Holy Ghost Corner

by Michele Andrea Bowen

  The simple yet sophisticated interior was stunning with its color scheme of cognac and Caribbean blue. The walls were cognac, the cool ceramic tiles were blue and golden brown, and the furnishings were either golden brown wood tables, or cognac leather benches. Plants and flowers gave the interior of the building a warm and almost tropical feel. There was a detailed and very colorful map of the Holy Land that covered one wall, while another wall showcased photographs of the members engaged in various church activities, along with a large oil painting of the pastor, first lady, and their five children hanging on the wall opposite the one displaying the photos.

  Lamont thought this year’s Christmas decorations were especially nice. The church’s unofficial decorator, Yvonne Fountain, had used the church’s color scheme to decorate the nine-foot tree in the lobby, fashioned the bronze-toned silk ribbons for the wreaths at every door, and outlined the windows in the lobby with blue and white Christmas lights.

  “You better get in church before you have to wait for the ushers to let you in, Bossman,” Nina Rhodes’s voice rang out, cutting into his quietude. She was standing over him, holding one of her bad little nephews’ hands, clutching a Bible under her other arm, and dressed to the nines in a hot, electric blue silk suit and matching hat, black lace stockings, and electric blue patent leather pumps with black heels. Her man, the pastor’s son, Lamar Quincey, came in behind her. Lamont didn’t miss Lamar’s quick perusal of Miss Nina’s generous backside and those cute little legs of hers, before he remembered he was in church and started behaving.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Lamont answered and hurried toward the sanctuary doors before the processional began. His eye caught a flash of some very royal purple on one of the minister’s robes. Lamont smiled to himself when it dawned on him that the owner of the robe was their presiding bishop, the Right Rev. Eddie Tate.

  Chapter Twelve

  LAMONT HURRIED AND TOOK HIS SEAT WITH THE REST of the Green clan. For more than forty years, the Green and Hopson families sat in the exact same location on Sunday mornings. The church itself had changed a lot in the past four decades, even if the habits of the parishioners remained pretty much the same. The hard, dark wooden pews and olive green carpet of yesteryear had been replaced with the same color scheme that graced the lobby and vestibule.

  The choir loft could seat over one hundred people comfortably, with a separate section for a handcrafted pipe organ, grand piano, drums, conga drum, keyboard, and other members of the instrumental ministry in the church. The pulpit area and altar were bathed in the golden light of sunshine that regularly shone through the stained glass windows of Jesus blessing the fish and loaves for the multitudes. And the ceiling had been transformed from an ornate plaster job to all-mahogany wood beams that made Lamont think of the inside of Noah’s Ark.

  The actual pulpit contained several large and very comfortable chairs. Members with complaints of stiff and painful joints sang the praises of the Rhodes, Rhodes, and Rhodes design team for constructing an altar that rose a foot off the floor, allowing easy access to the soft pew cushions that were the same color as the carpet during Holy Communion and altar prayer.

  Countless bake sales, church dinners, plays, fashion shows, and raffles had provided the initial seed money to remodel the 138-year-old church, which began as a summer prayer meeting in a pastoral plot of land that was now the rose garden. Once Fayetteville Street Church had raised enough money to dare to dream of a new and improved interior, the previous pastor preached a sermon on tithing that convicted every heart, young and old, igniting a fire to give back to the Lord unprecedented amounts of money. And now, over twenty years later, Fayetteville Street Gospel United Church of America had the blessed distinction of earning most of its impressive income from tithing.

  As Lamont surveyed the sanctuary, it occurred to him that he wasn’t the only truant member who had decided to come to church this morning. There was nothing like a visit from one’s presiding bishop to draw everybody and their grandmamma to Sunday morning service. He saw that Charmayne Robinson and her mother, Ida Belle, were present. And, as was her custom, Ida Belle was dressed more for that Durham “grown folks only” hotspot, The Place to Be, than church. It was hard to miss her gold-sequined, cropped pantsuit with the baseball-styled jacket, black silk tank top, gold lamé boots and matching purse, and gold-sequined baseball cap on top of her blond natural.

  He felt a poke in the side and then quickly read the note James had just passed to him from Rhonda.

  “Table Wine and her mama, Miss Shirley, are sitting right behind the Robinsons.”

  Lamont tilted his head, and sure enough, there was Chablis and that crazy Miss Shirley sitting right behind Charmayne and Miss Ida Belle. Chablis was looking so tasty this morning in that low-cut black sweater she was wearing it made him sigh with just a twinge of regret. He knew that outfit well—the snug black cashmere sweater and matching skirt, over sheer black hosiery and ruby patent leather pumps with clear heels. The last time she wore it for him, the girl almost made him forget he was jumping up in fifty’s face with a fully grown son.

  There was another poke in the side, along with a new note, only this time it was from his mother. Her note read, “Do you think Table Wine’s mama brought her yellow rubber gloves to church this morning?”

  Lamont was about to give his mother the “you know you are so wrong” look when, out of curiosity, he glanced over at Miss Shirley just as she raised a hand and removed a thick, yellow rubber cleaning glove from one of her hands.

  James bent his head over and coughed to try and drown out his laughter.

  Lamont bit his lip and closed his eyes to try and stop himself from staring at Miss Shirley and those cleaning gloves. He whispered to James, “Do you think she wears those gloves all the time?”

  “No,” his mother answered before James could stop laughing long enough to speak. “I know for a fact that she takes them off whenever she is with one of her men.”

  “Men?” Rhonda, James, Lamont, and Lamont’s father all whispered in unison.

  The organist started playing and anyone who hadn’t taken a seat moved quickly to find one, or claim the spot being saved for them by a family member. Lamont’s father’s second cousin on his mama’s side, Cousin Buddy, stopped pouring water into the assortment of white altar flowers from a small pink plastic cup—even though no one had asked him to do it—and hurried to sit with Queen Esther and Joseph. He sipped the little bit of water left in the cup and then adjusted the strap of the Carolina Blue football helmet he was wearing on his head, to make sure that it wouldn’t slip off during the service.

  James wiped at his eyes, shaking his head, and whispered to Lamont, “Do you think white people have this much going on in their churches, just sitting in the pews waiting for service to start?”

  “No, this is definitely a black peepes thang, and they wouldn’t understand.”

  “I hear you, Big Bro,” James replied and held out a fist for Lamont to hit it with “some dap.”

  Lamont turned his head slightly, so that he could study Theresa discreetly, only to find that she was watching him intently. He gave her a fresh wink, and then grinned, as she struggled to act like nothing had happened between them in those few seconds before the congregation rose for the processional. Theresa was so funny, with her “good-church-girl” acting self.

  He’d always liked her and didn’t know why he never made a play for her after Gwen divorced him. Theresa, along with the rest of the Hopsons, was solid, hardworking, kind, generous, salt-of-the-earth black church folk. But then again, he did know why he never thought about pursuing her—that is until now. When his divorce became final, the last thing he’d wanted, or felt he needed, was a beautiful and good-old saved “church girl,” compelling him to walk back down that aisle into matrimony.

  Lamont liked being a bachelor. As he always told his family, he was happily single and content to stay that way. What reason on earth did he have to get married when every one
of his needs was being met to his ultimate satisfaction? In fact, if he were to take a poll among some of his married friends, he’d bet the contract to develop the Cashmere that he was getting a whole lot more “action” than they were. Because while the word “no” graced the lips of too many wives far too often, girlfriends, on the other hand, treated “no” like it was the plague.

  The choir members of the youth choir moved into place in the sanctuary’s center aisle. Rev. Obadiah Quincey walked in behind them, with Bishop Tate at his side, his two assistant pastors close at his heels, and the third, Rev. Parvell Sykes, trailing behind those two. Lamont liked and respected two of the three assistant pastors. But he didn’t know for the life of him why Rev. Quincey continued to put up with Sykes.

  The Rev. Dr. Sharon Simmons-Harris, daughter of Bishop Theophilus Simmons and Mother Essie Simmons, was a beautiful and brilliant woman—tall, graceful, with a captivating smile radiating out of a face that made her look like a female version of her dad. She was also one of the best youth ministers in the state, building a reputation for breaking down the gospel with hip-hop style and winning countless teens to Christ.

  The second assistant pastor, Rev. Alvin “Al” Albertson, was a powerful attorney in Durham, and just about the coolest saved brother Lamont ever had the pleasure to meet. Rev. Al, as he was affectionately called by everyone at church, once preached a sermon titled “The Perils of Mack Daddy” that was one of the most memorable he’d heard at his church.

  During that sermon, Rev. Al came out of the pulpit to demonstrate on his wife what he had called “the Mack Daddy’s art of mackin’,” causing the entire congregation to slap palms, give “dap,” and howl with laughter. At the end of that sermon, five young men, two from North Carolina Central University, and three from Eva T. Marshall University, located right where Durham County ran into Chatham County off Highway 751, joined the church and gave their lives over to Christ.

  But that last joker, Rev. Sykes, had no business in the pulpit as far as Lamont was concerned. He’d met people at The Place to Be nightclub who had more business in the pulpit than Parvell—a sad commentary at best. And how that Negro had finagled his way to an ordination was a subject worthy of a book on church folk.

  Rev. Quincey adjusted his gold and rust brocade stole and made sure that it, along with the diamond-studded cross he was wearing, were lying straight on his black silk robe. He gave his wife, Lena, a slick “playa” wink when he thought no one was paying attention, and then signaled to the musicians to prepare for the opening of the service.

  Cousin Buddy knocked his fist against the football helmet and whispered, “Rev. Quincey was making boyfriend eyes at our first lady,” to Uncle Joseph.

  “The Lord is in His Holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before Him,” Rev. Quincey called out in that smooth, low, flat, and very sexy voice that sent far too many shivers up the spines of some of the women with all the wrong motives in their congregation.

  It was fourth Sunday and the youth choir, under the direction of Chablis’s seventeen-year-old nephew, Jarnquez Jackson, was very excited about singing this morning for the guest minister, Bishop Eddie Tate and his wife, Evangelist Johnnie Mae Tate. Bishop Tate, a contemporary and close friend of the renowned Bishop Theophilus Simmons, had built one of the most effective ministries for black teens in the country. Over the course of the past thirty years, countless young people could bear testimony to how Tate’s “Ladies and Gentlemen of Distinction in Training” program had contributed to their growth, development, and triumph over worldly adversities.

  Eddie Tate loved being around young people. Despite being in his early seventies, with teenaged grandchildren, he was loved and admired by most young people in the Gospel United Church of America. And unknown to many of the grown-ups in the denomination, it was rumored among the teens that the Bishop had a slammin’ collection of hip-hop music.

  Jarnquez walked the thirty-five members of the youth choir down to the altar, turned to face the congregation, and as one of the teens would later say to a group of friends the next day at Hillside High School, “church was on.”

  For months, the musicians and lyricists in the choir had labored to turn out an acceptable gospel version of the rap song, “From the Window to the Wall,” by Atlanta rap artists, The Ying Yang Twins. The song had a seriously “crunked,” dirty-South beat and had been quite popular when it was released several years ago. The choir had been waiting for it to become “old enough” to be eased by the old-schoolers in the church. But more so, the youth choir had to wait until the right Sunday morning to perform it. When Bishop Tate walked into the choir room for prayer, those children almost lost their minds, and Jarnquez ran and got the sheet music for the song and passed it out to the instrumentalists.

  Plus, they had a brand-new processional song that Jarnquez had written a couple of weeks ago. So, this promised to be what they would consider as a “madd cool” Sunday. They had some hot new songs, Bishop Tate was visiting, and the members of the church’s kitchen ministry were putting the finishing touches on what smelled like a fabulous dinner after the service.

  Jarnquez called out, “One, two, one-two-three, hit it,” and pointed to the bass player, who immediately plucked out some funky, booming chords. The drummer followed suit, and was soon joined by the lead guitarist and organist. They played several riffs of the song long enough for the choir members to get the sway in motion, before they started singing “Get-get-get Ya Praiz On.”

  The members of the choir bobbed their heads, moved from side to side, lifted their hands in the air, and proceeded with a hip-hop version of the traditional march to the choir loft. Rev. Quincey, who loved jazz, laughed, raised his hands in the air, and got in sync with that rocking hip-hop beat. Revs. Simmons and Albertson were grinning and having a good time marching in with a few smooth movements of their own.

  Bishop Tate raised his hands in the air like the kids and moved down the aisle as smooth as any young person.

  Parvell, who couldn’t stand the bishop, didn’t want any Holy Ghost “crunk in his system” this morning. He walked down the aisle without giving any mind to the tempo guiding the processional.

  “Get . . . get . . . get-get-getcha praiz on . . . get-get-getcha praiz on. God is good . . . all the time . . . all the time God is good . . . and since He’s always blessing you . . . you need to get-get-getcha praiz on.”

  “Sang li’l chil-drens,” Bishop Tate called out, causing some of the teens’ parents sitting in the congregation to laugh out loud, as everyone started clapping and swaying with the choir while the processional members progressed to the choir loft and pulpit.

  But not everyone was delighted with this processional and the music. Several of the “old heads,” especially the ones with deep pockets, found “this display” off-putting. This was particularly true for Dr. N. P. Nance, who had recently donated $8,000 to buy new choir robes for every choir in the church except the youth choir.

  He huffed and puffed and then said, “Lawd, soothe my ears and give me strength to stomach this discordant excuse for sacred melody,” loud enough to be heard by the people sitting nearby.

  Eddie Tate, who had never been a conventional preacher, even back in the early 1960s when he was a young man, locked eyes with N. P. Nance. This wasn’t the first time the two of them were at odds and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. But as the presiding bishop and the “Head Negro in Charge,” he was not about to let this man ruin this delightful and sincere expression from the congregation’s youth. Adults constantly complained about the problems associated with black children. And when a visible number of them were at church, acting right, and singing their hearts out for Jesus, some of those very grown-ups displayed disdain for their youthful style of worship.

  “Some of these old buzzards need to get some crunk in their system, and get as excited about serving the Lord as these youngsters,” Eddie thought and shifted his focus from N. P. Nance back to the youth choir.

&nb
sp; N. P. Nance didn’t miss the bishop’s casual dismissal. But then why should he have been surprised that Eddie Tate liked all this nonsense—from the music, to that dancing down the aisle, to their “uniforms” of fashionable, loose-fitting blue jeans, crisp, white oversized oxford shirts, white athletic shoes, and navy fitted caps with the church’s initials embroidered on the brim in silver, worn tilted to the side like the rapper T.I.

  Nance had never liked or approved of Eddie Tate, from the first time he laid eyes on him and his then future wife back in the 1960s at that infamous Triennial Conference in Richmond, Virginia. As a staunch supporter of both Bishop Giles and Rev. Ernest Brown out of Michigan, the thought that Tate and his cronies usurped Rev. Ernest Brown’s run for an Episcopal seat was still a bone of contention more than forty years later.

  And when Bishop Tate ran for an Episcopal seat, Nance fought him tooth and nail. It didn’t matter that the bishop was a dedicated, saved, and anointed pastor with impressive credentials—an earned Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago, consultant for the chaplain program at Cook County Hospital, two books published on ministering to black teens, and a thriving church with five thousand members. N. P. Nance did not believe that Eddie Tate, with his cool, streetwise ways, and reformed hoochie-mama for a wife, was worthy of being a preacher, let alone being elected to serve as a bishop.

  Parvell Sykes narrowed his eyes as his gaze sliced into the bishop’s back. He and Dr. Nance made a quick exchange that rolled right by everyone but Queen Esther and one other person—Baby Doll Henderson-Lacy—who had managed to slip into the back of the sanctuary with her new husband, unnoticed despite her eye-catching attire.