Mercy, Mercy Me

by Ronn Elmore

  “Mr. Lejohn,” a stage assistant called out, “didn’t you want Mr. Wiley to go on a little early?”

  “Yeah,” L.W. called out. “Signal for Beverlyn to intro him now.”

  The tech disappeared from view as a makeup girl rushing to put last touches on a tall, blond-haired, and gruffly handsome man scurried to keep up with him as he brushed past L.W. and headed to the stage.

  Beverlyn hushed the audience before proceeding. “Now I have a real surprise for you. This man’s testimony we’ve all had the pleasure of watching unfold. There is no greater singer. Please join me in welcoming Grammy Award-winning Sean Wiley to the stage to sing his current hit—number one on Billboard’s gospel chart—‘For Love Alone.’”

  Deafening cheers, screams, and applause filled the auditorium as Sean took his place onstage and, as the spotlight came up, began to sing.

  For most of Sean Wiley’s thirty-five years, his business had been music. He first rose to fame in the 1980s with a sultry blend of blue-eyed soul rivaling the success of those like Michael Bolton and the sound of Luther Vandross. If you closed your eyes and just listened, you wouldn’t have guessed that Sean, like Bolton, was white. Nor could anyone have predicted the kind of success that followed his 1984 debut, including a string of hit albums, numerous awards and accolades, and several TV appearances.

  But it was nothing compared to the success and fulfillment that came with his conversion to gospel in the mid-nineties. Adding to the gold albums were three platinum awards, a string of Dove and Stellar Awards, a performance schedule that had him booked up to 150 dates a year, and profiles in leading Christian and mainstream publications, including People and USA Today. And as the former R&B sex symbol continued to mesmerize the gospel and Christian community, there had come the kind of adulation that was reserved for secular artists.

  “You were great,” a man said as Wiley walked offstage past a throng of waiting admirers to the backstage area. The evening nearly over, the greenroom was packed with prominent pastors and their wives, socialites, and local celebrities looking to say hello to both him and Beverlyn. At least half an hour would pass before the diva made her entrance, so he went to his dressing room to change.

  When he reemerged forty-five minutes later, some of the crowd had waned and Beverlyn was doing what she did best: working the room and turning on the charm. These pastors were her lifeblood: a network of people she depended on to get the word out about her ministry and her soon-to-be-launched Jubilee Network. She knew how to nail every angle, yet it was also very important to her that everything be first-class. With the help of her trusted personal publicist, Kim Steele, everything always was.

  Steele, invariably at Beverlyn’s side in public venues, was somewhat a chameleon. While at times you hardly knew she was there, there were those times when she took center stage, making sure everything ran with precision, timing, and the right results. She, too, appeared to be first-class—an attractive, professional type with a seemingly unshakable demeanor, who dressed conservatively, in perfectly coordinated designer suits.

  “Well, I’ve got some good news for you,” Beverlyn said to Sean as he approached her and Kim. “Ticket sales were going well for the Women’s Crusade, but when we announced you were added to the show, we sold out the Georgia Dome within twenty-four hours. I thought we were going to have to book the World Congress Center for the overflow.”

  Sean grinned. “You’re giving me way too much credit.”

  “Oh, please… You know you’re way bigger now than you ever were when you were singing that ‘groove with me’ stuff and gyrating your hips.”

  He chuckled. “Well, just call me the Elvis of gospel.”

  “Yeah, right.” It was Beverlyn’s turn at sarcasm.

  “How’s the Jubilee Network coming?”

  “Well, we’re just weeks away from the first telecast. Can you believe it?” Then, not giving him a chance to answer, Beverlyn continued, “I just keep thinking of all the things I’ll be able to do—so many people I can help and lives that can be saved and changed if things go well.”

  “You do quite a bit of that now.”

  “But I’m talking huge,” she said, spreading her arms wide and almost bumping into the mayor, who’d been standing to the side awaiting her acknowledgment. “Excuse me,” she said, turning back to wind down her conversation with Sean as Kim turned to greet the mayor.

  Sean took her hand. “God’s blessed everything you’ve touched. Why should this be any different?”

  “Because it’s L.A., Sean, and L.A., I’ve heard, is a tough nut to crack. A lot of megachurches. A lot of homegrown celebrities. It’s just not the same.”

  “Nothing’s the same in L.A. That’s why you’ll fit right in.”

  As he bade good night to Beverlyn, Sean remembered there was a call he needed to make. Stepping into the hall, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed the L.A. number. He was mildly disappointed when he called Dwayne’s office and the voice mail greeting came on.

  “Hey, man. Sorry I missed you. Just wanted to give you the heads-up on the concert next week. I’ve reserved two VIP tickets and all-access passes, so bring a date. There’ll be a party afterwards and of course, I’ll expect to see you there. By the way, Beverlyn Boudreaux’s been after me to introduce you two. She has some big project she wants to talk to you about. Well, got to run. I’ll talk to you when I get back to L.A.”

  As he tucked away his cell, Sean was hopeful Dwayne would be up to going out. He had been worried about his best friend, hoping in some small measure to help pull him through the gloom that had cast a dark cloud over his life since the death of his wife.

  “Good evening, Dr. Grandison,” the valet said as he opened the car door.

  Dwayne nodded. “Thank you, Edmund.” He handed his keys to the valet and entered the Wilshire-Pacific Towers. The heels of Dwayne’s polished shoes clicked against the marble floor, breaking the silence in the opulent lobby. It was almost eleven, so Dwayne wasn’t surprised to find the lobby empty, though even during the day, this high-priced high-rise condominium complex was often conspicuously bare.

  Once inside the elevator, he put the key into the panel granting him access to the seventeenth floor—the penthouse. As the chamber rose, his eyes held his own reflection in the mirrored doors. On the outside, he appeared fine; he hid well all that was brewing inside. The dark circles that had once taken up residence under his eyes had all but faded. And his return to his four-times-a-week workouts helped his chestnut skin regain its luster, making him appear younger than his thirty-seven years.

  As the elevator doors parted, he stepped into the circular foyer of the penthouse condominium and dropped his briefcase at the base of the round granite table. Loosening his tie he walked slowly into the living room and clicked the dimmer switch, allowing streams of amber light to radiate through the room. At the same time, Kirk Whalum’s mellow jazz filled the air, the result of an electronic gadget Yvette had installed when they first moved into the three-bedroom unit.

  Dwayne flipped through the mail that had piled up on the dining room table. Moments later, he tossed the envelopes aside and slumped onto the glove-soft leather couch.

  He closed his eyes and leaned back, stretching his legs onto the glass coffee table in front of him. With his eyes still closed, he breathed deeply, taking in the music. Opening his eyes, he allowed them to move through the room, soaking up every bit of the surroundings. Though Yvette had been dead now going on eleven months, she was still very much alive in his heart—and surroundings. From the furniture to the original paintings that covered the walls to the Chinese vases they had collected during their travels—even the plants that still flourished under the windows due to the weekly visits from his cleaning woman—it was all Yvette. Dwayne was sure that even his wife’s favorite perfume, Tiffany, still hung in the air.

  Slowly, he lifted himself and shrugged his jacket from his shoulders. He went into the extra bedroom, which had once been his home off
ice. Today it was a storage area, filled with empty U-Haul boxes, waiting for him to take the first steps.

  Dwayne roamed through the room with boxes in hand. In the living room, he began to pack away the pictures that filled the mantel and covered the piano, leaving just their wedding picture alongside a photo taken a few weeks before Yvette passed. Next he moved through the long hallway into the guest bedroom, where books Yvette had been reading were still stacked on the dresser. In one of the two bathrooms, he removed bottles of scented shampoos and fragrant lotions that had sat unused for a year.

  It was well past midnight by the time he went into the master bedroom they’d shared. Bernice and Robbie had mercifully spent the week after Yvette’s funeral packing the clothes that lined her two walk-in closets, and carted them off. Still, he’d kept some of her personal trinkets and much of her jewelry spread across the dresser, next to her picture.

  He gathered the jewelry into a pouch before returning to the guest room, emptying its contents onto the bed and then spreading the pieces until he found the one he was looking for. He stared at the diamond-studded Rolex he’d given Yvette nearly one year before on her thirty-fifth birthday. It had been among the personal effects he’d claimed at the hospital where she’d been pronounced dead upon arrival.

  He rolled the gold band through his fingers and then laid it on the pillow. Lifting the rest of the boxes, he took them into the guest room. It took him another hour to seal all the boxes, and when he finally lay down, still fully clothed, the grandfather clock in the foyer chimed four times.

  Chapter Two

  When God came into our lives, we were dead in trespasses and sins. Now”—Lafayette paused—“a dead man can’t be sorry that he’s dead. A dead man cannot wish to live and a dead man certainly cannot contribute anything to coming back to life. In fact, we—as sinners—were so dead that we couldn’t have come to God without God drawing us. And some of you all are sitting up in here dead right now.”

  Dead is surely what Dwayne felt inside as Pastor Lafayette Grandison continued his sermon while holding the gaze of the nearly seven hundred worshipers who’d gathered in the sanctuary of New Covenant Assembly for Sunday morning service. Dwayne sat in the front row, his shoulder rubbing against his mother’s. Bernice Grandison sat with her back pushed against the high pews, her chin jutted forward, her eyes following her older son as he strutted across the altar.

  With a flick of her wrist, Bernice threw up her hand and offered an amen, the sleeve of her salmon-hued, crepe-chiffon suit flowing so fluidly and setting off her impeccably styled silver-gray hair. Ms. G, as some of the kids in the congregation had nicknamed her, was known for her expensive and stylish collection of hats. Though she had aged gracefully, she insisted on remaining a style-setter; she wore the somber wisdom of her years only in the advice she gave her children.

  She hoped Dwayne was hearing all Lafayette had to say. She had known about—but not commented on—his failing marriage to Yvette. She’d liked Yvette, though she knew instinctively that she wasn’t the right woman for Dwayne, even if the girl was a beauty.

  “That’s right, son.” She flicked her wrist again, turning her attention to Lafayette’s words.

  “God wants you to stand on your own two feet because of His love alone,” Lafayette continued. “God looks at us and says, ‘I love you just the way you are. You are incapable of doing anything for Me.’ And in order to love and get nothing back, you’ve got to have something behind you, in you, around you, over you, under you, above you, and all through you. Nobody in here loves like that. Now, we might lie like that, but we don’t love like that.

  “It’s human to want to be replenished, but when you have a relationship with God, you have strength you didn’t know you had. We seek intercession because sixty percent of our trouble is relationships. Like the words in the refrain of a Teddy Pendergrass song, ‘Love TKO,’ aren’t you tired of getting beat up by love?

  “I want to tell you that you don’t have to throw yourself at anybody, at any time, because no matter what you think you need, God is saying, ‘Start looking to Me like you’ve been looking to others and I’ll give you the sense of peace you have never had.’ ”

  As Lafayette pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket, pressed the cloth against his face and announced that the doors of the church were open, the congregation bowed in prayer. Throughout the altar call and then the benediction, Dwayne held his head in his hands, bowed in prayer. It wasn’t until the rest of the congregation stood and his mother softly placed her hand on his shoulder that Dwayne lifted his head.

  “Are you all right, son?” Bernice’s thin eyebrows were creased together with concern.

  He nodded, then smiled and stood. Dwayne put his arm around his mother’s shoulders as the choir filed from the stand, followed by Lafayette and Minister Leslie, the assistant pastor. Then Dwayne took his mother’s hand and led her toward the back.

  At the end of every Sunday service, Bernice Grandison made her way to the doors of the church to stand with her son and daughter-in-law and greet the parishioners who patiently stood in line, waiting to address the Grandisons. While Roberta stood on one side of Lafayette, Mother Bernice, as she was lovingly called, stood on the other, with the stature of a First Lady, shaking hands with everyone, just as she’d done with her husband, Bishop John Grandison, for more than three decades.

  Dwayne kissed Bernice’s cheek—his sign that he had delivered his mother to her place. As members and friends strolled by, Dwayne attempted to step aside, but was met at each turn with greetings from people who had known him all his life.

  “How are you doing, Dwayne?” Mrs. King, one of the church’s founding members, asked.

  “Very well, ma’am. And how are you?”

  He nodded as he edged from the silver-haired woman and the others, seeking refuge in Lafayette’s office. For the past year, right after the close of service, Dwayne would make himself scarce, fleeing the curious gazes from people who openly wondered how well he was getting on since the passing of his wife, some of the unmarried women seeking the prime opportunity to make their moves.

  He walked into the office, settled into Lafayette’s chair, and turned toward the window. An overnight storm had pelted the city and had still been raging earlier that morning as Dwayne maneuvered his way through the rain-soaked streets to church. But now the sun glowed brightly, all signs of the severe weather gone. Dwayne turned the chair away from the window and the memories of Yvette that had flooded his mind during the service. He looked at the oversize picture of his father across the room. Bishop Grandison never looked more regal, sitting stately at his massive desk and draped in his classic black robe with red collar.

  A peaceful calm came over him as it had whenever he spent time alone in this office. It pleased him that Lafayette had not changed much since taking over, though the church had thrived, growing from four hundred active members to upwards of a thousand.

  Los Angeles respected grandeur, and nowhere was it more evident than in its astounding array of African American megachurches. “Whatever your thing is, you can find it in this town,” John Grandison would say, while not totally buying into the characterization that the city’s church community had been affected by, and perhaps even infected with, a Hollywood mentality, energized by worshipers who looked to where “the action” was—celebrities, progressive programming, exciting worship services, and ministers who themselves had acquired notoriety.

  While Lafayette’s status in L.A. bordered on celebrity, he was well liked among his peers. And while the preaching social chain could be quite treacherous, it was said of those envious of Lafayette that they might circle the wagons, but they didn’t dare attack. Dynamic, magnetic, and contemporary, he knew how to politic his way from South-Central to City Hall, and while the strength of his name alone at a press conference guaranteed the attendance of every major TV station, he steered clear of controversy.

  Perhaps the most powerful side of his appeal was
his pulpit charisma. His style was a rousing, “wake up, I’m talking to you” delivery, punctuated by an apparently boundless generosity that seemed to permeate every action and word, a powerful one-two punch to the worshipers who packed his Sunday morning service and a Wednesday night Bible study as well.

  Then there was the youthful exuberance of his forty-five years, his striking good looks, keen intellect, and community activism, all of which had helped to thrust Lafayette into a circle of high-profile black preachers often cast as community leaders. They were part of a new breed of savvy pastors who had—to a point—discarded a traditional and more denominational regimentation to embrace a fuller expression of worship while utilizing new technology and expanding church services to better serve the needs of parishioners.

  Though wise beyond his years, the six-foot-two light-complexioned man, whose muscular build bespoke a demanding daily exercise routine, was completely oblivious to the fascination driving the attendance of some of his female worshipers. He was, after all, a family man, particularly on Sundays, when he took pleasure in a Grandison tradition: Sunday dinner.

  “Hey, Dwayne, Mom was just asking where you were,” Lafayette said, jarring Dwayne from the window and his thoughts.

  Dwayne turned around to face his brother and Deacon Miller. “I thought I’d wait in here.”

  Lafayette smiled as he took off his robe and handed it to the deacon.

  “Is Mom outside?”

  “No. She went ahead to the house with Robbie. Wanted to spend extra time with the kids. In fact, let’s get going,” Lafayette said as Deacon Miller left the room.

  Dwayne stretched as he stood, and they walked from the church shoulder-to-shoulder.

  “Have you given any more thought to what we discussed the other night?”