More Church Folk Read online

  “That’s true,” Rucker answered. “But what’s in it for you?”

  “Bishop, as you can see, we have a lot. We like to live well. But we have trouble getting the kinds of luxury goods we like without having to pay ridiculous amounts of money for it. I know that you have fine European shoes, suits, shirts, and silk ties. And you are able to get your hands on the finest liquor, highest-quality cigars, and the best caviar—not to mention your cars and what you have in your beautiful home. That’s what we want without having to pay what you Americans would call an arm and a leg for it.

  “Now, all you’ll have to do is order the goods at the best prices and we’ll make sure the money is always there when it’s time to pay. I’ll pay you for your trouble, and come and get our goods when the shipments come in. Plus, we’ll give you a supply of the potion to sell at the conference in the United States.”

  Rucker knew this was the kind of business deal he’d been looking for. That watermelon-powder stuff was the equivalent of every luxury item Chief had just listed. He had never spent an evening with a woman like the one he had just had. He should have leaped for joy over this but didn’t.

  Rucker Hemphill was selfish and always wanted to be the one with more goods and privileges than other people. He relished the fact that he was one of the few people around able to get his hands on the stuff Chief’s family wanted at a better price. It made him the man around here, and he could use that stuff to barter for power and control when necessary. Rucker was not about to diminish his influence and standing in his district by making it possible for Chief and Uncle Lee Lee to get their hands on luxury goods without going through him.

  Uncle Lee Lee had told Chief that this was his concern when he first laid eyes on the bishop. Rucker Hemphill wanted to be the one who was running things and determining who got what and when. But that wasn’t going to be the case this time.

  “So, do you think we have a deal, Bishop?” Chief asked.

  “Is there anything else you will want, Chief?”

  “We’ll want you to handle the shipping fees yourself.”

  Rucker was so glad that he was tired and not up to sparring with anyone. It saved him from blurting out, “Have you lost your doggone mind, Chief?” Instead he said, “Why would I want to do that?”

  “To earn all of that money you’ll earn with my uncle’s powder,” Chief answered him evenly. “You’ll have so much that the shipping and handling fees won’t even make a dent in your budget.”

  Rucker shook his head. He hadn’t stopped to think about the kind of money he’d make. They were headed to the Triennial Conference in a few months. There was always a lot of money to earn in a setting like that. Church folk came to conferences with money to spend. And there would be plenty of brothers lining up to get a taste of what he and his cronies would be offering.

  He stuck out his hand to Chief and said, “We have a deal.”

  Chief shook Rucker’s hand solemnly. He wished he could say that he was disappointed in this greedy and corrupt American preacher but he wasn’t. Chief knew that Rucker wouldn’t play the game right because he was too stupid, greedy, and selfish to do so. Plus, Rucker was a crook. Chief was shady and slick but he wasn’t a crook. What Rucker didn’t know was that Chief and Uncle Lee Lee knew he wasn’t getting those goods in honestly, and some of that stuff had not even been ordered—it was stolen.

  Rucker went into the house to make a pit stop before they hit the road. Chief’s brothers got busy putting the bishop’s things in the Land Cruiser, checking the tires, and gassing it up, to give Chief some time to give Uncle Lee Lee the skinny on their pending business deal before they left.

  “It’s just as I thought, Nephew,” Uncle Lee Lee said. “He is acting like he’s paying top dollar for that stuff, and then has to dig way down deep in his pockets for shipping and handling. Rucker Hemphill needs this deal but he is greedy and will not do right by us if we are not careful.”

  “But it was okay to shake on it, right?”

  Uncle Lee Lee nodded.

  “So that means we are going to supply the bishop with the powder, right?”

  “Yes, that is exactly what we are going to do—but with a twist.”

  Chief grinned. He loved it when folk—especially Americans and Europeans—tried to pull one over on his uncle because he was an old African, giving him cause to do business with them “but with a twist.” It was all of those “but with a twists” that had made them as rich as they were.

  “And the twist is?” Chief asked, laughing, watching the door for the bishop.

  “We’ll give him just enough of the powder to get started, and give us time to make the right connections with his suppliers. Then they will be on their own. Plus, I know that once the bishop gets back on his native soil, he and his clerical associates will find someone to make this stuff, so that they will not have to pay us.”

  Chief looked at him expectantly for the twist.

  “And that will work out just fine until that stuff they make starts doing them in. Because the one thing I did not include with the potion was this.”

  Uncle Lee Lee dug down in his pants pocket and showed Chief that bottle of liquid that made all the difference in the world concerning how that powder affected you. Uncle Lee Lee had learned the hard way just what that stuff could do to your body if you didn’t make it right, didn’t take it right, and didn’t have what was in that old bottle. His own mother, who knew a lot about natural medicines, had made this for him to counteract the negative effects of the potion.

  The liquid was simple and made from the safest and most common herbs available in most countries. But you would know that it was essential to the safe use of the powder only if somebody told you, and then showed you how to make it. The powder that gave Rucker so much pleasure was potentially lethal without this simple, pleasant-tasting, and cheap homemade liquid.

  “My people perish for lack of knowledge,” Chief said with a soft chuckle that ended when Rucker walked out on the porch. Now he knew what had taken so long. The bishop had changed into his purple clerical shirt and a pair of conservative black slacks. Clearly he wanted the people they might happen to pass, once they got into more populated territory, to know that he was an important minister.

  Chief thought that this black American was a piece of work—even for a spoiled American, this joker was something else. The ancestors who survived that horrific passage to the New World must have been some of the toughest Africans on the continent. How else could you explain these sons of Africa, who crossed back over the ocean to be the piece of work that the ones like Bishop Rucker Hemphill were?

  FIVE

  That particular dose of the watermelon powder stayed in Rucker’s system for two weeks. During that time, it felt as if he had taken some kind of miracle drug—almost as if he’d found the fountain of youth. Rucker noticed that his energy level and physical prowess were at a peak. Plus, he slept better, his appetite was better, and he found himself wanting to exercise. He also felt a need to do some manual labor—something he’d never wanted to do. If his memory served him right, Rucker felt as he had in his early twenties. If there was ever such a thing as a youth potion, the bishop was beginning to think he had stumbled upon it.

  But that state of euphoria came to an end. The vitality Rucker experienced from the potion came crashing down when the last remnant of it was out of his system. And what a crash it was. Just days ago Rucker had been vital, energetic, and full of longevity. His prowess had been at an all-time high, and he’d had more to work with. The bishop’s “honeys on the side” could not hide their delight over this new and improved, greatly enhanced, and extra-endowed Rucker Hemphill.

  Now Rucker felt like a shriveled-up old man. Even worse, he noticed that he also looked like one when he caught a glimpse of himself after coming out of the shower. And that was very disturbing since he hated cold water, and always took hot showers no matter how high the temperature outside. He looked like a little boy running aroun
d in a pair of Underoos.

  The potion had stayed in Rucker’s system so long that he hadn’t expected to experience any side effects. He certainly hadn’t expected anything to change back to the way things were before he took the stuff. Not only did the effects of that potion not last, it had set off the worst withdrawal symptoms he’d ever experienced. Not even the high-quality cocaine he snorted every now and then affected him like this—which posed a problem. How could Rucker hope to sell something that promised so much at first and then spiraled all the way down into a bottomless pit?

  Rucker felt like a plop of poop. And nothing he did was able to make him feel better. Chief had noticed the change in the bishop, and knew immediately what the problem was. Uncle Lee Lee’s potion made you feel like somebody with an incurable disease when it was finally out of your system. The letdown had an opposite effect on your body. Instead of feeling young, virile, and robust, you felt old, sick, and frail.

  The last thing Chief wanted to happen was for the bishop to feel so bad he decided to just chuck their whole arrangement and continue on with business as usual. Chief really wanted to see this deal go through with Bishop Hemphill. His family craved luxury items the way some people craved drugs. Plus, there were a lot of folk who would pay him good money to get their hands on things the bishop possessed, like state-of-the-art stereo equipment, home-office IBM computers, blue jeans and blue jean suits, Michael Jackson cassette tapes, pantyhose, perfume and cologne, Avon, Hostess Twinkies and Cupcakes, televisions, boom boxes, and on and on and on.

  And the way the bishop was able to get his hands on all of this was so close to looking legal, it would be so so easy to take it to the next level. Because Chief had figured out a way to open a high-end “store” for a select clientele, with “select clientele” prices. “A piece of cake,” as the Americans would say. The only thing left to be done was for the bishop to let his suppliers know that Chief was the inside man.

  But Chief had to be able to get on the inside to be the inside man. And so far, the only way Chief had found to gain access to this profitable and well-run black market business was to get Bishop Hemphill a decent supply of Watermelon Powder 21, or WP21, as he’d heard the bishop refer to the potion before he got sick.

  That name had gotten stuck in Chief’s head when the bishop said, “Man, that Watermelon Powder 21 is some bad-tailed stuff. Who would have ever thought that something as simple as a powder made out of watermelon and who-knows-what would make you feel like you twenty-one all over again?”

  Even though Chief told the bishop that he had taken this stuff since he was in his teens, he hardly ever messed with it now that he was a mature man. “WP21” tasted like something out of the crack of your behind—nasty. Plus, he could “do the do” with his wife and his women, to everybody’s satisfaction, without the potion—thank you. But Chief knew that the sooner he got the bishop some more of that powder, the sooner he’d be up and running his new “import” business.

  So Chief hurried out to Uncle Lee Lee’s farm and persuaded him to toss up another, bigger batch of the potion—enough to last the bishop awhile, with some left over for his cronies to try out. Chief knew that as soon as Ray Caruthers and Ottah Babatunde took some of that stuff, those three would be high-tailing it across the Atlantic to set up shop with the only other people as corrupt, crazy, crooked, and covetous as they were—Bishop Larsen Giles, Rev. Ernest Brown, Ernest’s son Rev. Marcel Brown, Rev. Sonny Washington, and Cleotis Clayton, who was their most direct connection to the streets.

  Chief had met them all on one of their trips to Africa in search of something to take back to the US for personal gain. He didn’t like any of them, with the exception of Cleotis Clayton. Despite the man’s criminal record, he was the only honest black man in that bunch.

  What a horrible testimony to a man like Chief. He had read the Bible from cover to cover, and he knew that every word in the Word was the living truth. But Chief was unable to let go of all that he believed he was gaining in the world just for a life with Christ. The thought of salvation soothed Chief’s soul when he felt empty and had panic attacks in the middle of the night. But it didn’t take long for him to relinquish that urge for the Lord. As soon as he thought about the men who had been sent to build up the Gospel United Church in Africa, he took a swig of that strong watermelon wine, woke up his wife, and then went back to sleep, mind completely clear of those concerns.

  Chief thought that the edicts of Paul in the New Testament Book of Titus were never truer than when applied to these men. They were the very people Paul was writing about. These men needed to walk right and strive to be worthy of their calling—which was the exact opposite of just about anything Rucker Hemphill and his “boys” could ever conceive of doing.

  Sometimes Chief wished that the bishops and preachers he’d heard Bishop Hemphill bad-mouthing would make their way across the ocean so that he could meet them in person. He had figured out that Hemphill, Caruthers, and Babatunde disliked Murcheson James, Percy Jennings, Theophilus Simmons, and Eddie Tate because they were honest preachers and true men of God. It was clear that Rucker, Ray, and Ottah couldn’t stand to be around those men because wrong hated to be exposed by right.

  Chief truly hoped that he could meet one of them, or someone like them, before it was time to take his last breath on this Earth. He had so many questions about Jesus and salvation, and nowhere to go and get ministered to. Plus, the last place Chief wanted to be, the day he woke up dead, was on the wrong side of eternity—way south of Heaven. And he knew that men like Rucker Hemphill would never be able to show him how to steer his way north.

  Rucker was relieved when Chief showed up with a new batch of the potion. As soon as he managed to get that nasty stuff down he felt like new money in an old money account. Rucker discovered that he felt at his best if he took WP21 every five days. He always made sure he took the exact amount given to him by Uncle Lee Lee. If he took too much the crash was so severe it made him feel as if he needed to be in an intensive care unit. If he took too little he was sluggish, couldn’t sleep, and suffered from joint aches like someone with severe arthritis.

  Once Rucker believed that he had the use of the potion under control, he got excited all over again about all the money he planned to earn at the 1986 Triennial General Conference in Durham, North Carolina. He tried to tell Ray and Ottah about the potion by phone, but found that he couldn’t describe with any accuracy just what WP21 was, and all that it could do. It was at that point that the ever-observant and efficient Chief stepped in and said, “Bishop, you cannot possibly explain to any man the beauty of this elixir. You should invite your Episcopal brethren to the compound and let them experience this miracle for themselves. You know, there is nothing like word of mouth to advertise the true merit of a product—even in America, where I’m told advertising reigns king.”

  Chief was right. Bishops Caruthers, Jr., and Babatunde had to experience this for themselves. Rucker would need their support in Durham when it came time to buy himself a new district stateside, purchase an Episcopal seat for a man of their choosing, and buy a few presiding elder spots, along with one or two pastorships at choice churches. That would take money, work, and some skillful dirty politics. Ray and Ottah required an incentive, and taking WP21 out for a test drive would be all the incentive those two would need.

  So Rucker invited Bishops Babatunde and Caruthers to his compound—he even paid their way to Mozambique, and made sure they traveled first class all the way. Then Chief, along with his cronies on staff at the Episcopal compound, threw the three bishops a WP21 party. They had plenty of food, plenty of liquor, plenty of privacy, plenty of WP21, and, of course, plenty of women.

  As soon as the women showed up looking fine, smelling good, and smiling from ear to ear, Chief rubbed his hands together and went and put on one of Bishop Hemphill’s favorite songs. Rucker Hemphill loved himself some Howlin’ Wolf. As soon as the bishop heard the song “Tail Dragger” blasting from the boom box, he
got to grinning and singing:

  “I’m a tail dragger. I wipe out my track… /When I get what I want/ I don’t come sneakin’ back.”

  Chief liked that song, too. Nobody could say it like Howlin’ Wolf sang it in a song. And that song said it all. Chief was a tail dragger, too. He was dragging his tail, wiping out his tracks, getting what he wanted, and not sneaking back.

  When Ray and Ottah got ahold of some WP21, nothing else had to be said. They were now customers with testimonials, and couldn’t wait to take it to the Triennial Conference. They had never had anything like WP21. And they knew that if they had never had this stuff, the folk across the ocean had never had any of it, either.

  By now Rucker was so excited about this stuff, he started singing another Howlin’ Wolf song, “Do the Do.” Babatunde wasn’t going to even try to find the right song for the potion. As far as he was concerned, those two Americans wouldn’t have been able to handle the Nigerian lyrics he was thinking about translated into English.

  Ray Caruthers didn’t have a song because he didn’t like WP21 and vowed never to take it again. Oh, he’d enjoyed the benefits of WP21 during the party—but he didn’t like it. For starters, Ray didn’t trust the Africans or their “elixir,” as Chief called it. Secondly, the changes he witnessed when he looked down and saw all of that increase scared him. And as soon as Ray felt the initial effects of the drug, he knew there would be trouble when that stuff was out of his system. And he was right—the aftereffects were as bad as the results of using the powder were good.

  Ray’s dad, Bishop Otis Caruthers, Sr., had died in the most disgraceful manner because of an addiction that led him to take substances just like this. If there was one thing the elder Caruthers’s death had taught his son, it was that some things were best left alone. He might have inherited his father’s greed and penchant for delving into things preachers needed to stay away from, but he had also gotten a good dose of his mother’s cautious approach to anything that promised to do too much for you. Things like that always came with a higher price than Ray Caruthers was willing to pay.