excuse me, but do we know each other?” the stranger asked.

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “Then I guess your staring at me indicates that you’d like to know me,” he said confidently.

  There was something about the arrogant way he spoke that turned me off and reminded me quickly what I hated about Atlanta: good-looking men with attitudes. So I said with equal confidence, “Oh, you must be mistaken. I was looking at the beautiful young lady standing in line behind you.”

  “Yeah, right,” he huffed as he walked away. As he was walking out the door I saw him bump into Skylar, and they gave each other a look of recognition but didn’t speak. Skylar came over to the table, laid down the garment bags, and sighed, “Where is a big, strong, helpful man when you really need one?”

  “Do you know that guy you bumped into at the door?”

  “Her? Yeah, I know that queen. I met him at one of those sex clubs a couple of months ago,” Skylar said.

  “I thought you told me you’d stopped going to those sex clubs.”

  “Actually, it was more like a private party that changed direction after the china was removed from the table,” Skylar said with his patent laugh.

  I told him about our brief chat and Skylar told me to be glad I hadn’t wasted more time talking to him.

  “First of all, he got a little bitty dick and he likes getting stuffed more than a Thanksgiving turkey,” Skylar said, laughing.

  “Everything that looks good ain’t good for you,” I said.

  “That should be the motto for the kids in Atlanta,” Skylar said. “Forget you ever met that child and let’s pick out some outfits for our fair lady Celia.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said as I sipped the last of my drink. Who cared if I had coffee breath? It looked like it was going to be a while until I got kissed again.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Sometimes I like to watch.

  On a rainy Saturday evening I pulled my SUV into a tight spot against the side of the street and looked in the back seat for an umbrella. I suddenly remembered taking it into my house a couple days ago, and so I picked up the gold baseball cap stuck between the seats. I snapped the crumpled hat into place, put it on my head, got out, and headed toward a mini mansion atop a small hill.

  As I walked up the hill toward the house, I wondered if I was doing the right thing. What if I saw somebody I knew, like Skylar, whom I was always criticizing about being such a barfly? It wasn’t like I was going to a gay bar.
This was different, I told myself. It was advertised as a private party with only fifty members invited and was offering the finest black men in Atlanta on the DL. It even included the disclaimer of “no queens allowed.” A part of me was flattered when I got an invitation via e-mail after I submitted a picture of myself wearing a snug-fitting pair of white boxer briefs.

  I did as the instructions told me. I knocked twice on the door, counted to ten, and then added a single knock. I heard a buzzer, pushed open the door, and found myself standing in a foyer of black-and-white marble that looked like a checkerboard.

  “Drop your pants,” a deep male voice commanded.

  I looked around to find the source of the voice. When I saw nothing, I let my baggy faded jeans drop and tapped my half-erect penis for effect. A few seconds later, the voice said, “You’re admitted.” I heard another buzzer and walked into a dimly lit area where several well-built and well-hung black men strolled around butt-ass naked holding cocktails and chatting like they were fully dressed.

  “Welcome to The Back Door,” a handsome, light-skinned brother with grape-green eyes greeted me. “Fifty dollars, please, and that includes clothes check and one drink. You can check your clothes over there.” He handed me a white plastic garbage bag and motioned toward a room that looked like a huge walk-in closet.

  “What’s this for?” I asked as I followed him inside.

  “Your clothes.”

  “Oh, my bad,” I said, slightly embarrassed, and happy I hadn’t worn my Sunday best.

  I took out my wallet and dropped my jeans again, kicked off my Timbs, and unbuttoned my black starched shirt. I took off my socks and balled them together and put them in the bag. I didn’t wear underwear, because the invite specified that no clothing could be worn once you entered the club.

  “Do you want to check that bling?” he asked as he pointed to the two-carat diamond studs I was wearing.

  “Do I have to?” I asked.

  “No, you don’t, but it might attract the wrong element,” he said.