Don't Blame the Devil (25 page)

A READING GROUP GUIDE

DON'T BLAME THE DEVIL

 

Pat G'Orge-Walker

 

ABOUT THIS GUIDE

The questions and discussion topics that follow
are intended to enhance your group's
reading of this book.

1. Have you ever had a lost relationship that you felt was impossible to restore? Did it matter whether it was with a parent, other relative, or friend?
   
2. What were the obstacles and the triumphs?
   
3. For a sixty-year-old woman and a seventy-year-old man, estranged wife and husband Delilah and Thurgood have a very healthy sexual appetite. With the advent of Viagra and other medicines, what impact do you feel sexually transmitted diseases have had on the senior community, if any?
   
4. Do you believe in generational curses? Delilah's mother and grandmother abandoned their parental responsibilities. And yet, at a young age and still feeling the sting of her mother's disappearance, Delilah did the same. Discuss whether or not there are times when parents are needed for a season, and then ultimately removed by God-ordained circumstances to further His plan.
   
5. As a Christian, was Jessie a hypocrite for not accepting his mother back into his life as the prodigal father did in the Bible? Was he cautious, or had his anger and abandonment issues consumed him? Would the outcome have been different if he'd not been a recent widower?
   
6. In the Bible, Abraham lied about Sarah being his wife, because he feared for his own life. Yet Deacon Thurgood Pillar, known as a man with all the answers and God's go-to guy, was not in harm's way, sorta. Why did he fold when it came time to tell the truth to Jessie? Why did he give in to Delilah without a fight? Why was he not completely honest with Marty?
   
7. Should the deacon be forgiven easier than Delilah because he acted as a substitute granddaddy for Tamara?
   
8. Do you approve of people engaging in sex after a certain age, whether they're married or not?
   
9. Sister Marty was also a woman of God and yet she became combative almost immediately after meeting Delilah. Did she have a good reason? Should she have fought for the deacon? Did she have a right to claim Jessie because she'd been his foster mother during Delilah's absence from his life?
   
10. Was Tamara's involvement in her father's predicament appropriate?
    

Don't miss Pat G'Orge-Walker's wickedly funny, uplifting novel of love and betrayal, good karma and bad karma, sin and redemption in…

Somebody's Sinning in My Bed

On sale now from Dafina Books

 

Here's an excerpt from
Somebody's Sinning in My Bed
….

V
iolent March winds swirled viciously along Brooklyn, New York's Linden Boulevard, showing little respect for a supposedly holy and consecrated Sunday night. From the second earth took its form, God set that seventh day aside for everything He'd created to praise His work. However, as if mocking God, the very winds He'd created angrily kicked around empty wine and liquor bottles along a small section of Linden Boulevard that struggled to hide its poverty. Small yet powerful wind funnels seemed to mock heaven as they propelled scraps of paper toward the night sky. In a blink of an eye, it then turned its anger on small, colorful plastic crack vials, tossing them against the street curbs like dice.

And then, without a warning, evil shifted its shape and intention as it prepared to release its minions.

That night, chaos of another sort was about to visit Linden Boulevard and fierce gusts of winds and signs of poverty along that stretch were the least of its problems. That night, some folks would learn that what goes around certainly does come back around, bringing with it the proverbial flip-top can of vicious comeuppance.

Further down Linden Boulevard the distant purring of an automobile somehow reached through the howling wind to make its presence known. As if on cue, a nearby broken streetlight suddenly flickered, revealing a slow-moving powder-blue 2006 Mercedes.

The car's driver found a spot, parked, and slowly stepped out. The embers of a lit cigarette flickered as a figure of a man was outlined. He puffed once more before tossing it to the ground.

As if accepting the challenge to step up its evil, the wind suddenly changed its direction toward the Mercedes, abandoning its game of tossing about litter. Loud wooshing sounds accompanied its assault. It homed in on the rear flap of the man's expensive chocolate-brown trench coat, causing the material to fan rapidly.

The man suddenly stood still. With eyes narrowed and determined, he suddenly looked back toward his car. It was as though he were daring the wind to do its worst. He muttered, “Go to hell!”

He had dark, penetrating brown eyes that were set deep into an extremely tawny-complexioned, handsome face that hinted of a possible mixed heritage. Then he sucked in a deep breath of night air as though it were his last.

He'd only taken a few steps when one hand suddenly flew up and grabbed at the tan fedora about to fall off his head. He was too slow. The wind would not be denied and blew the expensive fedora over into the middle of the filthy street.

Through it all, he kept his eyes focused and determined. Without a word, he walked a few feet and retrieved the hat, placing it snug onto his head, and turned back to the sidewalk. He'd ignored the filth not so much from fear but almost as a reflex because of what he was about to do. With his hat now secured, he used the same hand to hold the front of his coat, not wanting anyone to see what he had hidden.

There was no turning back now.

Across the street there was a working streetlight. It burned bright on the man as he crossed the street as though to make up for those lights that didn't.

The man moved toward a two-story building nestled between a totally abandoned building and a closed Neighborhood Multi-Service Center. He came within a few feet of his destination and stopped. Despite the darkness, he could see clearly through a small square glass pane. He scowled briefly at a sleeping, obese man.

The portly man was supposed to be alert, but it was nighttime and sleep had claimed the bouncer for the Sweet Bush. Despite nodding off in a deep coma-like sleep and snoring like a bull with asthma, he somehow managed to keep from falling off a stool that was much too small for his wide girth.

The man was tempted to snatch off his unclean fedora, slap the bouncer, and stuff one of those disgusting snores back down his throat, but he needed to stick to the plan.

The man hugged his coat, again, against a body that had been well worked out and buffed. Being a bit of a health fanatic, he hadn't even started smoking until recently when it seemed as though his life was falling apart and brought him to where he now stood.

With one hand, he angrily pushed hard against the oak wood door. The door swung open and closed quickly. It almost nipped the hip of the man as he poured into the front room of the Sweet Bush Lounge.

Noise affected the bouncer much like a sleeping pill; with his barrel chest heaving slightly, he shifted his weight on the stool and continued sleeping soundly.

In a deep sleep, the bouncer would not be a problem.

Fool.
The man suppressed a rising growl in his throat as he dismissed the bouncer as a threat. He chose, instead, to adjust his eyes to the dim lounge lights. While he slowed his heart to a manageable beat, he stood transfixed between the panels of a red velvet curtain and peered through a wall of love beads. His handsome face was stoic. With little effort he inhaled the streams of thick, cloudy, cigarette and reefer smoke for what seemed like an eternity.

But it wasn't.

It'd only taken a moment before he fully understood that none of the other few patrons inside the dark smoky din of lust had paid particular attention to his entrance. Why should they? He wouldn't be the first, or hardly the last, to stumble through that door looking peaceful or angry, on the hunt for whatever was forbidden and getting it.