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  “Y’all, this food is so good.” He chewed and swallowed, and put some more string beans in his mouth. “This is the best banquet we’ve had that I know of. Maybe we need to come to North Carolina more often, if we get to eat this good.”

  “Yeah,” Theophilus added, wiping buffalo wing sauce off the corner of his mouth with a fancy white napkin. “Let’s hope that the actual program is as good as this food.”

  “District One has really gone the extra mile to make this conference work,” Percy Jennings told them.

  “Yeah, and that is solely because the churches in the Triangle worked so hard on this conference,” Percy’s wife, Vivian Jennings, said. She had just arrived this morning and was looking like a million dollars in a white chiffon shirt with a big collar, silver silk slacks that were cropped at the ankle, and silver silk pumps. She really looked like Nancy Wilson with all that silver running through her beautifully cropped hair.

  Percy used to be the presiding bishop for District One before he was elected to serve as the senior bishop for the entire denomination. It was a good district. And with few exceptions, like Sonny Washington, it had a good pool of preachers and pastors.

  “Well,” Theophilus began, “I, for one, am relieved that the First District didn’t include that mess about announcing the top candidates for bishop at this conference. I hate going through that.”

  “Man, I hate that, too,” Eddie said. “And they always pick the bishop who is so boring, and goes on and on and on about absolutely nothing, to make the announcements.”

  “I know,” Susie James said, as she approached their table with a plate loaded down with good food. “I was just thinking about that very same thing. Y’all remember what happened at the preelection banquet at the last Triennial Conference in California?”

  “How in the world could we forget that mess?” Murcheson asked his wife. “Bishop Willie Williams was presiding and he opted to let his favorite presiding elder, Rev. Juniper Dowd, handle the banquet.”

  “I know,” Percy added, shaking his head. “They should have known it was going to be crazy dealing with a negro named ‘Juniper.’”

  “Yeah,” Murcheson said. “Juniper ‘hired’ his mama to do the catering.”

  “Could she cook, Rev. James?” Essie asked. Even though Murcheson had been a bishop for many years and was now officially her husband’s boy, she still called him “Rev. James.”

  “Yeah, surprisingly, she was a good cook—just stingy as heck. She doled out that food like we were being rationed. It was awful.”

  “Baby, tell them what they did when you asked for an extra chicken wing,” Susie said.

  “That stingy woman cussed me out,” Murcheson told them. “But that wasn’t the worst part of it. Juniper took it upon himself to announce the top candidates, and got the names wrong and just made a mess of the order of candidates from bottom to top.”

  “Well, I am so glad that we can bypass that tonight,” Essie said. “And I hope that we can eat and get up out of here without too much drama. I would say without any drama but we are at a banquet for the Gospel United Church, and at a Triennial Conference.”

  Surprisingly, the evening was going smoothly. They were having a good time, and nothing crazy had jumped off. Sometimes craziness popped up as soon as they walked in the room. That had not happened—at least not yet. But, as Willis pointed out, the folk who always came in popping off drama had yet to put in an appearance.

  This was turning out to be the most pleasant evening of the entire week. They had been spending long hours at the campaign booth. They worked the crowd in their assigned spot in the university’s gymnasium until late in the evening. The booth was one of the nicest. Essie and Johnnie had spent a lot of time working with the rainbow color scheme.

  The booth was decorated in an array of primary colors, with a rainbow arched across the top. Eddie’s picture was prominent on the back wall of the booth, and they had canvas director’s chairs circling the table in red, blue, purple, green, and yellow. Just the colors alone drew people over to them. And once they got there and got some of that good ice cream, along with a host of other goodies, folk left feeling good and encouraged to support the Eddie Tate campaign.

  This had not been the case for the Sonny Washington campaign booth, which had been allocated a better and more visible spot than Eddie’s booth. They knew this had been done intentionally. But what the Devil meant for evil, God had certainly worked out for their good.

  Sonny’s booth was bland—a plain setup with his campaign colors of blue and black. They didn’t even have brochures—just some blue fliers. And they didn’t give away anything, even though more men than women had come to the booth at odd hours of the day. About the only noticeable thing happening over in the Washington camp was that lockbox of cash they kept going into when folks came by the booth.

  By the time most folk left that booth they were eager for something more substantive, and made their way to the back where the Tate booth was located. Folks came by Eddie’s booth and stayed and talked and laughed and had a good time. They left with a bag of goodies, refreshed from the ice cream, and filled with joy. Everybody was buzzing that the Tate campaign booth was fun—not to mention that they had some good music, blasting gospel, old-school R & B, and a little bit of rap with clean lyrics for the youngsters.

  Their campaign team was working tirelessly. Theophilus and Eddie had been up to the wee hours of the morning going from one district meeting to the next, connecting with the delegates and making sincere appeals for their support on the day of the election of bishops and new church officers for the next three years.

  They had spent a lot of money giving financial aid to the delegates from districts in Africa and the Caribbean. Unfortunately, with the sole exception of Bishop Bobo Abeeku out of Ghana, all the overseas districts, including the ones in the Caribbean, were guilty of sending over a group of delegates on budgets so tight some of the pastors couldn’t afford to catch a cab from the airport. The districts presided over by Bishops Hemphill, Caruthers, Jr., and Babatunde were the worst. And if that was not bad enough, these districts had plenty of money—most of it being directed to support the personal interests of the bishops.

  So they were feeding folk and paying for a few hotel rooms, and they had even paid for a doctor’s visit for one of the delegates who came from the airport coughing, sneezing, and running a high fever. And this didn’t include the cost of all of those goodie bags filled with movie tickets, gift certificates to South Square and Northgate Malls, a van to take them to the malls, and snacks to nibble on.

  It had been a long and grueling week. They were coming to the countdown to select two new Episcopal leaders. Despite the ups and downs, disputes and disagreements, and more drama than a soap opera, this Triennial Conference had been a good conference—one of the best in years. And they hoped that this banquet would end without any flare-ups, fights, or intrigue.

  Just as the musicians selected and hired by Sonny Washington’s church members made their way to the stage, Essie and Johnnie swung their heads around to witness the entrance of Sonny’s entourage. Thayline’s husband, Willis, who was usually content to sit back quietly nibbling and taking in the sights, blurted out loudly enough to be heard by every other nearby table, “Lawd Jesus, somebody has cleaned Hell out…’cause every devil in the lair is walking up in the banquet hall.”

  The folks at the next table leaned over and said, “Man, you ain’t never lied on that one. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen this much devilment ganged up and walking in a room together.”

  Leading the pack was the Episcopal candidate Sonny Washington, overdressed in a black tuxedo with a rich purple ruffled shirt, a silver-and-purple brocade bow tie, and matching cummerbund. He had on purple patent leather slip-on shoes with black leather bows on the tops.

  “I thought you said that Sonny Washington was a womanizer,” Thayline whispered to Essie.

  “He is—big time,” Essie whispered back, scared t
o talk too much for fear of missing something. She wondered why they were all dressed in formal attire when the banquet instructions clearly called for semiformal clothes.

  “Well, he look gay to me,” Thayline said.

  “He a punk,” Johnnie said, “but that negro ain’t gay. He ain’t even happy.”

  “Shhh!” all the men hissed. “Y’all gone make us miss the rest of the show.”

  Right behind Sonny was Marcel Brown, dressed in a pale purple tuxedo with a black ruffled shirt and black-and-silver brocade accessories. His newly done Jheri curl glistened in the strobe lights that somebody had just flipped on, obviously to enhance the “effect.”

  “I sho’ hope that negro don’t fling that hair in my direction,” was all Johnnie said. She knew that all that curl activator in Marcel’s already curly hair would do a terrible number on her pale peach silk halter dress. Johnnie had worried Essie to no end to get her to design and make this dress for her. It had taken over a month for the chiffon to get to Essie’s boutique in St. Louis, and then an extra week for all the sequins spread out across the knee-length skirt of the dress to arrive.

  “I hear you, girl,” Essie said, looking protectively over her own pale pink, silk jersey knit dress that dipped low in the front, hugging every curve, and setting off those gold highlights in her hair, which was cut in a sleek and sophisticated bob. She knew that Sonny’s wife, Glodean, was going to want to fight her over wearing what she considered to be her signature color at a big-time Gospel United Church affair. Essie wore this color on purpose because she knew it would make Glodean mad, and she wanted to let the girl know that she was not going to play by Glodean’s myriad unspoken rules.

  “Are you sure that they are not gay?” Thayline pressed. She couldn’t believe that two men would come to this banquet wearing coordinated outfits and not be gay. “Because I can’t help it. They look like they going together. You sure, you sure, they are not gay?”

  “NO!” all the men at the table said in unison. Not one of them liked Sonny and Marcel—including Willis, who had had almost no contact with those two. But as ridiculous and “suspect” as those tuxedos appeared to the naked eye, those two were not gay. Crooks, liars, thieves, and hos? Most definitely. But not gay.

  They would quickly discover that Marcel and Sonny’s entrance was just the “appetizer” at the affair. As soon as Sonny had taken his seat at the head of the only square table in the room, with Marcel holding court right next to him, the rest of their committee walked in, acting as if this banquet had been held solely in their honor.

  Ottah Babatunde brought new meaning to the term showstopper when he walked in practically resplendent in what Eddie Tate said had to be the baddest traditional Nigerian garb he’d ever seen. Bishop Babatunde was several inches past six feet, the color of ebony wood, and just so big and fine in that ivory-trimmed-with-gold outfit and matching hat and shoes that several preachers’ wives searched their tables for something to fan themselves with.

  Babatunde waved and smiled as if the folks in the room were his subjects, making mental notes of the women he knew would help him make good on his personal supply of WP21. It was almost too good to be true that he was in America looking this good, with a pocket full of pleasure, and practically a small village-full of luscious American women to choose from. Ottah, who didn’t like open displays of emotion, felt like doing shouting laps around the banquet room at just the thought of how his evening promised to end.

  “Are we in some kind of psychedelic drug nightmare? Or did that fake-African-King Negro just walk up in here like he owned the place?” Theophilus asked incredulously.

  They had barely had time to digest Bishop Babatunde’s brazen entrance when Bishop Rucker Lee Hemphill came in wearing a leopard skin draped over his black tuxedo, ivory shirt, and leopard-print bow tie and matching cummerbund. Essie’s expert eyes traveled quickly to the bishop’s shoes. She sighed in relief when all she saw were a pair of expensive patent leather slip-ons gracing Rucker Hemphill’s feet. Because she just knew that crazy man would wear some leopard-print dress shoes.

  “I thought animal skins like that were illegal,” Susie James said.

  “All depends when and where he got it,” Murcheson told his wife. “Although I don’t really think the folks Rucker bought that from were the kind of people who are overly concerned with the legalities and ethics of their enterprise.”

  “So Bishop Hemphill bought that leopard skin hot?” Essie asked. As far as she was concerned he looked ridiculous in a tuxedo with an animal skin draped over his shoulders like a woman’s shawl. What in the world was he thinking to wear that to this affair, and in North Carolina at this time of the year? It was a miracle he hadn’t passed out from heat stroke. But then the point was that he wasn’t thinking—hadn’t used half of a brain cell when he came up with this.

  Eddie reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. He laid it on the table and said, “I bet that negro is going to pull two women tonight.” He scanned the room for the women who appeared enamored of how good Bishop Hemphill looked in his African king suit. He found two.

  The first one put the g in gold digger. Her eyes were so well trained to spot out authenticity when it came to luxury items—such as furs, gold, platinum, and diamonds—Eddie could have sworn she was working some kind of high-powered laser scope that required military clearance to use. Number two was just a straight up ho’ with very expensive needs and taste.

  Few of the “tomcatting” preachers at this conference would have been able to distinguish between the two women. And sadly, many of them would have gotten tangled up with contestant number one, thinking they were getting a good piece of expensive tail—rather than a pricey expense account with a few fringe benefits thrown in.

  But Rev. Eddie Tate knew the difference, as did his assistant pastor, Denzelle Flowers. Early in his career Eddie had figured out how to spot out the good hos, and rule out the gold diggers, so he didn’t waste money on a bad ho’ who was a daggone good gold digger. While the good reverend had certainly sown some very wild oats, praise be to God, he had relinquished, repented of, and reformed from that worldly behavior many years ago.

  Rev. Denzelle Flowers, on the other hand, had a ways to go toward total reform and repentance. That was one of the reasons Eddie had Denzelle tucked safely up under his wings. Baby boy needed protection, training, guidance, and prayer because he was too good a preacher to risk losing to the other side over some hot tail.

  They were at war. Sometimes folks forgot that they were in a fierce battle with the forces of darkness, and that the Devil was dead serious about taking many folk, including the ones claiming to be God’s own people, straight to Hell on a bullet train. This was the church, and from Eddie’s vantage point they, the church, the preachers, were responsible for getting out on the battlefield for Jesus and fighting the Devil like the liar, thief, and murderer that the Word of God said he was.

  Eddie was cool, streetwise, and a preacher who had once taken his calling way too lightly. But he didn’t do that anymore. As cool as he knew he was, Eddie Tate counted as his greatest achievement in life, his ability to submit his life to Christ and be blessed with the anointing of the Holy Ghost.

  Denzelle was a good man who was having trouble letting go of the flesh because he thought that he would miss out on something important in life if he did. And as Bishop James had told Eddie Tate when he was running from marrying Johnnie, the woman Eddie knew God had picked out to be his wife, the only thing he was missing out on was the first-class ticket to Hell the devil kept trying to give him.

  They were at war all right. All anybody with half a brain had to do this evening was look around this room. It would become crystal-clear that all of this craziness was evidence that the Devil was busy tonight. Eddie wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. Some of this was comical and the rest was troubling. It practically broke his heart that this group of men could come up in this gathering of the saints with this me
ss. And not only were they going to get away with it, they were getting plenty of attention, some more votes, and more money, and pulling some women as an added bonus.

  Eddie sighed so loudly and heavily, it gave Johnnie cause to stop laughing and go and tend to her man. She adored Eddie Tate and hated it when anything or anybody gave him a reason to give that sigh she knew so well. She slipped her slender, bejeweled hand into Eddie’s huge hand and whispered words from the first chapter of Titus, verses six and seven.

  “An elder must be well thought of for his good life. He must be faithful to his wife, and his children must be believers who are not wild or rebellious. An elder must live a blameless life because he is God’s minister. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered; he must not be a heavy drinker, violent, or greedy for money.

  “You are that kind of elder, baby,” Johnnie told her husband, and then kissed his hands, leaving soft peach lip prints on them.

  Eddie smiled, resisted an urge to pat that wide butt, and kissed his wife’s cheek. He must have been on some drugs to think that it made sense to run from this woman. She was fine, sexy, unconventional, smart, saved, and everything he’d ever wanted in a woman. He was a blessed man.

  Denzelle Flowers watched the exchange between Rev. Tate and his wife from across the room, where he was standing with Obadiah Quincey. He felt a twinge in his heart—a longing for that kind of relationship. But where in the world would he find a woman who was worthy of being bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh? Denzelle had seen a lot of women to dabble with but had yet to come across that one.

  He nudged Obadiah, who was standing there trying to ignore his wife Lena’s antics. When Bishop Hemphill walked in with that leopard stole on his tuxedo, she made a paw with her hand and said, “Grrrrrrrr… Beeeshippp…” in a fake Eartha-Kitt-as-Catwoman voice.

  All Denzelle could do was shake his head and laugh, saying, “Obie, that is your bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh.”