Brian shut down the computer and stood up. “Sister Thelma, walk with me. I am about to visit a shut-in member. I will follow you to Sister Patsy’s office while you schedule some time for next Tuesday.”
She nodded and followed him out.
CHAPTER SIX
Church was packed on Sabbath morning and Maribel was thankful that she got a seat under a fan. It was youth day, a day when the youth of the church ran the programs. The Youth Choir was singing today and she was quite happy that the senior choir was not required to be on duty—she didn’t know if she had the energy to go through another nerve-racking performance so close to Thursday night's.
He was up there sitting on the platform, his handsome face looking freshly groomed. He looked strong and powerful in his tailored suit. It was no wonder some women were so attracted to pastors.
Tailored clothes tended to cover a multitude of dietary sins like love handles and beer bellies. A respectable suit gives such an aura of power to an otherwise ordinary male. Coupled with well-groomed hair and nails and maybe some perfume, they became gods in the eyes of their beholders.
She glanced at Pastor Edwards; he had on a pleasant smile as his gaze raked over his congregation. It was not the well-fitting clothes or the smooth voice. It was just raw sexuality and magnetism that drew her.
Two qualities she had no business thinking about on the Lord's Day—or any other day, for that matter. Besides, his surface charm might just be hiding a terrible personality flaw, just because he was a pastor didn’t mean he was good. Besides, she had slept with enough upstanding pillars of society to know that you can't judge a book by its cover.
She squeezed her eyes and tried to bury the past. She had asked for God’s forgiveness but she could do nothing about the memories; they gathered in furor and tried to overcome her thoughts at the most inopportune moments.
There were days when faces seemed familiar and she was afraid that they were from her past. When men looked at her suggestively she wondered nervously if they had watched her on a porn video or seen a nude photo of her or had panted in heated lust on top of her in the back of a vehicle.
There was a gap in her life between God’s forgiveness and her forgetfulness, and the stinging reminders of her past were still floating around the outside world; men were still lusting after her photos and watching her doing all types of perversions.
The organist and the pianist played a soothing note and Maribel dragged her mind back from the darkness of her past and tried to focus it on the present. Everybody knew that dwelling on the past was counter-productive; she schooled her features into an expression of peace and convinced her mind to stay right there.
“Great peace have they which focus on Christ, ” she whispered to herself.
The pastor stood to speak, his voice falling over Maribel like the smoothest honey. “Brothers and Sisters in Christ, we are living and dwelling in a grand and awful time. It is a time when there are so many distractions in this world that we have a constant battle going on within and without.
“It is a time when good is scoffed at and the bad is celebrated; it is a time when our young people are torn between two loyalties, God and Satan, and have the added battle of sifting through the broken principles which our society has placed at odds with our value system.
“Our young women have skewed views about virginity and purity; they listen to what the world says: that it is okay to have sex before marriage. However, the Lord gave sex as a gift between two married people of the opposite sex.”
Loud bellows of amen almost lifted the rafters of the church when the pastor said of the ‘opposite sex.’ It was a hot button topic that was sure to elicit a lot of self-righteous indignation and Maribel couldn’t help the thought that he was pandering to the crowd.
She winced when his words about ‘purity’ and ‘virginity’ kept floating in the air; every word was like sandpaper against her flesh.
She could vaguely remember losing her virginity; she had run away from home and into the arms of a married fisherman. She tried to tune into what the pastor was saying but her mind kept returning to scenes from her past.
She had come home from school at exactly four o’clock—her father had worked out the timing of the route to the minute.
He would sit on the doorstep of their two-bedroom, part wood, part concrete house in Negril’s West End. He would indolently sprawl on the tattered reclining chair on the veranda with a round alarm clock with two bells attached on the wooden railing and a thick leather belt resting beside it.
His sun-burnt skin, which had a fair yellowish hue in his younger, better looking days, would be glistening with sweat. Maribel had thought that he was disappointed whenever she came home too early because she would thwart his much-anticipated 'clawting' of her.
He would declare, a feral gleam in his eye, before a beating, “I am going to clawt you with some lick y'see.”
He usually gave her one minute to run before he ran after her with the leather belt he had taken the time to cure with pepper and salt. At times he would beat her until she couldn’t scream anymore. He usually waited for weeks, until she was well again, to give her another beating.
The final evening when she decided not to take anymore of his brand of punishment, he was waiting on the veranda at the usual time. Maribel had just gotten her report card after the Christmas break. She had two C’s, one in Geography and another in Social Studies. That would not go down well with her father. She had clutched the paper in her hand, not even considering that she could hide it from him. He usually got really angry when she kept any sort of secret from him and that would have warranted a “clawting.” The last “clawting” had left her limping for days.
“Evening Dada.” She had reached the step when the clock on the rail had trilled. He always set the time for four o’clock.
“Evening Gal.” He got up and turned it off. “What’s that?” He indicated the paper in her hand.
“My report.” Her voice wobbled as she tremblingly held out the paper.
She closed her eyes tight and listened for the rustle of the paper and the creaking of the chair when he sat down in the recliner; she could even hear the slight wheezing in his breath when he inhaled. The silence dragged on and she tensed her body for a sudden blow. She opened her eyes slowly and there he was, the paper in his hand and his eyes closed.
“Er … Dada.”
“Yes Maribel.”
“Er … what do you think about the report?”
“I think I am going to kill you,” he said, his eyes still closed. “I think I am going to just beat you to death until somebody call the police to come and get me."
He opened his bloodshot eyes and looked at her contemplatively. “I think I am going to watch your blood run over this yard and water my callaloo bed.”
“But Dada, I got A’s in Accounts and Mathematics.”
He got up slowly, looking at her steadily. “Your mother was a harlot, a stinkin’ whore. I took her when she was pregnant. I spent my money to school and feed her and she ran away. The ungrateful wretch that she spawned ran away too. Your mother left this place with a big belly tourist man and never looked back at you. I was supposed to raise you and make sure that you don’t become like her.”
Maribel froze as he advanced on her. The speech was usually the same, but the bloodlust in his eyes was different. He looked like he was really going to kill her.
“Two A’s,” he started yelling, “and two C’s and two B’s. What do you do at school all day? Run around with them renkin school boy?”
Maribel backed down the steps slowly as he grabbed the leather belt.
“I am going to give you a real clawting today, gal. Only God alone can stop me now.”
Maribel had started to run by that time, and he had watched her as she ran through the gate. By the time she had reached the junction at the road she had seen a battered Toyota Corolla slowly navigating the potholes in the road. Her father had scampered after her and
was breathing hard, his face twisted in angry bitterness.
The car had stopped and she had jumped in, not even looking to see who was driving.
“Drive,” she had screamed to the startled driver and he had taken off, only stopping when he reached the main road.
“What happened?” the driver asked. He was a middle-aged man with tufts of hair growing in his ears. He had on a red polo shirt and a bandana around his neck. His eyes looked kind enough that she just melted in grief and poured out her heart to the man she later came to know as Murphy.
Murphy had put her up in his old fisherman shack and fed her. He understood her refusal to go back to school and her fear of her father. He also had a price for his assistance of her, and that had been her virginity. After she spent four months with Murphy his wife had come calling and Maribel was once more thrown on the street, with not even her school bag this time.
She tuned in to the sermon once more, just in time to hear the pastor remonstrating about the young men of today and their attitude toward young women and work. She could feel tears threatening as she recalled the way her father treated her.
She hadn’t seen him since that day he ran her down with his cured leather belt in hand and suddenly realized that she hadn’t asked the Lord to help her forgive him. She still resented him; the bitterness for forcing her into the world and into a lifestyle that she did not want was still strong, even nine years after her escape from home.
“And so my brothers and sisters, young men and women, keep yourselves pure, in deed, in thought, and in action—with God’s help.”
Maribel hung her head this time, quite distressed. So much for thinking there was even a chance with him; she wouldn’t be able to live up to his lofty ideals of purity. She barely heard the closing song. She barely looked at the pastor when they shook hands at the door, even though his hands were warm and she had registered a faint tingling when she touched them.
“Sister Maribel,” he had said warmly.
She was so relieved that the torturous sermon was over that she barely mumbled a greeting. She saw other people pushing to get closer to him, so she had enough time to move away, despite the fact that his fingers had tightened on hers to drag her back.
She had swerved quickly from the group that Cathy and Greg were standing in, jumped in her car and swiftly drove home, only to break down crying when she reached her apartment’s parking lot.
She cried for the innocence she had lost, she cried for the fact that she would never regain it, and she cried that the one man with whom she could see herself living and growing old with would probably run away from her as far and as quickly as possible if he knew her past.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Brian rocked in his hammock, which was strategically hung between two palm trees in his backyard. The small yard was well landscaped, with diminutive June plum and mango trees and a water fountain feature. Obviously the owner was trying to create a tropical oasis in the middle of the city. His apartment complex was in the middle of New Kingston and yet when he came to his personal backyard he tended to forget that he was not in a country area.
He looked up through the palms at the small slice of sky that he could see from his vantage point and thought about Maribel. He had not liked the look on her face when she left church yesterday. She had a forlorn expression when he saw her in the receiving line. She had barely touched his hand in greeting and then she had rushed off, ignoring her friends and heading to her car like all the demons in hell were after her.
He wondered what had upset her so much. His mind felt heavy with wondering what could be wrong with her. He had gotten her number from Cathy and as he swung in the hammock and clutched the phone to his chest, he kept rehearsing what he would say to her.
Should he just jump into the meat of the matter and enquire about the sad look she had yesterday? What should he do? He hadn’t felt so twisted inside about a potential relationship since his middle school brush at romance with Tina Gonzalez.
The little Mexican minx had made him feel tongue tied and gauche—he was just twelve years old when he felt the first pangs of uncertain love blooming in his heart.
He felt the same way now, except that it was Maribel Contrell, the beautiful Jamaican girl, who had him tongue tied and out of sorts. He should probably ask her out to the church rally that he was invited to in St. Thomas. He would get a chance to speak to her and to get a handle on her personality during the drive to and from the venue.
He dialed her number and waited nervously for it to ring—from the moment that Cathy had handed him the number he had memorized it.
“Morning.” Her voice sounded muffled, as if she was under a pillow.
“Hello Maribel.” He paused. He could hear her inhaling sharply on the other line.
“Who is this?” she asked timidly, a hint of nervous anticipation in her voice.
He relaxed slightly and then realized how tense he was since he had dialed her number.
“This is Brian Edwards.”
“Oh,” she gasped, “Pastor Edwards … I am … could you hold a minute?” He heard rustling and then she came back on the line, “Pastor Edwards, er …”
“I just called to find out how you are today.” He closed his eyes and pictured her in a red dress and that naked, vulnerable smile creeping across her face.
“I am fine,” Maribel said chirpily, “good actually. I was just lazing around thanking God that I had no work to go to today.”
“So you are free for the rest of the day?” he asked eagerly. She had already admitted that she was free and he was not going to give her a chance to backtrack.
“Yes … well, I guess … why?”
“I have a church rally in St. Thomas to attend at three o’clock and I was wondering if you can come?”
“Three o’clock…” She paused so long he looked at his knuckles and realized that he was gripping the telephone so tightly that the grooves on the bottom were digging into his hand.
“Ooookaaay,” she dragged out the okay.
But that was fine with him; she had admitted that she was going to come with him to St. Thomas.
“That’s good.” He couldn’t stop the smile from creeping into his voice. “Where should I pick you up?”
She gave him the address and directions.
“That’s about five minutes from where I am at,” he said to her smugly. “I’ll be there at one.”
“Okay …” she was dragging out the okay in a breathless hiss this time and his heart picked up speed.
“Okay,” he whispered, feeling elation wash over him.
“Step one, Lord,” he said aloud when he hung up the phone. “Please guide me with the rest.”
He had come for her at one o’clock on the dot; she had changed clothes so many times that her entire closet was strewn over her bed. She was going on a date with the pastor. She had pinched herself so many times and had stood looking in a daze at herself in the mirror, wondering if the sparkly-eyed girl staring at her was really the same girl who had been convinced yesterday that her attraction to Brian Edwards should just stay as unrequited affection, but here she was going to a church rally, the equivalent of a Christian date.
She really did not know much about Christian dating as she had never been out with a Christian before. She could remember having sex with several so-called Christian men but … she slammed the lid on the line her thoughts were taking and tried to concentrate on the wonderful present.
She had washed her hair and put in large curlers so that her hair would look fluffy when she took them out. Her favorite colors, red and pink, were vibrantly scattered in the ankle-length skirt she had put on. The fitted red blouse was modest enough to spare her blushes, yet fitted well enough to look feminine.
She was ready when she squirted a bit more of her favorite perfume onto her wrist. She had taken a deep breath, looked in the mirror and was sure that everyone in a one-mile radius would know how excited she was; she was just bursting with it.
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She had stepped into his car, taken one look at him in his suit and was tongue-tied all the way out of Kingston. He hadn’t seemed to be too talkative either, except for the speaking look of appreciation that he had raked over her body. He felt it too, she knew, and they were both trembling under the weight of their attraction.
He had Joe Rossi’s version of Bridge over Troubled Water playing when he had looked at her and asked her if she liked the song. She nodded shyly and hummed to the song … like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down …
He had looked at her. “I am beginning to feel that way about you.”
Maribel could barely look at him. She smiled and looked at the scenery that flashed by. Her body felt alive and tingling; her awareness of him was at its height—was this what it felt like to be in love? She grinned slowly when Aaron Neville’s version of the Lord’s Prayer came on.
“I like your taste in music.” She looked at him sideways.
He smiled. “I am basically a gospel music-loving guy.
“Me too, I mean I am a gospel music-loving girl.”
“Believe me Maribel,” he said, “I have no doubts that you are a girl.”
“You are making me blush.”
He laughed. “You are making me lust but I won’t hold that against you.”
She smiled and squeezed her trembling hands together.
“I grew up in a small town in Toronto called Elora. Very clean and tranquil place, murderously cold in winter. My father, who was a judge at the time—he is now retired—used to regale us, my sisters and I, with stories about his days in Jamaica, especially in the winter months when we were snowed in—we called those days Jamaica Days. My mother would sit beside him, a wistful smile on her mouth, as they told us about back in the days when they were in Jamaica.
“My father grew up in Negril, Westmoreland and my mother grew up in Montego Bay. They actually met at a church rally.”
Preacher and The Prostitute Page 5