Second Sunday (2 page)

When it became clear that Bert was not going to chastise his woman, Cleavon decided that he had to intervene. Puffing himself
up to his full dignity as head of the Finance Board, he began authoritatively, “Sister Nettie, the senior men of this church,
including your husband, have carefully formulated this list based on reliable recommendations . . .”

Nettie stole a glance at Mr. Louis Loomis, but all he did was adjust his glasses and crumple his napkin, as if to say, “My
name is Bennett and I ain’t in it.”

Taking that as approval, she interrupted, “What I’m asking is, who—”

Cleavon tried to cut her off. “You’ll meet our choices along with the rest of the congregation—”

“Or rather, what kind of men are being ‘formulated’ and ‘recommended’ to be
our
new pastor?” she continued, as if he were not talking.

“Sister Nettie,” Cleavon scolded, “it’s time for you to run along, like a good girl. You have your own proper duties as one
of the church’s handmaidens. We have ours, and you are stopping us from carrying them out.” His voice grew stern. “You are
not a duly appointed officer of this church, and until you are I think it would be wise on your part to let the heads of this
godly house run this house.”

Nettie pushed her chair away from the table, rose, and wiped her hands on her apron. Cleavon thought it was a gesture of defeat,
that she was accepting his rebuke. But Nettie wasn’t conceding defeat or retreating. She was retrenching as she stacked the
dirty dishes and mustered up her sweetest, most chastised-woman-sounding voice to say, “Brother Cleavon, only the Lord knows
what moves you. Only the Lord knows what makes you so forceful in what you do and say. But I am thankful that you express
yourself so openly. Pray my strength.”

As Nettie left, Cleavon nodded self-importantly to the group, not realizing she had just told him that he was in a class by
himself and too dumb to try to keep it to himself.

Bert and Wendell stifled chuckles, but felt unsettled by Nettie’s exit. She had to be up to something more than needling Cleavon
Johnson. The encounter felt ominous, leaving them both with the impression that Nettie was throwing down a gauntlet, as a
declaration of war.

When Nettie got back to the kitchen, she slammed her tray down on the counter so hard that she almost broke some of the heavy,
mint green glass cups, plates, and saucers that were always in plentiful supply at church.

Her sister Viola jumped up, startled, and Nettie cussed, “I be doggoned and banned from heaven!”

“What’s all this banging and ugly talking?” Sylvia Vicks demanded. “Nettie Green, you ain’t out in them streets. You up in
church. And you just best start remembering that.”

“Sylvia, pray my strength, ’cause I am so mad at our men up in that room.” Nettie pointed toward the ceiling, shaking her
head in disgust. “I mean, they should have learned something worthwhile about hiring a preacher after Rev. Forbes. But they
not even talking about character and morals—”

She stopped herself—“Forgive me, Jesus, for speaking ill of the dead”—then continued, “Lord only knows how much money they
wasted bailing Clydell Forbes out of his women troubles—”

“What ‘women troubles,’ Nettie Green?” asked Cleavon’s wife, Katie Mae Johnson. “I never heard about the church spending money
like that. With Cleavon on the Deacon Board and being head of the Finance Board, I think I would have heard if he was making
payoffs to errant women.”

“Humph,” Sylvia interjected. “Don’t know how you missed all that, with the way Pastor Forbes had such a weakness for loose-tail
women in booty-clutching dresses—bigger and fatter the booty, the better, I hear. And sad thing, Sister Forbes had a big fat
rumpa-seat hangin’ off the back of her. Don’t know why he wanted all those other women, seeing what he had laying up next
to him in his own house.”

“Y’all, we should not be up in this church, talking all in Sister Forbes’s business and up under her clothes like that. It
ain’t right, and it sho’ ain’t Christian.”

Viola sighed out loud and raised her hands high in exasperation. “Katie Mae, it’s Christian charity to tell the truth about
the truth.”

“And you should have known something, Katie Mae,” Sylvia added. “We all keep telling you that Cleavon keep too much from you.
He your husband, and all he ever tell you is that you think too much and read too much and always working your self up over
some nonsense. Then he go out in the streets, and when he come home, be acting like he just got through passing out the two
fish and five loaves of bread to the multitudes.”

Katie Mae sneaked and wiped her eyes with the edge of her apron. Sometimes even your best friends didn’t truly understand
the magnitude of your pain. She sniffed once and put on a brave face before saying, “Aww, Sylvia, you can’t judge my Cleavon
by your Melvin. Melvin Sr. tells you pretty much everything and lets you run your house. But in Cleavon’s home, the woman
is beneath the man. He believe in the strict Bible ways.”

Sylvia had to stop herself from quoting one of Mr. Louis Loomis’s observations about Cleavon’s “strict Bible ways” mess. “That
boy always pontificating about a woman being beneath a man ’cause his tail always so intent on being on top of one.”

“Well, it don’t matter what Cleavon believe,” Nettie said. “The fact is, he used church money to get the Reverend out of trouble.
But it ain’t just the money that makes me so mad—it’s our men using they man pride and they man rules to pick our preachers,
acting like I committed a sin just by asking them a question. Look at us down here in this hot kitchen, fixing food and washing
dishes, while they upstairs eating, talking, laughing, and acting like they the Apostles. This is our church too. It just
ain’t right. And I ain’t gone stand for it
no more.
”

“But what you propose to do?” Viola asked. “We not on any of those boards. So I don’t see how we gone select a preacher.”

“That’s right,” Katie Mae said. “You doing all this big bad talk and you don’t even know how to go from A to B.”

Nettie took off her apron and closed her eyes, praying for direction. When the inspiration came, she snapped her fingers.

“Viola, Sylvia, Katie Mae—here’s what we’ll do. Our mens thought they could put me in my place. So what we gone use is our
women’s place to make them do right. We’re gone get us a woman’s secret weapon.”

“And what in the world would that be?” Sylvia asked.

“
Who
is more like it,” Nettie stated. “We need someone who’s an expert when it comes to sniffing out a man. Someone who can tell
us which one of those preachers on they list is decent. And I know just the secret-weapon girl who can help us. My neighbor,
Sheba Cochran.”

“Sheba Cochran?” Katie Mae snapped, incensed that Nettie would even form her mouth to utter Sheba’s name in her presence.
“The heifer with all them baby daddies? Why that party-hearty club girl used to be one of Cleavon’s women!”

For a moment, none of them breathed. Ever since high school, Cleavon had believed he was “fine as wine and every woman’s kind,”
and even though he was staring forty in the behind, he was still running around and chasing tail like his life depended on
it. And no matter what Cleavon did, Katie Mae defended him. It infuriated her friends, but if Katie Mae pretended he acted
right, they felt obliged to hold their peace.

Now the truth was out.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Nettie said softly. “And you have a right to be angry.”

“Why would you or any other married woman even want to cut your eyes at that thang?”

“Katie Mae, there’s something you should know. Cleavon lied to Sheba.”

Katie Mae opened her mouth, but Nettie went on before she could speak. “Cleavon met Sheba over in East St. Louis at the Mothership
Club. He claimed to be legally separated from you, and she honestly believed his marriage was over. So did I, until I learned
he was still spending some nights with you. When I told Sheba, she broke it off. Remember Cleavon’s black eye?”

Katie Mae nodded.

“Sheba did that, while she was cussing him out. I’ve known Sheba since we were kids, Katie Mae. She’s never purposefully gone
with a married man.”

Tears streamed down Katie Mae’s face. She was hurt, angry, and convicted in her heart all at the same time. She knew how Cleavon
operated. And her grandmother constantly told her: “Baby, just a ’cause you let Cleavon run you, don’t mean nobody else will.
You better understand that there more folks than not who want to set his tail straight.”

Sylvia handed Katie Mae a paper napkin and then gave Nettie the eye, hoping she could think of something to soften the blow
she had just delivered. Nettie got the message and went to Katie Mae, taking both of her hands in her own. “I’m so sorry,”
she said.

When Katie Mae regained her composure, Nettie added, “Please trust me about Sheba. Cleavon picked Clydell Forbes, and he ain’t
picking our new pastor. But the fact is, none of these men—including Bert, Wendell, and Melvin Sr.—have the sense to find
a man who can lead the church, bring us together for the anniversary,
and
do right by the women. It’s got to be up to us.”

Katie Mae sighed heavily. Nettie was right.

“And for that we need Sheba,” Sylvia said.

“Yes,” Viola chimed in. “That Sheba knows men like I know my name. If one of these preachers on they list is bad, she’ll find
him out.”

“And if one is a good man?” Katie Mae asked.

“Then she’ll know that, too,” Nettie answered. “She the one always told me to quit worrying about Bert. Said, with a good
man, if you take care of him right, he ain’t going nowhere. But with a bad man, ain’t nothing you can do. Whatever he looking
to find out in the street ain’t about you. It’s just some of his own mess that he ain’t ready to deal with.”

Katie Mae sighed again, as if taking Nettie’s words to heart.

“So, are we agreed?” Viola asked.

They all clasped hands to seal the bargain.

“Now how do we plan to get Sheba next to these preachers?” Sylvia said. “Some of them slick as slick oil and liable to slip
from a tight spot. And what if our men catch her East St. Louis, love-to-party-self up in church? One of them bound to ask
what got Sheba up so early on Sunday morning.”

“Hmmm,” Nettie said, turning it over in her mind. “I think we’ll have to leave it to Sheba to get to the preachers, and we’ll
each have to find a way to handle our men ourselves.”

“Okay, I can see that part. But, Nettie, will Sheba help us?”

“I bet she will. She’ll see it as a challenge.”

“Wait a minute!” said Katie Mae. “What if Sheba decides she wants to lay up with one of those preachers?”

She paused, and her eyes got big and round. “And, and what if one of those preachers real low-down and try to get some from
her, when even
she
don’t want to give it to him.”

“Katie Mae, why you all of a sudden so worried about Sheba Cochran? I thought you said she was nothing but a party-hearty
hussy.”

“I did. But I don’t want to have a hand in her sinful ways.”

“You won’t. If Sheba will help us, it’ll be for her own good reasons. Look, the girl is tough—she’s raised four kids alone.
I’ve seen her box down her old men when she needed her child support payments. And do you think preachers are rougher than
those men she meets out in the clubs?”

“Yeah,” Viola said, laughing, “if she do want one of those old men, she can have him. And that’ll be between her, her sheets,
that man, and the Lord—and then we’ll know for sure that preacher ain’t worth a poot.”

“Shoot, I say let the chile have her fun,” Sylvia agreed. “It’ll be worth it to keep some trifling no-good thang out of our
pulpit.”

Katie Mae closed her eyes and clasped her hands to her chest. She hoped that the Lord would understand and forgive their wayward
souls.

Sylvia looked over at Katie Mae agonizing and praying over Sheba Cochran, when what she needed to pray and agonize over was
that no-count, trouble-causing man of hers.

Nettie had good reason to be worried. Two weeks later, the search committee met again, only to discover that Cleavon Johnson
had gone behind their backs and invited a Rev. Blue Patterson to interview for the pastorship. Blue Patterson had recently
taken over what Cleavon claimed was an up-and-coming church in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and was making quite a name for himself
in that community. Bert, Wendell, Melvin Sr., and Mr. Louis Loomis had never even heard of Blue Patterson or his church, which
seemed odd, considering his memorable first name.

“Cleavon,” Melvin Sr. pointed out, after digesting as much of Cleavon’s jibber-jabber as he could stand. “Sylvia’s uncle belongs
to one of the largest Church of God in Christ churches in Pine Bluff, and he does all the robes for the preachers and choirs
in the area at his cleaners. If this Blue Patterson was that much of a top dog, Sylvia’s uncle would surely know something
about the man.”

“I wasn’t aware that your wife’s kinfolks are so much in the mix that they know everything about everybody there is to know
in Pine Bluff,” Cleavon said in a nice-nasty voice. “Maybe we need to put Sylvia’s Uncle COGIC on the case to hire a preacher
for our church, since he can tell everything about a man just from cleaning his funky clothes.”

Melvin Sr. started to rise out of his seat, but checked himself when he felt Wendell’s hand on his arm.

“Well, as for me,” Mr. Louis Loomis said, “I don’t know a soul down in Pine Bluff. But I do know that Blue boy ain’t all you
saying he is. I have his application right here in my hand, and he has been at his present church for only six months. Before
that he was at a smaller church in Little Rock for four months. And now he want to move again? Cleavon, we need to leave Blue
Patterson right where he is—somewhere out there in the blue.”

“He’s coming for an interview whether you or anybody else on this committee likes it or not,” Cleavon snapped, slamming his
hand on the table, hoping to make it clear that he wasn’t playin’. “Rev. Patterson has gone through all kinds of trouble to
be able to come to St. Louis, and it will make the church look bad if we up and withdraw this invitation ’cause of something
you
don’t like in his resume.”