“Why would he do this to me?” I asked myself over and over again. My best guess was that both he and God were conspiring against me. I was still recovering from my humiliation at the debate tournament. And now this? If I’d choked with only four other people in the room, how could I speak—not to mention preach—before an audience of hundreds?
I looked at the clock and realized that falling apart was not an option. I scooped up my belongings and set off for Danville, driving while desperately conjuring a presentation about the only biblical story I knew by heart. I had rehearsed it many times in my bedroom, and it had been applauded by my imaginary audience. But I wasn’t sure that a real audience would be as kind.
Zipping through the countryside, I orated aloud and gave myself pep talks. Passing drivers probably thought I was insane, the way I death-gripped the wheel and yelled at my image in the rearview mirror, jabbing my finger at myself and screaming, “You got this!” There were intervals of total meltdown, too, before the one-hour drive was over. When I reached my destination, the church parking lot had overflowed and cars lined the street and piled on the lawn.
I entered the lobby and was greeted by a friendly staff member.
“Welcome, and thank you for coming! The sanctuary is right this way,” she said, beckoning me toward the double doors.
“Hi, um, actually… I’m looking for the pastor’s study.”
“I’m so sorry but the pastor is currently occupied,” the greeter said as she again gestured toward the sanctuary. I didn’t know how to explain the situation. I kept asking, and she kept explaining that the pastor was busy waiting for the guest speaker.
“Um… that’s actually what I need to speak with the pastor about. I’m Brandon, Pastor Gilbert’s assistant.”
She apologized profusely. “Oh, forgive me, I’m so sorry. Please, right this way.”
As we walked through the corridor, I contemplated how I would deliver the bad news. The response would not be good, no matter what words I used.
The kind lady knocked on the pastor’s office door and introduced me as the guest speaker’s aide. The gentleman welcomed me into his office and offered me a drink. He meant water, but I wanted to ask for whiskey to quell my anxiety. I sat on the chaise next to the bookshelf, chugging the glass of water like I was gulping from a fresh spring. Until I nearly choked when he asked the inevitable.
“We are so thrilled to host Pastor Gilbert tonight. How much longer until he arrives?” he asked so excitedly. I was about to crush his expectations. It dawned on me that I should have called to break the news before I actually arrived.
The unabridged truth tumbled out: “Pastor Gilbert can’t make it.”
The pastor looked like he wanted to understand but could not. He looked like he wanted to say something but was struck dumb. He stared silently at me. Not knowing what else to do, I continued.
“I am so sorry to tell you like this, but he is stuck in DC due to unforeseen circumstances.”
Terrified, I delivered the rest of the message. “And he asked me to come here and speak on his behalf.”
The pastor was too shocked to be horrified or angry. From the pastor’s study, we could hear that the service was well underway. He had no other option but to trust, or at least accept, Gilbert’s dicey decision to send an untested college kid to fill the featured slot at the church’s biggest annual conference.
The pastor and I stepped onto the pulpit from a backstage passageway. He gestured for me to sit in the speaker’s chair. It was so ornate that it looked like a Gothic throne. There was nothing to worry about as far as the congregation knew. Preachers often arrived fashionably late. When they saw me emerge onto the stage, they probably assumed that I was an assistant placing Pastor Gilbert’s Bible and water in position.
Pastor Gilbert’s face was plastered on the cover of the printed program. How would all these people react when they learned that he wasn’t coming? Everywhere he went, swarms of folks traveled miles to hear his preaching. I had never seen an empty seat at a revival where he was featured, and this was no different. There was barely standing room. People crowded against the walls, waiting for the Sean Gilbert experience they yearned for.
When the choir launched into the hymn that was supposed to precede his sermon, my panic rose. People were twisting and turning in the pews, looking desperately for the man of the hour, who was nowhere to be found. The pastor sat rigid and I kept my eyes glued to the floor. I couldn’t look. The entire ordeal felt like when a guy brings his side chick to a family cookout instead of the girlfriend everyone knew. It was me: I was the side chick.
The pastor interrupted my reverie. “Do you have a bio?” he asked.
“A bio?” I replied, totally caught off guard. The crowd already looked restless and suspicious, and anything they learned about my past would make things worse.
I imagined him stepping up to the podium with an air of resignation. I know we were all looking forward to hearing Pastor Gilbert today, but he can’t make it. Instead we have a young man with a delinquent past who once dropped out of college. He is not clergy, but don’t worry. He has now returned to college, where he is a failed debater and serves as Pastor Gilbert’s assistant. Please welcome Brandon Fleming as he gives his first speech ever.
I lied and told the pastor that I left my bio at home. Lying in the pulpit was the least of my concerns. He now seemed just as apprehensive as I was. He already questioned Gilbert’s decision to send me, and my lack of a prepared introduction undermined his confidence even more, I could tell.
Because I didn’t have a written bio for him to read, the pastor decided to skip the introduction and leave me to explain who I was. I wanted to punch the preacher in the face for making me the bearer of bad news. I was convinced that he had joined forces with Gilbert and God to form an unholy trinity determined to take me down.
As the last notes of the choir’s pre-sermonic selection faded to quiet, the pastor gently placed the cordless microphone on my lap. I wasn’t ready. Beads of sweat dripped from my armpits and down the sides of my torso. I reached for my water, but I had drained the glass in my desperate attempt to relieve a bad case of cotton mouth. Now I had to pee. But it was too late. Because my time had come.
The entire church went silent. The room was so still that I could hear my short, frantic breaths. I could feel my heart throbbing. I gripped the microphone like I was choking it. Beside me were a Bible, binder of notes, hand towel, and the empty glass—all of which I needed to carry to the podium. The pastor offered no assistance. He looked at me as if to say, You’re on your own now. I made two trips, avoiding eye contact with members of the stoic congregation and pretending that they couldn’t see me. I cast a parting grimace at the pastor as if to say, Thanks for the help, asshole.
At the podium, I didn’t pick up the microphone right away. Slowly, I flipped through my notes and Bible to give Pastor Gilbert a few more seconds to show up and save the day. I sneaked glances toward the rear of the sanctuary, hoping that he would emerge like Superman. Or maybe he would burst through a side door and yell, “Brandon, you’ve been punk’d!” I would’ve been perfectly fine with that. Or maybe the Rapture would occur, and everyone would magically ascend to the heavens. If that happened, I wasn’t sure that heaven would be my destination. But the alternative would be better than where I stood right now. When I accepted that there would be no redemption, I finally picked up the microphone. And I spoke.
“Umm, good evening,” I said after clearing my throat a couple of times.
Everybody watched, but no one responded. So I continued.
“Unfortunately, Pastor Gilbert won’t be able to make it this evening.”
I paused to give the audience a moment to react. But they didn’t. I expected groans but their faces were impassive, and their eyes fastened on me as they waited for more.
“My name is Brandon Fleming,” I continued.
“I’m, uh…” I did not want to say it.
“I’
m Pastor Gilbert’s assistant. I know how much you were looking forward to hearing him today. Believe it or not, I’m just as disappointed as you.” I immediately realized that this was not the best choice of words, but the rhetorical conventions of sermonizing escaped me.
“This wasn’t what any of us planned,” I said. “But I sincerely hope that I can encourage someone this evening.”
I just wanted to get it over with. I forgot to say the commencement prayer. I didn’t ask them to stand for the reading of God’s word. I announced my title, “You Were Chosen for This,” and I launched straight into my speech, beginning with the unfiltered truth.
I had nothing to lose. I had grand ideas about who and what I wanted to become, but I seemed to be getting nowhere. I had just stepped onto a platform where I could be exposed as a fraud, but I just didn’t care anymore. I didn’t care about the audience. I didn’t care about my reputation. I didn’t care about my hopes and aspirations. I decided to let go. I stopped caring about failure, because there was nothing failure could do to me that it had not done already. I stood before a huge crowd of people who didn’t know me from a can of paint, and for the first time I just decided to go for it. I was scared. But I did it afraid. I closed the binder containing my script.
“I’m just gon’ keep it real. I’m not a preacher,” I admitted. “To be honest with you, I don’t even know why I’m here. But for some reason, God does.”
I told them that I was a kid raised in a broken family, and how I’d turned to sex, drugs, and violence to salve the pains of my past. I told them that I was a failed athlete, a college dropout, and a student recovering from years of miseducation, only to find myself wrestling with impostor syndrome and feelings of not belonging anywhere.
Then I told the story of David, beginning with Samuel’s mission to the home of Jesse to find the next king of Israel. He gathered up Jesse’s sons to discover God’s chosen king. He looked at Eliab, the eldest, and said, I found him. But God said, He might have the right physical features, but that’s not him. He looked at Abinadab and said, Surely, this must be the one. But God said, No. He looked at Shammah and said, Finally, this is the king. But God said, No, it’s not him. Samuel nominated seven of Jesse’s sons, but God turned down all of them. Muddled with confusion, Samuel confronted Jesse and said, I don’t understand, God told me that the chosen one is here. Are you sure these are all of your sons? And Jesse confessed that the youngest son remained, but that Samuel shouldn’t waste his time because David was out herding sheep where he belonged. Samuel commanded that the boy be fetched. And when David entered—earnest and pure of heart—emerging from the place where people confined him, God approved and Samuel anointed him as the rightful king.
By this time, I was inflamed by my own passion. This story was personal to me. Suddenly, I heard a voice in the audience yell, “Amen!” and another yell, “That’s right!” like they were cheerleaders. I had not felt this in years. The crowd’s reaction triggered the same rush of adrenaline that I felt on a fast break, soaring toward the basket. Now I was soaring in a different way. My cadence rose, racing to a crescendo. My energy exploded in a way that I could no longer control. While telling the story, the stage became too small for me. I hopped off the stage onto the floor. Then I jumped onto a wooden pew and activated my inner Henry Lowe as I cried out from the depths of my soul:
I don’t know what you’ve been through in your life, but I came all the way from Lynchburg, Virginia, to stand here tonight and tell somebody who was told that you’re too young or you’re too old, that you’re not smart or you’re not ready, that you’re not chosen or you’re not qualified—I want you to send a thank-you card to every person who counted you out, because God doesn’t call those who are qualified, but He qualifies those whom He calls!
The organ bellowed in C-sharp. The entire room erupted in praise. The preacher jumped up and down behind me. A lady’s hat flew from her head as she took off running through the aisles. Men were shouting and high-fiving. People were crying with joy and lifting their hands and leaping with exultation. And I stood atop the pew, celebrating like I was the last gladiator left standing in the center of the Colosseum.
Then the wave broke over me. I stepped down from the pew, shocked by what had occurred. Eyes wide and teary, I couldn’t believe what I had done. I wished Pastor Gilbert was there to see it. I wished he could watch me fly. For the first time, I found my voice. For the first time, I sang my song. For the first time, I told my story.
I returned to my seat while the crowd continued rejoicing. I grabbed my belongings and retreated toward the pastor’s study. I glanced at my phone to check the time and discovered a text message from Pastor Gilbert. “Great job,” it read. “Meet me at the restaurant next door.”
I didn’t understand. I peeked my head back into the sanctuary, but I did not see him. People were still shouting and crying and cheering but Pastor Gilbert was nowhere to be found. I immediately grabbed my things and rushed out of the church. I hustled to the restaurant wondering, But how in the world would he know?
When I entered, there he was. He looked relaxed, sitting in a booth with his legs crossed and his phone in hand. I was torn between wanting to sprint to him with outstretched arms and wanting to drop-kick him in the face for pulling some shit like that.
Instead, I approached him in profound confusion, wanting to demand, “Why would you do that to me? Why would you set me up to fail?” But before I could utter a word, his mouth creased into a smile as he wrapped his arms tightly around me and whispered in my ear, “I knew you could do it.” I closed my eyes as he cupped my head and pressed it against his chest. I hadn’t felt this since I was a child. It was as if he’d lifted me into the air and called me Superman. And the thought released a torrent of tears that I could no longer hold back.
CHAPTER NINE
A TEACHER BORN
I was never the same after Pastor Gilbert pushed me out of the nest with no warning. Unnerved by failing at debate, I had previously been lying low, scared to try my wings for fear that I would crash again. Before he gave me that fateful shove, I had been watching other students soar and wondering if I could ever do the same.
Driven by the words of Coach and Professor Nelson, I had not wasted time envying classmates who’d entered college much better prepared than me. I had not complained about my disadvantages. I’d studied. I’d learned to watch and think and question and adapt. I’d tended my own sheep, as David did his flock, until Gilbert had come along and saw something in me that I could not see in myself. Having been discovered in this way, I wanted to pay it forward. And that opportunity came much sooner than I ever would have expected.
“I don’t know what else to do with him,” Mom said on the phone. I knew that broken voice. It was faint and frayed, the agonized sound a mother makes from the shore as her child is carried away by a vicious undertow. She had no hope of saving her son. The sound of her voice carried the same tone as when she was once talking about me, when I was a teenager lost in gangs and drugs and again when I’d tried to kill myself. Now she was despairing over Ben.
“It’s like every day he’s in trouble,” she said. “He’s running the streets doing God knows what. And he just failed the ninth grade.”
“What?” I exclaimed.
“It gets worse,” she continued. “Next year, they’re sending him to Bryant.”
Those words were like a sniper’s bullet tearing through my chest—a bullet I had narrowly escaped thanks to basketball. I nearly dropped my phone. Bryant was the same alternative school where I was once almost cast away. Alternative school was a slow-motion death sentence for many young Black males. It was the one place that I hoped my little brother would never be.
After hearing her litany of complaints about his sins, I said, “Mom, I have an idea.” She was eager to hear it, but I knew that she would shoot it down. I continued anyway. “Send him here with me.”
“No,” she shot back.
“Mom,” I s
aid, “we’ve put you through enough already. You’re getting older. You did your part. Just let me help.”
It was an outrageous suggestion. But I had to do something. This was my fault, after all. Ben had spent years in the front row of my classroom, where he learned the same real nigga shit that my cousins taught me in the Bronx. When Mom was away on duty, we were forbidden to leave Ben home alone. So I’d hauled him to places he should never have been. He saw things no little boy should ever see. Now he was following the path that I had blazed. It was up to me to show him a different way.
“Let me help, Mom,” I pleaded. But I understood her resistance. Three of her children had gone astray. Mom blamed herself for this and saw Ben as her final chance to set a child right before he completely derailed. But I knew the truth, which was that she had already lost Ben to the streets. And I was the one who’d set him on that course. So I kept pushing until she agreed to transfer custody to me. Mom signed a power of attorney, she kissed him goodbye, and she shipped him off to join me in Lynchburg, where I was barely even surviving on my own.
Ben joined me in the ramshackle two-bedroom apartment that I shared with five other guys. I somehow believed I could support my brother and me with the $400 I made each month by working part-time at the campus Barnes & Noble. I’d fantasized that working in a bookstore would be a license to read all day, but I was stuck behind a cash register or stocking shelves. I could sneak only a few pages before the manager yelled, “Hey, you’re on the clock!” I was only scheduled for ten to fifteen hours a week. Mom sent what she could to help support us, but it was not enough. So I did what I had to do.
I went to the social services building with my hood up and my car parked three blocks away. If I was spotted by a friend, I could pivot toward the James River and hurl myself in to escape humiliation. The walk of shame was familiar. Just about a year earlier, I’d crept into the cash advance store in the same stealthy way. Not much had changed. I was still poor, but it was better to be a poor man in school than a poor man in a vitamin factory. Resolute, I signed in and waited for my name to be called.
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