Katie Mae sat down on the edge of the bed. “You alright, Cleavon?” she said soothingly, knowing full well that he wasn’t.
“I’m tired,” he said softly, which let her know he was exhausted. Normally, Cleavon would have torn the roof off the house over her leaving him with the kids like that. But when he was this tired, with his defenses down, she had a chance of reasoning with him.
“You worried about this business of hiring the new pastor, huh?”
“No Katie Mae, I am just tired from dealing with your bad-tailed children all day,” he replied.
“Well, Cleavon,” she said, “you know you probably won’t feel so tired once this pastor business is over with. I know that you can’t back out of interviewing Rev. Hamilton at this late date, but you are not obligated to hire him, either.”
Cleavon wanted to jump up and hit the ceiling but couldn’t muster the energy to act out. He just glowered at Katie Mae from under the towel. She was nervous, he could tell, which meant those bossy women’s-libber friends of hers had put her up to trying to sway him to hire George Wilson. He opened his mouth to get her straight but quickly realized that force might drive her into their camp. So he shifted tactics, taking her hand and patting it gently.
“Baby, let’s let the church business rest for now,” he said. “I missed you today and need a little tendin’ to. Go put those children to bed and come on back up in here and take care of your man.”
“Okay, Cleavon,” Katie Mae said brightly, thrilled at such an unexpected show of affection from her husband. Maybe it didn’t really matter all that much who became their pastor, she began to think. After all, Earl Hamilton did have some impressive credentials.
After she hopped up to get the kids, Cleavon got undressed, slipped under the cool crisp cotton sheets, and slapped his palms together with a smug grin. No doubt about it—he was the man in his house. He had been running Katie Mae since they were dating, and he would continue to run her until one of them went to meet their Maker.
Nettie, meanwhile, was having trouble deciding on a Queen Esther move to try with Bert. She read the Book of Esther twice and prayed on the matter for three days. Then, just when she was feeling discouraged, Viola called to report that she’d put a second Queen Esther move on Wendell for good measure, and Nettie suddenly got the inspiration for her own.
She figured the best time to get Bert’s attention was late at night, since he loved midnight treats. So while Bert was watching the sports report on the ten o’clock news, Nettie filled the tub for him, adding Epsom salts and bubble bath to make it extra nice. When he eased into the water, oohing and aahing at how great it felt, Nettie went and changed into her one real femme fatale nightgown—a sheer white negligee, held together only with flimsy pink ribbons at the sides. She even put on the fancy pink high-heeled house shoes that she and Viola had bought from the Frederick’s of Hollywood store at the Northwest Plaza shopping center.
She sprayed herself with Bert’s favorite perfume, Chanel No. 5, and then went to get the special snack she had hidden in the back of the refrigerator. It was his favorite, fresh Mississippi-made hogshead cheese on saltine crackers, perfectly arranged on a fancy china plate. She pulled a frosted glass out of the freezer and filled it with ice-cold Pepsi-Cola. Then, holding the Pepsi in one hand and the plate of hogshead cheese in the other, Nettie sashayed her way into the bathroom, trying to look sexy.
Bert was lying in the bathtub with his head resting on a thick towel, happy and relaxed. As soon as he saw Nettie, his whole face lit up. She was so cute standing there, looking like one of those women in the movies, and making him think of what it must be like to be Sidney Poitier. And he could smell that hogshead cheese all the way across the bathroom. He sat up in the tub, reached out his hand to take the plate from her, and popped a hogshead cheese–covered saltine into his mouth.
Nettie laid a folded towel on the tub to make a cushion for herself, so she could sit with Bert. She held the Pepsi while he ate his hogshead cheese, closing his eyes and smacking his lips every time he popped a cracker into his mouth.
“Baby, you sure do know how to treat your man right, don’t you?”
Nettie just gave Bert her special smile and said, “Ummm-hmmm.”
He handed her the empty plate, took his Pepsi, sipped it, and said, “Ahhh,” because it was so good and icy cold.
“I tell you, don’t know what I did to have my baby come all up in here looking like she Nancy Wilson or Diana Sands or somebody like that.”
As he sipped his Pepsi, Bert ran his eyes over Nettie, still sitting on the side of the tub, with her nightgown revealing a shapely little chocolate brown hip.
“But I don’t think none of those Hollywood women got a thing on you, baby. Just look at you. And umph, that show was some good hogshead cheese you fixed up for me, girl.”
Nettie smiled sweetly and said, “Anything for you, Bert, honey.”
Suddenly Bert stopped sipping on his Pepsi and sat up straighter in the tub, narrowing his eyes. Nettie was up to something. He should have known it as soon as she stepped up in the bathroom in that nightgown. He loved that gown on her, but she always complained about its being too “exposing” and falling all away from her body. And those shoes—Bert looked down at her feet, wondering where Nettie had found those pink satin slippers, exposing her pretty feet and pink painted toes. And here she was, sitting there all smiles, with the gown lying open and those shoes swinging on her feet.
“This got something to do with hiring Rev. Wilson, don’t it, Nettie Green?”
Nettie didn’t say a word, just stared at the bathroom wall like she was seeing it for the very first time.
“I should’ve known,” Bert said, making agitated swirls in the water with his hands.
Nettie coughed and said, “Now Bert, honey, don’t get yourself all flustered and run your pressure up when you just got relaxed. The evening ain’t over with, you know.”
“You don’t have to point that out to me, woman. I know how to use the sense God gave me.”
Nettie blew air out of her mouth. She’d thought that putting on this old “floozy woman” nightgown would make Bert easier to talk to. But since he was not acting like King Xerxes did when Esther approached him, she decided to just let him have it. If Bert K. Green wanted to fight and let this old nightgown go to waste, so be it.
“Bert, ain’t nobody been up to anything. We are trying to stop this so-called search committee from making a terrible mistake and losing a wonderful pastor, by taking too much time to hire him. You know, a pastor and congregation kind of like a husband-and-wife situation. You can up and marry just about anybody who willing to marry you back. But if you don’t marry the right person, your life will be nothing but drama and heartache.
“We—and many of the other ladies who are dues-paying and tithing members at our church—are fed up with all of this foolishness y’all letting Cleavon and his people get away with. We have been through a clown and a nasty-movie star. Now you gone put us through more torture with an Uncle Tom, when the Lord has laid a blessing right in our laps. And y’all ’bout to stand up and drop that blessing right on the floor.”
“Baby, half the search committee ready to hire Rev. Wilson, but two members don’t know which way they want to go. And of course, Cleavon and that idiot Rufus gone try and push us into hiring Rev. Earl Hamilton.”
“Why they want to hire that man?” Nettie asked.
“Baby, for the same reason the Johnson clan ganged up on the church six years ago and forced Pastor Forbes on the church. I wasn’t the head deacon back then, and I didn’t have enough say-so to fight it. But I do now.
“Nettie, I agreed to let Rev. Hamilton come for an interview, hoping that he’d live up to his reputation and put something on the minds of the undecided committee members. You know the Johnsons are big supporters of the church. And I don’t want to create more mess on this committee than there already is, by pulling rank, overriding the vote, and taking it to th
e congregation to put Rev. Wilson in the pulpit.”
“So, just to keep the committee together, you gone see the church torn to shreds. ’Cause that is exactly what Cleavon and his band of no-good, triflin’ fools will do, if y’all sit back and give them the chance. And I don’t care how much money Cleavon’s stuck-up family gives the church. No amount of money can justify hiring the wrong pastor.”
Bert started running some more hot water to avoid dealing with Nettie, but she wasn’t through. “Bert, you and Wendell and Melvin Sr. and even Mr. Louis Loomis, for that matter, can twiddle your thumbs with Cleavon all you want to. But as for me and my girls, we ain’t playing with that joker.”
Bert stepped out of the tub and Nettie handed him a fluffy blue towel. He began to dry his body vigorously in frustration, as if that towel could rub out all of his problems at church.
“You gone rub all the skin off yourself,” Nettie told him. “I keep telling you to pat yourself dry and protect your skin.”
He handed her the towel and said, “You do it then, since you the self-proclaimed skin care expert in this house.”
Nettie took the towel and began to pat him dry. Bert stood there a few seconds, lost in the sensation of the warm, soft towel being pressed gently against his body by his wife.
“Baby?”
“Yeah, Bert, honey.”
“Hang in there with me on this, okay? I believe that when the undecided committee members get a whiff of Rev. Earl Hamilton, they’ll come around. You know he’ll put on a good show. But in my opinion, he just like boiling water with some onions dropped down in it. It smells like you cooking meat, but all it is, is onions in boiling water.”
Bert walked into the bedroom, with Nettie right behind him. He put on his favorite boxer shorts and sat down in his favorite green velvet chair, then pulled on his favorite girl’s hand, urging her to come over to where he was sitting.
“Baby, you sure do smell good.”
“I know, Bert. But if your plan don’t work, what you gone do then? Honey, you know good and well that Cleavon and his crew not gone give up that easy.”
Bert played around with one of the ribbons on the nightgown.
“Baby, Rev. Hamilton is not going to pastor my church. But we do have to get around those Johnsons.”
“Well, Bert, honey, I hope you do get around those Johnsons. Because Bert, if y’all don’t stop Cleavon, we women gone make our presence known, big time. See, we got it all figured out. First thing, not a one of us putting another dime in the collection plates until y’all hire Rev. Wilson. Then, we not cooking no more dinners, and we not gone clean up that church, either. I’ll say it again—we ain’t playin’, Bert.”
“Baby, I know y’all ain’t playin’,” he said, as he pulled the ribbon loose. Nettie’s talking to him about church and fighting, with a hand on the bare hip peeking through that little nightgown, was getting right up under his skin.
“You feeling better?” he asked, with a sly grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“I’m feeling a little bit better,” Nettie answered, as she gave him her special smile and pulled at the other ribbon.
Bert felt her smile travel all the way down into his soft, light blue boxer shorts. He said, “Baby, you sure do know how to take care of your man right. Don’t you, girl?”
Nettie put her arms around his neck and whispered, “How right you want me to treat you, Bert honey?”
He slipped out of his boxer shorts and said, “You tell me, baby,” in a low husky whisper that sent such warm shivers through Nettie, the toes on her right foot started to curl.
The next Sunday morning, Cleavon gave the morning prayer and introduced the guest pastor, Rev. Earl Hamilton, with great pride. MamaLouise leaned over and whispered to Mr. Louis Loomis, “You’d think he was introducing Dr. Andrew Young instead of that boy.”
After the choir sang, Rev. Hamilton stepped up to the pulpit podium and said, “Good morning, God’s children. Is it not the most stupendously spectacular wonder that we are all gathered together in this house of worship?”
“Y’all,” Sheba whispered, “how did he manage to rub out all the black in his voice?”
“Yeah,” Sylvia whispered back, “he sound like Richard Pryor when he talking ‘white’ in one of his jokes.”
“Please,” Rev. Hamilton continued, “bow your heads, so that we can grace this service with a prayer.”
He then lifted his hands up in a gesture that made Sheba think of one of those back-in-the-Bible-days portraits and said, “God, our Father, I beseech Thee to shower this congregation with the sparks of understanding, so that they will partake of the teachings You have given me to translate from You to these sheep.”
Bert closed his eyes tight and massaged the space between his eyebrows like he had a terrible headache.
Nettie placed her hand on his knee. “You alright, Bert honey?”
“Yeah, baby,” he answered, sounding like he was in pain.
“You sure?”
“Yes, Nettie. Just that this joker’s voice is so whiny, I can hardly stand it.”
After the opening prayer, Rev. Hamilton launched into a very dry sermon about the evils of the new black music the children were listening to, called “funk.” He had even gone so far as to say, “And as this music infiltrates our community, oozing out of the radio, infecting our ears and beating us down with the depravity of its pulsating rhythms, we find that we cannot escape it. It comes out the tavern door, shakes the dance floor of blue-light-in-the-basement parties, corrupts our backyard barbecues, our school marching bands, and even our churches, masquerading as good music in the form of awful songs like ‘Oh Happy Day.’”
At that point, the church grew so quiet that you could hear the sleeping babies breathing. “Oh Happy Day” was the song the choir had sung right before the sermon, and it had had everybody, with the sole exception of Rev. Hamilton, on their feet clapping and swaying and singing along with the choir. Even Cleavon had been out of his seat, swinging and enjoying the song.
Bert leaned over and whispered to Nettie, “Why don’t I go home, get my pistol, and load it up, then give it to that fool, so he can shoot himself in the foot.”
“I wouldn’t want you to do that, Bert, honey.”
“And why is that, Nettie Green?”
“Because I want to be the one who shoots him with your pistol.”
Bert laughed and gave Nettie’s shoulder an affectionate nudge.
But Sheba, who was sitting with Bert and Nettie, couldn’t laugh. She was deeply disturbed by Rev. Hamilton. What he’d said about the choir was just plain rude, and showed what little regard he had for the people of Gethsemane. She watched him closely for the rest of the service. When the offering was brought down to the altar to be blessed, she saw him scoop up a handful of the money and ogle it with pure lust in his eyes.
By the end of the service, Bert’s faction of the search committee was more determined than ever not to hire Earl Hamilton. Cleavon knew that his candidate hadn’t made a good impression, but he was nowhere close to giving up. His dumb cousin Rufus, who owed him a bundle of money, would go along with whatever he told him. The two undecided committee members posed more of a challenge, but then Cleavon thrived on challenge. Finding a way to get them into his corner would be fun.
And Cleavon did just that, managing to pull those other two votes his way and splitting the committee right down the middle—four in favor of Rev. George Wilson, four in favor of Rev. Earl Hamilton.
“Why don’t we take a recess, then come back and straighten this out,” Bert said, his eyes leveled on Cleavon’s two new converts.
One of the men patted his breast pocket, which held tickets to the upcoming Stevie Wonder concert and an engraved invitation to a black-tie reception for the artist. Bert Green was right, of course—but right hadn’t gotten the man these tickets.
The other man studied his feet, regretting that he couldn’t afford to vote his conscience, not with Cleavo
n paying two back car notes for him so he could keep his new white Lincoln Continental.
When they came back to the table after the break, Bert took one more vote, and the tie remained.
“You have the power to override this vote, Mr. Chairman,” Cleavon stated. “But I have the power to influence the pastor’s salary and benefits. If you vote for George Wilson, I will keep his salary so low, he won’t be able to afford cheap, imitation Kool-Aid.”
“And you oughta know how cheap that is,” Mr. Louis Loomis grumbled, “as much as you sell of that nasty stuff at your stores.”
“I’ve had just about enough of you, old man. You say one more thing to me and I’ll—”
“—And you’ll what, Cleavon Johnson?” Mr. Louis Loomis demanded. “I ain’t scared of you, your daddy, your tight-lipped snobby mama, or your old senile grandpappy, who did all that dirt all of those years and now don’t have to remember a thing.”
“Did you just bring my mother into this?” Cleavon yelled. “You don’t talk about my mama.”
“Well, I just did,” Mr. Louis Loomis replied evenly.
“Sit down, Mr. Louis Loomis,” Bert said. “And Cleavon, you shut up. I’m tired of both of y’all—fussing and arguing all of the time. Cleavon, you know you not acting right on this. And Mr. Louis Loomis, you know you wasting precious breath on Cleavon—don’t know why you have such a hard time ignoring him and his craziness.”
“I might be crazy, Bert K. Green. But you’re still not hiring Rev. Wilson.”
Bert started to argue but checked his words as a vision formed in his mind. He remembered what Nettie told him would happen if the committee didn’t vote to hire George Wilson. He said, “Okay, Cleavon, you win. This Sunday you can tell the church that the committee is hiring Rev. Earl Hamilton.”
“Bert?” Wendell asked.
“We are letting Cleavon make the announcement and that’s final.”
“But . . .”
“Wendell, I am the chair of this committee and I’ve made my decision. Let Cleavon tell the church, and then let the Lord handle the rest.”
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