Strongholds

by Vanessa Davis Griggs

  Marcella had become a bit distracted by Bentley’s stare. “I’m sorry, what did you just say? My mind wandered there for a minute.”

  “Look, I’ve got things to do here, so whatever it is that just grabbed your attention, maybe you should go and handle your business.” Avis laughed. “Yeah, and while you’re at it, tell Bentley I said hello.” She laughed again.

  Marcella gave a halfhearted laugh. “Yeah. I’ll do that.” She placed the phone back in its holder after saying good-bye. “That was Avis,” Marcella said to Bentley. “She’s back home now. They came back earlier this week. She said to tell you hello.”

  “That’s nice. So she and Xavier have worked things out? I know you said she’d sort of left him to go visit with her mother. Then Xavier showed up down there.”

  “Yeah, they worked things out. And it sounds like they had a great time doing it, too. She sounds more like a teenager in love for the first time than some old, married woman with four children.”

  Bentley moved his head as though he were trying to pop a kink out of it, first to the right, then the left. “So, you two were talking about some dark-skinned, fine, chocolate brother making out with his woman, huh? Is that from the book you’ve been reading the past few nights? The one on your nightstand with the half-naked man and the extra-sexy, barely covered woman on the cover?”

  Marcella smiled nervously. “It’s just a book, Bentley. Fiction. It has this great story line. It’s about this woman who is a Christian living a double life no one knows about. You know, the same-old-same-old kind of stuff you find in books these days.”

  “Books that cause you to see other people naked and doing the ‘do’ only using your mind?”

  “Look, Bentley. This is not the same thing you’re dealing with. And I don’t even feel like trying to defend a novel with words, not real pictures. There is a difference.”

  “Yeah. A lot of guys I know say they only buy Playboy and Hustler magazines for their great articles. Just like you, only you buy your books strictly for their great story lines.”

  “Bentley, there is a difference!” Marcella said it more piercing than she had meant to.

  “If that’s what you want to believe, Marcella. But in my world, pictures in a person’s head are just as real as the pictures my natural eyes see outside my head.” He leaned down and kissed her. “But you know what? I’m not trying to get the splinter out of your eye. Not while I’m working on the plank in my own. I have an appointment with Pastor Landris in three weeks—”

  “Oh, Bentley, you were able to get an earlier appointment? That’s wonderful!”

  “Yeah. They say a bunch of people decided to schedule with other counselors and that freed up Pastor Landris. If you still want to go with me, you’re welcome to come.”

  “Of course I want to go with you. I’m your wife. I want to support you through this.”

  He smiled. “Yeah. Okay.” He kissed her again, grinned even more, and walked out of the room. “In the meantime, I think I’ll go check out the book on your nightstand,” he yelled back. “I need a quick fix!”

  “Bentley? Bentley?” Marcella said, chasing behind him. “What do you mean by that crack? Bentley?! You come back here and tell me exactly what you meant by that!”

  Chapter 19

  Let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know mine integrity.

  —Job 31:6

  “Edwin, where’s your paycheck for this week?” Desiree asked Friday afternoon after having waited the whole day yesterday for him to hand it over. He got paid on Thursdays every two weeks. “Did you deposit it yourself?”

  “Don’t you worry about my check. I worked for it, so I’ll hand it over when I’m good and ready.”

  Desiree looked at him and began to make a slow, sucking noise with her teeth. “I suppose you also wouldn’t happen to know why our bank account just happens to be overdrawn either, now would you?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t look at me; you’re the one taking care of the bills these days, remember? You believed you could do a better job than what I was doing.” He started to walk away. “It’s your baby now.”

  She grabbed him by the wrist. “Wait just a minute,” she said in a quiet voice. “Where are you going? We haven’t finished talking just yet.”

  He looked down at her hand holding him. “Woman, what is your problem?”

  “Our account is overdrawn by fourteen hundred dollars. Our house note check bounced as well as about six other checks. The bank charges thirty-five dollars every time a check bounces, as I’m sure you already know. That means in addition to the penalties all these people are going to charge us for our bounced checks, we also have charges for seven insufficient fund checks at thirty-five dollars a pop that the bank added to our growing deficit.”

  “Like I said, don’t look at me. You handle all of that now.”

  “But I balanced the checkbook and we had plenty of money to pay all the bills I wrote, with some left over. I don’t understand what could have happened.”

  He pulled his wrist out of her grasp. “Then I’d suggest you check with the bank and see what kind of computer error they plan to blame this one on. Because I don’t have a clue why you’re overdrawn,” Edwin said.

  “What about your paycheck?”

  He turned and walked up closer to her. “You know what, Desiree? You are really starting to grate on my nerves. You’re starting to sound like a broken record. I don’t have to stand around here getting the third degree from you all the time. If you’re grumpy because you want a cigarette or you’re hungry, then go smoke or get you something to eat other than rabbit food. Just don’t try and take your frustrations out on me. I truly don’t have the time or the patience for this.” He walked over to the table, snatched his baseball cap off it, and started toward the door.

  “And just where do you think you’re going? We’re not finished talking yet.”

  He made a snorting sound. “Oh, that’s where you’re wrong, Baby-cakes. I’m done. Now if you want to carry on with this nonsense conversation that’s going nowhere, then knock yourself out. I’ll be back. Maybe by then, you’ll be done.”

  “Edwin, don’t you dare go to the track! You get back here so we can talk this out!”

  “I don’t know if you realize this or not, but I’m a grown man. You don’t tell me where I can and can’t go. If I want to go have some fun at the track, then that’s what I’m going to do. If you don’t like it, nobody’s holding you here. That same door I’ll be walking out in a few seconds can swing the same way for you. Like I just said, I’ll be back.” He walked out, practically slamming the door behind him.

  Desiree sat down and looked at the insufficient notice again, with the individual checks and amounts listed, and shook her head. “I don’t understand how this happened,” she said as she stared at the paper. Looking at her watch, she realized the bank would be closing in about forty minutes. She had to hurry if she planned to get there before six o’clock. “It’s times like these when I wish I had opted for on-line banking. Then I could just check it from here.” She got up and headed for the bank to see what could have possibly happened and hopefully to get things straightened out before the day was over.

  Desiree wasn’t positive yet, but she felt in her spirit: Edwin will somehow be somewhere in the midst of all of this. What she wasn’t sure about was: If he is, what am I going to do about it?

  Desiree came home from the bank practically devastated. How could Edwin do this to me? She knew one thing: she would be waiting up for him when he came home this time around. And when he returned, it would not be pretty. Not pretty at all.

  Chapter 20

  Her princes in the midst thereof are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain.

  —Ezekiel 22:27

  Edwin paced the floor. This last race had to pay off or he was done for. This was all the money he had left, and there was no way he could go home totally busted.
Desiree had asked him about his check, which he had spent the majority of Thursday night at the track. He didn’t understand what could have happened. Never had he lost like that before. Sure he had bet more than he normally would on the races last night and tonight, boxing six out of eight dogs almost every race, which cost $120 each time he did that. But that was because he needed desperately to win some big money.

  This evening, Desiree questioned him about all her bounced checks. Of course he denied knowing anything about them. He wasn’t stupid. But come Monday, when she talked to the bank, she would learn just how much he really did know about those missing funds. He had only a few days to make things right, or she would know he had been the one who had caused the account to be grossly insufficient.

  “Come on, you stupid dog!” he yelled as the last group of dogs raced toward the finish line. “Get up there, three! You sorry dog, what’s wrong with you! Get up there! Yeah, come on! That’s right! Go! Go! Yes! Yes! Yes! Thank You, Lord! Thank You!”

  Edwin let out a yell, which was something most bettors tried not to do too often following the end of a race. People watched you to see if you won, and you never knew who might try to jack you later in the parking lot on your way to your car. But he couldn’t hold his joy inside. This race would be paying some big money, and he could take these winnings home to Desiree to replace the paycheck money he’d lost, plus cover the bounced checks, fees, and the penalties. If it paid what he thought it would, he could even give Desiree a little extra, which would probably be the only way he’d be able to smooth over her anger. He looked at his ticket and smiled. “Eight-four-three,” he said as he kissed his ticket and shook his head. “This should pay big! Really big!”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, please hold all tickets. We have a photo finish for third place. Please hold all tickets while we review the photo finish.”

  “What?” Edwin said. “Photo finish?” He turned to his friend, who had come and stood next to him. “What are they talking about? That three dog clearly beat that one dog. This is a rip-off here. They just know they’re going to have to pay some big money if that three dog came in third instead of the one. These folks need to quit!”

  “So you have that one?” his friend asked.

  “Yeah. I boxed six numbers. I just didn’t have a one in there anywhere. Where did that one dog come from anyway? They must have juiced him up or something. That sorry one dog has come in last place the last five races he’s run. And now all of a sudden, tonight, he decides he wants to try to win?”

  “So you didn’t have the number one dog?” his friend asked as he pointed to the monitor. They were showing the replay of the race again.

  “No.” He looked over at his friend. “Don’t tell me you had it?”

  His friend smiled. “Yep. I had it. I figured it was about time that dog did something. Besides, the last five races he ran, he was out of his position. That one dog is an outside dog. They had him on the inside all those other races. That’s why he lost when he did. I had the eight, the four, and the one.”

  “I still say the three beat him,” Edwin said.

  Just then the monitor flashed up the winning numbers: 8-4-1-3. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have the official results for this last and final race. Eight-four-one-three.”

  “Oh, they’re full of it!”

  “There’s the photo finish on the screen. The number one dog beat the three by a nose.” His friend grinned as he started walking toward the tellers’ windows.

  Edwin couldn’t believe this had happened. How could he have lost? What was he going to tell Desiree? She wasn’t going to let go about the missing paycheck he hadn’t put in the bank yet. On top of that, now he didn’t even have enough money to buy gas to get back and forth to work the next two weeks. As he walked past the ATM machine, he stopped and pulled out his wallet. He could take out an advance on one of their credit cards. It wasn’t like he hadn’t done it before. He had three cards; one of them had to have enough cash left on it to make up for his squandered paycheck and the money Desiree needed to make those bounced checks right. It wasn’t like he didn’t intend to put the money back in two weeks after he got paid, and then go down to Mississippi, where he was sure to win.

  He looked at how close he’d come to winning this last race. It paid $6,183 if you had the trifecta straight, $3,091.50 any other way. He almost had it. All he needed was one good win, and he would be back in the game. Tomorrow, he would come back during the matinee. He would stay all day if that’s what it took for him to win at least some of his loss money back. If he could just break even with what he’d lost, he would be happy.

  Edwin put the credit card in, keyed in his pin number, keyed in the amount he wished to withdraw, and waited. When it came back that he couldn’t get that amount, he tried a lower figure. That didn’t work. Finally, he put in for $20 and learned he couldn’t even get $20 off that card. Same thing with the other two cards. He thought about the number of times he had withdrawn money from those accounts and realized he had probably already maxed them to the limit. These may have also been the checks paid that bounced.

  There had to be a way to get some money from somewhere until he could find his winning streak again and straighten out this whole mess.

  Meanwhile, there was Desiree. He would still have to deal with her first thing in the morning. What was he going to tell her? Another lie? Try to bully her again?

  “Hey, man,” he said with a huge smile to his friend as he walked past him. “So you got that trifecta. Congratulations.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Listen, can I talk to you for a second?” Edwin said with a rather serious look.

  His friend smiled. “If it’s to hit me up for a loan again, forget it. I don’t know if you remember, since you’ve been pretending like you don’t, but you haven’t paid me back from the last time you ‘talked to me for a second’ and ‘borrowed’ a few bucks.”

  “I know. But you know I took off from being here a while and when I returned, I’ve had a little trouble getting back into my groove. My stride is a little off, that’s all.”

  “What stride? You were losing before you took off on your little hiatus. That was when you had to borrow that money from me, remember? Well, my brother, the Good Book says you reap what you sow; you didn’t sow my money back to me, so you don’t have any grace to reap from my harvest now. Good luck with your old lady, though, when you get home. If you ask me, man, I’d say you have a serious gambling problem, and you need some help.” He laughed loud and hard. “I’ll put in a little prayer for you on my way home. ’Cause from the look on your face, I’d say you’re going to need all the divine help you can get from above.” He strolled away with an extra pep in his step.

  Edwin looked around to see if there was anyone else who either owed him money or would be willing to spot him a few bucks until he could win some when he came back tomorrow. Everybody he did see that he knew, he realized he owed them money as well.

  “God, how did I get myself in this mess? Look, Lord. If you’ll help me out this time, I promise you, I’ll start going to church every Sunday. God, please. Now you know Desiree is going to hit the ceiling. Have a little mercy on me down here.”

  He left the building and headed for his car. He didn’t walk fast; no reason to be in a hurry to get home. He had a pretty good idea what probably awaited him when he woke up in the morning. And it in all likelihood wouldn’t be loving, forgiving, or pretty.

  Chapter 21

  And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.

  —Acts 13:39

  Edwin slowly opened the front door. He walked quietly into the house as though he were a burglar. Tonight he had to be extra careful not to awaken Desiree. It was bad enough he hadn’t given her the money from his paycheck. It was bad enough he had caused all those checks to bounce. Now it was almost two o’clock in the morning, and he didn’t need her mad about that as well. If t
here is a God in heaven, he thought to himself, Desiree will have gone to sleep around eleven and she’ll already be in never-never-land.

  He took off his shoes, then tiptoed into the bedroom. It was dark, but he knew the layout of the room so well from all the times he’d sneaked in late like this, so he didn’t make any unnecessary noises. He didn’t even want to chance waking her by going into the bathroom to brush his teeth. So he peeled off his clothes and slid between the sheets ever so slowly.

  Done! He let out a long, quiet sigh and closed his eyes.

  The light on Desiree’s nightstand suddenly came on. She was sitting up in the bed now.

  Edwin could tell she was staring at him, so he tried to pretend he was already asleep.

  “No need for you to try to act like you’re asleep,” Desiree said. “I know you just crawled your sorry self in the bed.”

  “What?” Edwin said. “I’m trying to sleep here.” He turned his back to her.

  “Edwin, stop playing. I wasn’t asleep when you came in. I heard you open the front door downstairs. I knew when you tiptoed your cigarette-laden self in here. So sit up. We have things we’re going to get straight right now. This morning.”

  Edwin sat up and peeked around at the clock perched on Desiree’s nightstand. “It’s after two in the morning, Desiree,” he said as though he didn’t know it. “Whatever you want to discuss or fuss about can surely wait until we wake up. I’m tired, and I’d like to get some shut-eye.”