We both laughed good and hard at that, but for different reasons.
I had a difficult time believing in God anymore. I wasn’t an atheist, but neither was I certain God paid much attention to me. Maybe He was punishing me. That would explain it. I was smart and educated and hadn’t held a full-time job since graduating college.
Behold the wrath of God.
Then Mr. Byrd said, “It was sure easier breaking up illegal Bible studies in the cafeteria.”
“It sure was.”
At lunch, I quickly devoured the tuna sandwich and apple tart that Mary had packed for me. I crossed the street to the first of four overgrown yards on the block and knocked on the door. An elderly brown-skinned man opened up, and when I offered to cut his lawn, he explained that he couldn’t afford the twenty dollars.
“Fifteen?”
He shook his head. “I live on a fixed income.”
“Don’t your neighbors complain about the way the yard has gotten away from you?”
“Neighbors?” I followed the roll of his eyes down the street to the ghastly paint jobs, barred windows, barred doors, derelict cars parked in the yards—sometimes on the lawn itself—hedges grown out in profuse disarray. The neighborhood had gone, as they say, to hell. The old man’s yard was but an eyesore among eyesores. “Around here nobody cares,” he said.
I persisted. “Twelve?”
“I just don’t have the money.”
“What can you afford?” There was some leeway; I was my own boss, after all.
“Six?”
“That’s low, but I’ll do it for six,” I said, figuring I’d make up the loss on someone else’s yard. The idea was to foster goodwill. Soon there would be talk of the nice man who cuts yards cheap. The whole neighborhood would improve, starting with the lawns.
“Young man, I can’t lie to you. I need to buy half a gallon of milk with some of that money.” Behind him was the open door of his home, and out came the smell of stale urine. His unbuttoned pants hanging low on his waist somehow managed to stay on. “Times are hard.”
I walked down to the next house and had more success. The youngish Hispanic woman who came to the door in hot pants and slippers greeted me with an exhausted smile. A baby bawled behind her from somewhere inside.
“Yes, cut it please. God it grows fast in the summer.”
“I’ll be back after school.”
“Hurry back. The kids can’t even play outside in the yard.”
No one answered at the third house, but a branch sagging low with mangoes caught my eye. I picked a fat yellow one and went on to the fourth house. No one answered there either.
I couldn’t believe it. One house. Twenty lousy dollars. I was still in the hole. I bit the mango, and it turned out to be quite sweet, but too stringy. I had to suck hard to dislodge the fibers between my teeth. I was still in the hole. I would have to cut four houses tomorrow to get caught up.
After school, I mowed the Hispanic mother’s yard, and she paid me with two tens; then she thought about it and passed me another dollar, a tip.
“Please,” she said, “come back next week.”
Then I pushed the lawnmower down to the old brown-skinned man’s house and began mowing. After a while, he came out and looked on from his porch.
When I finished, he walked across his freshly cut lawn in his bare feet and handed me the six dollars: three crumpled bills and twelve shiny quarters. I gave back the quarters.
“Go buy your milk,” I said.
“What?”
“Go buy your milk, sir. God bless you.”
The old man nodded. “God bless you, son.”
I stuck my head into room 323-H.
“Not you again,” Peachie joked. “I’m better. Go home.”
She was bandaged and hooked up to tubes. She spotted the roses and lit up.
“For me?” She pointed to a vase on the nightstand. “Put them there. Pretty. Are they scented?”
“They cost me fifteen dollars.”
“Big money. We’ll send them back if they’re not scented.” Her eyes were red. She was still having trouble sleeping.
I put the roses in the vase, then moved back and sat on the edge of her bed. “I came by to tell you something interesting,” I said. “Something interesting happened at church last night.”
“If it’s about the Reverend Dr. McGowan, save your breath. I was married to the man. I could write a book. Stingy, pompous, impotent.”
“You have two children,” I reminded.
“I meant stingy, pompous, and ignorant.”
I laughed. “It’s not about Barry.”
“Good.”
“Although he is in town.”
“The annual revival. I know. He called me. Can you believe it? He wanted to pray for me.”
“I warned you about him.”
“When you loved me.”
“I still love you.”
She looked at the flowers in the vase. “You came to propose?”
“If it would save you.”
“You would marry a harlot?”
“Don’t call yourself that. And yes, I would marry a harlot to save you.”
“You’re sweet, Elwyn. You’re my best friend. I should have married you. What the hell did I ever see in Barry? If I had married you, we would have been so happy. We would have been so cute. I wouldn’t be involved in a child custody case with a multimillionaire that I have no chance of winning and you wouldn’t be involved with Sister Youknowwho. We would have been two happy, normal lovebirds.”
“From what I’ve learned about life, being a lovebird is anything but normal. Too many obstacles to true love.” I frowned at the tubes and bandages. “When are you getting out of here, girl?”
“My doctor is very mad at me.” She whispered, “I almost killed myself, you know? I have to learn to follow my diet properly. Take my shots. Eat right. I could go into shock again. But this thing with Barry and the kids, and not having money, I am so stressed out that this damned sugar diabetes, or hypoglycemia, or whatever the hell it is, is the last thing on my mind. It’s an unfair disease. It shouldn’t happen to young people.”
“My grandmother has lived with it since she was forty and she’s just hit four score plus three. You can beat it. You can live a normal life.”
“My life is never going to be normal, Elwyn. This is just another problem to add to a long and growing list.” Peachie glanced over at the flowers in the vase. “Maybe death wouldn’t be so bad.”
I suddenly realized what was going on. I leaned down to her ear and pleaded, “You promised me that you wouldn’t try to take your life again. You promised me, Peachie. Why are you doing this?”
“You’re wrong,” she protested, “I just forgot my diet this time, that’s all. I was stressed. This isn’t like before.”
“You swear?”
“I swear on the Bible.”
“I love you, Peachie. You’re my best friend in the whole world.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re pretty and you can sure play that piano. You’re the prettiest girl in the whole grade-four Sunday school class.”
She laughed at that. “And?”
“And I want my godsons to grow up with a mommy.”
“And?”
“Because things are going to get better for you, and you’re going to be so happy, and so rich, and I’m going to need to borrow some money. That’s what friends are for.”
“Well, in that case,” she said, “I’ll be careful and watch my diet from now on.”
“And put a few dollars aside for me,” I laughed.
But soon she was gone again. “Oh Elwyn, everything is so … dark. I have to work so hard to make ends meet, and he has all that money. I can’t see my children. My children are gone. Nobody loves me. Only my mother loves me.” The tears were rolling down her cheeks.
“Jesus loves you. I love you … What you’re trying to do, it’s the only sin that cannot be forgiven.”
“That and blasphemy.” She clutched my hand and forced some cheer into her voice. “Tell me more about what it would have been like being married to you.”
“My Peachie.”
“I know you are kind and brave and smart. But are you good in bed?”
“My sarcastic, little Peachie.” I brushed away her tears.
And then we were kissing. It was not supposed to happen. It was not. But it was good. The smell of roses. The cool, clean hospital air. Her soft lips. I had wanted it for so long. It was the most … satisfying kiss I had ever had.
The most appropriate.
She opened her eyes. Her eyes were smiling. “What was that all about, Brother Elwyn?”
“I’ve wanted to do that forever.”
“Did I kiss you, or did you kiss me?”
“You pulled me down.”
“Your face was already down here.”
We kissed again. It was even better this time.
I was going to say something—something profound and from the heart—but Peachie opened her mouth first and ruined it. “If you didn’t have Sister Youknowwho, would you divorce your wife and marry me?”
I tried to break free, but she held my hand tight.
“Sister Youknowwho. Right? Right? It’s too late for us now. We ruined it. We are what we are. We can’t change that, right, Brother Elwyn?”
She would not let go. I could not pull away from her grasp. What did she want me to say? What could I say? I would not say it. That I loved Sister Morrisohn more now than I ever could have loved Peachie.
We struggled on. I would not say it.
She held my hand until a stern nurse walked in a few minutes later and ordered me out. “You’re going to have to leave, sir. Visiting hours begin again at 6.”
“He’s my friend,” Peachie pleaded.
The nurse was serious looking and big. She said, “You need to rest.”
“Don’t go, Elwyn.”
“I’m going,” I said, happy to have my hand back. I kissed Peachie, on the forehead this time, and got up from the bed.
“Wait, you had something to tell me about church.”
“It’s nothing. Something funny happened at the revival last night is all. I’ll tell you about it next time.”
“You forgot to pray for me,” Peachie reminded.
I turned to the nurse, who still had me by the elbow, urging me out with her girth. A miracle, the big nurse relented and allowed a brief prayer, after which she pushed me out of the room and shut the door.
I tried to practice the hymns I would play that night, in B major, which was for me the most difficult key, but I could not concentrate because Mary was upset.
No doubt, it had made little sense telling her about the old man whose yard I had cut for free that day, but I was proud of my good deed, and one ought to tell one’s good deeds to one’s wife. Especially when one’s wife considers one pathetic. Or maybe not.
Mary inexplicably lost her cool. She slammed things. She walked around the apartment muttering. When she picked up the phone, I overheard her tell someone that she was married to a fool who cut yards for three dollars a piece.
In quarters!
Then Mary tried to slam the piano door down on my fingers, but I was too fast.
“This is it, Elwyn,” she said, pointing at me. “Find a job or lose your wife. This is the last time I’m telling you.”
Not another ultimatum, I thought. Must it ever be this way: sex in the morning, fight at night?
As I was leaving for the second night of the revival, I noticed that Benjamin was again sitting too close to the TV. I didn’t mention it to Mary.
At the Church of Our Blessed Redeemer Who Walked Upon the Waters, it was customary to honor a visiting evangelist by acting more penitent than usual.
During revivals in years past, droves of weeping backsliders had come to the altar at Rev’run’s behest and begged God to have mercy on their reprehensible souls. They had openly reconciled themselves with their Maker, and Rev’run had left Miami convinced that he had wrought a miracle.
This year, a greater miracle had preempted Rev’run’s. God had sent a white man to speak His message in unknown tongues.
On the second night of the revival, the church was more crowded than the previous night as anxious, heat-oppressed saints awaited another spectacle. They were only just tolerating Rev’run.
Knowing this, perhaps, the fat man from Tifton, Georgia, preached cautiously, vapidly, and utterly without appeal. He seemed almost embarrassed to utter his customary syllable, “AH”; halfway through the sermon, he abandoned it entirely. When he finished preaching, only the regulars ambled up to the altar and dutifully accepted the Lord.
You could see it in their faces: where was the white minister?
Pastor frowned at the meager substance in the collection plate and said, “Since we forgot to take up collection last night, let’s pass the plates around an extra time tonight.”
The plates went around again and returned with less money than the first time. Pastor shook his head in distaste and clapped his hands.
“Saints! Saints,” he scolded, “is this how we take care of God’s servant who has traveled all the way from Georgia? I want you to dig a little deeper into your hearts and pocketbooks. I’ll start it with the first dollar.”
Magnanimously, Pastor tossed a dollar bill into a collection plate. The Reverend Dr. McGowan, with much ceremony, flipped in four quarters. The plates went around again but returned with mere small change glittering around Pastor’s dollar bill.
The Reverend Dr. McGowan, in a noble gesture to save the day, stood up and wrote the church a check, which he announced was for a hundred dollars.
There was scattered applause, but then nothing.
Service ended early again.
Before I could make it to my car, Sister Morrisohn pulled me aside and put a check in my hand.
“You don’t have to do this.” I looked down at the check. It was three thousand dollars. “Holy cow. No way. It’s too much. You don’t have to.”
“But I did.”
I shook my head. “Elaine, I can’t keep taking money from you without paying back. I can’t. I don’t feel like a man. I feel like I don’t know what, but not a man.”
“You’re a man. Believe me, you are. A big man.” She licked her lips playfully. But then she got serious. “I’m very proud of you. I know what you’re all about. I know what you’re trying to achieve. Things are hard now, but you’ll get it one day. I believe in you. You can’t see where you are because you’re so young, but I see because I’m older and I’ve seen it before. This is a down time. This is nothing. You’re doing all of the right things and life is going to turn around for you eventually. Things are going to happen to you so big, you’re not going to even remember these hard times. You’ve just got to stick with it and never give up. This check is not pity, Elwyn. This check is not to insult your manhood. This check is an investment in someone who is worth investing in. I believe in you and I love you.”
She touched my face with her hand.
And because I knew it was useless to fight, I followed Sister Morrisohn to a hotel on Biscayne Boulevard, and we rented a room for two hours.
A large bed and a big-screen TV (with two porno channels) were the main luxuries, but that was not the point. The hotel, we had learned over the years, was safer than her house. As president of the Missionary Society, Sister Morrisohn received too many unexpected drop-in visitors.
We lay with our nakedness draped in cool silk sheets and our heads propped up by extrasoft pillows. Room service had brought wine, of which I did not partake, of course. I looked around the room, but could not locate her panties and bra, for she was not a neat folder of undergarments like Mary—no, she was a flinger, a discarder, a tosser, a passionate ripper of undergarments. She was neither neat nor gentle with anything that got in the way of her lovemaking, but I didn’t mind. I wanted to make love to her. She wanted to make
love to me. She had ripped my drawers off with her teeth. I must admit that I had eaten through her underthings too. We asked the Spirit to move that night and It sure did.
I wasn’t an atheist, but heaven just seemed so far away. Mind you, God was certainly a good idea: someone who siteth high and looketh low and guideth my feet wherever they go. A God could help me regain control of my life. I wouldn’t have to cut yards for three dollars a pop, or play piano for people who had less faith than I did. I wouldn’t have to borrow money to pay rent. I might even honor my wife.
But in the absence of God, there was the hotel on Biscayne Boulevard and Sister Morrisohn. At least I still lusted after my mistress.
“You’re beautiful,” I said. “When will you marry?”
“When my lover grows up.”
“You’ve taken a lover?”
“And he’s married.”
“I hear he doesn’t love his wife.”
She turned her head. “Then why did you marry her?”
I did not answer. I could not answer.
“But since you brought it up, I think I should warn you that I would like to marry again before it’s all over,” she said.
“You will make some guy the luckiest man in the world.”
“Some guy.” Sister Morrisohn smiled weakly and lay back on the extrasoft pillow. I climbed over her. We were making love again.
“My darling,” she said as our lips met. “My darling, my darling, my darling.”
Afterward, while we rested in each other’s arms safe in the knowledge that crazy as it was we each had someone to love, she traced my face with her hands. “And another thing,” she said suddenly. “Who was that white minister last night?”
“Beloved woman, you always know where my mind is at,” I replied, shaking my head. “I’ve been dying to talk to somebody about that.”
“One crazy guy,” she said as I kissed her.
“One crazy guy,” we said as we came up for air.
The Spirit was moving again.
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