Don't Blame the Devil (4 page)

D
elilah parked her Navigator a little ways from the front door of the Blue Fish Restaurant. She'd worn a bright yellow, sleeveless cotton top and a skirt that stopped about midcalf. Her walk was easy, not like the little hops that most women her age moved with. Each step permitted the high split to show creamy thighs with no cottage cheese curse. With her bag of karaoke tunes in her hand and her head raised as though she were above the surroundings, she walked toward the door.

Not a lot had changed in the many years since she'd been there. There was still the ghetto décor of burnt building frames dotted along Fulton Street, a few crackheads crossing against the traffic while they laughed and searched the ground, snatching at anything tiny and white. Of course, there were still not enough cops on each corner. There was what looked like a new shade of blue on the brick-and-mortar one-story building, and a larger sign that carried the name of its new owner. But it wasn't until she'd actually gotten closer to the door that she realized that the sign no longer listed karaoke as entertainment.

“When did they stop having karaoke?” Delilah threw one hand up in surrender. “Okay,” she snapped. “I give up. Let me get something to eat. It's their loss.” She stepped inside and told the server she only needed a table for one. The server led her to a small table for two near the front window. He removed one of the place settings and handed her a menu.

She hadn't sat for a good five minutes, poring over what she could afford and what she was going to order, when she heard it.

“Dammit, Delilah.”

Delilah didn't bother to look up. She knew it was Thurgood Pillar calling her name, again.

Just that quick, with just that one outburst, Deacon Pillar had erased his three weeks of peace and quiet. As soon as the letter
D
left his mouth, he'd lost the battle.

He stood there in his black seersucker shirt and pants, not two feet away from her, and wheezed. It was all he could do. His hands filled with the bags of food he'd ordered for the Bible study were the only things that kept him from choking her.

Delilah still didn't bother to look around. Although there was no doubt the sizzling sound heard through the din in the restaurant came from the kitchen nearby, she was so mad it could've just as well been her wig crackling. She was just that angry. “Just when I thought there was somewhere I could go without seeing you, here you are.”

He'd walked the ten blocks to the restaurant praising God and humming. The deacon, though tired from the walk, had no more than a few moments ago resolved to walk happily back. The sight of her had erased all of that. He'd lost it and his mouth was now in overdrive.

Despite the chances of someone in the place knowing him, and that he was a church deacon, he blasted her. “You can go to hell! Now that's someplace you won't see me.”

Delilah shot up from the table. She turned around so fast she almost pulled off the tablecloth. With both hands now on the table, she glared. “Your old ass will be giving the welcome address while the devil ushers you in.”

From all over the Blue Fish, inquiring and surprised eyes turned in their direction. The server put his experience to work. He sprinted over and yanked another chair from one of the nearby empty tables. He shoved the chair by the deacon and almost at the same time a second place setting appeared on the table. The server almost slapped the deacon on the cheek as he forced a menu into the old man's hands. “Have a seat, sir, where you can continue your overanimated conversation in private.”

“I don't want him seated with me,” Delilah said quickly as she slumped back down onto her chair.

“You don't get to tell me what I can do and where I can go. You gave up that right years ago when you decided the name Pillar wasn't good enough for you.” Whatever else the deacon was thinking didn't require common sense or a lot of thought, evidenced by the way he then slammed the bags down to the floor and plopped down onto the chair. He sat opposite Delilah and let his glare show he wasn't finished. “If you had any sense of decency, you'd have divorced me first. Or at the very least divorced me from wherever you've been hiding all this time.”

“Well, awrighty now. I'll be back.” The server announced his lie with an air of authority. He'd done his job. Combat duty was not in his job description.

“The real question is why haven't
you
gotten a divorce?” Delilah snapped. She couldn't decide between giving the deacon hell and being nice so she could get her way. But he still hadn't mentioned Jessie. Perhaps she could throw him off track and get him angry enough to spill something.

The deacon's eyes became slits as he pondered his next step.
I don't care if it has been about forty years, she's hiding something. I know her. She hasn't mentioned his name at all. I wonder if she knows that Jessie lives right here in Brooklyn and that's the real reason she's haunting so far from Garden City.

The minutes seemed an eternity as the staring contest continued while each marinated in thought and plotted. But the time continued with no sign of either mule giving in, until another server appeared with a basket of bread sticks and a saucer overflowing with pats of butter. Much like the first server, he didn't need a fortune-teller to tell him there was anger in the air.

Neither the deacon nor Delilah had any real plans beyond the stare-down. It took the loud sounds of their stomachs growling to break the ice.

Delilah was the first to reach for one of the bread sticks. After all, it was her table. He, on the other hand, was an uninvited and unwanted intruder. She studied him for a moment while she buttered the bread. He still said nothing, but she could've sworn he looked like he was about to pass out from hunger.

“Either grab a bread stick and go, Thurgood, or go without it. I don't much care.” Delilah crammed the bread stick into her mouth without breaking it in half. Being nice was proving harder than she'd like.

“I don't know what good you think it will do to shove that whole bread stick down your mouth. That doesn't do anything for my juices anymore.”
Lord, help keep me from lying. That's one demon act I ain't overcome yet
.

“What in the hell are you talking about? Are you having a senility moment or something? If you are, please have it someplace else.”

The deacon's eyes widened with embarrassment, and he would've stood and left if his manhood hadn't grown at the same time.
She's still the same ole Delilah, a tease even in her old age.

Delilah watched the deacon in amusement. She hadn't tried to do anything but eat a bread stick because she was hungry. He obviously wasn't as angry at her as she'd thought.

But could she risk asking him about Jessie, with so much hostility present? Delilah clasped her hands together and hung her head slightly. Whether the deacon took it as her ignoring him, she didn't know. When she needed to consult God, she didn't care where she was or who she was with.

Okay, Lord God Jehovah, give me a sign. I've been praying and asking for a while that I find my husband and my son. You put Thurgood in my face first, but I didn't necessarily mean it in that order, plus I'm sorry, but this old man pushes my buttons. And I've prayed hard to find Jessie, ever since I read the news about him losing his wife. You know I tried the telephone book and the crazy Internet, but Brooklyn is a big place, and I can't find out nothing. Please give me a sign if I should ask this old fool about my son.

“Amen.” No sooner had she lifted her head than her eyes met his. The deacon was still staring.

“You surprised me, seeing you pray for a couple of seconds. I didn't know that you and God had met.” Again, his mouth spouted what he should have kept to himself.

“From the way you keep putting me down, perhaps I should take a moment and reintroduce Him to you.”
Jehovah, he's making it so hard to be civil.

“Well, since you're in such a good mood, while we discuss God's Word, why don't we also go back to the subject of our fake marital status.” The deacon thought he saw her shake. Perhaps he still caused a spark. He wasn't sure if that would be a good thing or not.

Delilah clasped her hands together. Her gray eyes turned almost black, but she was actually very cool and deliberate as she spoke. “Perhaps you need to reread that Bible. You can't get rid of me with a divorce unless you can prove I cheated on you first. I doubt if you can.”

Deacon Pillar's fist hit the table. She'd pulled the old Matthew 19:9 card on him. She knew he couldn't divorce her just because she had a death grip around his last good nerve, unless she'd been servicing outside the marriage. If he did divorce her and remarried, then he'd be the adulterer without a legal marriage before God.

“Damn!” The deacon slapped the table again and sputtered through teeth long turned beige from tobacco abuse in middle age. He tried to bluff. “You left me. I can get one based just on that.”

“Well, why haven't you then?”

“How do you know I didn't just think you were dead and didn't need one to move on?”

“You could've had me declared dead, but as you can see, I'm not dead….” Delilah stopped and leaned across the table. “Hold up. What do you mean, move on? You got an understudy waiting in the wings to play my part?”

“Trust me”—the deacon leaned back and folded his hands and laughed—“she's no understudy. She's a star!”

Delilah's mind started racing.
If this old coot is really ready to move on to someone else and I'm standing in the way…
“Tell me something,” Delilah said nonchalantly, “what if I gave you that divorce? Would you do something for me in return?”

The deacon sat up straight. “I've got exactly eighty dollars on me. I can get a little more if it's money you need. Oh hell, I'll pay for the divorce and a ticket for you to go anywhere on the other side of the earth you want to go.”

“Oh, don't start doing the happy dance. I haven't told you what I want yet.”

Deacon Pillar suddenly looked puzzled.
She doesn't seem to want money. The Delilah I know would stampede a buffalo to get it off its nickel. She's up to something….

“I know it's a long shot and I know you probably won't believe me.”

“Let's not go there, Dee Dee.”

“Don't push, Pillar.” Delilah was about to get loud, but she hadn't gotten what she wanted yet. She remained calm. “I need you to help me find Jessie.”

“Say what? Jessie—you want to find Jessie? Why?”

“I don't know how you could ask such a question. He's my son. I would think that you'd want to know where he is and how he is doing, too.”

“Don't pack a bag for me, because I ain't going on a guilt trip with you. I've always wanted what was best for him. In fact, I looked for years to find the two of you. I just stopped looking for you before I stopped looking for him. The better question is, why now? After all these years, Delilah, why do you choose now?”

“He needs me.” Delilah hoped she sounded convincing. She wasn't certain how a mother would say something like that. The truth was, she needed her son. One had become the lonely number for her. She pulled a folded piece of newspaper from her pocketbook. “Read this.”

The deacon slowly took the newspaper clipping from Delilah's hand. As soon as he saw the date on the top and the word
obituary
, he knew. He knew that she knew, too. Seeing Cindy's death announcement sent a chill through him. He'd helped Jessie write it. But he scanned over the clipping anyway, hoping he'd not given anything away as he handed it back to Delilah.

Deacon Pillar wasn't ready for that revelation. Delilah obviously knew Cindy was dead and she was asking him to trade their son's whereabouts in return for a divorce. He'd need time to think it over. Hopefully, she'd give it to him.

“I don't know what to say. Are you sure this is our Jessie?”

“I'm even more convinced, since you don't look shocked. Why is that, Thurgood?”

“Trust me. I've been in a state of shock for the last three weeks. I need to think this over and figure out what to do and how to do it. I haven't read the
Amsterdam News
in quite some time, so you've got a head start on me. Please give me a little time to check and see if this is our Jessie. Why don't you give me your telephone number?” He pulled out a pen and gave it to her. “I'll call you in a couple of weeks and, if it's him—then, well, we'll see where to go from there.”

“I've got a better idea,” Delilah replied as she wrote her number on a paper napkin and handed it back. “It's a beautiful day and we've done nothing but argue. Let's try and be more civil. We need one another, so let's start there.”

She gave her best happy grin and winked. “Why don't we just exchange numbers? That way it'll build mutual trust….”

She tried to continue and failed. All she could do was throw her hands up and laugh.

He didn't want to join her, but he couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. When their love fled, it took trust as a hostage.

Suddenly the deacon's cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He continued laughing until he pulled it out and looked at the name displayed. And that's when his entire body tensed up.

It was Jessie. “Thank you, Jesus,” he murmured. Normally the phone vibrating in his pocket annoyed him. This time he was thankful that he'd left it that way. If he hadn't, the automated voice would have announced,
Jessie Jewel calling.

“Gotta run…I'll be in touch, and keep away from New Hope.” The deacon leapt from his seat and grabbed the bags he'd left on the floor.

She'd tried
nice
and
reason,
but she wasn't about to let him leave without her having the last word. “Please tell whoever that is that just called you, especially if it's your woman, that I said thank you. They called just in time.”