I also noticed that this wasn’t an all-black church, as I had expected. I saw people of all different colors. There were two middle-aged white women seated next to me. I saw some Asians intermingled with Mexicans. It was truly a mixed bag, and everyone seemed comfortable. This wasn’t a church the cast of Friends had discovered.
“Welcome, everybody! Do you love the Lord?” a large black man asked, his arms outstretched toward the congregation. “One love!” He wore a kente dashiki, and I guess he was either the minister or the leader of the alleged cult, because everyone clapped when he stepped up to the microphone.
“Stand up and show the Lord you love Him,” he said. All of a sudden everyone stood and just started clapping like they were giving Jessye Norman an ovation for a diva performance. It made the tiny hair on my arms lift and separate, and I felt cold.
“Greet your neighbors, show ’em some love now,” the leader called out. Then everyone turned to the person seated next to them and hugged like they were at a family reunion. I hugged the two white women and they both whispered, “Jesus loves you and so do I.”
All I could say is “That’s nice. Bless you, or whatever.”
Some of the people in the front rows were making their way to the back, kissing and hugging one another. I noticed Justine and Deacon stayed close to the front of the church, spending time chatting with each person they hugged. Kai and Hayden were doing selective greeting. I wanted to tell them they weren’t at the club.
When the meet-and-greet ended, a thin black woman walked up to the pulpit and said, “We will now ask that Mother Lurline Lacy, a member in good standing and chairwoman of our fine prison outreach program, come forward and read the announcements from this week’s church program. Mother Lurline.”
Hayden leaned over and whispered, “Where do I sign up for the prison program? Maybe they’ll leave me there for a few days.”
I playfully slapped him on his arm.
“Why does the good mother have to read the announcements? Here they are on the back of the program,” Kai said.
I looked at her and rolled my eyes.
While the announcements were being read I looked around the beautiful old church. There were four magnificent arched windows on each side of the sanctuary. It looked as though each stained-glass piece was clearly created by different artists. One looked like it could have been somebody’s twisted perception of Jesus Christ smiling while being nailed to the cross. I guess that was one point for the cult theory.
“Did you hear that?” Hayden asked excitedly. “Did you hear what Mother just said?”
“No. What did she say?” I asked, coming out of the trance the amazing building had taken me into.
“She just announced the forthcoming nuptials of Deacon Fisher and Justine.”
I looked up, and there was Justine, Deacon, who looked at least fifty, and two other couples who were asking the church’s blessing on their marriage. There was a young black couple on the end and a heavyset white lady who was engaged to a dark-olive-colored man who looked Polynesian.
Justine looked happy even though she was dressed a bit matronly. I wondered what she had done with all her attention-grabbing black dresses. Deacon looked frail and could have used a fashion consultant. His skin was the color of Jamaican Rub and he had one of those cul-de-sac hairstyles, bald at the top with a salt-and-pepper mix on half his head.
Hayden leaned over to me and said, “I know what I would get the young girl on the end for a wedding present.”
“What?” I asked foolishly.
“A heterosexual husband,” he said, laughing. “That husband to be used to close up the club.”
“You know you ain’t right,” I said.
After the couples received the church’s blessings and returned to their seats, I thought maybe Justine had really experienced some type of religious conversion and maybe God had sent her Deacon.
The minister preached a rousing sermon about brotherly and sisterly love as a key to world peace that was really quite moving. I was used to a call-and-response type of church, but here everyone stood and clapped at the end of the sermon, applauding again like they were happy to be there. To be alive. From the smiles on the many faces I saw, maybe they were right.
“It’s time to go,” Hayden said. “Here come the toll takers! I knew this show wasn’t free.”
I saw ushers with silver buckets spilling into the aisles, where the buckets were passed from one end to the other of each pew. There was no begging by the minister, just a request to give what your heart told you.
The congregation stood and started singing again. When the bucket reached us, Hayden quickly passed it to Kai, who dropped in a check. I pulled a twenty from my purse and placed it in the bucket.
The entire church was holding hands and singing together and it felt nice. I saw tears form in Kai’s eyes, and I felt tears coming as well. The three of us looked at one another, and without a word we slipped quietly out of the double doors into the bright sunshine of a chilly October morning. We’d got what we came for. Justine was going to be all right, and hopefully so would we.
14
__________________
I was on my way to the subway when my cell phone rang. It was Basil saying he had a big problem and needed to see me right away. I couldn’t believe I was now in a taxi headed downtown to once again rescue him after he had stood me up, but his voice held such panic and sorrow that I had to find out what was going on.
When I arrived at his building, his doorman asked me if I was Mr. Tyler, and when I nodded he told me to go right up. I took the elevator, wondering what condition I would find Basil in and what his latest crisis was. When I arrived at his door and rang the bell, Basil swung open the door. The whites of his gray eyes were pink, like he had been crying.
“Basil, what’s going on?” I asked as I walked into his apartment.
“Raymond, the bitch has taken my baby,” Basil said.
“What are you talking about? Who has taken Talley?” I asked.
Basil didn’t answer. He just paced across the living room toward his bedroom and then he quickly turned and headed back toward me with this wide-eyed look of panic on his face.
“Basil, come on. Let’s sit on the sofa and tell me what’s going on,” I said as I walked toward the caramel-brown leather sofa. Basil just kept pacing and mumbling, “I can’t believe that bitch. She is going to pay for this. Nobody messes with my baby.”
“Basil, bring your ass over here and tell me what’s going on,” I yelled.
Basil didn’t look in my direction and my tone didn’t seem to have the desired effect. Now he was rubbing his head with both of his large hands.
I stood and said, “Okay, it looks like you don’t need me. I’m going home.”
I picked up my briefcase and was heading toward the door, when I heard Basil say, “Wait. I’m sorry. I’m just freakin’ out here. Let me tell you what happened.”
I walked back over to the sofa, and I could feel Basil following me. I took a seat on the sofa and Basil sat on its arm and handed me a piece of paper.
“What’s this?”
“Read it,” Basil instructed.
I opened the ivory note card and read: Basil, Don’t try to find me. I can’t take this anymore. Don’t worry, I will take care of Talley, but I can’t have her growing up in this type of environment. Why didn’t you tell me? Didn’t I have the right to know? Don’t try and find us, and we no longer need your money. Rosa
“Can you believe that shit?” Basil mumbled.
“What happened? I thought you two were cool.”
“I did too, dude. I went over to Rosa’s place to pick up Talley for our regular visit. Man, Rosa had blazed. The apartment was empty. It was like she and Talley had never lived there,” Basil said.
“Where did you get the note from?”
“It was taped to her door with my name on it.”
“What does she mean by ‘why didn’t you tell me’?” I asked.<
br />
“Man, you know what she’s talking about.” Basil glanced at me with a get-real look on his face.
“Does she mean because you’re bisexual?”
“What else could it be? Maybe she thinks I can’t be a great father,” Basil said mournfully.
“Did you tell her?”
“Fuck no! Are you crazy?”
“Then who told her?”
“Raymond, I got so many mofos out there who would want to put my shit in the street. I mean, do I need to have a roll call? Bart, Ava, Nico and Yancey,” Basil said, naming people from his checkered past.
“I thought you and Yancey had reconciled. You told me you guys were cool,” I said.
“I thought we were too, but you know women. They wake one morning and think about the fact they ain’t got no man lying there beside them and some of them just snap and start thinking about how they can fuck with a brother,” Basil said as he stood and walked toward the window.
The room was silent as I debated whether I should start preaching to Basil about how honesty was the best policy, but I knew he didn’t want to hear that tune.
“What are you going to do?”
“Man, I got to find that bitch!”
“Where does her mother live?” I asked.
“In Jersey.”
“Have you called her?”
“Yeah. That’s the first place I called, and there was a message saying the phone number had been changed to an unlisted one,” Basil said.
“You can find out a private number,” I said confidently.
“Can you do that?” Basil asked.
“I’ll see what I can do. Give me her name,” I said. I spotted a sofa table covered with silver-plated frames containing pictures of Basil’s little girl. Several of the photos were of Basil planting kisses on her chubby cheeks, and Talley’s smile expressed pure joy the way only a child could.
Basil went over to his desk and scribbled a name down on a notepad. He came back and passed it to me and then with a sad look he asked, “What if she doesn’t know anything?”
“We need to find that out. Do you have any kind of joint-custody agreement with Rosa?”
“You mean like papers? Some type of legal agreement?”
“Yes.”
“We never needed one. She was always cool with me being close to Talley.”
“Did you call her job?”
“Didn’t I tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“Dude, Rosa quit that gig about two weeks after 9/11. She said being a mother, she didn’t want to take risks by being on a plane every day. I supported her decision and told her I would even increase the check I gave her, plus, she was going to save money by not having to pay a live-in baby-sitter,” Basil said.
“Have you called any of the people who might have told Rosa about your other side?”
“Hell no, ’cause I might kill the mofo who did. But don’t think I ain’t going to check this shit out. But the first thing is finding my baby,” Basil said.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked.
“You can start by helping me to get in contact with Rosa’s mother. I’ll worry about the other mofos later,” Basil said.
“Promise me you’re not going to do something crazy and make this thing worse,” I pleaded.
“How can it get any worse? I don’t know where my baby girl is,” Basil said sadly as two large tears dropped from the corners of his beautiful gray eyes.
I felt so sorry for him that I walked over and put my arms around his massive shoulders and whispered, “Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.”
Basil put his arms around me tightly and said, “Stay with me, Raymond.”
How could I say no?
15
__________________
I was looking over some suggestions for possible cover subjects from the morning staff meeting, when I heard a knock on my door. I assumed it was Cyndi, so I said, “Come in.”
“Hey, Zola! Got time for your best friend?” Kai asked as she walked into my office. She was wearing a short indigo-blue dress that accentuated her figure, a light blue shawl, and she was carrying a large, plush leather bag.
“Kai, what are you doing here?” I asked as I got up from my desk and walked over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. She had on too much perfume, but it was early evening.
“I’m going to a bar a couple of blocks from here and I just thought I’d drop by and see if you wanted to join me. I heard there are a lot of good-looking men who hang out there,” Kai said as she took a seat in one of the brown leather chairs that faced my desk.
“I wish I could, but I’ve got work to do,” I said.
“That’s why you’ve got all these people around you. Let them do it.”
“I wish I could. I got people who can do a lot of things for me, but when it comes to making decisions and coming up with new ideas, well, that’s my job,” I said as I pushed my notes and some competing magazines to the side. I couldn’t believe what had happened to my two best friends. One had turned to Jesus and one to any old Jim Dandy will do. Justine didn’t have time for anything but church, and Kai seemed interested only in the relentless pursuit of a social, or, should I say, sex life.
“Just come for one drink,” Kai pleaded.
“I wish I could, but I’m just trying to figure out what I’m going to do for the first few issues of the new year. Should I change what I’d planned because of 9/11, or should I go on with my original plans? I don’t want to do any more sad 9/11-type stuff. It’s a new year, time to live again,” I said.
“I hear you, girl. But I’m talking about let’s start living tonight. Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” I said, fully expecting one of Kai’s senseless statements.
“Have you ever been with two men?”
“Kai, you know I’ve been with more than two men,” I said.
“I mean at the same time,” Kai said.
“Are you kidding? No,” I said. I felt like I was sounding like a prude or something.
“Have you ever thought about it?”
“Kai, why are you asking me a question like that?”
“I met this handsome man who has a dick the size of an ear of corn, and he was wonderful in bed. Just as he had me screaming his name, he stopped and looked into my eyes and said, ‘Tell me your fantasies.’ When I told him I didn’t have any, he looked at me like I was lying. But you know me, I didn’t have any,” Kai said.
“So what did you do?”
“I just started giggling like a teenage girl.”
“Then what?”
“I asked him if he had any.”
“What did he say?”
“Zola, he had some wild ones. Shit I had never thought about. Of course he wanted to see two beautiful ladies make out, but I told him I wasn’t into freaky shit. I told him I was strictly dickly,” Kai said, laughing.
I moved over to the end of my desk, engrossed in Kai’s new life. “So what did he say?”
“He asked me if I ever thought about being with two men, and I told him yes, since I didn’t have anything to say. Zola, you will never guess what he said,” Kai said.
“What?”
“He told me he had an identical twin and that they sometimes make love to the same girl at the same time. He asked me if I was game,” Kai said.
“What did you say?”
“I told him I would think about it,” Kai said as she crossed her legs and rested one of her arms on her knees and her chin on her fist. She had a mischievous smile.
“You’re not serious, are you?”
“Let’s just say I’m thinking about it, and if they’re identical twins, I figure it would be like making love and looking at yourself in the mirror,” Kai said.
“It’s a little bit more than that,” I said.
“You should see him. Just so handsome with these beautiful lips, smooth hands and his skin looks soft, but it’s so very hard, all over. And I told you abou
t the equipment. I think it’s something I should try. We know tomorrow isn’t promised, Zola.”
“Kai, you’ve got to get hold of yourself. Please tell me you’ll tell this man where he can go with his freaky ass,” I said.
“Wait till you see a picture of him or meet him. And if you still feel that way, then maybe I will. Girl, you need to put him, his brother and a couple of my dates from last week on the cover of your magazine or in that calendar,” Kai said as she stood and walked over to the window.
“Kai, are you really happy?” I asked.
Kai turned around with the twirl of a majorette and said, “Of course I’m happy. Why wouldn’t I be? I’m alive. I got a little money in the bank and I have finally taken control of my sex life.”
“You didn’t feel like you had that when you were married?”
“Zola, please. When you’re married you don’t have a say in your sex life,” Kai said.
“Maybe that’s why I’m not married,” I said.
“You know you want to get married one day,” Kai asked.
“No, I don’t,” I said quickly.
“Come on now, don’t tell me you didn’t think about a beautiful dress and all your girlfriends in ugly dresses,” Kai said, laughing.
“Marriage is not an institution I have a lot of faith in,” I said.
“Don’t your parents have a good marriage?”
“As far as I know.”
“I do think you ought to be able to have some kind of trial marriage first, and if it doesn’t work, you just leave your partner a note or a standard letter saying This isn’t working. I’m outta here,” Kai said.
“I am sick of talking about marriage and men. I do have a job. I got work to do,” I said.
“Now, I know you’re not trying to crack on me. Charity work isn’t always easy. You’d be surprised at some of the things I’ve done to help others.”
“No, Kai, I’m not cracking on you. There are times when I wish I could just spend my time helping people too. But I have a house note to pay and I still dream of buying my folks a little vacation place,” I said.
“Have you decided what we should do about Justine?”
A Love of My Own Page 19