Second Sunday (11 page)

The reverent hush in the church deepened as George whispered to Sheba, “Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior
now?”

“Yes,” she said softly.

George lifted his hands off Sheba’s head and gave her forehead a featherweight touch. With that, the Spirit rose up so strong
in her that Sheba was knocked back, with her arms thrown over her head, as she fell out, slain in the Spirit. Bert and Wendell,
who were standing behind Carl Lee and La Sheba, moved to catch her before she hit the floor.

Everyone in the congregation was still and quiet. They all knew about getting slain in the Spirit and had seen it at some
revivals held at Gethsemane, but it had been years since a pastor did this at a morning service. Rev. Wilson went on to ask
each of Sheba’s four children if they wanted the Holy Ghost. When they said yes, he touched their heads, and one by one, just
like their mama, they all fell out. There they were, the whole family lying on the floor, side by side, slain in the Spirit.

Melvin Jr. was sitting next to Phoebe and wondering, like Bert, where her cousin Bertha Kaye was. He whispered, “My mama always
said that Miss Sheba’s children love themselves some of ‘they mama.’ And she’s right. Even Gerald, with his almost-grown self,
falling out ’cause of his mama.”

“Well,” Phoebe whispered back, “Miss Sheba never did do anything all plain-and-boring like. Stands to reason she would be
the first one to fall all out in church under the new pastor.”

Melvin Jr. chuckled and then got serious as he studied his new pastor. On the surface, Rev. Wilson was low-key and unassuming.
But underneath, there was power in that man—the power that comes with an anointing from the Lord.

Why had there been so much fighting, Melvin Jr. wondered, to keep a pastor like Rev. Wilson out of this church? To put him
in as interim pastor didn’t make much sense, especially after this morning’s service. “But when,” Melvin Jr. thought, “did
Mr. Cleavon Johnson or any other member of his family put anything, including the church, ahead of themselves?” It took a
women’s revolution in the church to get even this far toward hiring a good pastor. Melvin Jr. closed his eyes in prayer. It
was going to take a whole lot of prayer and effort to keep Rev. Wilson in that pulpit.

The Devil Is Very Busy in Church

T
he New Year, 1976, rolled right in, giving Gethsemane less than six months to get the anniversary celebration going. With
George spearheading the planning, committees began to form, including the History & Archive Committee, selected to document
the rich heritage of the church; the Flowers Committee to handle both the landscaping and the interior decoration; and the
Food Team who claimed it would create the most lavish spread ever served in church, along with a special cake big enough for
the entire congregation to share. After all the conflict over choosing a pastor, folks seemed happy that they could finally
settle down and work together in peace. But as Katie Mae’s grandmother always warned, “When the saints are caught up in the
business of the Lord, the devil gets mad and gets busy in church.”

Gethsemane was a special church, Bert Green thought as he drove past it while running a Sunday morning errand for Nettie.
Its deep red brick, if a little shabby and cracked now, still had a warm glow, and its stained-glass windows, with their simple
scenes depicting stories in the Four Gospels, were beautifully vibrant. Later that morning, a hot new choir, the Holy Rollers,
was going to rattle those windows. Even the scent of the church was beautiful, thanks to the spicy potpourris the women’s
auxiliaries sprinkled over the soil of the potted plants in the sanctuary.

Gethsemane was such a warm and loving church that you felt good just being there. That’s why it troubled Bert so much that
Bertha Kaye, his only child and namesake, had been missing for so many Sunday mornings. The girl had stopped coming to church
on a regular basis shortly after Rev. Forbes’s death. She didn’t even show up for services Christmas Day—just brought herself
by the house to eat and collect her presents. And when Bert got on her about it, the girl had the nerve to burst into tears,
run to her old bedroom, slam and lock the door, and then, from the sounds of it, throw her spoiled self on the bed like some
petulant rich girl in the movies.

That crying and acting out on Christmas Day was the last straw as far as Bert was concerned. Even as a little girl, Bertha
didn’t fool her daddy, and she wasn’t getting by him now. Neither was Nettie, who Bert suspected knew something, if not all,
that was up. Bert resolved to start the New Year off by remedying whatever was wrong with his baby—and he was going to find
out just what that was today.

It was the second Sunday of the month, when Nettie always cooked a big breakfast for their family and friends before the eleven
o’clock service. When Bert arrived with the milk Nettie sent him out to get, everybody was already there: MamaLouise; Mr.
Louis Loomis; their neighbor Sheba Cochran; Melvin and Sylvia Vicks, with their son Melvin Jr.; and Viola and Wendell Cates,
with their daughter Phoebe. Bertha’s seat remained empty, one more stark reminder to Bert that something was up with his baby.

Nettie had set the table with her favorite gold-rimmed china and used her cream lace tablecloth, fancy gold satin napkins,
and the brass napkin rings with “Bert and Nettie Forever” engraved on them. The cream and gold complemented the soft neutral
tones of the dining room: walls with ivory moire draperies, a pale beige area rug on the golden hardwood floors, and a soft
sand, ivory, and off-white abstract oil painting on the wall facing the large picture window. Nettie had a special color scheme
for each room in the house: sunny yellow for the kitchen, sage green for the living room, pale blue for the master bedroom,
lavender for the guest room, and pink for Bertha’s old bedroom.

As soon as Nettie finished putting out all the food, Bert had everybody gather and join hands to bless the table. “Father,”
he prayed, “we thank You for this gathering of family and friends to partake of the bounties of Your love in the form of this
wonderfully prepared meal. Bless the sweet brown hands that made it. And bless the food to nourish and keep us all healthy
and strong. In the name of Jesus Christ our precious Lord and Savior we pray. Amen.”

“Amen,” everybody said, and dug into the delicious-smelling breakfast of homemade blackberry pancakes, crispy bacon, sausage
patties, fluffy scrambled eggs, fresh-sliced pears, fresh-squeezed orange juice, and Nettie’s wonderful coffee.

When Bert was satisfied that everybody had been served, he took a spoon and tapped the side of his crystal water glass.

“As always,” he began,” I am glad that we are all here to enjoy this good meal together. But even though I’m glad to see y’all,
I am not happy about my baby not being here. Now, the girl has been missing church, she is not here with us this morning,
and I want to know what is up with her.” He looked straight at Nettie as he asked, “Does anybody have any idea what is going
on with Bertha Kaye?”

At that point, Nettie hopped up to get Bert some more coffee, taking extra care as she sweetened it with honey, added a touch
of cinnamon, and made sure it had the perfect amount of cream for Bert. He liked his coffee the color of rich caramel—said
that color tasted good.

Bert thanked Nettie for the coffee but didn’t let her off the hook: “Well, baby, what you got to say for yourself and that
daughter of yours?”

“Not much, Bert honey,” Nettie answered, starting to return to her seat. But Bert tugged on her hand and pulled her right
back over to his chair.

“What you know that I don’t know, girl?” he asked gruffly.

Nettie didn’t answer right away. This wasn’t the first time Bert had put her on the spot at a family breakfast. Viola always
thought that her sister would be better off just telling the man what he wanted and often needed to know when nobody was around.
But Nettie hated to give Bert bad news and would always keep it from him as long as she could, until the man got tired of
it and called her out in front of everybody. And it always worked.

But Nettie wasn’t ready to cave in yet. “Now Bert, honey,” she said, “no need in us disrupting a perfectly lovely breakfast
talking about troublesome things. Why don’t you sip on your coffee before it gets cold and get some more pancakes.”

“Bad move,” Phoebe thought, having witnessed enough scenes between Bert and Nettie to know the script. She slurped on her
coffee, unintentionally drawing attention to herself.

At that, Bert let go of Nettie’s hand and zeroed in on the other person in the room who usually had the scoop on Bertha Kaye.
Phoebe and Bertha, both only children of sisters, were just like sisters themselves and knew almost all of each other’s secrets.
Close as they were, the two women were different as night and day. Bertha was flighty, comical, prissy, and spoiled rotten
with her big, pretty, full-figured self. Phoebe was more serious—a lawyer—very athletic, no-nonsense, long and tall, with
an incredibly beautiful head of hair that hung way down her back.

“So, Phoebe Josephine,” Bert said, knowing that the use of Phoebe’s full name would put her on notice that he wasn’t playing.
“What can
you
tell me about Bertha and her whereabouts?”

Phoebe took as big a gulp of coffee as she dared, to buy some time. She really didn’t know what to tell her uncle.

“Baby, stop slurping on your coffee,” MamaLouise admonished. “Now, if you have something to tell your uncle, you better tell
it, because he really needs your help.”

Phoebe almost huffed air out of her mouth. Why did she have to be the one to spell it out? She sipped some more coffee, being
extra careful not to slurp it. If she did, all of them would swear she did it on purpose. Everybody knew Phoebe could have
“her habits” on her, and her habits included being irritable and then deliberate in her refusal to cooperate.

Bert was watching his niece expectantly, drumming the table with thick heavy brown fingers. Phoebe could see that she had
no hope of escape.

“Uncle Bert,” Phoebe began, “Bertha has been going to another church out in St. Charles.”

“St. Charles?” Bert asked. “The only church that I am familiar with out in St. Charles is that . . .” He snapped his fingers
and turned to Nettie. “Baby, what’s the name of the church that’s always on TV? You know the one. It’s called . . .”

“The American Worship Center,” Nettie answered, hoping he wouldn’t keep pushing.

“The American Worship Center,” Bert repeated. “That’s it, but—”

“Nettie,” MamaLouise said impatiently, “is Bertha going to the American Worship Center?”

“Yeah, Mama. She is.”

“Why?” MamaLouise demanded, astonished that anybody, let alone her own granddaughter, would want to go to that church. The
televised services didn’t look that inviting, and she had never seen any black people at them.

“Don’t know, Mama,” Nettie answered truthfully.

“Well, it must be something,” Bert interjected. “And I aim to find out. How long you been knowing this, woman?”

“Two and a half weeks.”

“Two and one half weeks?” he yelled, jumping up from the table so fast, he knocked over his chair. Everybody in the room grew
quiet. Bert hardly ever lost his temper, but when he did, it was like standing in the middle of a tornado.

“Now Bert, honey, don’t go getting all upset, running your pressure up. I—”

“I, nothing!” he snapped, and snatched the chair up, flinging it back in place. “You kept quiet on this,
Nettie Cordelia Williams Green,
because you knew I would get all up in that silly girl’s business. And I don’t care if Bertha Kaye
is
supposed to be grown, she is silly sometimes. Don’t know where she got it from. You got good sense, Viola got good sense,
MamaLouise got good sense, and I got good sense.”

Bert pulled his car keys from his pocket and went to get his hat and coat.

“Where do you think you’re off to?” Nettie asked, pulling on his arm.

Bert pried her hand away. “I’m going to get my baby. She ain’t got no business out there.”

“Maybe not,” Nettie insisted. “But you’re not the person to go out there and get her. All you’ll do is fuss at Bertha and
she’ll dig in her heels, just to make sure you know she grown so you can’t tell her what to do.”

“She might do something even more foolish, like joining that church,” Sheba said, wondering if that was exactly what Bertha
was planning to do. Recently she had asked Sheba for a copy of her tax forms for some “application” process.

“Why don’t you go, Phoebe,” Bert said. “She’ll probably listen to you.”

Phoebe sighed heavily. “But it’s Second Sunday,” she reminded Bert. Second Sunday at a black Baptist church was the very
best
Sunday, commemorating the days when poor churches could hire itinerant preachers only twice a month—on the second and fourth
Sundays. But it was on the second Sundays that those congregations really had “chutch.”

For his first Second Sunday as pastor, Rev. Wilson had installed the new choir, the Holy Rollers, who promised to tear up
the service with their high-powered, on-fire singing. Phoebe couldn’t wait to get to church.

“Your uncle Bert just asked you to do something, Phoebe Josephine,” her father, Wendell, stated in a no-nonsense voice. “Now
you do right and go see to your cousin.”

Meanwhile, Sheba had been keeping an eye on Melvin Jr. Lately she had noticed that he and Bertha spent a lot of time together
for people who couldn’t “stand” each other. He had almost jumped when Bert started questioning Phoebe and had kept his eyes
glued to the table during their exchange. So she asked, “Why don’t you go with her, Melvin Jr.?”

“Don’t you think I would add insult to injury, Miss Sheba, if I showed up with Phoebe? You know how much I get on Bertha’s
nerves over the simplest of things.”

“No, as a matter of fact, I don’t,” Sheba answered him evenly.