Second Sunday Read online

  “Sheba, me and Viola and Sylvia have always been your friends. We love you, my mama loves you, our children love you, and our husbands are like brothers to you. I’m asking you for our sake. We need to hire a good pastor, and it is going to take a lot more than Bert’s Search Committee to beat Cleavon at his own game.”

  Nettie watched Sheba’s face as her words sank in. Then she pleaded, “So please, Sheba, can you find it in your heart to help us? Forget those women who need a lesson on what it means to be Christian.”

  After a long moment, Sheba gave in. “Okay, I’ll help you, Nettie. But you and Viola and Sylvia better tell them other stuck-up, wouldn’t-know-Jesus-if-He-slapped-them-in-the-face heifers not to disrespect me. Alright, Nettie?”

  “I will,” Nettie promised, praying that the main culprit among the women, Katie Mae Johnson, would heed their advice and leave Sheba alone.

  “Nettie,” Bert said impatiently. “You gone answer my question, Nettie Green? Or just sit there looking dumbstruck and make us even later for church?”

  Nettie came back to earth with a jolt, but recovered quickly.

  “Well, Bert honey,” she managed to say, “last night makes it mighty hard to stop thinking about you, even though I know I need to have my mind staying on Jesus and praying on the trouble plaguing our church.” She rubbed his leg some more, only a little higher, and continued, “Ain’t my fault you such a sweet thang, boy, that you distract me right up to the front door of the Lord’s house.”

  At first Bert sat up all cocky-like, with his chest stuck out, grinning from ear to ear. But when he stole a look at Nettie, an alarm went off inside him.

  “Miss Lady is up to something,” he thought as he turned off the motor, stepped from the car, and walked around to Nettie’s side to help her out. She had been furious over what happened at the first search committee meeting, and he should have been expecting her to zip something by him. He’d have to be on the lookout for anything that might tell him what Nettie was planning to do.

  As soon as they walked into the sanctuary, Nettie tried her best to find Sheba Cochran without Bert’s catching on. She let her eyes dart around the church, turning her body as slightly as possible, until she saw Sylvia sitting in her spot with Melvin Sr. Nettie waved at her friend, who quickly glanced over at Melvin Sr. before giving a nod toward the front of the church.

  Bert watched Sylvia closely before turning back to his wife. “Nettie, why Sylvia jerking her head around like that?”

  “Like what, Bert, honey?”

  “Like she trying to give you some sort of secret message.”

  Nettie hated lying in church—even more than lying to Bert—but there were some things he didn’t need to know. “Honey, you know how that crazy Sylvia is. She was trying to get me to see a woman wearing a feather hat that is so ugly, it looks like she killed a chicken on the way to church and stuck it right on her head.”

  Bert, a tall, husky, cocoa-colored man, with captivating black-brown eyes set in a round and boyish face, looked around the sanctuary, wondering why his cute, sexy, tiny, coffee-with-two-drops-of-cream wife would think he believed she could get all that information from just a nod. Sometimes Nettie thought she was so clever and smooth, but she’d just overplayed her hand.

  He said, “Humph. Everybody look okay to me. I don’t see one person in here wearing a hat that ugly.”

  “Well, maybe the woman left the sanctuary before you started looking for her, honey.”

  “Maybe,” Bert answered, cutting his eyes at Nettie to let her know she hadn’t convinced him of a thing.

  Nettie caught the look, read Bert’s mind, and proceeded to give him the same bold smile she had given him in the car. Bert got embarrassed, and Nettie grinned on the inside of herself, thinking, “That’ll teach Mr. Bert Green about trying to get me straight in church.”

  As Bert ushered her down to their regular seats next to Nettie’s sister, Viola Cates, and her husband, Wendell, his eyes scanned the sanctuary to see if their daughter had made it to church. Lately she had been missing too many Sundays for his comfort, and he wondered what was going on with her. He checked the balcony where Bertha always sat with her cousin Phoebe and the other young adults. They had occupied that same spot since they were old enough to sit in church by themselves and had continued the tradition now that they were all grown, and some of them married with children of their own.

  Phoebe was there in her seat next to Melvin Vicks, Jr., Melvin Jr.’s sister, Rosie, and their friend Jackson Williams. Rosie’s husband, Latham Johnson, sat a bit off to the side, by himself. Bert thought that Latham was just like his uncle Cleavon—selfish, stuck on himself, and convinced that his wife was put on this earth to serve him. Latham didn’t run around on Rosie like Cleavon did Katie Mae, but Bert and Wendell were certain that virtue wasn’t the reason. Latham Johnson was a conceited tight-butt who probably thought he was too good to need a strong rap to pull a woman his way.

  The seat next to Phoebe—Bertha’s spot—was empty. Bertha always sat on one side of Phoebe and Melvin Jr. on the other. It had to be that way, because Bertha and Melvin Jr. had been fussing with each other since they were little. Many a Sunday morning, either Bert or Melvin Sr. had to go up in the balcony and separate those two at some point during the service. Poor Melvin Jr. would always look him in the eye and say, “Mr. Bert, she started it.” And when Bert looked at Bertha, all pretty in her pink organza dress, hair ribbons, fancy lace socks, and black patent leather shoes, he knew that it was true. Bertha would tell all on herself, saying something stupid like, “Daddy, I just can’t stand him.” Then, when she thought Bert wasn’t watching her, Bertha would stick out her tongue at Melvin Jr., who would make a fist and say, “We can finish this after church.” To this day, Bertha complained that Melvin Jr. got on her “last nerve.” As Bert looked at the empty space next to Phoebe, he made a mental note to ask Nettie if she knew what was up with that girl.

  All throughout the service, Nettie kept trying to find Sheba Cochran without drawing Bert’s attention to herself. She knew Sheba was in the sanctuary, but couldn’t locate the girl for the life of her. She was looking for Sheba so hard that when the sermon began, she could barely concentrate on what Rev. Blue Patterson was saying. She, Viola, Sylvia, and even Katie Mae had promised to pay close attention to the content of each applicant’s text. They agreed that they had to avoid getting carried away with the emotions raised by a sermon—by the man’s voice, how he moved when he preached, how well his robe fit him—to the point that they forgot to think about whether or not the sermon was anything worth hearing.

  When Nettie finally got her mind off finding Sheba long enough to listen to Rev. Blue Patterson’s preaching, she noticed that he was doing a lot of hollering and screaming. And when Nettie fine-tuned her ears to the actual words, she heard Rev. Patterson say, “Ummm, chutch. When God woke me up this morning and started me on my way, He said, ‘Blue, you tell these people that they are charged to obey you or else they’s got to deal with Me.’”

  Nettie couldn’t believe that Blue Patterson would stand there and let that garbage spew out of his mouth and all over the congregation. He was, as Nettie’s mother, MamaLouise, later described him, “determined to show his rusty behind to the whole church.” But to Nettie’s surprise, certain members of the congregation actually seemed to be caught up in the sermon, making her wonder what she must have missed. Cleavon Johnson, who seemed especially pleased, was wearing a self-satisfied smirk.

  Blue Patterson dabbed at his bald spot with a handkerchief. It glistened with beads of sweat, highlighting its presence in the middle of the half-moon natural that wrapped around the bottom of his head. Then he pulled the microphone off the podium, pacing back and forth for dramatic effect, and in a voice he must have believed mimicked the voice of God, bellowed, “Geth-se-ma-ne. Geth-se-ma-ne. Blue is my ser-vant. Obey my ser-vant or else.”

  Up in the balcony, Phoebe, Melvin Jr., Rosie, and Jackson Williams were torn up with
laughter. Nobody tried to shush them. Viola leaned toward Nettie and whispered, “Girl, the people on the front row show do need to move, so they don’t get hit when that big bolt of lightning comes out of nowhere to strike him dead.”

  Nettie turned to Bert to ask what he thought about the sermon. But Bert was sound asleep, with his head back and his mouth open, snoring faintly. When the choir stood up and prepared to march out for the benediction, Nettie nudged him, whispering, “Thank you, Lord” when she had trouble waking him. She figured that if Bert was sleeping this hard, he would oppose doing anything for Rev. Blue Patterson, other than giving him a plate of food and enough gas money to drive back home.

  She poked at him again, and Bert woke up in the middle of a snore, saying, “Wha . . . wha . . . inning is it?”

  As soon as the benediction was given, Bert and Nettie got in the receiving line at the front of the church, where Rev. Patterson stood greeting the members. And it was there, after searching for her all morning, that Nettie finally found Sheba Cochran. She was the first one in line, glittering in a tight black rhinestone-studded dress with a scoop neck that was more suitable for the Mothership Club than church.

  Sheba Cochran stood five-foot-five and had a deep cinnamon brown complexion. She wasn’t beautiful like Katie Mae Johnson, but she was just as cute as she could be. Sylvia always said that Sheba’s best asset was that big, round, onion-shaped behind sitting up high on her “little thin-shaped self.” And Sheba was funny, with a good heart and a whole lot of smarts. She was a devoted mother who took good care of her four children all by herself, thanks to her full-time job at the post office and a side gig doing taxes. She was a good neighbor and a loving friend.

  With some maneuvering, Nettie landed a spot three people away from Sheba, who was chatting comfortably with Rev. Blue Patterson. Behind her, the people in line were growing restive, frowning and whispering, “That hussy in the hot-mama dress know she need to move on. And her self know she not saved.” A little farther back, Cleavon Johnson stood scowling at the sight of Sheba in church, which made Nettie smile. “If you knew why Sheba is here, you’d be cussing,” she thought.

  Rev. Blue Patterson didn’t seem inclined to have Sheba move on. For all his hollering at the congregation about sin and sinning, he was grinning and ogling Sheba, making Nettie wonder if Blue Patterson himself had even heard a word he said. As if to reward Rev. Patterson for indulging her in conversation, Sheba gave him a dazzling smile, put her black, satin-gloved hand daintily in his, and sighed deeply, as if the man and his sermon had really put something on her. When Nettie heard that old rascal tell Sheba the Lord had led him to instruct her to meet him in his office after the church dinner for prayer and private counseling, she said, “Thank you, Jesus,” right out loud, before she could catch herself.

  Bert frowned and said, “Why you acting like you getting the Holy Ghost, standing here watching that jackleg preacher act like the clown he is over Sheba, and service been over with?”

  Nettie didn’t blink an eye. She said, “Sometimes, when I think about how good the Lord has been to me, I just have to thank Him. Don’t matter if I’m sitting in service or standing in line waiting to shake somebody’s hand. I just have to forget where I am and praise Him.”

  Bert didn’t say a word to Nettie. He simply narrowed his eyes at her again before grunting, “Humph,” just to let her know she wasn’t fooling no-body.

  All during the dinner, Bert kept close watch on his wife and her friends, thinking that whatever was up, Sheba Cochran was right in the middle of it. For why else would Sheba be at church today? The girl only came to church on Christmas and Easter Sunday, dragging her four kids behind her, looking all uncomfortable in stiff new dress clothes and shoes she had bought solely for those holidays. But today wasn’t Christmas or Easter. It was just a regular Sunday in September—more than three months in advance of one of Sheba’s church days.

  When the desserts were being set out on the serving tables, Nettie, Viola, Sylvia, and Katie Mae all got up and went to the bathroom together. Sheba, who was sitting at the guest pastor’s table, saw them leave and followed, pausing for a second when she passed by Cleavon, just to slice right through him with her eyes. By the time Bert returned from the dessert table, carrying two big pieces of lemon coconut cake for himself and Nettie, the women had disappeared behind the rest room door.

  The door had barely closed when Nettie blurted, “Tell us! What did you find out?”

  “Yeah, Sheba,” Katie Mae said in a nasty voice. “What can you tell us that is helpful for our church?”

  Sheba resisted the urge to stab her eyes into Katie Mae as she had done her husband. She knew Katie Mae’s little attitude wasn’t about anything but Cleavon, with his jive, no-good, lying self. Sheba couldn’t stand Cleavon Johnson. And if Katie Mae wasn’t always snubbing her, she would have set the record straight on what really happened between herself and Cleavon—not that much of anything.

  “So, you gone meet the Reverend up in the office?” Nettie asked, hoping that Katie Mae wouldn’t keep talking and make Sheba so mad that she changed her mind about helping them.

  “Nettie,” Sheba said, looking at her like she was crazy, “did you see Blue Patterson’s hair?”

  Nettie nodded, as Sylvia broke out laughing, saying, “How could she not see that?”

  “I know,” Viola added. “His hair convinced me that he don’t really listen to the Lord all that much. ’Cause I know the Lord has said something about his hair on many occasions.”

  “Blue, Blue,” Sylvia said, imitating Rev. Patterson. “Your hair, son. It’s Me. Your hair, your hair.”

  “Sylvia, you know you need to quit,” Nettie said, laughing.

  “No, this whole church need to quit,” Sheba said very seriously. “Y’all need to quit fooling around with that trifling Negro, who here lying and acting like he’s a big-shot preacher, when he know he ain’t nowhere close to that. He did all that hollering and screaming, talking junk about how he been called to lead this church. And yet he didn’t even think enough of this church to bother with how he looked. The hair said it all. Why, that Negro didn’t even have the decency to put some grease on his hands.”

  Viola nodded. “Come to think of it, he did have some rough and ashy hands. Make you wonder about how bad his feet must look.”

  Katie Mae grimaced. “Ugh, don’t make us think about his feet. We just got through eating.”

  “And the clothes,” Sheba said. “The fool didn’t even have on a decent suit or real leather shoes. Now, if his church was all that he saying it is, would it have a pastor running around looking like Bozo the Clown?”

  Everybody shook their heads. Sheba was on target. No self-respecting congregation would want a pastor representing them who looked like that.

  “So,” Sheba continued, “I ain’t wasting my time with that Negro. Because it don’t take a whiff of church-fan-air to figure out that he ain’t worth jack.”

  Sheba rolled her eyes as she asked Nettie, “Girl, what made Bert an’ them bring Blue Patterson here for anyway? Gethsemane may not be a big fancy church, but it got enough going for it that y’all can do better than him.”

  “Well,” Katie Mae answered, “Cleavon told me Rev. Patterson had good references.”

  Sheba just closed her eyes and sighed. Cleavon needed to be reined in before he ran this church so far into the ground, they would be looking right into the devil’s living room. She said, “I don’t care if he got a reference from the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Blue Patterson is a chump and a two-bit hustler playing church—and playing a very dangerous game with the Lord. Shoot, y’all let him up in here as y’all’s preacher, I know I ain’t coming here to worship no more for Christmas and Easter.”

  Sheba turned down her mouth in disgust. “Nettie, tell Bert to send him packing. And if I were y’all, I wouldn’t even give him gas money.”

  III

  Three weeks later, the second candidate came to spend his trial week at Ge
thsemane. The Rev. David O. Clemson, III, a handsome, light brown, expensively dressed man with a head full of dark brown, well-groomed, and naturally straight hair, was smooth as silk and charismatic. He had most of the members of the Deacon and Finance Boards practically eating out of his hand—with the notable exceptions of Bert, Wendell, Melvin Sr., and Mr. Louis Loomis. Mr. Louis Loomis took one look at Rev. Clemson’s suit and declared loudly, “What y’all got him here for? We cain’t afford this here boy. His suit cost most a month’s salary.”

  Not wanting to scare Rev. Clemson off, Cleavon laughed nervously and said, “Now, what would Louis Loomis know about a good suit? He only shops at Sears,” as if Mr. Louis Loomis wasn’t even there.

  At the Sunday service, Rev. Clemson won over the congregation as well, with his compelling sermon, “God Always Has a Ram in the Bush.” It was lively, funny, provocative, and right on target with the concerns of the community. He impressed the women, especially, with the rhythmic cadence of his delivery and his frequent pauses to smile, eyes twinkling like diamonds, at certain sisters in the pews. A few found him so electrifying that they kept jumping up, hollering out, “Preach, preach” when Rev Clemson hit the “hot spots” in his sermon.

  But as soon as Sheba Cochran laid eyes on Rev. Clemson, she detected a coarseness beneath his smooth ways and exquisitely tailored suits. Her suspicions were heightened when she noticed that during the service, Mrs. Clemson spent most of her time scrutinizing the women who were most intently focused on her husband while he preached. And the woman never so much as cracked a smile throughout her husband’s entire fifty-minute sermon.

  Sheba wasn’t the only one worried about Rev. Clemson. Mr. Louis Loomis got very concerned when Cleavon Johnson started singing his praises after the Sunday morning service. When he overheard Cleavon’s dumb cousin, Rufus, bragging that they had found the pastor for the job, he got scared and got to praying. Mr. Louis Loomis spent half of Tuesday praying on that man, petitioning the Lord with such intensity, he wore himself out and fell into a deep sleep.