Before Lamont could say yes, nod, shrug, or catch a twitch, Parvell hopped up. He just couldn’t stand being in this room another minute and not address the real reason he was here.
“You know, I have some real problems with a meeting about something as asinine as who is going to play Jolly Old Saint Nick and his ‘boo,’ when there are some more pressing issues that need to be on the table—like who should win the development contract from the DUDC.”
“Uhh . . . this church isn’t bidding for a contract, Rev. Sykes,” Rev. Quincey said coolly.
“Oh, really?” Parvell spat out. He pulled last Sunday’s bulletin out of his black alligator briefcase, turned to the page with a detailed history of the old Cashmere Estates, and tossed it on the conference table. “Because you certainly had me fooled.”
“Well, you know what, Parvell,” Rev. Quincey said like he was talking to a brother itching for an altercation on the street. “This church does support Lamont and everything that Green Pastures is trying to do to restore what used to be a wonderful and very affordable place to live.”
Parvell scoffed. He was so sick of these Negroes. He said, “Everybody in this community isn’t stuck on some misguided nostalgia for the seventies like you, the Greens, and members of the Hopson family,” Parvell shot out.
“A few of us remember that we are in the twenty-first century and are anxious for some progress. Frankly, I am having a very difficult time figuring out what you have against building luxurious units right in the midst of black Durham.”
“Because if you build it, many black Durhamites will not be able to afford to park in the parking lot and the area will suddenly become very white,” Lamont countered evenly.
“What do you know about luxury housing?” Parvell challenged him. “You are, after all, the king of the ‘new jack ghetto unit.’”
“And you really believe that ‘Nino Brown’ wannabe white boy you work for is coming up in this community to restore it in the right way—a way that benefits people who look just like you, Parvell?”
“Uhh . . . Dawg, there ain’t too many brothers . . . err . . . people who look like him,” Bug said, as he eyed Parvell’s black snakeskin cowboy boots with spurs and toes so pointed he could have killed a posse of roaches in a corner.
Theresa, Rhonda, and Vanessa looked down at Parvell’s feet and felt like they were going to holler with laughter. If his feet didn’t look just as crazy, they didn’t know whose did.
Rhonda caught her husband’s eye and whispered, “I am definitely going to ask God why when I get to heaven.”
“Let me put it to you this way, Sykes,” Lamont said in a hard voice, “Jethro Winters has gone into two communities just like the one he and I am fighting over with his fancy plans, and made a big mess. The homes in Lavender Meadows in Greensboro started out selling just fine until the new residents discovered that all of those rowdy, spinning-rims, car-bass-booming Negroes in the neighborhood weren’t going anywhere.”
“Last time I checked, Lavender Meadows was thriving and new units were scheduled to go up in the spring,” Parvell said.
“Lavender Meadows,” Lamont said slowly and firmly, as if he were talking to a disobedient teen, “was bought out by a very savvy group of young black men who wanted in on a good real estate deal in the black community. They got the property for a song, lowered the prices of the townhouses to a reasonable price, sent the early buyers what amounted to real estate rebate checks, and then proceeded to sell more units to folks with strong ties to that community.
“And,” Lamont went on before Parvell could open his mouth, “Winters’s other fiasco, Greenleaf Park in Wilmington, went up in smoke. It seems like somebody in that neighborhood didn’t appreciate those overpriced homes bringing the threat of high property taxes and possible displacement to make room for regentrification. Soon after the first five houses were built, they mysteriously burned down to the ground. His insurance company wouldn’t pay unless he promised not to rebuild in that area. And he could have saved time and money, and made some money, if he would have listened to the people who practically begged him to build affordable housing in that community.”
Lamont threw up his hands in exasperation. “I don’t know why, for the life of me, that Durham is even entertaining becoming involved with anything that Jethro Winters is involved with. A mess waiting to happen, that’s what that is.”
“And Springland Hills in Charlotte is evidence of this pending disaster, right?” Parvell stated. “Because I believe that Winters tripled his investment on that development. So, what do you have to say for yourself on that one, Green?”
“He ain’t got to say jack to you on nothing about nothing dealing with that no-good nothing you supporting,” Queen Esther, who had been unusually quiet this evening, said and stood up holding a roll of quarters in each hand, looking like she was just itching for a fight.
“Buddy,” she ordered, when he rose to stand at her side, “go on back over there and sit down.”
“But I’m ready to go home and watch my show,” he said, still standing with his helmet up under his arm like he’d seen the football players holding theirs at one of the Eva T. Marshall University home games.
“Buddy,” Queen Esther stated firmly, “I told you before we left the group home, that Mr. Quentin would record the Powerpuff Girls for you and put the DVD in your room. Now, go back over there and sit down.”
Cousin Buddy scurried over to his favorite seat and threw his helmet on the floor. He bent over and picked it back up when Queen Esther shot him a glance that clearly said, “I ain’t playin’ with you, Buddy.”
Rev. Quincey removed his glasses and put two fingers on the bridge of his nose, not daring to look at his wife, Lena, and praying that he wouldn’t break down in laughter. Buddy Green, despite his obvious special needs, was a character—all of those Greens were, including Lamont, who thought he put the K in Kool.
“Green, are we going to keep wasting time with Forrest Gump here, or attend to the matter at hand, before that unnecessary disruption,” Parvell snapped.
“’Ccccuuse me, Rev. Sykes,” Buddy interjected politely, “but Forrest Gump ain’t in this room. I hope you ain’t been dranking nasty, drunk-man-on-the-corner wine to make you think that a made-up movie person is in this room. Even I know that, and I have to live in the special home Lamont built for me and my friends ’cause I cain’t live by myself.”
At that point, Rev. Quincey, along with everybody but Parvell, broke down into hysterical laughter, making Buddy wonder what was wrong with what he said.
Lena Quincey saw the concern cross Buddy’s face and said, “It’s okay. What you said was absolutely perfect, Buddy.”
“Say Amen, lights,” Rev. Quincey said and laughed some more.
“Not a thing will be this funny, when the DUDC announces that I have won . . .”
“I?” James quizzed him, wondering when this two-bit player in the housing game became the “I” in that white boy’s company. Cousin Buddy was on to something. This Negro had to be drinking “nasty, drunk-man-on-the-corner wine” to say some foolishness like that.
“Yeah, Rev. Sykes,” Queen Esther said, “you are a much bigger fool than I’ve ever thought you were, to think Jethro Winters is gonna give you more than an ‘I-full’ of some house Negro scraps from his table.”
“Sister Green, Sister Green,” Parvell said, the tone in his voice set to appease her, as if she were kind of crazy and he was trying to stop her from flipping out. “There is no need to dig specks out of my eye, when your vision is a bit askew due to the board in your own. We are in church . . .”
“If you don’t shut up talking to me, with your old Mr. Big-dressing, pimp-daddy, Beelzebub self, I’m gone catch a case up in this here church so bad, somebody going over to Mr. Duke’s hospital, and it ain’t gone be me,” Queen Esther said, as she gripped those rolls of quarters in her hand tight, and started making her way over to where Parvell was standing.
James,
Lamont, Rev. Quincey, and Mr. Lacy, who had just come in looking for the pastor, hurried over to Queen Esther to stop her from doing some serious damage to Sykes with those quarters.
“Boy, what you do to make Queen act like this?” Mr. Lacy demanded, coming through the door, cane pointed in Parvell’s direction. “Do you realize that I taught her how to use those quarters on a body when she was working at Duke and had a long walk to her car at night?”
Parvell was still, as he gave serious thought to Mr. Lacy’s claim. He needed to leave this alone. Everybody from the old neighborhood knew that not only could Mr. Lacy fight, but he loved a good, down-and-dirty physical altercation. Nobody bothered Mr. Lacy back then and nobody bothered him now.
Uncle Big Gold, in his quest to rule over the old Cashmere Estates, had once taken it upon himself to challenge Mr. Lacy—he got a beat-down that folks in the Durham ’hood still talked about to this day. And to add insult to that injury, Mr. Lacy had chased and jumped his uncle, when Big Gold tried to run off, thinking that he couldn’t catch him because he was blind—wrong. As soon as Uncle Big Gold started running, Mr. Lacy had shaken his head, sniffed at the air like a police dog, and then took off running right behind him, jumping over and dodging everything in his way. Then, he proceeded to beat him down with those two rolls of quarters he had balled up in his fists.
Theresa, Vanessa, Rhonda, and Lena had been huddled up on their end of the table passing notes back and forth about everything that had been going on at this so-called meeting. It seemed as if everything was being put on the table but what they were going to do for the Christmas Festival.
“I luv chutch meetins’,” Rhonda wrote, then passed the note over to Lena, who sneaked a peek at her husband before adding her portion to the note:
“Don’t you kinda wish they would have let go of Miss Queen Esther?”
She passed it to Vanessa, who nodded and slipped it down to Theresa, who wrote: “No! Cousin Buddy would have turned it out. He can fuss with Miss Queen Esther, but nobody else better be crazy enough to mess with her around him.”
The note went back around and they all stole a quick glance at Cousin Buddy, who was sitting quietly in the corner, fidgeting with his helmet and watching Parvell like a hawk.
“Nahh,” Rhonda whispered. “They betta keep a good hold on her, or else it will be on up in heah.”
They all nodded in agreement. Sometimes folks forgot that at six feet four and weighing in at 257, Cousin Buddy was potentially a formidable opponent.
“Look,” Rhonda, who never missed anything, whispered to Lena, and sneaked and pointed to the open doorway.
“You’d think,” Lena started, on a fresh piece of paper, “that we hadn’t had enough drama for one evening. And now, here comes Miss Baby Doll resplendent in one of her dramatic interpretations of clothing.”
Rhonda took in Miss Baby Doll’s outfit and prayed that Mr. Lacy wasn’t “watching” them because Baby Doll had outdone herself this evening. She was wearing purple velvet, 1970-style knickers with rhinestone buttons on the knees, a sheer, red chiffon blouse over a gold lamé tank top, and gold tights.
“Miss Baby Doll has on some new shoes,” Vanessa wrote.
“Stop! Before Mr. Lacy ‘sees’ us,” Theresa wrote back, simply amazed at Miss Baby Doll’s rainbow-colored jelly shoes.
“Where did she get those shoes?” Rhonda wrote. “They kinda crunked.”
“You are so wrong,” Lena whispered, making sure that Obadiah didn’t see her acting up. He’d loved himself some Miss Baby Doll and would, as he said, “cut a Negro” over her.
“HER TEETH!” Rhonda wrote. “MISS BABY DOLL HAS REAL FALSE TEETH!!!”
They turned to stare at Miss Baby Doll’s mouth.
“Bishop Tate paid for them,” Lena whispered.
“But how did she get them so fast?” Rhonda asked too loudly, drawing attention from Mr. Lacy.
“Never you mind how she did that, missy,” he admonished, losing patience with those four and all of that note writing. “You just thank Jesus that she has them. Looks good, too. Don’t she?”
Rhonda almost said, “How do you know how she looks?” But she bit back those words so fast she drew blood from her bottom lip.
Before Mr. Lacy could get on her, Theresa whispered, “I didn’t know she was that cute.”
“Me neither,” Vanessa said carefully, hoping Mr. Lacy wasn’t still all up in their business.
“I’m leaving,” Parvell said.
“About time,” James said, as he let go of his aunt, and took the rolls of quarters out of her hands.
“You don’t think you can get rid of me this easy, do you, James?” Parvell scoffed. “I am, after all, your assistant pastor, Dawg.”
“Not anymore,” Rev. Quincey said calmly and emphatically. He should have done this the day after Parvell came to work at his church. It never ceased to amaze him how much chaos and mess was always brewing or occurring whenever Parvell was anywhere around—a clear sign that this man was not of God and he had no business occupying the pulpit at his church.
The Lord had been pressing on Rev. Quincey’s heart to get rid of Parvell. And now, he couldn’t avoid the inevitable any longer. He said, “You’re fired. You have a right to remain here as a member but you can’t work with me anymore. And I’m sure I speak for the congregation when I say that we have had enough of you and your mess.”
“You just made the biggest mistake of your life, preacher,” Parvell shot out.
“No, I’ve just undone two of the biggest mistakes of my life,” Rev. Quincey countered. “The first was letting my presiding elder convince me that you were worth keeping an eye on. And the second was not getting rid of you the first time I knew you weren’t worth the trouble.”
“That’s what I’m talking ’bout,” Lamont said out loud, throwing off the silence that blanketed the room.
“God is good,” James added.
“All the time,” Rhonda called over to him.
“And all the time, God is good,” Theresa said as she stared Parvell dead in the eye, and then flicked her tongue out at him.
Baby Doll, who had taken a seat quietly by the door, thought that the novel she’d recently read, Church Folk, hit the nail on the head when it came to talking about folks who went to church.
“And to think,” she murmured to herself, amused at Big Gold’s nephew trying to worm his way out of this confrontation and this room without looking like the pushover that he was, “that I once thought church business was dry and stale and boring. Humph, I’m beginning to wonder if everybody up in this room need some of those medications I used to have to take when I was crazy.”
As soon as Parvell had stormed out of the men’s parlor and slammed the door behind him, Rev. Quincey lifted his hands and said, “I ought to know better than to allow any meeting to commence without prayer. But if we didn’t start right, we show can end right. Stand so we can get this meeting adjourned.”
They all stood and formed a circle holding hands.
“Father,” Rev. Quincey began, “we thank you for this meeting and the blessings that came in the disguise of an altercation. For, if this meeting had not gone the way it did, I wouldn’t have had the courage and impetus to get rid of Parvell Sykes. Forgive me for not having that same bold assurance in You as the Apostles on the day of Pentecost. Forgive me for not following the example of Peter, who when led by the Holy Spirit, castigated the wickedness of Ananias and his wife, Sapphira. They dropped dead, Lord, when their hidden evil was stripped bare and exposed by the Light of Truth.
“Forgive me for not trusting you and saying no when the denomination first asked me to let such a reprobate serve as a minister in this church. For, we can get so concerned with what can happen to us if we don’t come across as a team player until we fail to remember the words of Psalm 56:11 when it says, In God I have put my trust; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?”
“Amen, Lord,” Queen Esther whispered, as the last bi
t of stress generated by her encounter with Parvell faded away and was replaced by the kind of peace that only Christ can give.
Cousin Buddy held tight to both Queen’s and Rhonda’s hands, his helmet strap secured tightly under his chin. He knew he was different. But what he loved about church, and especially his church, was that it didn’t matter. People loved and cherished him in spite of his disabilities. When Buddy was at church, he felt what he had learned when Queen taught him the Bible despite his problems with reading—that God was no respecter of persons.
Lamont laced his fingers through Theresa’s and felt the warmth of her hand in his heart. He didn’t ever remember feeling such love and peace and comfort from the touch of any woman’s hand other than his mother or his aunt. He’d felt all kinds of good things from the touch of his women. But he’d never felt it like this in his heart.
As soon as Rev. Quincey finished praying, the members of the Christmas Festival committee gathered up their things. They had not spoken one fraction of a word about the Festival. But that was all right. They knew it would come off just fine. And even better, what they were really trying to do was already done. All they had to do was sit tight and watch the Lord fight this battle just like He did for King Jehosophat, when the enemies of Judah and Jerusalem cut the fool and took each other completely out.
Lamont waited as Theresa finished comparing notes about all that had occurred at tonight’s meeting with her “girls,” and then collected her coat and purse.
He tapped her on the arm and said, “Come on, baby. Let’s get you to your car.”
Theresa gave Lamont a shy smile and followed him out of the room, trying to ignore the series of whispers and giggles lingering behind the two of them.
He grabbed her hand and lifted it to his lips as they walked to her car together. A light blue 1975 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, with a white vinyl roof pulled up beside them, and eased back down low on the ground with its custom hydraulic system. Lamont reached inside his coat, making Theresa not wonder if he was packing, but what caliber of hardware was up in that jacket.
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