Seeing everyone that weekend would be a welcome break from the stress of things in Houston. By then, some of them had probably heard about the wanna-be scandal, but they were the people who had scraped knees and run from dogs with him; they’d been through a few things together. If anyone asked, he’d tell them the truth and they (or at least Mama B) would say a prayer, then Otha would probably crack a few jokes about it and take another piece of pie.
Finally, they approached the exit to Peasner. “Thank God,” Sharla sighed.
“Ditto,” Amani grumbled.
“Alright, enough,” Mark declared. “We’re here now. Let’s get rid of these bad attitudes and have a good time with our family this weekend, okay?”
There were three cars filling Mama B’s driveway already, so Sharla had to park next to the curb. “My car better not get any scratches on it,” she fussed at Mark.
“Just be thankful you have possession of your car right now,” he spoke over Amani’s head.
Mark could hardly wait to get into the house. He grabbed the heaviest bag with his left arm and told Amani to get the other ones. Together, they walked toward Mama B’s door.
“Hey, y’all! It’s Tugga!”
Like a pack of bees, several cousins swarmed to the wooden porch. Someone announced that a preacher was in the house, and instantly a foot-stomping, hand-clapping gospel beat ensued. “Can’t nobody,” Son started. The impromptu congregation said, “Preach like Tugga, can’t nobody do you like him, can’t nobody preach like Tugga, he’s my friend!”
Mark couldn’t contain his laughter. Nothing had changed. They always teased him about being a preacher. He knew it was their way of showing him they were proud to have a preacher in the family.
Once on the porch, he was surrounded by hugs and pats on the back. His family pounced on Sharla and Amani as well, remarking on how well they looked.
“Where’s Mama B?”
“She in there cooking up a storm, as usual,” Debra Kay said, pursing her lips. “We can’t get her to sit down for anything.”
“She’s just nervous,” Cassandra defended.
“Who’s this man she’s marrying?” Mark asked.
Son relayed, “He’s alright. Good people. A doctor.”
“Mama B done got her a doctor, eh? Watch out there now!” Mark slipped into the dialect he always picked up when he spent a little time in Peasner.
Sharla and Amani looked at each other as though they didn’t know that country man.
“Come on in, Tugga,” Otha guided them inside.
A mixture of complementing aromas swirled up Mark’s nostrils. “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about.”
He noticed Sharla’s slight grin. She had to be hungry, too, since they—well, she—had driven four hours from Houston non-stop. “It does smell good.”
Amani gave in, “If she asks me if I’m hungry, I’m going to break the rules, Mom, and tell her that I am.”
Otha assured Amani, “You don’t have to be all proper here. You’re with family now. If you’re hungry, just say the word.”
“The word,” Amani joked.
“Boy, you’re about as goofy as your Daddy,” Otha snickered, punching Amani’s shoulder. “Y’all go on in and say hi to everybody. I’ll take your suitcases to the back rooms.”
Mark, Sharla, and Amani stopped to greet other family members strewn across the couches, mostly people who had married into the clan, from what Mark could tell. One asked about his arm. Mark simply replied, “I was in a car accident.”
“Aw, man. You gon’ be all right?” Cassandra’s husband wanted to know.
“I’m still standing!”
“Amen to that,” from Son’s wife, Wanda.
In the kitchen, Mama B was on the phone, but she immediately dismissed herself from the conversation when Mark and his family entered the kitchen. “Tugga! Oh my goodness! I can’t believe you made it! Come here, all of you!”
Mama B pulled them all into a hug, planting a kiss on all six of their cheeks. “My goodness! Is this Amani?”
Sharla beamed. “Yes, ma’am. Thirteen years old.”
“My Lawd! He ‘bout to pass you up, Tugga. And so handsome!” Mama B gushed. Then she looked at him above the rim of her glasses. “Now, you listen here. Don’t you let no little girls get you in trouble, you hear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Amani smirked.
“You hungry?”
“A little,” Amani said.
“Nonsense. You a growin’ boy, you starvin’. Y’all always are. Look up in that cabinet and get you plate,” she pointed to her right. “We got plenty in the oven and in the refrigerator. Help yourself. And you can go on out back with the other teenagers.”
She didn’t have to tell him twice to fix his plate.
Two little boys who couldn’t have been more than six or seven years old ran into the kitchen and attempted to reach for the cookie platter on the table.
“Na-ah! Wash your hands first,” Mama B stopped them. The taller one reached up and turned on the faucet. They splashed around for a second, wiped their hands on their shirts. By that time, Mama B had already separated four of the smallest cookies from the stash. She handed them two each. “Now, don’t try to eat no more until you finish supper tonight.”
They nodded. “Thank you,” one of them minded his manners. Then they both took off toward the loud chatter in the living room.
Mama B, turned to Mark. “Tugga, you betta be teachin’ him right; don’t, this good-lookin’ boy gon’ break a lot of hearts,” she warned Mark.
“Aw, he just turned thirteen.”
“The enemy don’t care nothin’ ‘bout him bein’ thirteen. He take ‘em at ten if you let him. Don’t fool yourself, this boy need you every step of the way,” she lectured. “You betta come out from around that pulpit sometime so you can keep up with him. He’s a good boy. Special to the Lord.”
Really? Did I come all the way from Houston to hear the same song? He avoided eye contact with his wife.
Sharla hugged the elderly woman again. “Ooh, Mama B, I am soooooo glad we came to see you. And you look so good! Haven’t changed a bit since the last time I saw you.”
“Thank you, sweetheart. I tell you what, though, I done picked up a few extra gray hairs plannin’ this weddin’. They done added so much stuff—seem like you spend more time plannin’ on stuff to thank people for comin’ than the actual weddin’ itself! My goodness!”
“Well, if there’s anything I can do to help, you just let me know,” Sharla volunteered.
“As a matter of fact, we got to finish decoratin’ the church tonight. That’s where we havin’ the party tomorrow,” Mama B took Sharla up on the offer.
“Be glad to.”
Somehow in less than five minutes, Mama B had managed to win both his son and his wife, while giving Mark a good tongue lashin’ by revelation of the Spirit—there was no way she could have otherwise known the particulars of his household. Leave it to somebody in tune with the Lord to read him like a book, in love.
Sharla made a plate for herself and Mark. They joined the cousins out on the front porch again. Mama B’s flowers added a pleasant fragrance to the early evening air. The citronella candles worked overtime to keep the mosquitos away, emitting a light stream of repelling smoke from buckets.
Though they were all sitting within ten feet of each other in a circle of chairs and swings, the volume level escalated with each speaker, each new recollection of the good-ole-days when they used to go fishing and when Otha caused them all to get a whippin’ because he wouldn’t admit to swinging the stick at the rock that broke the back windshield of Uncle Albert’s Monte Carlo.
“Hey, I hit the rock, but we were all outside hitting rocks with sticks! It could have happened to any one of us!” he deflected.
“But it was you!” Mark hollered.
“It was just a matter of time before somebody did it!” Otha screamed back.
“You know that’s how Otha was. He did
n’t take the blame for anything he did wrong,” Debra Kay blasted, laughing. “That’s why I didn’t feel bad when I used to lie on him and he got in trouble. It was just payback.”
“Oooh! I’mma tell Momma! You just admitted it!” Otha yelled.
“You tell her and I’ll deny it.”
“Naw, I got a neutral witness,” Otha said, pointing at Sharla. “You heard her, right?”
Sharla stuffed her mouth with a spoonful of potato salad. The entire porch erupted in laughter.
“Aw, naw! We kinfolk, Sharla! We kinfolk!” Otha tried to persuade her, to no avail.
Later, Mama B led Mark and Sharla to their room. They transferred Amani’s suitcase into the third room. “Cameron will be over here later on to keep Amani company. Sounds like some of the other kids are gonna stay over tonight, too. Probably playing video games ‘til the wee hours of the morning.”
“Oh, that’s right up Amani’s alley,” Sharla said.
Mama B left them alone to get settled a bit, saying she’d need help at the church in another hour or so.
As soon as she left the room, Mark asked Sharla, “When was the last time you said ‘up somebody’s alley’? You ‘bout country as they come!”
Sharla muffled a smile and denied, “That’s not country. It’s just old school.”
“Yeah, right,” Mark teased. He grabbed her from behind, interrupting her as she attempted to hang their garment bag in the small closet.
“Mark! We just got here.”
“We’ve got an hour until she needs us,” he propositioned, wearing a mischievous grin.
Sharla gawked, “Are you serious? There’s, like, a million people in this house.”
“A million people who are all preoccupied with each other,” he said. He walked back to the door, locked it. “You feel better now?”
“A little,” she smirked.
“Well, I want you to feel a lot better.”
“I sho’ reckon that’s alright with me,” Sharla said in her most countrified twang.
Chapter 27
Things had been awkward with that arm sling, but he and Sharla worked around it, thank the good Lord.
Then it was time to join the relatives trekking to and from the church like ants carting food to the anthill. Sharla had gotten herself involved with the particulars in the kitchen with the women, while the men ran back and forth.
“Dad, we’re having a party at a church, and the church is right behind her house?” Amani mused, carrying a big platter of croissants as they walked across Mama B’s back yard toward the sanctuary.
“Yep. This is what you call a close-knit community. You don’t know nothin’ ‘bout that. I apologize for not introducing you to the other side of the world, son.”
“The dark side of the world,” he croaked in a witchy voice.
“Nothin’ dark about Peasner, Mama B, or Mount Zion Baptist.”
Mark wasn’t much use. The most consistent thing he could do was hold open doors since he only had one arm available. Actually, since his rendezvous with Sharla, he’d begun to feel a pinching sensation toward the wrist. Those pain pills would come in handy, but he’d go as long as possible before taking one. He didn’t want to miss one moment of fun with his extended family.
As they approached the church the next time, Mark saw the backside of a car in the front parking lot. He held the door for Amani to enter the fellowship hall, then said, “You keep on. I’m gonna go around to the front and see who this is.”
“Cool.”
Upon closer inspection, he saw that the car was an old, but well-kept Pontiac Bonneville. When the door opened, he recognized its driver immediately. “Pastor Phillips!”
“Ha-ha!” the elderly man bellowed. “Look what the cat done drug in!”
Mark gave his fellow clergyman a hearty hug. “So good to see you!”
“Right back atcha!”
He patted Mark on the back a little too hard, sending achy waves down his right side.
“Now you know Mama B’s family so big, I can keep track of faces, but I’m not so good with names no more. Tell me who you are again?”
“I’m Mama B’s nephew, Mark Carter. Everybody calls me Tugga.”
“Yes! Tugga! You the one grew up to be a preacher, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yeah, I heard about your accident. God spared you for a reason.”
“Amen.”
Suddenly, the car’s horn blew. Pastor Phillips flew to the passenger’s side. “My word. I keep forgettin’. Gotta get back into the habit.”
A full-figured seasoned woman with a baby-face unfolded herself from the seat as Pastor Phillips opened the door for her.
“I’m sorry, Ophelia.”
She certainly wasn’t the woman Mark recalled as the first lady of Mount Zion. As a matter of fact, he remembered Ophelia as one of Mama B’s best friends—not Pastor Phillips’ wife. He’d have to ask Son about all that later. “Hello, Miss Ophelia.”
“Tugga! Mama B told me you’d be here. She’s so glad y’all made the effort to come celebrate her wedding.” Ophelia plopped a kiss on his cheek and he returned the gesture. “Look like you puttin’ on a little weight there.”
Old folk sure had a way of pointing out the obvious. Mark sucked in his gut. “Yes, ma’am. Working long hours at the church.”
“Well, you need to get home at a decent hour so you won’t have to eat so late. Once you hit forty, you got to cut back; don’t, you’ll be big as a house before you know it.”
Was this a conspiracy? “Yes, ma’am.” Mark was grateful Sharla hadn’t overheard his second reprimand. He was starting to get the feeling that maybe Sharla wasn’t simply nagging him. She cared about him and couldn’t turn off the God-given nurturing instinct. Like Jackson said, it was part of their makeup. She couldn’t have turned it off if she wanted to. Maybe she could tone it down, but it wouldn’t go away so long as she was his helpmate.
“Can I help you with anything, Pastor Phillips? Afraid I’m not much help with this sling.”
“I’m sure I can put you to work,” he laughed.
Ophelia marched on over to the house while Mark followed Pastor Phillips into the church building. They bypassed the hustle and bustle in the fellowship hall and journeyed on toward the pastor’s office. The room had to be a fourth the size of Mark’s office. Two walls were covered with plaques and certificates memorializing his service to the members of Mount Zion and the community at large. The pastor had tacked a number of phone numbers and reminders on the surface behind the telephone. The last wall, a built-in bookshelf, boasted a gold mine of books. Mark read as many spines as he could, recognizing the names of well-known scholars and commentators in the collection.
“Pastor, this is amazing,” Mark gasped. He had books on his bookshelf, of course, but not the classics. Not the kind where you had to cross-reference with a dictionary and two or three different translations of the Bible. Basically, Mark read the Cliff-notes versions and stuck to the texts written in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. “I wish I had time to read so many books.”
Pastor Phillips cautiously lowered himself into his worn leather seat. “You got to remember, I been pastoring almost forty years.”
Mark parked himself across from the pastor in a hard wooden chair. “Yeah, but you’ve got some serious books in here. How do you find the time?”
“Well, now, nobody can’t find time or make time. You got to section off time to study the word, you see.”
Mark admired the pastor’s easy demeanor. “I hope that when I get to be in my sixties or seventies, I’ll be able to slow down and enjoy good books, too. But right now, my church is bursting at the seams. Well, once I get us past this little mess we’re in right now. I think I’ve lost some of my members. But we’ll be all right as long as we follow the plan.”
The senior pastor raised an eyebrow. “You think it’s up to you to keep the church on track?”
“I have to. I mean, right
now my other ministers are filling in until the media finds someone else to rag on. Plus I gotta get this arm back on track. If I don’t eventually take the reins back, my church will…I guess, collapse.”
Mark figured he must have amused the pastor, by the way he laughed. Pastor Phillips rested an elbow on the arm of his chair and pushed up the wrinkles at his temple with his forefinger. He stared at Mark for a second. “You think the entire church rests on you?”
“Of course it does. I founded it—after God told me to, I mean,” Mark corrected himself.
“You threw that last part on there like you didn’t want to sound prideful, but you really do think you founded your church and those men are your ministers and the people are your members. You in dangerous territory.”
Mark couldn’t refute that those words had come out of his mouth only seconds earlier.
“Who’s your mentor?” Pastor Phillips demanded.
“Dr. Kevin McMurray.”
“Yes, Dr. McMurray. I’m familiar with his ministry. Powerful. You been sittin’ down with him lately?”
Mark shook his head, feeling somewhat ashamed. “No, sir. I’ve been so busy, you know, running the church. He’s called me, has set up appointments. I had to cancel the last two. I know I need to talk to him more. We’re both pretty busy.”
The pastor nodded, seemingly ignoring Mark’s excuses. “Well, first things first: you got no business running around like a loose cannon. How old are you?”
“Thirty-eight.”
“You still a lad, far as I’m concerned. Numbers don’t mean nothin’ to God, we all know, but there’s a reason Elisha had Elijah and Timothy had Paul. So I’mma tell you like my pastor told me. Son, you got to recognize that the church you’ve been appointed to shepherd is not your church—it’s Christ’s church. The real church ain’t in these walls no way.” He motioned toward the ceiling. “The real church is the body of Christ. Some folk in the building ain’t in the body of Christ—they just come to give the believers a hard time. But that ain’t your business. Most time, them kind of folk don’t stay around long no way. They can’t stand to be around a whole bunch of love. They either get drawn in or find their own way out. God said He’d separate the wheat from the tares in the end, anyway.”
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