Pastor Needs a Boo (14 page)

Denzelle knew Larry Pristeen was very ambitious. Yet he'd never pegged Larry for being a ho—mainly because he'd never seen him getting a true mack on a woman. And he'd also never noticed a woman who was acting like the two of them were getting their freak on in secret.

But now he understood why. Larry was such a sneaky ho that only a very observant woman would pick up on it. And Denzelle figured that Larry's women were on the QT with him, because they were dumb enough to believe Larry was working through his “anxieties about commitment” and didn't want to “scare him away.” Denzelle couldn't stand brothers who ran lame games like that on women.

“So, Marsha,” Denzelle asked one more time. “Do you think Larry Pristeen was trying to hit on you when we were all at his church?”

Marsha shrugged. She really didn't care what Reverend Pristeen was doing, because all she knew was that Larry Pristeen got on her last nerves with all of his cryptic behaviors. Plus, if Denzelle was so concerned that another man was flirting with her, maybe he needed to do something about it—like ask her out for lunch.

Denzelle decided it best to table that discussion. He'd have an opportunity to see for himself. He hoped it wasn't true. Denzelle would hate to have to kick the brother's butt. But right now there was a more pressing matter—getting the Pastor's Aide Club up and running so that these three women could get some money in their homes.

“So Rev,” Keisha said, “I hope you don't plan on having us do what that old evil Clara Mae Davidson used to do with the Pastor's Aide club before she died. I do not intend on picking up where that scrunched-up-face witch left off.”

“I do not want you all to do anything close to what Mrs. Davidson did back in that day,” Denzelle answered, and then shuddered. Clara Mae Davidson had been a piece of bad work.

“So then, just what are we to do? 'Cause what I'm not doing is making any of that ice cream and ginger ale punch stuff.” Keisha said.

“You do not have to make ‘frappé,'” Denzelle told Keisha with a chuckle. “You don't even have to make a glass of water. I just want you to help Marsha out with a campaign project for now. And when she's off and running, you can start working on how you are going to do a singles ministry at the church.”

“Denzelle,” Veronica said, “how does the prison ministry business fit for pastor's aide?”

“The money has to help the pastor. That is the main stipulation. Only thing, Miss Clara didn't have any real vision. So she didn't think about defining what she thought the aid should be. It gave me a legal loophole and made it possible for me to come up with some things that I, as the pastor of the church, really need. And right now, I need help running for bishop, with the singles ministry, and with a prison program.”

“How did you get a loophole for running for bishop?” Marsha asked. “If you get elected, you won't be a pastor anymore. So how exactly does that work for the Pastor's Aide Club?”

“Old girl used the club to sponsor and ‘aid' her husband when he ran for bishop,” Denzelle told her, grinning.

“Did he win?” Keisha asked. Reverend Davidson was dead by the time she'd gotten old enough to pay attention to church politics.

“Of course not,” Denzelle said, looking at Keisha like she was crazy. “Nobody wanted him as a bishop. He was pompous and full of himself, and he had a lot of enemies.”

“True,” Veronica said. That was one time a man who didn't need to be elected bishop was sent home in defeat from a Triennial Conference. Most times they had to fight long and hard to get the good preachers in and keep the bad preachers out.

“So, Reverend Flowers,” Keisha said, “how does what you want me to do, and what you want Veronica to do, fit with you running for bishop, and also with helping the Pastor's Aide Club?”

“He is going to use what you all are doing as bragging points on the campaign trail,” Marsha said, in a voice full of authority. “See, while you and Veronica are putting the programs in place, Denzelle can begin the conversation about how he is going to spearhead these types of programs in Gospel United churches around the country. Folk will be interested in how this works, because a lot of churches need these kinds of ministries.”

Denzelle, Veronica, and Keisha were just looking at Marsha. They knew she was good, but they often forgot that she had it like that.

“What?” Marsha asked. “Did I say something wrong? I thought you wanted me to help you get a style, a special look, something that would set you apart for the campaign, Denzelle?”

“That is exactly what I want.”

Veronica nodded. At first she'd wondered why Denzelle gave Marsha an assignment that was close to her own area of public relations. But she got it. This campaign didn't need PR. It needed style, flair, an image that would place Denzelle Flowers head and shoulders above the other candidates. Only Marsha could work it so that Denzelle didn't even have to say anything to promote himself and his campaign. Folk would get it just by watching how he looked, what he did, how he did it, and so forth.

Keisha got it, too. In fact, she got it so well it was practically killing her not to sneak and text Dayeesha. Marsha would definitely be able to help Pastor have the flair he'd need to run that campaign right. But she knew that what the pastor really wanted was a safe and explainable way to have some up close and personal time with Marsha Metcalf.

This was going to be very interesting. Keisha was kind of glad she'd gotten fired. She could finally do something she'd wanted to do at church for a long time—start something for the singles at church that wasn't wack. Her singles program was going to be off the chain, and they were going to have a whole bunch of fun—kind of like going to the club, only you'd be at church.

Veronica exchanged eye contact with Keisha. She was glad that somebody else was thinking what she was pondering concerning Denzelle and Marsha. It was going to take a lot of time together for Marsha to school Denzelle on how to work it with some serious game and style. It wasn't that Denzelle didn't have game—he had plenty of game. But now Marsha was going to help the brother define that game stylishly. And that would require them spending a lot of time in each other's company. Yeah, this was going to be very interesting to observe from the sidelines.

“So, are we on?” Denzelle asked.

“As long as I don't have to stand behind a table and give out cookies and sheet cake, I'm good, Reverend Flowers,” Keisha said.

“We're on,” Veronica chimed in.

“Bring it,” was all Marsha said.

Denzelle forgot himself for a moment. He gave Marsha a sideways look while sucking on a tooth and said, “I plan to.”

 

Chapter Nine

When Reverend Marcel Brown, Presiding Elder over the Michigan Annual Conference, saw the text from Bishop Ray Caruthers that read, Denzelle Flowers is planning to run for bishop, he sighed heavily and went and poured himself a glass of Crown Royal before answering the text. He could not believe he was up against the Theophilus Simmons/Eddie Tate faction again.

They had been fighting, and at each other's throats, since 1961. That was over fifty years ago, and in another century! But if Marcel were to be more exact in his chronology of this church war, it actually began more than sixty years ago. The folks born when this feud started had been card-carrying AARP members for a decade.

He found it hard to believe that he and Theophilus Simmons and his boy, Eddie Tate, first faced off against each other during the Gospel United Church's national basketball tournaments back in the 1950s. Theophilus was a part of the denomination's mighty First Episcopal District, which ran from Virginia all the way down to Georgia. Marcel was the star point guard for the Ninth District, representing Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa.

Every year Marcel's team would start each new basketball season on a hot winning streak, only to come up against the brick wall that was Theophilus Simmons and his boys from the First Episcopal District. No matter how they prepared, and how many games they won before the play-offs, Theophilus would meet Marcel on the court and beat him like he stole something.

Marcel always counted it his good fortune that Eddie Tate was serving as a young chaplain in the army at that time. Otherwise he would have gotten a second tail-whipping from those Chicago and St. Louis brothers in the Eighth Episcopal District. Nobody messed with the brothers from South Side Chicago, or their counterparts farther south, from St. Louis, Missouri's North Side. Back then the brothers coming out of Vashon and Sumner high schools in St. Louis would tear you up like you were a thin piece of paper.

His beef with Theophilus Simmons and Eddie Tate was almost as old as they were. And if that wasn't bad enough, the women would be all over Theophilus at the end of the championship games. Marcel couldn't understand it. Back then, light-skinned black men with a head full of curly hair were supposed to epitomize fineness in the community. But Theophilus would wipe out all of that when he showed up tall, chocolate, and grinning. Some of those women acted like they were going to throw their panties at him on the basketball court.

Even worse, Marcel didn't have a chance when Theophilus and Eddie Tate ran together. Eddie was a big, yellow brother with dark curly hair back in the day. He was also one of the best dressed young preachers in the denomination. And if that were not bad enough, the brother was smooth, and a player to the bone.

Marcel
hated
those two Negroes. He'd hated them when they were youngsters. He couldn't stand them when they were men at the height of their prime. And he positively detested them when they grew into their maturity as older men. Theophilus Simmons and Eddie Tate had been the bane of Marcel Brown's existence all of his adult life.

Now he was getting a text that Reverend Denzelle Flowers, who trained under Bishop Eddie Tate, had thrown his hat into the ring for the bishop's race. He scoffed, and then sighed. At least he didn't have to contend with Reverend Obadiah Quincey, who was a protégé of Bishop Theophilus Simmons. Denzelle and Obadiah were boys. Only one would run. The other would help with the campaign.

That's how it was done in the Gospel United Church. If your boy ran for bishop, you worked behind the scenes to get him in. There was only one exception to that unspoken rule. Back in 1986, Eddie Tate was tapped to run for bishop, with Theophilus Simmons as his campaign manager. But a fluke in their plans set things in motion that caused both men to get elected as bishops that year. Marcel became physically ill after that, and couldn't work for months, even though his boy, Sonny Washington, managed to win an Episcopal seat as well.

He read the text again, and then sent one back to Ray:
That is some messed-up mess. I would say something other than “mess,” but I'm a preacher and trying to live right.

LOL,
Ray texted him back.
You a crazy negro and you know that.

So,
another text from Ray began,
are you still running our boy for that one and only, and very coveted Episcopal seat?

Yeah, that's the plan,
Marcel replied.
Rev. Xavier Franklin is the one as far as I'm concerned.

But he's most likely going up against Flowers, Marcel,
Ray texted.
Plus, how do you plan to take that on? Denzelle is a favorite. And the women still want to be his baby mama even though Denzelle has been on the straight and narrow with ladies for a while. And as much as I hate to admit it, he's a good pastor, and will make a good bishop.

Marcel was about to respond to Ray's text, when his cell phone buzzed in his hand. Ray was on the other end.

“I know you know Denzelle has stayed on the wagon with the ladies. He hasn't been tappin' tail left and right like he used to, for a minute now. That isn't going to hurt him because sisters love a reformed player—best of both worlds as far as they are concerned. It means that the brother has the potential to fall in love with ‘a good woman,' while maintaining that he still has the skills to rock a woman's world.”

“Good woman, huh?” Marcel told him. “There ain't nothing a ‘good' church woman can do for me but point me in the direction of one of those old school freaks like me.”

“You know you a dog, Dawg,” Ray said laughing.

“Wolf, wolf,” was all Marcel said, to the beat of Adina Howard's 1990s hit song, “Freak Like Me.”

“Ray,” he continued, “the only thing I didn't like about that song was that I was on my way to being an old player when it came out. The women bragging that it was their theme song were too young for me. Ain't nothing wrong with some fresh fruit. But good fruit needs to be ripe. Unripened fruit can kill you.”

“I hear you on that one,” Ray told him, in complete agreement.

Ray Caruthers had crossed a lot of lines in his day. But women who were too young for him were off-limits. Ray was a player and didn't want to mack on somebody he knew he had an enormous edge on. What fun was that? A hot young thing interested in a man his age was nothing but some real trouble. Plus, a lot of those little heifers were real fertile, and would pop out a baby in a heartbeat to keep a hand in his wallet.

Whenever a young gold digger got to chasing Bishop Ray Caruthers, he stopped her, saying, “Baby, my name is Ray and not Abraham. You can't even handle expensive and aged liquor. So I know you can't handle me.”

Marcel scratched at the gray stubble on his chin. His curly, dark brown hair was almost white. And it had started getting thinner, now that he was in his seventies. But Marcel still looked good and could pull plenty of women his way.

“Denzelle Flowers running for bishop,” Marcel said dryly. “What are we going to do to stop that train from rolling right past us at full speed?”