“I don’t know if any of you know this, but the land this church sits on was loaned to the church by a dedicated member for one century. And frankly, church, I don’t believe for one minute that this man meant for any of his descendants to try to do us harm. But sadly, one of them has surfaced and wants to take our church right from under our feet without a thought or care, just weeks before we are to celebrate our hundredth anniversary.”
The congregation erupted in cries of outrage and horror. George gave them a few minutes to absorb the shock before he resumed. “Brothers and Sisters in the Lord, you know that I am only the interim pastor and that my term will end around the time this crisis comes to a head. But I am as committed to this church as if I were baptized in it. I want to stand by you and help to guide you through this storm, and I hope that you will give me the authority to do so. See, I know that the Lord has called me to be the permanent pastor of his church. And I have perfect peace that He is going to work it all out.”
“Yes, Lawd,” Queenie Tyler shouted out. “We the bread and you the butter, Pastor. Just spread the word right on over us.”
A ripple of laughter ran through the congregation, easing the anxiety caused by the announcement. “Thank you, Sister Tyler,” George said. “I don’t think anybody in this church could have put it better than that.”
“I know that’s right,” Sister Hershey Jones called out.
“To show you the depth of my commitment to Gethsemane, let me introduce you to one of your Sisters in the Lord who has become my wife, the First Lady of my life, Sheba Cochran Wilson.”
Folks began to applaud, until Cleavon’s voice rang out from the balcony, “Man, you have the nerve to stand up there and ask to be our permanent pastor, when you bringing along Jezebel as our First Lady?”
“What did you just say?” George asked Cleavon, unbuttoning his robe.
“Negro, you heard exactly what he said,” Latham joined in. “This whole church knows that Sheba Cochran is not, nor will she ever, be a decent woman, a woman of God, or the First Lady of our church.”
George laid his robe neatly on the pastor’s chair and removed his clerical collar, so as not to insult the Lord too much, then stormed out of the pulpit, heading for the balcony. Sheba coughed to get his attention, frantically shaking her head, but George shot her a look saying “I’ll handle this as I see fit . . . ”
All Sheba could do was acquiesce to her husband’s silent command, fold her hands in her lap, and turn the matter over to the Lord.
At that point, Katie Mae stood up, loudly gathering her things and her children. Embarrassed, Cleavon grabbed her wrist with such force that she could feel the bruises form.
“You need to sit your butt down,” he hissed.
Katie Mae didn’t say a word. She just wrestled her wrist out of Cleavon’s grip, then headed her children down to sit with Bert and Nettie. After waiting at the bottom of the stairs to let them pass, George was about to bound up and whip Cleavon’s tail when he heard a commotion at the back of the church.
As if on cue, the television minister, Ray Lyles, and Rev. Earl Hamilton came strutting in, with Lyles’s wife trailing behind them.
“What the . . . ,” Bert murmured, and got up to investigate. He advanced on the intruders with Wendell, Melvin Sr., Mr. Louis Loomis, Joseaphus Cantrell, Melvin Jr., and Jackson Williams on his heels. George remembered Mr. Louis Loomis’s story of how Ray Lyles’s men had come at him, and wanted to avert the same kind of free-for-all. Stepping out into the sanctuary, he held up his hand to signal the men to hold their peace.
Ray Lyles kept walking, making a beeline for the pulpit. But George blocked his path, warning, “You better stop right there unless you want to feel the real black hand of fellowship.”
Lyles halted, but stood his ground and addressed the congregation. “Children of God, we are here to announce the dawning of a new day at Gethsemane Baptist Church—now the Auxiliary American Worship Center.”
Up in the balcony, Cleavon sat looking smug, as the rest of the congregation began buzzing: “Who that man think he is, comin’ up in here like this? That white boy must be on drugs.”
Lyles removed a paper from his pocket and prepared to read it, until he saw George staring him straight in the eye, saying in a low and very deadly-sounding tone, “Get out.”
Lyles hesitated, and then a woman’s voice called from the side door of the sanctuary, “Didn’t you hear the man tell you to get out?”
There stood Warlene, hanging on Old Daddy’s arm. “Thank you, Jesus,” Queenie and Phoebe whispered.
“Rev. Wilson,” Warlene said, “I have something that will put a stop to this mess. Ain't that right, Osceola?” she added, looking right at Betty Lyles.
All eyes tracked her glare to the back of the church, where Ray Lyles’s wife was still lurking, looking like she wished she could disappear.
“Who are you?” Ray Lyles demanded.
“Ask her, if you wanna know so bad,” Warlene snarled, digging in her purse. She pulled out a document, which she placed in George’s hand, saying, “Read it, Rev. Wilson.”
Flipping through the pages, George began to smile, while Warlene kept after Lyles’s wife: “I can’t believe you and that jacked-up, money-begging, sorry-excuse-for-a-preacher white boy you married would try to game on this church. All you got is our grandpappy’s old grant to use the land—land that he left to our daddy, Osceola. And our daddy—our black daddy, Mrs. Lyles—died and willed it to me. That’s his will that Rev. Wilson reading right now.
“You left and never came back, Osceola. I was only ten years old. We never even knew where to find you until we started seeing you on TV, up at that American Worship Center—and passing for white. That’s when Daddy knew you had run off for good, just like our mama. You never even came when he was dying.”
All the congregation members were craning their necks to look at the women, and a few of them even stood up to get a better look. The resemblance between Warlene and Mrs. Lyles was uncanny once you saw them side by side. The only difference between them was their skin color. Warlene was pale ivory brown, with a shot of redbone in her skin, and Mrs. Lyles was ivory, with just a hint of olive. But they both had thick, short, dark red curly hair, very dark blue eyes, round faces, and stocky builds with big feet and large breasts. They even looked like they wore the same kind of bras, the stiff cone-shaped ones that made their breasts look like torpedoes.
“Now, just a doggone minute,” Lyles huffed, starting to move in on Warlene with a raised, clenched fist. That made the entire church sit up, eager to see Warlene whip the man, as they knew she surely would. But then a gunshot stopped Ray Lyles in his tracks and sent everybody else hopping out of their pews and onto the floor, dusting off the plaster the bullet dislodged when it hit the ceiling.
“The next bullet will go right up in your behind, if it don’t ricochet off of your big head and hit somebody else first,” Old Daddy said, as he cocked a pistol with garnet and topaz stones embedded in its glistening mother-of-pearl handle.
Ray Lyles reluctantly backed away from Warlene and turned toward his wife. He felt sick. The resemblance between his Betsy and that crude-acting black woman could not be denied.
“Ray,” Betsy/Osceola pleaded, starting toward her husband until Old Daddy stopped her by brandishing his pistol. He had never liked Osceola, with her phony, lying, and greedy self. Warlene hadn’t spoken to her sister in thirty years, but Old Daddy had seen the heifer a number of times when she sneaked down into North St. Louis to buy music or get some rib tips and chitlins and a fried tripe sandwich. But she never even sent her family any money, rich as she was.
“Stay right there, Osceola,” he said. “Stand there and explain why you’d sell out your own kind and try to steal their property. I knew your grandpappy, and I know he’d rather wear a cheap suit and run-over shoes than see you and your okey-doke husband run this church.”
“Now, see here,” said Earl Hamilton, crawling out from beh
ind a pew, where he’d taken refuge when the gun had been fired. He could hear the lonesome whistle of his gravy train pulling out and leaving him behind. “Let Mrs. Lyles alone. Remember that you are in God’s house and should refrain from the lull of heathenism.”
Old Daddy pointed the pistol in Hamilton’s direction, taking pleasure in the fear that flickered in the man’s eyes. “That’s right, son—I am still a heathen. So it ain’t gone bother me none if I need to shoot you.”
Lyles stared at his wife, his eyes hard and accusatory. “How could you do this to me, Betsy?”
“I love you, Ray. You wanted the land so much that I . . .”
“I mean, how could you be a nig . . . a black?” He scoffed and laughed in disbelief at the same time. “And for nineteen years you’ve been in my church, in my house, in my bed, the mother of my—oh my God, my children are black. I am the only white person in my home.”
Lyles threw up his hands in horror, then pushed past his wife, heading for the back doors. She grabbed at him, begging, “Ray, don’t be angry. Don’t go, please. Please, you are my whole life, you are my family—”
“You said your family was dead. Get those lying black hands off me, you spawn of Satan.” Yanking his arm out of her grip, Lyles shoved Betsy so hard that she fell to the floor, sliding clean across the rug. Then he spun around, standing over her to spit out a final question. “But Betsy, if you’re black,” he said, with venom in his voice, “why can’t you sing?”
Then he stormed out, as his wife picked herself up off the rug and ran after him.
Earl Hamilton was furious. If that big red woman had not come up in this church today, he would have had a sweet job and a whole lot of money. Now he had absolutely nothing, along with a name that was sure to be slandered throughout St. Louis. He walked right up to Warlene and slapped her so hard, his hand left dark red marks across her face.
“Oh, no,” Old Daddy said, waving his pistol. And as everybody dove for cover, he squeezed off two more shots, grazing Earl Hamilton’s behind.
Earl grabbed at the seat of his pants—which were now on fire—hardly able to grasp what had just happened. When he saw the blood on his hand, he cried, “Why, you infidel, you . . . ”
“You the devil, boy,” said Old Daddy. “So I know the Lord don’t mind me shooting you in His house.”
“Amen,” Queenie Tyler shouted out. Sister Hershey Jones, who was becoming fast friends with Queenie, who had an incredible bluesy voice, added, “Hallelujah and thank you, Jesus.”
“Now, you have just eight seconds to get out of my church,” Old Daddy told Earl Hamilton.
“Eight seconds?” he asked, still in shock. “What—”
“Seven now” was all Old Daddy said, watching with satisfaction as Earl Hamilton hobbled out in pain. “Hold it there, boy,” he called after him, “don’t you go wasting any blood in here, neither.”
Looking behind him, Earl saw a splash of blood on the walnut floor and desperately wished it had hit the deep red carpet. Bending down with a squeal of anguish, he mopped up the spot with a starched white handkerchief.
After the shooting Phoebe reached down to help Bertha back up onto the pew and got concerned when she saw that her cousin was sweating and looking sick. “Go get Aunt Nettie and Melvin Jr.,” she told an usher.
Melvin Jr. rushed back to their pew and, quickly sliding in next to Bertha, asked anxiously, “Baby, what’s happening?”
“My water just broke. You better marry me now, before I have this baby!”
Phoebe stared at Bertha’s soaked dress and said, “I am so glad I made your butt get that marriage license. I told you, told you this would happen. Come on, Melvin Jr., let’s get this girl to the hospital.”
As they struggled to help Bertha stand, Jackson Williams rushed over to lend an extra hand. The three of them had just gotten her into the center aisle and started to walk her out of the sanctuary when a contraction hit Bertha so hard that it put her on her knees.
Nettie, Bert, Sylvia, and Melvin Sr. came running over, as Phoebe looked frantically for Karen, the other doctor in the congregation. Knowing Bertha would never let Latham lay a hand on her, she sighed with pure relief when she spotted Karen heading their way. “Call an ambulance,” Karen was saying. “What hospital you want her to go to?”
“Her doctor is on staff at St. Luke’s,” Nettie said.
Bertha was down on her hands and knees crying. With some effort, Melvin Jr., Jackson, and Bert managed to get her up and carry her to the ladies’ parlor. When they got there, Rev. Wilson was waiting on them, Bible in hand, with Sheba standing by as a witness, ready to perform the marriage ceremony in between Bertha’s labor pains.
“Dearly beloved,” he began.
“Ohhh, Melvin Jr.”
“We are gathered here in the sight of God—”
“JESUZZZ!!! JESUZZZ!!!” Bertha hollered, crying and pulling on Melvin Jr. “Why did you do this to me? I am hurting so bad, I could kill you. You knocked me up and made me have all of this pain.”
“Baby, baby please, calm down. I can’t stand to see you like this.”
“I ain’t marrying you!”
“Bertha, baby, please,” Melvin Jr. pleaded.
“Bertha Kaye,” MamaLouise snapped. “You gone marry Melvin Jr. right now! Don’t go blaming him like you had nothing to do with getting that baby. Didn’t nobody tell you to go and lay up with that man.”
George said, “Bertha, do you—”
“YES! YES! Ahhh . . . MamaLouise. It feels like the baby is kicking me in the back!”
“Bertha,” Karen asked, with a worried look on her face, “can you close your legs?”
“No, stupid!” Bertha sobbed, sweating and panting.
“Hmm, I’d say this baby is coming. Lay Bertha down on the floor. Melvin Jr., sit behind her. And I want you to grab her under her knees and hold them up for me.”
Karen dug around in her black bag for some surgical scissors. When she pulled them out, Bertha managed to say, “What you gone do with those?”
“Cut your panty hose and underwear off.”
“In front of everybody? Ohhhh, Lawd.”
Karen waved the men off to a corner, while MamaLouise and Nettie came over to shield Bertha’s body from view. As she cut off Bertha’s underclothes, Karen told Phoebe, “Go and boil some water so I can sterilize my scalpel and scissors.” Then she asked, “Miss Sheba, are there towels here?”
“Yeah,” MamaLouise piped up. “We have some clean towels and white sheets that we use for Communion Sunday.”
“Melvin Jr.!!!” Bertha hollered out.
“Yeah, baby. What you want, baby? Tell me, baby!”
“It feels like a big watermelon.”
“What?” Melvin Jr. said.
“The baby?” Karen asked. She put on her rubber gloves and took a look.
“Mama, Mama,” Bertha cried.
“Mama’s here, Sweet Potato,” Nettie crooned, as she stroked her daughter’s forehead with a cool towel. Poor Bert was pacing in the corner with the men, almost having a heart attack at seeing his little girl in so much pain.
“The baby’s head has crowned,” Karen said. “She’s not going to last until the ambulance comes. Where is Phoebe?”
“Right here,” Phoebe answered as if on cue, carrying the pot of boiling water.
Karen dropped her tools in the pot while Sheba pinned a big sheet around her to protect her clothes. Then Karen said, “Bertha, I need for you to push when I tell you to. And Rev. Wilson, you have very little if any time left to marry them.”
“Do you?” George began again.
“Lawd,” Bertha hollered.
“. . . Melvin Earl Vicks, Jr.”
“LAWD.”
“Push, Bertha,” Karen commanded.
“I can’t. It hurts.”
“You better.”
“. . . take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife in all ways . . .”
“Lawd!”
“
I do, Pastor. I do,” Melvin Jr. said hurriedly.
“The baby’s head,” Karen said.
“JEEESUZZZ!”
“Now his shoulder.”
“HEELLLPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“Rev. Wilson, hurry,” Nettie and MamaLouise exclaimed together.
“By the power . . . ”
“JESUS! JUST KILL ME!”
“Y’all married. In Jesus’ name. Y’all married. Amen.”
“It’s a boy,” Karen said brightly, smiling and holding up a screaming, mad, big, fat, healthy little baby boy.
Melvin Jr. started to cry. He held his wife close, gazing at his bellowing son, sounding just like his mama, and said, “You a good God! Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord.”
George grabbed Sheba’s hand and pulled her along as he made his way back to the sanctuary.
“Baby, we need to get back in church,” he said. “I just hope Old Daddy hasn’t shot anybody else while I was gone. I’m not looking to perform a wedding and funeral in an hour’s time.”
As they hurried into the sanctuary, Sheba realized why she had been so nervous about being introduced as the new First Lady. With Lyles’s attempted takeover, Old Daddy shooting Rev. Hamilton, Warlene exposing her crazy sister, and Bertha getting married and giving birth at the same time, being First Lady was a job that no thinking woman would attempt to do alone. It was the kind of job that only the Lord could help you handle.
The sanctuary was in complete chaos. Now it was Cleavon and Latham who were the center of controversy, surrounded by a ring of angry church members, who were all up in their faces, shouting and shaking their fists. Mr. Louis Loomis and Joseaphus Cantrell had grabbed hold of Cleavon’s mother, Vernine, who was pushing folks to get to her son, and carried her to the door, opened it, and put her out.
Two older deaconesses in the church had set upon Latham and proceeded to beat him in the direction of the door. One was armed with a big, ugly, pea green pocketbook and the other with two church fans—one in each hand.
George tried to subdue his unruly flock, waving his arms to get their attention, but his voice was all but drowned out in the commotion. He looked for Sheba and found her up in the pulpit, down on her knees, starting to pray. George ran to join her, on the way grabbing the organist and steering her toward the instrument.
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