Don't Blame the Devil (18 page)

W
ith all Sister Marty had on her plate: work, church ministry, and trying to keep Delilah's paws off her family, she still found time to fit in one more thing. Once a month she volunteered at New Hope's Community Center Multiservice office. It was a coincidence that her volunteer day fell on the same day as the food committee's meeting. But it'd been cancelled and she'd only just found that out.

Since there wasn't going to be a food committee meeting that day, she'd decided that she'd put Delilah and other trials and tribulations behind her. This day would belong entirely to God. Whoever walked through the door and needed help from the church's Multiservice ministry, she'd serve gladly.

Sister Marty straightened her dress and put on her happy-for-appearance'-sake face. She added just a bit more pep to her step and entered the Multiservice Center's main office.

She opened one of the venetian blinds. “Good afternoon and praise the Lord.” She peeked at a sheet of paper pinned to a cork board. She started singing, “I'm sorry I'm late. Do we have any clients still left?”

“No, there aren't any yet. But we do have a woman who's been waiting to get in and talk to Mother Johnson, who won't be in until later on. I believe she's one of the food volunteers. She was much too early and I don't have the key to the conference room to let her wait there.”

The receptionist, a young woman who looked like a mousey professor in square-frame glasses, smiled. “What's making you so happy this afternoon?”

“It's been a glorious day. I claim it as such.”

“That's what I'm talking about, Sister Marty. Never let the devil steal your joy.” The young woman rose and took a clipboard from the counter. “I'll recheck to see if anyone has arrived. If not, then you can do something else or I guess you can call it a day.”

The receptionist left and returned in a few minutes. “No regular clients have arrived. That woman is still waiting in the intake office. It doesn't seem like she minds waiting.”

“Okay, well, I'll just fill out my time sheets and do some filing. If you want you can have the lady wait over at the reading table. At least she'll have something to do.”

“I'll see if she wants to do that. By the way, what's happening with you as far as Family and Friends Day?”

“Believe it or not, I'm doing more than just singing this year. I'm cooking, but I just learned the food committee meeting is cancelled. But that's okay. I need to find my way to service this evening. I can't wait to get my praise on. I'm not letting anything or anyone mess with my joy today.” She stopped and put her hand over her heart. “I promise you one thing. That devil can burn an extra eternity in hell before I let that happen.”

The receptionist escorted Delilah through the Multiservice Center's hallowed doors and into the office. She walked out before she could see Sister Marty's jaw drop.

At that very moment in time if at no other, Sister Marty knew for certain that salvation was hers for keeps. There were several pairs of scissors along with a cup of sharpened pencils, and even a heavy-duty stapler lying within reach. She didn't pick up any of them and go at Delilah.

Although for a brief second the thought had crossed her mind. There was no one but the two of them there. All she had to do was pretend Delilah had started something first. But miracles were Jesus's specialty. That afternoon, for a while, He'd keep Sister Marty's mind, her job, and her testimony safely at the foot of the Cross.

Instead, one of the first things Sister Marty did, in her best civil tone, was address Delilah by name and ask her to have a seat at the reading table.

“What a surprise,” Sister Marty said and watched Delilah walk over to the table. She knew Delilah was probably sizing up the situation.

“You're starting to become like dog poop,” Delilah hissed. “Everywhere I step, there you are.”

“Well, if anyone would know about mess, it'd be you. Now take a seat.”

Sister Marty waited until Delilah, walking at a deliberately slow pace, sat at the table before she walked out of the room and into a smaller one. She closed the door just enough to ensure she'd have some privacy as she dialed a number. It didn't take long for someone on the other end to answer.

“…She's here, she's early, and she's already worked my last good nerve. They cancelled the food committee meeting. If you wanna keep her on this side of the grave, you'd better get over here.”

She hadn't said it, but a prayer service may not be enough for her where Delilah was concerned.

 

Tamara thought since her foot felt a lot better that she would do a little shopping. She needed some accessories to wear for Sunday's event. She wanted to look as professional and star-ready as possible for the A&R rep. She also thought that with Delilah and Sister Marty at the food committee meeting, they'd be too busy going at one another to bother her. Now they'd cancelled the meeting and she doubted if Sister Marty would let Delilah know.

Instead, she raced from inside Macy's department store to the car. She struggled to take her keys from her pocket as well as hold and talk into her cell phone at the same time.

She never expected to receive a phone call from Sister Marty about Delilah. She'd almost not picked up the phone because earlier they'd already chatted about her suggested menu and how the food would get to the church. She'd also come clean and told Sister Marty what she had revealed to her father. Sister Marty was not happy. It wasn't a situation she wanted to discuss further. It might've been better if they had.

Now Tamara was in the car and taking off to see about a grandmother—one in name only. But then, if she didn't care about Delilah, why was she racing off like a fool to get her before she could cause trouble?

“I don't believe this!” Tamara blurted. Five minutes ago she was an adult with her father's credit card, about to handle her adult business.

Leave it to Delilah to mess me up. She'd better get her old butt together before Sunday. I finally get a chance where I don't have to sleep my way into a music career like she did…. Damn Delilah,
she thought.

With one hand trying to control the steering wheel as she tore through heavy traffic on Lafayette Avenue, she yelled into the phone, “Come on, Deacon Pillar, pick up your phone.” It was the third time she'd tried to call him. Each time it'd gone directly to his voice mail. “Where is he?”

 

Back at the apartment Thurgood sat by his living room window and looked out into the street. He'd been sitting for several hours in that same spot since he'd discovered Delilah had left early—for where, he didn't know. He opened the window and craned his neck to see up and down the block, hoping Delilah would come into view. Soon it would be time to take her over to the church so she could sit down with Marty and the other members of the food committee.

He could literally feel the heat blasting from his skull. That meant a headache was soon to follow.

He saw his reflection in a mirror. “Enough is enough.” He wrung his hands and promised no one in particular since he was alone, “When she finally comes back I'm setting her straight. Enough of the drama—I'm telling Jessie the truth about everything. If she can't handle it, then it's too damn bad!”

He stopped yelling long enough to look over at the telephone. It was still blinking because it wasn't fully charged. He was convinced that Delilah left the phone off the charger on purpose.
I know she did it,
he thought.

He'd left his cell phone downstairs in Tamara's apartment. Jessie and she weren't home, so he couldn't even get his cell phone. Even Delilah's BlackBerry lying on the table wasn't useful. She'd told him there'd been no service for the past few days.

Now he couldn't make or receive calls until the house phone's battery charged. He walked over and checked the bars. Only two of the five bars were charged. Nothing he could do but return to the window and wait.

“I'm too through with women.” A shudder washed over him like a burst of thunder. He remembered he'd said the same thing when he was in his sixties and caught between the amorous and vicious clutches of two, somewhat saved church mothers from Pelzer, South Carolina. By the time Bea Blister and Sasha Pray Onn finished tossing him around like he was their personal volleyball, filling him with sweet bread, collards, red velvet cake, and corn liquor, he couldn't recite his name, age, and date of birth for weeks.

But that was then and this was now. Age and stubbornness caused the old playa to forget one important rule in the two-timers' rule book.

It was the women who decided when the game was over.

“E
xcuse me,” the receptionist who'd led Delilah into the office said softly, “Mother Johnson is here. Would you still like to chat with her?”

Delilah had long ago finished reading most of the magazines on the table. She could've left, but she knew that would've made Marty happy. She didn't want Marty happy. “Oh, that would be lovely,” Delilah purred.

Delilah quickly opened the briefcase she'd brought for the meeting. She took out several of her best recipes with the intention of not only making Tamara look good, but wowing Mother Johnson. She'd heard that Mother Johnson's taste buds would do the deciding once they'd test-cooked a few things. Delilah never knew cooking for a church event was so political. But she wasn't surprised, either.

“I'm Mother Johnson,” the woman announced as she entered the intake office. “Sister Delilah, is it?” She didn't wait for an answer before continuing. “Well, I'm pleased to meet you. You've waited to see me for quite some time and I'm sorry about that. I understand from our receptionist you're going to be a part of our cooking team for Family and Friends.” She stopped and appeared to take a closer look at Delilah. “I thought I knew everyone. I can't recall seeing you at New Hope.”

“Oh, of course I've attended New Hope before, and thank you for seeing me.” Delilah edited her truth as close to the bone as she could, but she was tempted to shout
I'm Tamara's real authentic grandma,
but she didn't. It wasn't necessary to use the term
grandma.
Once she and Tamara became close they'd have to choose another term.

Mother Johnson was just a few inches taller than Delilah. Yet she looked like a snowcapped mountain as she pushed her white crocheted cap farther back onto her head. She didn't appear to have enough hair to make a bobby pin necessary. “It's almost four-thirty, and it's still a scorcher out there. My goodness, I know I must look like a wet Almond Joy.”

I know you look like you eat Almond Joy bars twenty-four seven.
That's what she thought, but instead Delilah came back with a Delilah reply special. “Oh, I'm sure you're not as nutty as all that.” Delilah immediately burst out in laughter to hide her insincerity.

“Oh, the Lord loves the nutty ones, too.” Old Mother Johnson adjusted the elastic around the waistline of her floor-length white dress. She looked well over two hundred pounds and the elastic looked pulled to its limit because it didn't give an inch. “What's that you've got laid out? Hmmm, it sure looks good.”

“Thank you.” Delilah quickly moved the picture out of the way before the old mother decided to eat that, too. “This is my own recipe for corn pudding.”

“Do you keep pictures of all your recipes so organized?”

Now, the old church mother didn't realize it, but she was now on Delilah's fan page. Delilah couldn't stop grinning. She was beginning to like Mother Johnson and decided to make the old woman an unwitting ally.

“Please sit down.” Delilah even pulled out a seat for Mother Johnson as though the woman were in Delilah's office. Plus she knew Sister Marty wouldn't like her being so familiar, and that made her disposition sweeter. “How long have you been a church mother at New Hope?”

The old church mother seemed surprised at the question. She started counting on fingers that were bent backwards, no doubt, from arthritis; but they didn't prevent her from using eating utensils. “Well now, let me see….”

“I didn't mean to get so nosy. I was just curious.” Delilah didn't think the woman had to do a finger count just to answer a simple question.

“It's alright, Sister Delilah.”

“Well, if it's not a bother.”

“No bother. Back to answering your first question—I started evangelizing about five years after Christ convicted my heart and told me to quit my scandalous ways.”

It wasn't quite the answer Delilah had expected. She became more intrigued, especially when the woman used the word
scandalous
to describe whatever she'd been doing in the past. Mother Johnson looked so frumpy, Delilah thought she'd been born saved and sanctified and filled with Almond Joy candy bars.

“Do tell,” Delilah said. “You don't look like you've done a scandalous thing in your life.”

“Well, that's because when Jesus takes his blood-soaked scrub brush to you, it'll change and clean you up real good.”

“I suppose so. What exactly had you done when He took the scrub brush to you?”

“I guess you really wouldn't know. I used to be one of Deacon Thurgood Pillar's prostitutes.”

“Huh!”

“Yes, ma'am. Me and old Deacon Pillar go way back further than pillow talk.”

And that was the defining moment that Delilah knew God had indeed done something in her life. She didn't pick up anything. She didn't try to rip one of the thick magazines apart and body slam the old woman to the floor, and she didn't cuss Mother Johnson out.

Instead, Delilah smiled until her jaws felt tight enough to crack. “I've known the deacon for a long time, too. When was he ever a pimp?”

“Well now, I don't really remember when he bagged his first ho….” Mother Johnson jerked her head up toward the ceiling and professed, “Oh Lord, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to say that word. I know it ain't Your word because it ain't in the Bible.”

Ain't
ain't in the Bible, either,
Delilah thought. She was pretty sure of it. “God forgives.” That's all she could think to say that didn't have a cuss word in it. Delilah just kept on smiling.

Mother Johnson's eyes seemed to sparkle as she spoke about how she'd come to know the deacon. “I believe it was when he got out of prison. At least, I think that's where he told me he'd been.”

For the next ten minutes or so Mother Johnson explained how Christ had saved her during the worst period of her young life. He forgave her and turned her from a wretch undone to a saleswoman for God, a president of the mothers' board and a chief taster for the food committee.

After she explained God's forgiveness to Delilah, Mother Johnson thought she'd take it a little further. After all, the food committee meeting was cancelled, but a prayer meeting was scheduled to begin in about fifteen minutes. “You know, Sister Delilah, I don't know how close you and the Heavenly Father are, but I'm certain you believe that God can reach down into a human cesspool and clean a person off.” She then gave Delilah a wide grin. “I'm just handing you what thus saith the Lord.”

The truth was, she'd actually handed Delilah plenty of new information to use against that old, sanctimonious Deacon Pillar. And she was going to use that info like an auger hole digger. Delilah was gonna bury that old deacon.

Whether it was her inner spirit or the remains of feminine intuition, Mother Johnson wasn't certain. She sensed a shift in the atmosphere. “You know, they conference with crazy folks in this office. I sense too many demons in this place,” she announced as she pulled a bottle of blessed oil from her pocketbook. She started anointing everything in the office, including the remains of several dead cockroaches by a dry cactus plant before she finally asked, “Are you okay, Miss Delilah?”

“I'm fine.” But Delilah wasn't fine. Suddenly cooking wasn't on the top of her list. Inside, her anger was volcano hot. It was a wonder she hadn't roasted every organ within her body. However, payback was a dish better served cold, so she chilled.

 

Tamara arrived at the New Hope Multiservice Center and found her father and Sister Marty in one of the offices near the little sanctuary.

“Hi, Daddy. Hello, Godmother. I came as fast as I could. Where is the old gal now?”

“Sorry to interrupt your shopping spree, Tamara,” Sister Marty replied. “I imagine she's still in the intake office where I left her. She was waiting for Mother Johnson.”

“Why did she need Mother Johnson?” Tamara remembered Delilah had questioned her about the committee members. She didn't know Delilah would seek out Mother Johnson.

Jessie's patience grew short. He wasn't usually so harsh with those he loved. “If you didn't trust yourself to be alone with Delilah, then I wish you'd called me first before you phoned Tamara.” Jessie sat down in one of the vacant chairs opposite where Sister Marty stood. “She doesn't need to be bothered with Delilah. I can handle her.”

“First of all, I didn't know you were in the building. Secondly, she's your child, Jessie, but she's also an adult. She is the one who asked me and Delilah to cook together.”

“I know, Marty.”

“You once told me that you wanted God to fix what was broken in your life, Jessie. Don't you still want that?”

“Yes, of course I do. But…”

“But what? What is the problem?”

“Daddy, I'm so sorry.” Tamara wanted to take back every word she'd said about the deacon and Delilah's marriage; especially since there was stress growing between him and Sister Marty.
I wonder if Daddy said anything yet.

Jessie waved away Tamara's apology and turned back to Sister Marty. “I'm just not in the place where I need to be to accept Delilah. At least until I know the whole truth.”

“Truth hurts, Jessie. Remember that. I think we need another one of our son-mom chats.”

“Oh Lord, I don't believe this.” Tamara didn't explain, she just pointed.

 

When Sister Marty left Delilah, she'd never returned and seen Mother Johnson and Delilah together in the intake office. But she did see them walking arm in arm as they walked into the little sanctuary.

Delilah threw her head back and winked at Jessie, Tamara, and Sister Marty. Then she and the old church mother walked together into what Delilah thought was a food committee meeting.

Delilah was livid. She dropped Mother Johnson's arm with a thud. Instead of seeing a bunch of women with chef's hats or whatever they wore to a food committee meeting, she saw some folks kneeling and others gathered in pockets holding hands where they stood.

It took a moment or two, but it became obvious that it wasn't the meeting she'd looked forward to. There was too much prayer going on. Delilah knew that's what it was, because before she'd set up her mobile church routine, she'd attended a few prayer sessions. But that only happened when she'd gotten to church too early or too late. She'd never attended one on purpose.

Mother Johnson, out of respect for the prayers going upward, didn't say a word to Delilah. She walked to one of the altar railings and knelt down to pray. Without Mother Johnson to hold her down, Delilah turned to leave the sanctuary.

Delilah ran straight into the path of Jessie and the others.

“Delilah, where are you going?” Jessie asked the question with an authoritative tone that Delilah didn't appreciate at that moment. “With all those Bibles you have as decoration in your home, I thought you'd feel comfortable inside here.”

And then it was Tamara's turn. “Grandma Delilah,” Tamara said softly and as reverently as she could while inside the sanctuary, “I really didn't know the meeting was cancelled. You might as well stay for prayer. I am.”

Delilah looked around the sanctuary again.
Oh Jehovah, why do you keep moving the chess pieces around? You keep dangling my family before me like a carrot.
“Okay. I don't have a choice. I took the bus over here, but I'd planned on riding back with you, Tamara.”

At that same moment, Sister Marty became as confused as she'd ever been before. She looked at Delilah standing between Jessie and Tamara and it suddenly seemed right and not threatening. And at that moment in time, she also realized what she'd always confessed.
Whatever God has for me is for me.
From the very beginning she should've shown Delilah that same love and care Jesus had shown her when she was once a lost soul, too. She should've just loved the hell out of Delilah.

Jessie watched as the others prepared for the devotional service to begin. Of course, there were little cliques that always sought out one another for prayer and comfort. But then he saw Mother Johnson walk over to Tamara and Delilah. He couldn't hear the conversation, but he could certainly imagine it. The old church mother and Tamara were going from one member to another. He saw hands extended to Delilah and wondered if Tamara had introduced her as her grandmother. That was something he certainly hadn't done, nor had he tried to. Instead, he decided he needed to stop trying to one-up God and allow the Master to play things out in His time.

“I wanna thank the Lord for His goodness and all He's done for me.” That was one of the most readily used testimony starters, and it'd started with Mother Johnson. “Oh, if it were not for the Lord, where would I be?”

From around the sanctuary others called out, “Tell it, Mother Johnson.”

“I made a new friend in the Lord this afternoon. Oh, we shared so much in common. We both were wretches undone, with one a little more undone than the other….”

Delilah was with her newfound fan until she went there.
Who is she talking about?
Delilah looked about the sanctuary until her eyes found Sister Marty standing off to the side alone.
Oh, okay. It must be Marty. I didn't think Mother Johnson was talking about me.

And then after several more platitudes along with legitimate praise, Mother Johnson brought Delilah to the stage. “Would you like to testify or sing a song?”

There wasn't a Martin Luther King fan waving as Delilah stood. She knew how to work her audience. She hadn't worn her signature wig, but with her snow white hair cascading about her face, she turned the prayer meeting out!

“Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah” was part of her first set. Her rendition was flawless and she drew the skeptics into her corner, including the pianist, who had started crying. Then she followed with a rousing rendition of Vicki Winans' “Long As I Got King Jesus.” Her long white tresses took over and the way she was shaking her hair and her “pocketbook,” those assets could've backed her up. But it was when she became so caught up in her own myth and screamed, “Give the drummer some…” that Jessie, Tamara, and Sister Marty almost passed out.