Holy Ghost Corner

by Michele Andrea Bowen

  “Umph, I sure wish that brother was clapping on me,” she thought and then hollered out, “Lawd, ha’ mercy,” when just the thought of that particular thought got too much for her.

  By this time, Roxanne was fit to be tied. She had not missed Parvell watching that heifer, Charmayne, so hard she thought his eyes were going to pop out his head. She decided it was time to get to shouting and bring some attention from her hoped-for-man-to-be onto herself.

  Roxanne ran down the center aisle, right in front of the altar, and very carefully “fell out” on the floor like she had been slain in the spirit. But Charmayne could see right through Roxanne Daye and decided to put that lollipop-head hussy back in her place. She got up to the altar and fell out, too, right on top of Roxanne, who lay there trying to figure out a way to get this heavy heifer off her without letting on that she was faking it.

  Parvell, who had been working on a strategy to add Roxanne to his “in-the-dark-only” booty call list, knew he needed to get down there and attend to the girl. But to do that would only raise Charmayne’s ire and cause him to forfeit his booty call privileges with her. And he could tell just by looking at Roxanne that she did not have the same gold-medal “skills” as Charmayne.

  Uncle Big Gold had taught him the proper pecking order for his women. Said, “Boy, don’t ever place your ‘I-need-to-call-somebody’ woman higher than your ‘gold-medal-girl.’ Because about all the ‘call somebody’ woman can do for you is take the sharp edge off of your hunger. But that ‘gold-medalist’ is capable of serving it up and then some.”

  Charmayne, who was lying across Roxanne with the end of her weave brushing the girl’s face, was determined to stay on her as long as she thought she could get away with it. Plus, she wanted to find out what Parvell would do when his undercover woman and wannabe undercover girl were simultaneously in need of his assistance.

  Roxanne was getting tired of this heavy heifer lying on her. She couldn’t get up because she was supposed to be “out with Jesus.” So, she took her fist and poked Charmayne in the back as hard as she dared without bringing attention to her movement.

  Charmayne wanted to jump. That bony fist hurt. Instead, she pressed heavier on Roxanne, then quickly jumped back up when she felt a track of her weave being snatched out of her head.

  Roxanne acted like she was coming to, called out “Jesus” so sweetly and softly Parvell couldn’t help but choose to come to her aid, and collapsed again when she felt his arms on her, tracks of dark blond weave clutched tightly in her hand.

  “Here,” Parvell whispered, “let’s get you out in the lobby for some air,” as he helped the “weak and helpless” Roxanne to her feet. “You need anything?”

  “No, Rev. Sykes,” she answered in the most pitiful voice she could muster. “All I need is some fresh air and Jesus.”

  “Amen,” Parvell said in a rare bout of sincerity, and led her out of the sanctuary as gently and carefully as he could.

  Roxanne surrendered completely to Parvell’s leading. She may have a big lollipop head and no shape to speak of but she knew how to work a man over. Being overcome with “savedness” and weakness were a winning combination for some men. And she figured correctly that Rev. Sykes was more the rule than the exception to this very basic fact.

  “Lawd, help that boy,” Uncle Big Gold whispered from his seat in the back of the church. He couldn’t believe that his nephew had succumbed to the okey-doke like that. At least he could have picked a woman as fine as Ida Belle’s baby girl. At first he was glad he had come to church this morning—so much drama this morning, it was better than watching a DVD. But to have to witness the demise of a playa was just too much for his reprobate heart to handle. Made him wish he hadn’t decided on church when he was roaming to and fro in the neighborhood searching for some entertainment.

  Charmayne was so upset over what had just happened, she didn’t even notice the usher at the front of the sanctuary vacuuming up her hair tracks with the small DustBuster in his white-gloved hand.

  She smoothed her hair over the blank patch on her head and whispered to herself, “That hard-knot, conniving hussy just stole my man and my hair in church of all places.”

  “That’s the best place to steal a man,” Miss Shirley murmured, more to herself than to Charmayne.

  “Huh?”

  “I said,” Miss Shirley stated firmly while snapping on the fingers of her yellow rubber gloves, “Church is the best place to do your man stealing. Best man heists I’ve ever seen have been right up in church, just like this morning.”

  “You ain’t never lied,” Ida Belle said, thinking about the men she’d stolen while in church and all the fun she had doing it.

  “And if I were you,” Miss Shirley continued, deliberately ignoring Chablis nudging her to be quiet, “I’d go find that Roxanne and make her pay for my weave tracks. ’Cause I know they was expensive from the looks of it. And I bet you wearing some real hair from South America that’s been dyed good.”

  Charmayne turned all the way around in her seat and asked, “Miss Shirley, how you know so much about weave hair?”

  Miss Shirley snapped two fingers on the gloves and chuckled.

  “Baby, I takes medication for my cleaning problem and don’t get out too much. So, Chablis always has me doing research on the Internet for her. And when I get bored, I just look up stuff on whatever interests me, like what kinda hair you got sewed up on your head.”

  She snapped some more of the fingers on the glove and blushed.

  “Got me a real nice man on that there Sista/Brutha Hookem Up Internet dating program, too.”

  This time Ida Belle turned all the way around in her seat.

  “Shirley, I didn’t know you had a man?”

  “Show do. Name is Clyde.”

  “That’s his Internet name?” Ida Belle asked. “I’ve never known anybody to call them-selves by a regular name on the Internet.”

  At this point, Charmayne turned back around and stared at her mother. She knew the girl always kept a man in her back pocket. But Mama on the Internet? Just the thought was enough to make her want to get saved.

  “What would he call himself, if not by a regular name, Ida Belle?” Shirley inquired in complete innocence. She figured from the shock on their faces over her having a man, it would probably be best not to tell them that Clyde was white.

  “Mama, maybe you don’t have enough to do,” was all Chablis could say.

  “Yes, I do, baby,” Miss Shirley answered sweetly. “I just know how to get a whole lot done real fast, so that I can clean, and then have time to sit down and talk to Clyde in the evenings.”

  They had been so deep into Miss Shirley’s business that they hadn’t paid a bit of attention to the progress of the actual service. And it came as a bit of a surprise when Charmayne’s usher walked up to their pew to direct them up and out of their row for the regular morning offering.

  Charmayne didn’t want to get up and gave her money to her mother, who was happy to get down to that altar so that she could get in closer proximity to Bishop Tate. Now that was a man. Not some cyber-person like Clyde. Ida Belle felt a quiver at just the thought of that big ole Big Daddy preacher, wavy-gray hair still full and thick, and just as sexy and “gangsta” as they came.

  She took her time dropping her envelope in the basket and gave Eddie Tate a wink before heading back to her seat. Eddie, who had sworn off hot, bold church women when he met his wife, didn’t move a muscle. It had been a long time since a woman had gotten bold enough to hit on him right in front of his wife. He hoped that Johnnie wasn’t watching.

  That girl had earned a degree in banking and finance from Chicago State University. Yet, despite graduating with the highest honors and being appointed by the bishop presiding over their district to serve as the financial and investment consultant for the Chicago churches, she was still a ’hood rat who would take you out in a moment’s notice. And this was especially true if it involved what she would describe as a “wa
nton skank trying to roll up on her man.”

  Johnnie, who was sitting on the first pew, had not missed Ida Belle’s solicitation of her husband’s attention. She ran her fingers through her silky silver hair, making sure that her wedding ring, an opulent five-carat, emerald-cut diamond set in platinum, was in plain sight to Ida Belle.

  Coming on to a man in front of his woman had always been a powerful aphrodisiac to Ida Belle Robinson. When the bishop’s wife flashed that incredible ring, it fueled her desire to get her hands on him even more. She cut her eyes at Johnnie, licked her lips when she caught Bishop Tate’s attention, and then returned to her seat satisfied.

  Mother Johnnie Tate was not the kind of bishop’s wife that you played games like that with. She capitalized on her status in the church this morning and signaled for an usher to come to her side. When the man reached her pew, she had a note ready for Ida Belle which read:

  “Skank-Hussy-Heifer, I will bust a cap in your rusty behind if you try that with me again.”

  The usher took the folded note and did his best to sneak and read it before he reached Ida Belle’s seat. Ida read the note quickly and sent one of her own back to the bishop’s wife:

  “Bring it on, Mother.”

  Johnnie read the note and chuckled. She’d dealt with plenty of rough-talking, butt-kicking women on Chicago’s South side. She sucked on her tooth a moment and handed the usher her purse.

  “Baby, I want you to take this to that woman, open it up, show her the contents, and then bring it back to me.”

  The usher took the purse, which he thought was awfully heavy. When he reached Ida Belle, he did exactly as Mother Tate had instructed. Both his and Ida’s eyes got big, when he opened the purse to reveal Johnnie’s prized .357 Magnum.

  Ida stared down at Mother Tate, who was sitting in her seat as cool as a cucumber, smiling sweetly at her husband. She leaned over and whispered, “I have to go,” to Charmayne, who suddenly became curious herself concerning the contents of that pocketbook.

  Miss Shirley, who had not missed a thing, thought, “Serves Ida Belle right. Always trying to mess around with somebody else’s man.”

  Cousin Buddy hit on both sides of his helmet with both hands. He grabbed his pink plastic cup off the pew and raised it to his lips for a sip of water. He frowned—the cup was dryer than his throat. Folks always whispered that he was different, which was probably true. It wasn’t too hard for him to figure out that he was the only person in church wearing a helmet.

  “But if I’m different,” he said softly to himself, “what in the world is that lady in the gold? Just ’cause a person don’t wear a helmet on they head to church don’t mean they is right.”

  Uncle Joseph saw Cousin Buddy’s mouth moving but could tell that his conversation wasn’t directed at anyone. He leaned over and poked him in the arm gently.

  “You all right? Need any more water?”

  “Nahh. I’m just fine. Just thinking to my ownself,” he answered.

  Chapter Thirteen

  BISHOP TATE SHOOK HIS HEAD AT HIS WIFE, AS IF TO say, “Girl, you know you know better.” He looked at what was left of that woman in the gold nightclub suit’s departure, and thought, “Serves you right—thinking you could roll up on a preacher’s wife like that.”

  Eddie sighed heavily. What had started out as a wonderful and anointed service was rapidly disintegrating into what his boy, Theophilus Simmons, once coined as “Histrionic Religioses,” in a sermon to fellow ministers at the last Triennial Conference.

  Theophilus told them: “Church, when you see this form of neurotic narcissism masquerading itself as pious buoyancy for Jesus, stop, drop, and roll on down to the ground, and get prostrate before the Lord. ’Cause when all of that is happening within the humble four walls of your sanctuary, you best believe you got to bind up and pray out some devils intent on blocking somebody’s salvation by diverting their attention away from Jesus.”

  And that is just what was happening in church this morning. There was somebody in this sanctuary on assignment—the wrong assignment. That somebody didn’t want anyone who had gone astray to find their way to the Lord and get saved. And what better way to accomplish this than to sit up in here full of “hell,” hoping with a heart that was anything but clean and clear, that something in the service would make someone with a heart turning toward salvation think twice about taking that step.

  Both Eddie and Theophilus had discovered that oftentimes, the people creating the most distractions—like the two “Jezebels” and that one spiritually lukewarm “congregation worker bee”—were not necessarily the ones who were the most invested in preventing the church from doing what it was supposed to do on a Sunday morning. They were just what Theophilus’s daughter, Sharon, had once described as “being so wrongly in the right place at the right time, that they inadvertently stir up what the rest of us needed to be praying completely out of the service.”

  Eddie heeded the advice of his friend and goddaughter and brother and sister in Christ. He put his hand to his heart and whispered, “Father, there is someone in this sanctuary who came to get saved this morning. Reveal that person or those persons to me. And Lord, direct my eyes to the one who would be delighted if no one found his or her way to You this morning.”

  The youth choir had just begun a slow and very soulful ballad. In that moment Eddie closed his eyes and felt so much love from the Savior, his eyes welled up with tears. He loved being a minister, he got a great deal of pleasure in being a prominent bishop, and he had great fun when he pastored his church in Chicago. But what gave him the most satisfaction was letting the Lord use him to find someone who desperately wanted to turn their life over to Christ and didn’t have a clue as to the first step to take.

  He opened his eyes and the first person he saw was a woman dressed in an outfit that his wife wouldn’t be caught dead in. In fact, if Johnnie were dead, and he got crazy enough to dress the girl in that hot pink plaid polyester skirt, gold peasant blouse, and gold silk men’s socks worn in those yellow jelly shoes, she’d come back to life, pistol-whip him, change her clothes, and then go on back home to glory. Yet, as fascinating as this woman’s attire was, Eddie knew that he wasn’t supposed to scrutinize her through his own myopic human vision.

  Eddie was being led by the Lord to view her through the kind of anointed lens that gave sight to those blinded by human shortcomings and frailties. What he saw, when he looked at her right, was “the woman at the well,” “the woman the Pharisees wanted to stone to death,” “the woman who washed Jesus’ feet with costly perfume and tears of sorrow-filled repentance.” And what all of these women had in common (including the woman in this church) was a desire to be saved.

  When the choir had finished singing, the bishop walked up to the pulpit podium and reached underneath for the Amplified Bible.

  “The Lord has just laid it upon my heart to change the order of service a bit. And the first thing that He wants me to do is to offer the following scripture reading:”

  And behold, a woman of the town who was an especially wicked sinner, when she learned that He was reclining at table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment (perfume).

  And standing behind Him at His feet weeping, she began to wet His feet with [her] tears; and she wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed His feet [affectionately] and anointed them with the ointment (perfume).

  Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw it, he said to himself, If this Man were a prophet, He would surely know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching Him—for she is a notorious sinner (a social outcast, devoted to sin).

  Eddie stopped reading from verses 37 to 39 in the seventh chapter of the Book of Luke and stared right at Baby Doll, hoping that she knew that these passages were meant for her. When she lowered her head a bit, and held tight to the hand of the little red man in the shades sitting next to her, he skipped over to verses 46 to 50 and resumed his reading:

  You did not
anoint My head with [cheap, ordinary] oil, but she has anointed My feet with [costly, rare] perfume.

  Therefore I tell you, her sins, many [as they are], are forgiven her—because she has loved much. But he who is forgiven little loves little.

  And He said to her, Your sins are forgiven!

  Then those who were at table with Him began to say among themselves, Who is this Who even forgives sins?

  But Jesus said to the woman, Your faith has saved you; go (enter) into peace [in freedom from all the distresses that are experienced as the result of sin].

  The Bishop closed the Bible, wiped his face with a pale purple cotton handkerchief, and turned around to face Rev. Quincey.

  “Pastor, I apologize for moving this service in a different direction. But when my God calls, the only thing that I can say is: Lord, here I am, send me.”

  “Praise God,” was all Rev. Quincey said.

  Revs. Albertson and Simmons simply smiled and nodded in agreement with their senior pastor. They had perfect peace about this change and were eager to find out who had come to church this morning specifically to get saved. As Albertson would later say to Sharon Simmons, “This is really what our job is all about—sending as many folks to heaven as we possibly can. Anything else is a moot issue when you consider that.”

  “Now,” Bishop Tate began again, “there is somebody out there who would give anything to have the Lord say to her what He told the woman with the perfume and tears. I am standing here before you, as one who has been forgiven much and been blessed to love much. And all I can say is, if you come down to this altar and bathe it with tears from a repentant heart, and confess Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you will be saved.”

  He raised his hands, signaling to the congregation to stand.