The Punany Experience (32 page)

Ivy’s son, Jackson, had orchestrated the rape of at least two girls that she knew of. She was also sure that he had killed a few people, because she had seen the mark of “The Kin,” her son’s crew, in TV reports, even when the police hadn’t. But Ivy Robinson came from a time when you didn’t turn on family, and you certainly did not air
dirty laundry. You cleaned it first and then hung it out on the line. At sixty-eight years old, Ivy knew her chances of finding a man were slim. For a long time, she accepted that Jackson was the man in her life. He had been paying her bills with money his gang had earned or stolen in the streets since he was a teenager. So she settled into the life of a retired domestic worker, who looked forward to hosting weekly games of Bid Whist with her friends, and waited patiently for her bad heart to beat her up out of this world.

“I read the paper today and saw that there have been two double homicides this week, not a mile from this house of the Lord. And it’s not okay. It’s not alright to let our children run around impatient, filled with greed and unaccountable for their crimes. Church, I’ve been talking to Jesus on the main line and it seems we are running out of time to get right.” There was wild applause and a powerful voice resounding through the radio so clearly the preacher seemed to be standing beside her. Ivy left the dial there and listened to the baritone voice sound off. “I am The Messenger, the Lord speaks through me. He asked me to stop on by to talk to you. Yes, He asked me to make a visit to your house tonight. He asked me to check on you in your hospital room. He told me that there are some single mothers having trouble with their children tonight. Brothers and sisters, allow me to direct you to the 22nd verse of the book of Genesis from which I have derived my text for the evening; The Greatest Sacrifice. The 22nd verse of Genesis; You all know where that is, don’t you? Ivy reached for her Bible on their baker’s rack and opened to the verse. “That’s the first book of the Bible, Christians.” Ivy could picture The Messenger in her mind as she read the passage with him. She imagined a tall, dark chocolate man in a red robe standing behind a podium in a big glamorous red and gold pulpit. He held his Bible in the air, winked a big brown eye at her and flashed a gleaming smile that made Ivy smile, though no one was watching her.
“Get your mind right,”
she said to herself and followed along as he read on about a woman named Sarah, who didn’t have faith that God would give her the son he had promised to her and about the black slave she forced to bed her husband and give him a child he did not want.

“How many single mothers do we have in the church house tonight?
Raise your hands. Don’t be shy or embarrassed, ladies, we all know who you are.” The minister took note that more than half of his congregation met the description. “My God,” he said simply. He was silent for a long moment. When he spoke again his voice cracked, seeming to choke tears away. “Like so many of you who cannot wait on the Lord to bring you his promise, Sarah was impatient. Sarah did not believe. Sarah went and had her own idea about what she should do instead of waiting on the Lord to bring her a son. The foolish old woman decided to give Abraham the hook-up! Can the church say, ‘Sho’ ’nough’?”

“Sho’ ’nough!” the congregation said.

“I said, instead of waiting on the Lord, to bring her what He promised, Sarah decided to send her husband into the maid’s room for the hook-up. For some of you the hook-up is child support. For most of you it’s welfare. Pennies from heaven. Y’all don’t hear me though. Now, Hagar was the name of the maid, who was also Egyptian, who was also a slave, and therefore had no choice but to give Abraham what he had come for. No doubt she was like a lot of women today. There is no doubt in The Messenger’s mind that Hagar also thought, if she could get pregnant by Abraham, a blessed man, a free man, a godly man, that she might be able to come up.

“Now some would say, if Hagar had been wise, she would not have conceived a child by a man, with whom she could not raise him. That is to say, she should have chosen a more suitable baby daddy. Some of you know what I’m talking about. Some of you have fooled around and given Abraham the hook-up, knowing that man is not yours. But still you are expecting some kind of birthright for your illegitimate children; boys, who will be forced to find fathers among thieves. For it came to pass that the Lord did in fact give Sarah a baby of her own. Isaac was born thirteen years after Hagar’s son, Ishmael, was born. Now what do you think the old woman did once God gave her a baby of her own? Come on now, church.

“She sent Hagar packing. And when the angel came to Hagar, do you think she prophesied peace and splendor for the slave woman’s son and his heirs? No. Just when she was ready to let him die of dehydration and hunger in the wilderness, an angel came to her and promised
that her son would be a wild ass of a man with a long line of untamed thugs to come after him. For Hagar, a lowly slave who was conditioned to believe that she had no choices, it was an honor that Abraham’s God would even notice her. She obeyed and let the child live, in spite of the dark prophesy for her clan.

“But when Abraham is put to the test by the Lord, he is sent to sacrifice Isaac, his other son, Ishmael’s brother; his obedience and willingness to murder his son is rewarded by the Lord…by that same God.

“The Messenger is here to tell you the truth, and to make God’s word work in your life right now. The doors of the church are open.”