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  The parents all looked up to the balcony and tried to give their children that age-old stare that said, “I’m gone come up there and beat your behind if you don’t sit up and act like you got some daggone sense.” But it didn’t work because every time they looked at those children they fell out with laughter themselves.

  Essie leaned over and whispered to Precious Powers, who was now a member and good friend, “What possessed that old woman to do that up in that pulpit like that? It ain’t like she is senile. She crazy but all of her gray matter is intact. And look, that thang has the nerve to get mad.”

  Actually, Mrs. Tommie Ann was past mad this morning—she was furious. She picked up that big orange-and-yellow pocketbook hanging off her walker and said, “I cannot believe those bad-tailed children of yours is up there laughing in the Lord’s house like that. Now, Pastor,” she said to Theophilus, “I’ve been reading the announcements for over sixty years, and nobody ever laughed at me like those children are doing right now. And that lil’ red gal of yours owes me an apology.”

  Theophilus took a deep breath to get a grip on his anger. He looked over at Essie, who was on her way over to the pulpit, and shook his head. This was something that he had to handle as the pastor, even though that old heifer had pushed every single parent button he had in him. He walked up to the large podium in front of the pastor’s chair, grabbed each side, tilted his head a bit, and stared at Mrs. Tommie Ann for a few seconds. The church was so quiet you could hear folks holding their breaths in anticipation of what the pastor was going to say to that mean old lady.

  Most folk in this congregation had been waiting for the day when the pastor told the crazy Jenkins woman to take her walker-toting-orangey-reddish-brown-dyed-and-thickly-drawn-on-eyebrows self somewhere and sit the heck down! Today Mrs. Tommie Ann had finally gone far enough to make the pastor check her, and check her good. It was enough to make some of the saints get up and start running all over the church, praising God for this mighty miracle in their lives.

  Freedom Temple folk loved themselves some Rev. Simmons. Theophilus was a good pastor—superb preacher, astute businessman, exceptional clerical leader, patient and compassionate. It was his compassion for souls like Mrs. Tommie Ann that had stopped him from zooming down on her the first time she showed the rim of her britches to everybody. But this morning folks knew that she had gone as far as to “tear her draws” with the pastor.

  You didn’t mess with Rev. Simmons—especially over some pure-tee foolishness. You didn’t take it upon yourself to roll up on the First Lady. And you definitely didn’t get crazy enough to take potshots at the Simmons children. If there was one thing their big, fine, chocolate pastor hated, it was “church mess”—particularly when that mess was directed at a member of the church family, or a member of his own family. At some point the pastor would eat you up alive if you didn’t stop while the going was good.

  “Sister Jenkins,” Theophilus said sternly, opting to forego calling Mrs. Tommie Ann by her pet church name—Mrs. Tommie Ann.

  “Yes,” she answered, matching his stare, as if to say, “I ain’t scared of you.”

  “I just want to take this moment to thank you for your sixty-some-odd years of service to this great church as a long-standing member of the Announcement Ministry. And since this is your last Sunday working in this capacity, I would like for the entire congregation to stand and applaud you for such dedicated and constant service. Freedom Temple has never and never, ever will experience the way you have handled the relaying of information to this great church each and every third Sunday of the month.

  “Thank you, Sister Jenkins, and God bless you as you take a seat and witness the service of the next person who will assume this responsibility. Come on, Church. Stand up and give Sister Jenkins the send-off she deserves.”

  Everybody in church stood up and gave Mrs. Tommie Ann Jenkins a round of applause. She had been mean and hateful to so many of her fellow members, and they were ecstatic to see her go. A couple of folks she’d been especially mean to, because she thought her family was better than theirs, started giving out whistles and were cheering. People at Freedom Temple were sick and tired of being sick and tired of this woman.

  Mrs. Tommie Ann was outdone. She had been holding this post for decades. She’d been getting away with doing other people in the congregation bad. And frankly, she hadn’t ever thought all of that would come to an end.

  Oh, she had known the pastor wanted to get rid of her, and she had prepared to fight him down to the ground to keep her position of power in this church. But she wasn’t prepared for this. It was hard to cut the fool when folks were up clapping and cheering over you.

  Essie caught her husband’s eye and winked. She had to hand it to her man, he was good. Few folk, including Essie herself, would have thought of handling that woman as he had. She winked again, and blushed when he winked back. Essie knew that wink, and the promise behind it. She picked up her church bulletin and tried to fan away the heated flush that was spreading across her face.

  Theophilus grinned that mannish grin, completely unaware of the churchwomen who suddenly felt an urge to fan themselves with their church bulletins. He walked over to Mrs. Tommie Ann and gave her a big hug and a kiss, trying not to laugh when she rolled her eyes at him. Then he said, “I would like my financial officer on the Steward Board to make sure you have a parting gift of five hundred dollars at the close of today’s service.”

  He turned back toward Obadiah and said, “I want you to oversee this, Rev. Quincey. Make sure that Mrs. Jenkins receives this gift before she leaves this church.”

  Obadiah nodded, fighting the urge to blurt out, “Why me, Pastor? Why me?”

  Mrs. Tommie Ann Jenkins was the last church member he wanted to be bothered with this morning. Folks just didn’t know that preaching was not easy—not by a long shot.

  Mrs. Tommie Ann wanted to cuss out the pastor but was stopped dead in her tracks by that unexpected gift of five hundred dollars. Instead she thanked the pastor, got a good grip on her walker, and with the help of one of the ushers standing nearby, came down from the pulpit and sat down.

  Theophilus started smiling. It was so good to know the Lord, to be able to hear His voice, and to have sense enough to do what He told you to do. Mrs. Tommie Ann had done exactly what God said she would do—fired herself. All he had had to do was wait on the Lord and be of good cheer. And lawd knows he was of good cheer right now!

  TWO

  Bishop Murcheson James, Bishop Percy Jennings, Uncle Booker, and Mr. Pompey were sitting in Pompey and Lee Allie Hawkins’s kitchen eating and playing a friendly game of poker. Murcheson put his hand on the table and smiled as he collected a fistful of dollar bills. Uncle Booker threw his cards on the table and said, “I can’t believe you, Murcheson. You always win and you always want to play for money. And you a bishop. What’s up with that?”

  “I beat you, just like I have always beaten you since we were young bloods down in Charleston, Mississippi,” Murcheson told him, laughing.

  “That sho’ is right, Booker,” Pompey said. “You a doggone good poker player. But you ain’t never been able to beat Murcheson. I don’t know why you keep trying, giving that negro all of your money like that.”

  “Why you have to go there like that, Pompey?” Booker chided. “Always got to tell the history and then rub it in.”

  Pompey ignored Uncle Booker. They had all been friends for a long time. Murcheson and Pompey were used to Booker getting all bent out of shape when he got beat.

  “Obviously, your hand wasn’t good enough, Booker,” his sister, Lee Allie, said between chuckles.

  Booker was one of the best poker players in St. Louis, East St. Louis, and their hometown of Charleston, Mississippi. But he could not beat his boyhood friend Murcheson James. In fact, there were fewer than a handful of people who could beat Murcheson at a game of poker. The only thing that stopped the bishop from running game on folk was his relationship with the Lord. Murcheso
n had given up gambling when he got saved.

  Pompey, who was quiet and watchful by nature, got himself another bowl of his wife’s famous chili. He was in the food business and could cook like nobody’s business. But when Pompey Hawkins came home from working in one of his three restaurants located on the north side of the city, the Central West End section of St. Louis, and the suburb of University City, all he wanted to do was eat some of his baby’s good home cooking.

  “Didn’t you tell me that Theophilus and Obadiah Quincey were coming over this evening?” Percy Jennings, the senior presiding bishop for the entire Gospel United Church, asked as he started shuffling a fresh deck of cards. He had flown up from Atlanta, and Murcheson had driven up from Charleston, Mississippi, to meet about some pressing concerns over some serious rumblings of problems that were beginning to surface in a troubling way in the denomination.

  “Not this evening,” Murcheson told him. “I just wanted to play cards with some old heads this evening, so we could talk in peace. Percy, you and I have just found out that there is some trouble brewing. We need to talk this out together before we go and get those youngbloods, who still smelling themselves, up in here trying to give us their opinion on the matter. Heck, I don’t even have a clue about my own opinion on the matter, and I sho’ don’t want to hear from any of them right now.”

  Percy nodded. Murcheson had a point. They didn’t know what they were dealing with, or who exactly was behind it and why. Bringing in those two at this stage would just run his pressure up. Theophilus would try to tell them what to do. Obadiah would want names and some background information so he could chart out which mind game he was going to run on them. And then Theophilus would go and hook up with his boy, Rev. Eddie Tate, who would want to come down from Chicago with his assistant pastor, Denzelle Flowers, so they could get some mess started.

  If those four didn’t like a good church fight, Percy didn’t know who did. And this was especially true of Eddie Tate. Sometimes Percy believed Eddie loved fighting church battles more than he did preaching. And if there was one thing Eddie Tate loved to do, it was preach.

  “Y’all missed it at church yesterday,” Mr. Pompey said, right before he blew on his spoonful of chili.

  “Missed what?” Uncle Booker asked.

  “You know Theophilus fired Mrs. Tommie Ann Jenkins.”

  “That old lady who wears those tight, low-cut dresses and has to use a walker?” Uncle Booker asked.

  “Yeah, that’s her,” Pompey continued, and then busted out laughing. “You know she took her false teeth out of her mouth, put some Poligrip on them, and then put them back in her mouth while giving the announcements.”

  “She did what, Pompey?” Percy asked, shaking his head.

  Just when he thought he’d heard it all concerning some of the outrageous stuff black folk could do during Sunday morning service, somebody came along and took church-pew craziness to a new level.

  “You heard me,” Pompey said. “That old woman got crazy and showed her natural behind.”

  Murcheson James was cracking up. He said, “You have to be talking about that old woman in the tight ‘I’m-gone-sleep-with-your-man’ outfits.”

  “That girl kinda long in the tooth to be trying to creep with another woman’s man on that walker,” Uncle Booker said.

  “What long teeth?” Lee Allie asked in between blows on her spoon, which was dripping with a heaping scoop of chili. She had been eavesdropping but missed a few “bars” of the conversation when she was putting some food away.

  Murcheson was tickled at Lee Allie trying to be so slick. He said, “What is it with our denomination and teeth? There is always some kind of teeth malfunction happening at a service at one of our churches.”

  “You know,” Percy was saying, “I’m still stuck at old girl wearing club clothes on a walker. I’d pay some good money to see all of that.”

  “I don’t know about that, Bishop,” Uncle Booker was saying. “I’ve seen it. All of those years stuffed up in a tight black leather skirt, some high-heeled boots, and a tight red turtleneck sweater is just about enough to make a brother kind of envious of Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder.”

  “You wrong, Booker,” Percy told him. “You know you wrong. Ray and Stevie haven’t done anything to you.”

  “Bishop, Ray and Stevie wouldn’t be mad at me for understanding why they wouldn’t want to have to look at that.”

  Pompey scraped the bottom of his bowl of chili. He said, “You know something. I can’t help but wonder what would make someone her age act like that.”

  “Living your entire life without ever making Jesus the Lord of your life,” Murcheson stated solemnly. “That lady probably got distraught enough at one point in her life to break down and say the Sinner’s Prayer. And even though she technically qualified for salvation, she never went farther than getting saved. She continued to live her life so immersed in matters of the flesh, there were times that she had to remind her own self that she was supposed to be saved. I bet she rarely read her Bible, thought going to Bible study was boring and a waste of time, and only prayed when she was desperate and out of options.

  “You know,” Murcheson continued, “this is the very thing the Apostle Paul was talking about over and over and over again in his letters. He knew that people would act like this lady, and live their lives muddled in defeat and foolishness.”

  “Amen,” Percy said. “And it is one of the reasons we have so many problems in our church. Folks, including some preachers, will get saved because they are scared of going to Hell. But they are not scared enough to make Jesus Lord of their lives. As soon as they get what they mistakenly think of as a ‘get-out-of-Hell-free card,’ they go right back to raising hell. They live their lives in defeat, and never get even a whiff of the victory and joy due a child of the King.”

  “That’s why I called this meeting,” Percy went on. “Three of our four districts in Africa are being practically demolished by some so-called ‘baby Christians.’ I keep getting bad reports that Mozambique, Nigeria, and Swaziland are in trouble. Their Connectional Conference budgets are shot to…”

  Percy paused. Lee Allie was staring straight at him. She said, “You watch your mouth, Bishop.”

  “Okay,” Percy said. “You know something, I don’t even know if I can even dare to qualify what the districts have been forced to operate off of a budget. It’s a mess. Pastors are not receiving their salaries on time or even at all. They move the pastors around too much. And don’t let a pastor be good enough to draw a loyal and tithing group of members to the church. A pastor who does that over there won’t be at his church very long. And that is especially true for the Eighteenth District in Swaziland.

  “It’s gotten so bad in Nigeria that the indigenous pastors have been begging to be moved to districts outside of Africa. Mozambique has good pastors but they are always given the worst assignments. They are sent either to the most conflict-ridden spots in urban areas, or so way out in the boonies you need a guide, a compass, and some kind of military night gear to find the so-called churches. On the other hand, the meanest and corrupt preachers have been given most of the better churches. And very little of the money sent to Mozambique from my office gets past the Seventeenth District’s administrative office.”

  “Who are their bishops?” Uncle Booker asked. He had been about to call his wife, Rose, who had stayed in Charleston to work with the decorator on the interior of their newly built hotel. But the call could wait—this conversation was getting good.

  “Bishop Rucker Lee Hemphill is over Mozambique, Bishop O. Ray Caruthers, Jr., has Swaziland, and Bishop Ottah Babatunde runs the Nigerian district like he heads the Gestapo,” was Percy’s answer.

  “I met Bishop Babatunde at a Triennial Conference about six years ago,” Uncle Booker said. “I’ve never met a negro as mean as that preacher. If Bishop Babatunde wasn’t a preacher, he would probably be hooked up with one of those scary regimes on the continent. I don’t know how he f
lew low enough to get under the radar with the Gospel United Church.”

  “Yeah, that Ottah Babatunde is a piece of work,” Percy said, shaking his head in disgust. He had fought approving Ottah’s candidacy for an Episcopal seat tooth and nail because he knew that man was foul, dangerous, and not in the least bit interested in spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ on Nigerian soil.

  “Rucker Lee Hemphill ain’t nothing but a straight-up crook,” Pompey interjected. “I knew him back in the day. He was always looking for a hook or angle to get some money that didn’t belong to him. And we don’t need to say a word about the son of Bishop Otis Ray Caruthers, Sr. The saying that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree ain’t never been truer when you look at Junior.”

  “And that is precisely why we need to get across the Atlantic Ocean and find out what is going on over there,” Murcheson told them. “Look, Percy, you are the senior bishop, and I’ll be taking over your spot at the Triennial Conference. We can’t go to Durham to elect new bishops and not know what the heck we are up against.”

  “Don’t we have some allies in Africa who are willing to give up the goods on what’s really going on?” Uncle Booker asked. He had never had an inkling to go into the ministry. But he did have a calling to serve as an armor-bearer for his two favorite bishops and good friends. He was glad he had listened to Theophilus and gotten his passport just a few months ago.

  “Bishop Bobo Abeeku in Ghana has been a pretty decent ally so far,” Percy said with a heavy sigh.

  “So what’s wrong with him, Percy?” Pompey asked. That heavy sigh of resignation concerned him. He could tell that while this Bishop Abeeku was their best choice, he was definitely not their first choice.

  “He has a sneaky streak in him that can jump out and bite you on the butt when you least expect it.”