Louise put her magazine up to her face so that Oscar couldn’t see her laughing. She’d had a hard enough time keeping her face straight back at the club when Oscar was scrambling on the floor with his shoes too big, his legs too skinny, and his teeth stuck together with cement glue. But this? This was priceless. She hadn’t known Mozelle had it in her to talk to Oscar like that.
And it was making Oscar furious. It was so clear that he didn’t think Mozelle had any right to tell him how she felt, even after six children and forty years. Still, it startled Louise when Oscar tried again to smack Mozelle in the mouth.
And again, Mozelle froze him in his tracks, this time with an icy glare hard enough to pierce holes in Oscar. For a moment he stood still, like he was in suspended animation, before he backed up to his seat and sat down.
“You did right for a change, Oscar Lee,” Mozelle said. “Because if you had put your hands on me, the only thing that would have saved you is an angel of the Lord.”
Scared as he was of the new Mozelle, being a man Oscar had to save face. He balled up his right fist and shook it at her.
“If you don’t want to have to use cement glue to keep your hand attached to your arm, I’d suggest that you not try that again,” Mozelle warned. Then she closed her eyes, silently thanking the Lord for giving her the courage to at last recognize who Oscar truly was. And who he truly wasn’t—a decent husband. She picked up her purse and turned to Louise. “I’m ready to go.”
“But Mozelle, what about Oscar?”
“What about Oscar?”
“I mean, he still needs someone with him, to help him with the doctor.”
“Maybe so, but it won’t be me. I’ll explain what happened and tell the nurse we are leaving.”
As Mozelle walked to the door, Louise just sat there for a moment, in shock that Mozelle would actually abandon Oscar. All these years Mozelle had let him get away with murder, and now he had used up his last reprieve. But then, Louis had told her, many a day, that the worst thing you could do to people you kept hurting by doing wrong was to keep on acting a fool with them. Louis said those types could go on for what looked like forever, but that then one day they would snap and that was it. You had “tore your draws” with them, and they were through. Watching Mozelle walk out of that waiting room without so much as a backward glance, Louise knew that Oscar had “tore his draws” with her once and for all.
Mozelle had gotten all the way out in the hall when she realized that Louise wasn’t with her. “I’m leaving, Louise,” she called out. “Now, if you want to sit with Oscar, that’s fine by me. But I am leaving.”
Louise jumped up. The last thing she wanted to do was sit anywhere with Oscar Lee Thomas.
VIII
Once they got in the car, Mozelle sped home like she was on a raceway. She pulled up in front of the house, then hopped out of the car so fast, she had to dash back and get Louise and lock it up. Then she ran into the house, heading straight for her bedroom. When Louise caught up with her, Mozelle was pulling open drawers and throwing Oscar’s stuff into the middle of the floor.
“Louise,” she said, making her jump to attention. “Can you help me with the chests?”
Louise followed Mozelle to one of the spare bedrooms, and together they pushed two big cedar chests into her room. When Mozelle opened them, Louise was surprised to find that they were empty, except for some tissue paper in the bottom. She had expected to find them full of the “old-timey” clothes Oscar wore before he turned into Mack Daddy.
“I gave them to Rev. Wilson for that young man who just joined the church,” Mozelle said, answering Louise’s unspoken question. “You know the one I’m talking about, right?”
Louise nodded. The young man had been to Vietnam and was on drugs for years before he went cold turkey and decided to put his life back together. He was about the only person she knew who was slight enough to wear Oscar Lee’s clothes.
“That young man was turning his life over to Christ, and he needed to know that somebody cared enough to give him a helping hand. And here is Oscar Lee running around looking like a broke-down Superfly and don’t have a clue as to what real hardship is. That boy couldn’t save his best friend in combat—all Oscar couldn’t save was the right kind of time for me.”
Louise was quiet as she watched Mozelle fold up Oscar’s new clothes, amazed at her friend’s strength. Here she was, saying good-bye to the only life she had known for over four decades, and she was doing it with a grace and courage Louise knew she could never muster up in herself. Because if Oscar were her husband, those clothes would be lying on the front lawn, cut to shreds. Louis was right. You didn’t mess with people like Mozelle Thomas.
Louise grabbed a handful of the baby blue tissue paper Mozelle had folded up so neatly in the chest, and an old brown envelope dropped on the floor. She laid the tissue paper on the bed and bent over to pick it up.
“Mozelle, did you know you had papers packed down in this chest?”
Mozelle stopped working and held out her hand for the envelope. She turned it over and tried to place it, realizing that she had never seen it before.
“What’s wrong?” Louise asked.
“This envelope was put in the chest after I gave that boy those clothes. I know that to be a fact. And what’s more, if Oscar been up in these chests, then he saw that I had gotten rid of his clothes. I ain’t heard a peep from him. And when have you known Oscar Lee Thomas to leave something alone like getting rid of his stuff without permission?”
Louise knew that Mozelle was right. Oscar would show his behind over something like this. She said, “Open that envelope.”
Mozelle tore open the envelope, which contained a handwritten letter.
“Louise, this letter was written by the man whose family donated the land for the church.”
“Who is he?” Louise asked.
Mozelle squinted as she tried to make out the name. “I can’t read the name—the writing is too shaky. But the letter is notarized.”
“Can you make out anything, Mozelle?”
Mozelle scanned it and then started reading out loud: “‘And in keeping with my father’s wishes for his beloved church, the land he donated on which to build it back in 1876 will remain in its stewardship until such time as I make arrangements for Gethsemane’s name and not my family’s to be placed on the deed. In the event that I die before making this transaction, the land will pass on to my heirs, who are entrusted with protecting it and ultimately deeding it to Gethsemane Missionary Baptist Church when the hundred-year grant of use expires.’”
“Why would a family donate land and not immediately give the deed to the church? That doesn’t make sense to me,” Louise said.
Mozelle continued reading aloud through the letter and then said, “I don’t think the family ever intended for the church to have a problem with this land. I think this person believed his business would be taken care of before he died. But, Louise, if the church got the land to use for a hundred years back in 1876, then our time is about to run out.”
“That’s right—this is the hundredth anniversary of the groundbreaking,” Louise said. “Mozelle, we need to hold on to this information, because it seems to me that whoever has this letter can either protect the church from the wrong hands or use it to place the church in the wrong hands. I don’t even think we should give it to Rev. Wilson, because he’s still just the interim pastor. If Cleavon got rid of him somehow, who knows where this letter would turn up?”
“I hear you talking, girl,” Mozelle said. “This is serious.”
“I bet this why Cleavon broke into the pastor’s safe, and then he gave it to Oscar Lee when Phoebe threatened to haul his low-down behind off to court.”
“Umm-hmm,” Mozelle said. “Only thing, Cleavon outsmarted himself by giving it to Oscar. The Lord is amazing. He be looking after you when you don’t even know He watching.”
“Amen,” Louise said. “But since these papers are so important to our church
, how we gone make it look like we don’t have them?”
“Like this,” Mozelle answered, as she took great care to put enough sheets of folded tissue paper into the envelope to give it the same weight and look that it had had with the documents enclosed. Then she folded the clothes and put them in the chest, making it look like she had never so much as breathed on that tissue paper.
When she was done, Louise looked at her long and hard and asked, “Girl, where did you learn to be that slick? You could be working for the FBI, doing all this undercover work.”
Mozelle just chuckled and said, “Louise, I was married to Oscar Lee Thomas for forty years. I had to be smart enough to get around him sometimes, or else he would have run me clean out of my mind.”
When Mozelle was satisfied that all of Oscar’s things were packed up, she went over to the telephone.
“Who you calling?” Louise asked her.
“Warlene.”
“The Mellow Slick Cougars Club Warlene?”
“How many Warlenes do you know, Louise?”
Louise kind of shrugged, as if to say, “I hear you talkin’.”
“I want to give her a message for Queenie Tyler,” Mozelle said.
“And the message being?” Louise queried.
“To come and pick up her man’s stuff, funky draws and all, when she get him home from the hospital.”
“Her man?”
“Yeah,” Mozelle said with a little attitude in her voice. “Her man. ’Cause Oscar Lee Thomas show ain’t my man anymore. I ain’t got no man. I’m a free agent.”
Louise couldn’t say a word. And when words did come to mind, all she could think was, “Lord, wait till Louis hears about this.”
Part 4
All in a Day’s Work
I
It was only Tuesday, but as far as George Wilson was concerned, it had already been a very long week. On Saturday he officiated over the funeral of Oscar Lee Thomas, whose death was a surprise and a stark reminder that life was too short to let it pass you by.
It was no secret that Mr. Oscar had gotten down in his health after he moved in with his girlfriend, Queenie Tyler. Still, nobody ever expected him to die. He was just too full of fire and vinegar, even if he had devoted most of that energy to tormenting Miss Mozelle. No matter how bad he could act, and even though lately he had stopped attending Sunday service, Oscar Lee Thomas was an important part of the fabric of Gethsemane Missionary Baptist Church.
On the night Oscar died, Queenie Tyler put in a call to Sheba Cochran, pleading with her to bring the pastor over before it was too late. As soon as Sheba finished talking to Queenie, she hustled over to the church and rolled up in George’s office so fast that she skidded across the room and into his arms when he opened the door. When George caught Sheba, he had to wonder what ingredients the Lord used when He made this girl—she was an armful and then some.
He held her for a moment, feeling the rapid beating of her heart, before he said, “Slow down. What could possibly make you rush in here like that?”
“Mr. Oscar is dying, George,” Sheba said quietly, inhaling his cologne and fighting the urge to grab a hold of this man. She was not prepared for how good George felt—his warmth alone made her want to swoon.
“Are you serious?” George asked, incredulous. “Oscar Lee Thomas?”
“Yes, George. And you have to hurry. Queenie don’t think he has that much time. And she’s scared. She don’t want—”
“Sweetheart,” George said gently, as he put his clerical collar on and grabbed his Bible, “I’m not going to let him leave without coming back to Jesus. Let’s go, because time is not on our side.”
They pulled up just as Mr. Louis Loomis, Louise, Mozelle, and Joseaphus Cantrell, a church deacon who had been visiting Mozelle when Queenie called, were getting out of Mr. Louis Loomis’s car. Queenie, who had been pacing around the house praying that God would wait to take Oscar until Rev. Wilson arrived, felt like shouting when she heard all those church people on her porch. She opened the door and said, “Thank you, thank you,” momentarily forgetting herself and grabbing hold of Mozelle’s hand. When Mozelle started to pull back, Queenie lowered her head and said, “Oscar Lee back in the bedroom,” as she ushered them down the tiny hallway in her small home.
Oscar was sitting up in a gold crushed-velvet recliner chair, fully dressed in a navy blue suit, white shirt, and blue, red, and silver star-print tie. Despite his thinness and pallor, he looked classy, nothing like the “Geritol Pimp-Daddy,” as Mr. Louis Loomis called him when he was sporting his Superfly clothes.
Mr. Louis Loomis studied Oscar, fully comprehending why he had used up most of his strength to get out of the bed and dress up for them. A man’s pride and dignity would make him want to be at his best on his deathbed.
“Louis,” Louise whispered, “Oscar look good. And he don’t look like no imitation ‘Candy Man,’ either.”
“Yeah, you right on that account, girl,” Mr. Louis Loomis answered, hoping that Oscar didn’t hear them. He had always been told that people on their deathbeds had keen senses and didn’t miss a thing.
He was right to worry, because Oscar did hear Louise, but at this point he found the Sammy Davis, Jr. reference kind of funny. All these years, he had resented Louise Williams’s presence in Mozelle’s life, but now he thanked the Lord that she had been there holding Mozelle’s hand when he was doing his best to turn her every which way but loose. Christmas Jefferson was dead wrong—Louise was a wonderful woman.
But Oscar could not only hear everything, he could feel everything—every vibe and nuance moving through that room. He felt the Holy Ghost shoot right into his heart as soon as Rev. Wilson put his foot over the threshold, and he sensed it the moment Mozelle stepped onto Queenie’s porch. Sadly, he also felt worry and sorrow from all of them, especially Queenie, and that made his heart ache a bit.
Oscar beckoned everyone closer to his easy chair and started talking, his voice weak, but his spirit shining strong. When he reached out for Mozelle with open arms, she resisted his embrace. “Mozelle,” he said in the gentlest voice she had ever heard him use, “Mozelle, please don’t hold back from me like that. I just called you over here to set things right with you before I left. Don’t want to meet my precious Lord with this burden on my heart.”
Mozelle didn’t move a muscle, and neither did anybody else.
“I never did do right by you. Never once treated you like you deserved to be treated. Never once told you how beautiful you were. Even after six babies and getting old, girl, your beauty just got better and better. And me? Never once had the sense to thank God for making you my wife. And since I been down sick, Mozelle, I been praying about that and the whys and hows of how I acted. Queenie know. Don’t you, Queenie?”
Queenie nodded, her eyes full of tears. Oscar had been on his knees a lot lately, despite his weakened state, and he had even talked to her about the importance of having the Lord in your life. Those words had begun to take root in Queenie’s heart, and she had started praying and reading Oscar’s Bible and Sunday school literature. Queenie was ready to be a “New Creature in Christ,” but she didn’t know how to get to that point.
Taking her hand, Mr. Oscar patted it and whispered, “Don’t you cry. You know I have to go. But you have made my last days happy.”
He got still a moment to catch the tears trying to flow down his cheeks. Oscar loved himself some Queenie Tyler. In fact, if the truth be told, Queenie was Oscar’s dream woman. But he let the women like her whom he had loved in his youth slip away because he was a coward, ashamed to admit that he loved a kind of woman considered “not good enough to marry.”
It was sad that he had spent a lifetime missing his own blessings because he listened to what folks told him made a woman a suitable wife. And even worse, he had made Mozelle pay for every day he’d spent away from a woman like Queenie.
Oscar looked into Mozelle’s eyes and said, “Forgive me. That’s all I can dare to ask of you.�
�
Everyone in the room was crying except Mozelle. And then the light dawned in her heart. She realized that she no longer resented Oscar—that all her anger had been lifted from her long before now. Tears came to her at last and she said, “I forgive you, Oscar. I forgave you right after I put you out.”
“Good,” he said, smiling warmly. Then he looked over at Mr. Joseaphus Cantrell, whom he had known since they were schoolboys. He had always been jealous of Joseaphus, who was everything he was not: tall, brown, and kindly, with a hearty laugh. Back before Oscar and Mozelle were married, Joseaphus had had a crush on Mozelle that Oscar believed had never gone away. Now Joseaphus was a widower, and Oscar had not been surprised to hear that recently he had been keeping Mozelle company.
He took Mozelle’s hand, extended it toward Joseaphus, and said, “Take good care of her, man. She had my babies, but she has always had your heart. I know you love her. And I know she needs to love you. Will you do that for me, Joseaphus?”
Mr. Joseaphus Cantrell nodded gravely and took Miss Mozelle’s hand gently in his, pulling her over to him, and into his strong arms.
Then Oscar gestured toward George. “Rev. Wilson, I want to rededicate my life to Christ. I want to see my Savior’s face when I reach glory, and I want to hear Him say, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant, well done.’”
George squeezed Sheba’s shoulder for support. His heart was full of profound emotions—deep sadness over Mr. Oscar, mingled with joy that he had returned to the Lord in time. Then George reached out and took one of Oscar’s hands in his; it was so frail that he feared he would break it if he squeezed too hard.
“Oscar Lee, do you acknowledge that you have been a sinner and that Jesus died for those sins and then rose again. And do you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior?”
Second Sunday Page 17