by Dijorn Moss
“How’s your brother?” Pastor Dawkins asked Chauncey.
“He’s not good. He’s dying and unrepentant.”
Pastor Dawkins gave Chauncey an awkward look. His sister made Chauncey feel guilty, but he knew Pastor Dawkins sided with him.
“Why are you here?” Pastor Dawkins asked.
“To get closer to God,” Chauncey said with a nervous laugh.
“I appreciate your desire to get closer to God, but Christianity is about being there for the sick and being your brother’s keeper. Your brother needs you more now. You have a strong relationship with the Lord. I know the Lord would understand if you missed the Men’s Retreat to be by your brother’s side to pray for him.”
Chauncey could not believe the words that came out of Pastor Dawkins’s mouth. “With all due respect, I don’t want to be there with my brother, Pastor. He has been selfish all his life. He has taken advantage of everyone in his path and now I just can’t find a way to be there for him,” Chauncey concluded.
Pastor Dawkins let out a smile that did not ease the tension. “You find a way, the same way God finds a way to forgive you. You have to be willing to forgive, and you do not want the regret of not being there for your brother in the final moments.” Pastor Dawkins paused. “What if your prayer was the one that turned your brother’s life around?”
“Pastor, I can’t afford to be distracted.”
“Distracted from what?”
“I know God has a calling on my life and that is to preach His word.”
“God has a calling on all of our lives and that is to minister to his people. We accomplish this by showing compassion to those who are in need of the gospel. Until you learn that, I cannot accept you into my minister’s class.”
The bottom fell out for Chauncey. The only thing that Chauncey regretted was this moment. He felt like no one was on his side, not even the man who he admired the most. “With all due respect, Pastor, I think you may have been distracted yourself.”
Pastor Dawkins reached his hand up and blocked Will’s clippers from continuing to cut his hair. He stood up to allow his massive size to fill the room and dwarf Chauncey. “Distracted? What do you mean I’ve been distracted?”
Chauncey now felt incredibly foolish for overstepping his bounds, but maybe God was using him to convey a message to his shepherd.
“I’m just saying that we knew that having women here at this event was a distraction. I never thought that you would be caught up in this distraction with that young lady I’ve seen you with.”
Chauncey’s statement provoked Pastor Dawkins to walk toward Chauncey with his eyebrows pointed in an arch. “Make no mistake about it. I have not been distracted this weekend and I’ve not engaged in any inappropriate conduct. Before you take the speck out my eye you need to remove the beam from yours.”
Pastor Dawkins’s words were sharp and they cut to the core of Chauncey’s being. It was not possible that Chauncey could feel any lower than he did at that moment. His spine had been ripped out and all he could do was escort himself out of the room.
“I apologize for my words,” Chauncey said before he left the room.
He greeted the cool air and exhaled, hoping to restore some of his decency. He could not believe the betrayal that had just taken place. He knew that God had spoken a destiny in his life. For Pastor Dawkins to deny him God’s will made Chauncey question whether he could serve a man who refused to follow God’s will.
“Hold up, Chauncey!”
Chauncey turned around and saw Will closing the door behind him.
“Hey, Will, what’s up?”
“I just wanted to say thank you for bringing me here this weekend. It takes lots of guts to take a complete stranger and offer him a chance to change his life.”
Chauncey realized that the circumstances surrounding Will’s attendance at the Retreat were peculiar at best. The truth was that Chauncey’s reason for attending was more self-centered than anything else.
“Don’t thank me; thank the Lord that He put me in your path.”
“I don’t know how many times I came close to giving up this weekend. Thanks to you and the guys I managed to hang in there. I at least got some kind of peace before I head back.”
“Do me a favor, Will.” Chauncey waited for Will to give him the signal to proceed. “Don’t bow down to the circumstances of life. If you think that all you have is what waits for you back at home, then you have surrendered to a mediocre existence. You were meant for more than that.”
Chauncey did not know if the words he spoke were from the spirit or from disgust. All the work he had poured into the ministry, all the devotion Chauncey had shown Pastor Dawkins, only for Chauncey to get rejected in the end.
Quincy had seen Will checking his gun earlier. He’s lucky everyone agreed not to say anything to anyone about the gun shots. He knew that Will was not straight up and that Chauncey probably found him in the gutter. He opened the drawer where the gun was hidden, underneath a Bible, of all things. A beautiful chrome 9 mm. He occasionally went to the gun range. Firing a couple of rounds felt more therapeutic than prayer.
He placed the barrel of the gun underneath his chin. One bullet and it’s lights out. One bullet could send him to heaven, which would make him the envy of every brother at this Retreat. One bullet could also send him to hell. It was a moment that he could never get back.
Quincy closed his eyes, and a tear snuck out of his closed lids. He had made a mess. A collapsed deal and a failed marriage not even a great architect like Quincy could rebuild.
“You’ve got to face it,” Jamal said from the doorway.
Quincy should have known that God would not have allowed a suicide to occur on His turf.
“I know you think you made a mess of things and that it would be easy to just end it here.” Jamal closed the door and walked toward Quincy, who had turned around with the gun in his hand.
Quincy sat on the bed, and a cold chill enveloped his body. “I wanted revenge, that’s why I came here. I couldn’t care less about getting closer to God. Now I have my answer. What else is there?” Quincy put the gun on the nightstand and started to pack up his clothes.
“You can’t leave,” Jamal said.
“There’s no sense in staying. I would offer you a ride, but I get the feeling that you would probably stay,” Quincy said as he removed the clothes from hangers.
“How come you didn’t tell me about Karen?”
“That’s none of your concern.”
“I’m your prayer partner. I’m supposed to be the one person you can go to about anything, but you didn’t want me to think that you didn’t have everything together.”
“I did have everything together until God came into the mix.”
The front door sort of hit Jamal in the back. He looked through the crack and saw that it was Will on the other side. Jamal opened the door and let him in.
“On the real, what happened to you was fowl. What you going to do?” Will asked Quincy.
“I’m going home,” Quincy barked.
“Home? So you’re going to let him get away with it?”
“A disgraced minister is hardly getting away with anything,” Quincy replied.
“Don’t leave,” Jamal said.
“There’s no reason for staying.” Quincy shrugged.
“Stay for me, because I need you here and I’ve been a true friend to you.”
“I can’t believe what you’re asking me.”
“I’m asking you to give God a chance to work things out.”
“I know God is in the miracle business, but not even He can work this out.”
“Please give it a chance.”
Quincy did not even say anything; he just dropped his bags and considered his prayer partner’s request. He would even consider that his life was starting to return to its normal pattern, until a knock on the door produced Minister Jacobs. Quincy’s heartbeat nearly broke his ribs.
“Can we talk?” Minister Ja
cobs’s voice trembled under his words.
Quincy had something else in mind that he and the minister could do, but, instead, he gave a nod to Jamal and Will. The two men left the room.
This was the moment that Quincy had waited for: he was alone with the man who had been sleeping with his wife. The culprit was within five feet of him with nothing but space and opportunity separating them. He could break his nose or choke him to death. For a millisecond he thought about the gun on the nightstand. He wished he could say that God was responsible for preventing him from reaching for it. The truth was, Quincy knew that by the time he reached for that gun and pointed to shoot, Jacobs would be halfway to Carmel.
“I bet you want to punch me,” Minister Jacobs said apprehensively.
Quincy leaped up, ready to pounce on Minister Jacobs. He had to remind himself that Quincy Page did not lose his cool. Quincy Page did not get into fights like some street thug. “I ought to break your jaw. You don’t take something that belongs to me.”
“It was a moment of weakness.”
“I love how you Christians like to downplay your actions! ‘It was a moment of weakness’! You slept with my wife! You used your title to seduce her, and ruined a marriage.” Quincy gave Minister Jacobs the thumbs-up.
“Have you ever considered how unhappy Karen was?”
“Excuse me, but you don’t get to psychoanalyze my wife’s and my marriage to make it seem like your affair is really therapy.”
“I came here to ask for your forgiveness.”
“You don’t need my forgiveness. Ask God, He seems to have plenty for you.”
Minster Jacobs started to cry. Quincy could not believe what was going on. He would have much rather had a fight than see a grown man standing in front of him, boo-hooing. At least then he would know that he was engaged in an intense battle with another man. He did not know if he could really call Minister Jacobs a man. He was a punk, if anything.
“I don’t want to forgive you. I really don’t. You get to destroy my marriage and get redeemed?” Quincy spat.
“I’m not getting away scot-free. My ministry is ruined. My integrity has been compromised. Yes, I believe God will restore me, but I have to first seek forgiveness, and I don’t want to go on without making things right with you first.”
In the end, Quincy could not fault Minister Jacobs for desiring his wife. It wasn’t like Karen was some postmenopausal widow. She was a fox, beautiful, with a fat bank account provided courtesy of her husband. She was the real offender. Karen was the one who’d made a vow before God and Quincy to forsake all others. There was nothing to be gained by holding a grudge against a minister.
“Whatever. You’re forgiven,” Quincy mumbled.
“Thank you, thank you,” Minister Jacobs said, like he had just been granted a stay of execution.
Minister Jacobs would be redeemed. Quincy was sure of that. God always redeemed His children, while he himself was still looking for a chance to be avenged.
Chapter Twenty-six
If a bull wore glasses, he would look just like Pastor Hughes. He was a robust man with pepper black skin. “You think you’re a real man, what, because of the size of your manhood? Because you can go out and make money?” There was no response from the crowd, so the question came off as rhetorical. “That don’t make you a man. A real man is a man after God’s heart. David was a real man. Sure he had slipups, but that didn’t stop him from being all that God would have him be.”
Will was moved by the story of David. He was a man most people could relate to and admire. He was flawed, but he was not a punk. He got down when he needed to, and with everything, he trusted God.
“We have a great example in David. We have to put aside the petty competition, because we rob ourselves of a great brotherhood that could be formed, like David’s and Jonathon’s relationship. You see, the devil knows that, and he appeals to our competitive nature. That’s why we have to have the prettiest wife, and if that doesn’t work, we go out and get someone else’s wife.”
Pastor Hughes took off his glasses, then placed them on the podium as he stepped away and stood in front of the men.
“The scripture says that a friend loves at all times, but a brother is born for adversity. How many of you can honestly say that you have a brother you can call in times of adversity?”
Pastor Hughes’s question sparked the brothers throughout the room to look at each other.
“I know I have one in Pastor Dawkins. I called him the other day when someone stole our church van and roughed up Deacon Porter.”
The statement caused Will to look the other way out of guilt. The name Celebration Christian Center had sounded familiar, but what were the odds that the church that Will had stolen a van from earlier was the same church in attendance tonight?
“Get this: David was a king before he ruled over Israel. He was a king because God had already set him apart. You are all kings because God has already set you apart. The lion is known as the king of the jungle. We know that there is more than one lion, so there can be more than one king of the jungle. We can all exist and occupy the same space without sacrificing our God-given destiny.”
Will had considered himself a lot of things over the years: a thief, a hustler, a gangster, and a menace. But he’d never possessed enough self-worth to consider himself royalty. Could God have gone through such great lengths to reach him? Was Will caught up in an intricate plot by God?
“There’s someone here who can’t believe that God loves him so much that he would go through such great lengths for him. If that’s you, friend, I want you to come up here.”
Will was spooked by how well the pastor read his thoughts. Despite his reservations, Will got up and walked toward the preacher. Pastor Hughes put one hand on Will’s shoulders and gave him a look like he was going to punch him in the stomach. Then Pastor Hughes put the mic to his lips.
“Young man, everything that society has said about you is a lie. You’ve been told that you’re worthless and that you won’t amount to nothing, but God wanted me to tell you that He loves you and he has a great work in store for you to accomplish.”
Tears burst from Will’s eyes, and the large pastor gave him a big hug. All of his life he’d felt invisible. His gang was an invisible army that just wanted its existence to be known; even if their existence was more of a deficit than a benefit. They rained shots in the air, tagged on walls, and wreaked all kinds of havoc just so that the world would recognize that they were here. That they mattered.
Now Will had a new understanding. He had always mattered to God and he was not here to simply exist. He had a purpose, and while that purpose was at the moment obscure to him, he knew it existed.
“Is there something you want to say?” Pastor Hughes put the mic to Will’s lips.
“I want to get my life right with God,” Will said.
Every man in the room jumped out of his seat and started dancing and shouting. Will sat down and buried his face into his hands. Jamal and Chauncey surrounded Will and prayed for him.
Every tear was purifying and an ache followed every beat of Will’s heart. The emotions ran so rampant inside of Will that sitting in the chair was no longer a desirable position. Will fell to his knees and surrendered.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Quincy needed some fresh air, and the smell of seaweed was, at this point, alluring. He embarked on his journey toward the ocean with a question in mind. Would he stop at the shore or would he keep walking?
While listening to the minister speak and watching his brethren receive their breakthroughs, Quincy came to the realization that everything he had done had been for Karen and his daughter. What was the point of conquest if there was no one to share the spoils with? There were plenty of moments when Quincy could not stand Karen. There was also no shortage of moments when he wished he and Karen had decided not to have a child. But, even still, Quincy would trade all of his bellyaches with a wife and kid than the emptiness that accompanied his
current state.
“Q, wait up.”
Quincy turned around and saw Jamal jogging toward him.
“Where you going?” Jamal asked.
“For a walk. Care to join me?”
Jamal simply gave Quincy a nod and walked alongside him. At night, the boardwalk that led to the beach seemed to fade into darkness. Quincy could barely make out his feet in front of him. In fear that he might misstep and injure himself, Quincy walked slowly and made calculated steps. He could hear the rumblings of nature’s wildlife, which only made the walk more eerie. Heavy footsteps started to close in, and both Quincy and Jamal turned around to see Will jogging toward them.
“What y’all up to?” Will asked as he approached the two men.
“Just going for a walk,” Jamal answered.
With Super Dad and O-Dog accompanying him, Quincy knew that he was not about to commit suicide. The sound of the waves crashing was an indicator that they were getting close to the water, and the sand looked more smoking gray at night. The wind started to pick up, and Quincy noticed that there was a pile of wood sitting on the sand.
“We can build a fire,” Quincy suggested.
Will and Jamal walked ahead of Quincy. When they arrived at the pile of wood, Quincy stood back and watched as Jamal and Will piled the wood together to create a bonfire. Will ignited the wood with a lighter from his pocket. When the orange-red flames became emboldened, Quincy sat in silence and listened to the ocean. Jamal and Will stared at the flames, waiting for Quincy to say a word.
“I was wondering where you guys went off to.” Chauncey emerged from the darkness and sat between Quincy and Jamal.
“Look, man, don’t come over here with no sermons. I ain’t in the mood,” Quincy said.
“Brother Page, I’m really sorry to hear about you and Karen. The way she used to talk about you around the church, she made it seem like you had stopped coming to church for no reason.”
“What do you know, C? You’re not even married,” Quincy said.