No Ordinary Noel

by Pat G'Orge-Walker

  “Mother Blister, how long have I preached against gambling?” Reverend Tom had to bite his lower lip to keep from jumping in the backseat. “If I am to believe all that you’ve told me, I’ve taken in gambling money as tithes, too?”

  “It bought the robe ya wore at Brother Chauncey’s funeral last year,” Bea replied. “Ya looked real handsome in it, too.”

  She continued to reveal how many of the members held everything from backroom pool championships to running bets on who betted the most for the week. The football, basketball, and baseball seasons’ gambling tithes kept the electricity paid at the church. “The most money we’ve made on a weekly basis comes from who can name the mystery meat served at Porky’s on Thursday nights.”

  Reverend Tom gripped the steering wheel so tight his pecan brown skin turned walnut black. He struggled to remain civil and pastor-like as he asked, “And why haven’t I known about all this gambling going on right under my nose all these years?”

  Bea didn’t answer her pastor because she hadn’t finished telling it all yet. She folded her fat arms and ran down the list of folks who didn’t attend the church that often, but gambled and also paid tithes to keep the church going.

  Sister Betty turned to Bea to signal her not to say another word but Bea liked being the pastor’s pet for the moment. Sister Betty couldn’t have stopped Bea with a bullet to the heart.

  “To answer yo other question”—Bea beamed—“ya wasn’t supposed to know, that’s why ya didn’t. Ain’t ya the one always preaching about how to keep stuff in season and out? Well, knowing about gambling ain’t in your season. The congregation knows how high fallutin’ ya is, but we still love and admire ya for it.”

  She leaned back and winked at Sister Betty who’d sunk back farther into the car seat. Bea didn’t care. She was so proud she could’ve thumped the hump out of her own back.

  Reverend Tom felt like a fool after learning about all the stuff going on in his church and right under his nose. He’d been so busy preaching about what they shouldn’t do that he’d not paid attention to what they did do. “The Devil is a liar!”

  It was the second time in one day the reverend felt like cussing. He couldn’t and he wouldn’t, but he could sacrifice Sister Betty and he did.

  “Mother Blister,” the reverend said as calmly as possible, “I appreciate you and the Mothers Board, along with all the members of the church, but I fear we must revisit a few of our tenets.”

  “I didn’t know you visited tenants, Pastor. I thought you just went around praying for the sick and shut-in folk from our church.” Bea beamed. At that moment, she was truly proud of her pastor and his unselfishness.

  Reverend Tom almost ground his teeth down to the roots trying to remain civil. “I meant tenets as in some of the laws and rules that govern our church.” He shook his head and made up his mind to just do it and not discuss it.

  “I’ve decided to have Sister Betty work with your committee. She’s an alternate member of the Church Board and you need a board member overseeing the prom.” He threw it out there the same way he’d have said, “Have a nice day.”

  Before Bea could protest, Sister Betty spoke on both their behalfs. “I told you, I’m not well. I’m an old woman and I don’t wanna die before my time.”

  Bea exited the car without a word. Once she got inside the door she took off her coat, raced to the phone, and dialed Sasha’s number. When Sasha didn’t answer, she left a message. “Sasha, this ain’t the time to act like ya still mad at me. We got a bigger problem ’cause Reverend Tom done throw Sister Betty on our Seniors Prom Planning Committee!”

  It wasn’t an hour later that Sasha arrived at Bea’s apartment. As soon as she’d entered her living room and heard Bea’s message about Sister Betty, she grabbed her hat, her cane, and called for a ride.

  Over the years, Sasha and Bea had embraced the old adage the enemy of my enemy is my friend when it came down to Sister Betty’s interference in their business.

  No quicker had Bea let Sasha through the door, than she started. “Look at this clap trap you live in.” Sasha pointed to the mismatched green, purple, and orange kitchen chairs that had flea market and yard sale invisibly written on them.

  “Listen up, Thumbelina. I didn’t call ya to listen to ya mess. We’d better get Sister Betty off this committee. Ya know she’s too holy-fied to work with us.”

  At the mention of Sister Betty’s name, Sasha’s anger surfaced and reminded her why she’d rushed over. She threw her cane in the corner of Bea’s living room and nearly decapitated one of Bea’s fake potted palms. “You are right. We can insult each other any time. So what do you think we should do? Reverend Tom can be mighty hardheaded once he’s made up his mind about some things.”

  “We’d better hurry and think of somethin’. Thanksgiving is in two weeks and soon after is the Seniors Prom. I hafta finish up these T-shirts so it’s gonna be up to ya to get rid of her.”

  “Other than killing her I don’t know what we can do.” Sasha let the thought linger just in case Bea wasn’t totally against harming Sister Betty.

  “Naw, we can’t kill her,” Bea answered as she tried to tape the big leaf back onto the palm. “I’ve already been to jail. Ya would be somebody’s appetizer and I wouldn’t last past supper.”

  With Sister Betty thrown on board the Seniors Prom sinking ship, they actually took time to ask God for permission to slay His right-hand gal. They also remembered to ask God to do something about the recession. Neither could afford their costly medications for their varied physical and mental needs.

  And that wasn’t good for them, the church, or the country.

  Chapter 11

  The next week sped by. On the Sunday morning before Thanksgiving, Trustee Noel arrived at Sister Betty’s home as planned. They had been calling each other regularly since their meeting at the Shanty two weeks ago.

  “Come on in, Trustee Noel.” Sister Betty led the shy man into the living room and offered him a seat.

  “Thank you,” Trustee Noel said as his skinny body sank and almost disappeared into the overstuffed pillow at his back. “You have a lovely home.”

  “I’m glad you like it.” Sister Betty noticed he wore what looked like something new. She wanted to say something but didn’t want him to feel overwhelmed by kindness. “Can I offer you something to drink?”

  Trustee Noel shook his head. He was nervous and needed at least one hand to twist that hair spritz on the top of his head.

  When they’d chatted earlier in the week, they decided that although the trustee had the bank check for twenty-five million dollars, they doubted the reverend would change his position on what he’d called ill-gotten gains.

  “He’d be a fool to turn down this check.” Trustee Noel had argued that point repeatedly. Once Sister Betty told him the bank had turned down the request for an extension twice, he became more adamant. “I’m on the Finance Committee. The bank is not playing. They don’t lose.”

  “I know,” Sister Betty replied. “The way the bankers see things, if the church loses the Promised Land, they get the land back, the structures, and the money from whoever purchases it. If the church uses your money, then the bank cashes the check, and they still have your money.”

  “There’s got to be a way we can put the squeeze on the bank and the pastor. If we can, the church doesn’t lose the land or its leader. The bank will go after the reverend for certain if the loan isn’t paid.”

  “Well, we’d better come up with something,” Sister Betty said as she pulled her coat from the closet. The trustee rose and helped her with it. “Thanksgiving is next week and so is the Seniors Prom. Time is moving and we’d better be, too.”

  When they reached Crossing Over Sanctuary the parking lot was almost empty. The worshippers who did attend trudged inside without smiling. It hardly mattered, because the ushers rarely smiled anyway.

  Trustee Noel escorted Sister Betty to her regular seat behind Bea and Sasha. It’d been her assi
gnment for years to sit there and spiritually handcuff them with prayer. If she weren’t vigilant enough or even went to the bathroom during the service those two old women broke loose and ignored every church rule and protocol before the offering was raised. Sister Betty saw Sasha was seated, but Bea was nowhere in sight. That wasn’t a good sign. Sister Betty was glad she hadn’t shared her plan to get rid of them by paying them off. She was more certain than ever the reverend wouldn’t have gone along with it, but she still didn’t want any part of their planning committee.

  As she looked around the empty seats of the sanctuary, she felt a sadness that almost smothered her. “My Sweet Lord,” she prayed. “You can’t let Your people fall by the wayside like this. Lord, show me what to do.”

  Placing her Bible on the pew beside her, she folded her hands. The choir, fewer in number, sang the songs of Zion as best they could. A few minutes later, those in the sanctuary stood, the weight of their individual situations etched on their faces. The heavy doors from the prayer room creaked as they slowly opened, signaling the pastor would emerge. Immediately the congregation opened their Bibles—their swords as they called them—and began to sing, “Welcome into the place, welcome into this Sanctuary . . .”

  Reverend Tom chose a deep purple long-sleeved robe with white and gold trim blazed along the hem and along the zipper line. He’d always referred to it as his fighting gear. The purple represented the Royal Priesthood that he took so seriously. The robe came to him as a gift from the Pastor’s Aid Society. According to Bea the Pastor’s Aid had sold raffles right there on the church grounds.

  His eyes swept his congregation as he adjusted the heavy gold cross around his neck. He laid the small notebook that held his “thus saith Lord” sermon on the pulpit, feeling like a fraud, unworthy to lift the spirits of those who needed so much and had so little.

  The truth was that the reverend did everything he could to avoid preaching that morning. Precious sleep had avoided him last night. The energetic light that normally shone in his brown eyes had faded and he felt as though his soul had suffered a blackout.

  “Take your burdens to the Lord in prayer.” His soul wept and no one saw the tears. But he hadn’t done that. His burden remained embedded because he’d refused to accept that he wasn’t the Super Pastor. His head dropped and he laid a hand against one ear as he often did when the preaching got good. Not this time. His hand laid across his ear because he grappled with the sound bites Bea had pushed into his head.

  He motioned for the choir to sing another song. He felt he needed more time to gain composure. He looked over at the Mothers Board. He saw Sasha, but couldn’t find Bea as he scanned the congregation. Where was she? Had she thrown a stone and hidden her hand?

  He couldn’t get past it. Yesterday, in a fifteen-minute car ride, the old church mother, with her quirky outlook on life, and her customized church devotion, had yanked the covers off. She had managed to unveil not only his church members’ flawed worship, but his as well.

  Somehow, at the very moment, the choir sang “I come to the garden alone” and the congregation waited for a word from the Lord, Reverend Tom thought of Moses, who fell from favor and was not permitted to lead his people to the Promised Land. Would the same fate await him?

  Chapter 12

  The morning service was well into its second part and the collection plate was near empty. No one had cut a step for the Lord and it felt more like a funeral than a hallelujah good time.

  Reverend Tom summoned the courage to preach despite his need for rest and a firm rededication to his God. The message he prayed about and edited from a previous one while he waited in his study received a lukewarm reception.

  Several times while he preached “Time to Make a Change,” he heard someone say aloud, “You need to change.” In his entire time preaching before his congregation, he’d never felt so low.

  Reverend Tom slowly came to the realization that truly broke-in-the-pocket folk would break the rules. The members had gone from calling out “amen!” to heckling the man of God.

  While the reverend struggled through the service, Trustee Noel struggled, too. He sat with his hands folded across his skinny chest and glared. He wanted to cry out, “I’ve got the millions we need to get us to the Promised Land!”, but he couldn’t. His bullheaded pastor’s stand on gambling stood in the way. The only thing moving during the uninspired service were the hands on the clock . . . and they moved slowly.

  While trustee Noel pondered what to do, so did Sister Betty. She prayed, wept, and did everything but rush up to the pulpit and shake her pastor by his thick neck.

  Then the sound of low murmurs broke out over the sanctuary and Sister Betty’s head jerked toward the source. She saw him; she knew it was him because it looked like a silver streak of lightning flashed through the front pews.

  Before the trustee reached the podium to join the reverend, Sister Betty’s knee buckled. It jerked as though a rubber band held it and then broke. It shook enough to cause it to fall away from its resting place on the back of the pew in front of her where it waited to trip Bea, who’d finally arrived, and Sasha before they could cut up again.

  “Praise the Lord, Pastor,” Trustee Noel called out. He became almost out of breath as he wrestled with one overzealous usher who tried to stop him.

  The trustee held up his white envelope and waved it to get the reverend’s attention. “Pastor, please I have a special announcement.” With one strong jerk, he completely threw off the usher twice his size.

  From the moment her pastor walked to the pulpit, Sister Betty began to feel uneasy. It grew worse, once he waved away another usher who’d rushed to join the first one holding the trustee.

  “Come on, Trustee Noel”—the reverend beckoned—“say what’s on your mind. God wants our all when we worship.”

  “I wanna save my church,” Trustee Noel blurted. He made a final run and it looked as though he tackled the reverend before he thrust the envelope into Reverend Tom’s outstretched hand.

  Although the reverend’s body and spirit felt spent, he managed to remain upright. The skinny trustee actually felt like a gnat had landed upon him.

  Meanwhile Elder Batty Brick who sat not far from the trustee remained frozen. The only part of his body that moved was his head and neck, which he managed to swing toward Brother Casanova.

  Elder Batty Brick had said nothing, but Brother Casanova didn’t need to turn up his hearing aid when he saw Elder Batty Brick mouth the words, Number two pencil has snapped. Brother Casanova nodded his assent. They thought the same thing. No matter what Bea and Sasha said, there was no way they were going to trust that crazy man to hang up the coats at the Seniors Prom.

  It didn’t matter at that moment what others thought. Trustee Noel was riding high. He literally galloped in on those bad feet and was about to save his church.

  He was dressed in what he believed was the latest in Super Saint apparel. He wore one of his new JCPenney suits that were Buy One Get Three. He knew he was dapper sharp.

  The chocolate brown suit with matching brown leather shoes held the reflection from an overhead light and it made him feel handsome. He smoothed a wrinkle in his light blue shirt and straightened his brown and blue tie. With a dramatic finger gesture, he made certain everyone saw the huge fake cubic zirconium pinky ring, and motioned to the reverend to open the envelope. When he’d dressed that morning he’d promised himself to act blessed and not shy.

  His eyes darted about the congregation, looking for Sister Betty. He hoped she’d show a sign that even though he’d not stuck to the plan, he had done the right thing.

  When his eyes finally met hers he saw a woman who seemed to levitate off her seat in anger. She glared at him and shook her head. He saw her fumble with her Bible and shift in her seat. None of it was a sign of encouragement, but it didn’t matter. Reverend Tom had opened the envelope.

  By the time the pastor held up the bank check and laid his arm on the trustee’s shoulder, Sister Be
tty’s knee had almost jerked out of its socket. “Oh heavenly Father,” she moaned.

  Her head dropped to her chest. The trustee had jumped the gun and she knew nothing good was about to happen. She prayed, “Bind that Devil right now.”

  No sooner had Sasha and Bea overheard Sister Betty pray to ask God to bind the Devil, than each sat up in their seats. Sister Betty might not have wanted to see drama, but those two old drama queens started salivating.

  While the entire congregation sat stunned or waited for an impromptu Jerry Springer moment, Reverend Tom adjusted the microphone so he could address the church. Unaware that Sister Betty, back in her seat, prayed on his behalf, he felt light as a feather.

  “I have in my hand manna from Heaven. This is God’s answer to fervent prayer and the key to our Promised Land.” Reverend Tom stopped to let the congregation absorb his words while he clutched the trustee a little closer with one massive arm.

  “This is a check for twenty-five million dollars.” Reverend Tom barely spoke the words, before the church’s playful organist started playing a remix of Johnny Kemp’s hit, “Just Got Paid.”

  A quick glaring rebuke from the reverend brought that unscripted part of the service to a halt. The shameless organist sank back onto the organ bench.

  One of the ushers who stood near the last pew overheard the pastor’s announcement from the back row where for the entire second part of the service, he’d stood resting on one of the seats instead of at attention or handing out fans.

  He leaned in and whispered to a seat-filler seated on the edge, “I betcha that trustee must’ve finally gotten that big money from that lawsuit.”

  That’s all it took. Within a few seconds, any of the nasty comments ever spoken about the trustee flip-flopped and somersaulted. As the rumor went around the sanctuary, folk started squirming in their seats as if the Spirit had touched them. If the church were on Facebook, Trustee Noel would’ve reached his friend limit within the first five minutes.