When Solomon Sings (8 page)

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Authors: Kendra Norman-Bellamy

BOOK: When Solomon Sings
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SEVEN
This was more than a long shot. Deacon Homer Burgess was old by any definition. He had celebrated his ninety-second birthday just a month ago, and the church held a special service in his honor, as not only the oldest member of KBCC, but also the member who had been connected with the ministry the longest. At Deacon Burgess's request, Neil sang “Center of My Joy,” a classic by Richard Smallwood that took the gospel world by storm back in 1986. The aging deacon was one of the wisest men that Neil knew ... at least, on his sane days. But that was the problem. Alzheimer's had been the archenemy of Deacon Burgess's mind for the last five years. At the onset, he had more good days than bad, but as time passed, the good days were coming fewer and farther between. Deacon Burgess hadn't fully been in his right mind a single Sunday since his birthday celebration. Neil's heart went out to the man. He'd grown rather fond of him over the past couple of years. When the call connected, the telephone only rang once.
“Burgess residence; Teena Marie speaking.”
Neil snickered. He always got a kick out of hearing Deacon Burgess's personal caregiver answer the phone. Nurse Teena Marie Mitchell's first and middle names matched the stage name of the late, great blue-eyed soul singer who brought a new flavor, and color, to the Motown Record label when she hit the scene in '79. But with her full lips, copper skin, and big hair, this Teena Marie looked far more like Tina Turner than she did the Ivory Queen of Soul. Still, she enjoyed flaunting the name.
“Good evening, Ms. Teena. This is Dr. Taylor. How're you this afternoon?” Teena was only a few years older than he, but Neil always felt the need to put a “Ms.” in front of her name.
“Oh hey, Dr. Taylor.” What little tone of professionalism that Teena's voice initially had dissolved like ice on hot coals. “Any day above ground is a good day, so I'm doing just fine. How 'bout you? You good?”
The normal reply would have been a simple yes, but today, the normal reply would also have been a lie. “Well, I'm alive too, so I guess I can't complain,” he chose to say. “How about my buddy? What's the good deacon up to today?”
“Running me half crazy, that's what he's up to,” Teena replied. “Funny you should call, ‘cause I just told him a little while ago that I was gonna call you and have you come over here and string him up if he didn't quit cuttin' the fool.”
That was a good sign. If Homer Burgess was acting up, that meant God had granted him another day with at least a portion of his good mental capacity.
“Is that Deacon Taylor you talkin' to?”
Neil heard the familiar voice from somewhere in the background of the phone call, and it made him smile. If the aging deacon was sane enough to pick up on who his caregiver was talking to, that was a
really
good sign.
“Yeah, this him,” Teena said, “but he didn't ask to speak to you, so you just stay at that table and finish eating your lunch.”
“Hand me that phone,” Deacon Burgess ordered. She must not have done it fast enough, because his next words were, “All right now, don't make me have to get up from here.”
On his end, Neil was thoroughly enjoying the live entertainment. He couldn't see either one of them, but he'd seen those two go at it before, and the looks that he knew were on both their faces had him laughing out loud.
“Are you kidding me?” Teena's already high voice got even higher. “By the time you get up and shuffle your way over here, it'll be tomorrow.”
“And once I get over there, it'll be next week by the time you wake up out that coma I'ma put you in when I beat you wit' my stick.”
As entertaining as it was, Neil knew that it was time to step in and play referee. “Let me speak with him, Ms. Teena.”
“Okay, but while you got him on this line, tell him to stop treating me like I'm some kind of maid. I'ma be asking for a raise if he don't stop running me crazy.”
“I'll talk to him.” Neil laughed, but he meant every word, because unbeknownst to Deacon Homer Burgess, Neil was the one who paid Teena's fees.
“Deacon Taylor,” Homer said immediately upon getting on the phone, “you know how you and your brother used to sing, and God would chase demons outta folks?” He didn't even give Neil time to respond. “Well, I need you to come over here and stand in front of this woman and just go to singing your heart out.”
Neil laughed. “You'd better behave yourself, Deacon Burgess. You know Ms. Teena is a godsend for you. You need that woman, so stop fighting with her.”
Homer had outlived two wives and all of his siblings. Between both marriages, he'd had eight children, and he'd outlived some of them too. The ones who were still alive didn't reside in metropolitan Atlanta, and collectively, they'd decided that it was time for their father to live out the remains of his twilight years in a nursing home. Deacon Burgess didn't want that, and Neil didn't want it either. Once he found out that their fellow church member, Teena Mitchell, was an unemployed LPN looking for work, Neil pitched the idea to her to provide private care for Homer, and she accepted. And the two of them had been in a love-hate relationship ever since.
“She got her traps set for me, that's what it is,” Deacon Burgess said, drawing another laugh from Neil. “I know a woman wit' a trap when I see her. That's how the womenfolk act when they on the hunt for a husband.”
“Ain't nobody tryin'a trap you,” Teena called out from somewhere in the house. “I'm only fifty years old. You old enough to be my daddy. As a matter of fact, you could be my granddaddy.”
Deacon Burgess kept talking to Neil like he hadn't heard his nurse's rebuttal. “She tryin'a marry me, son, and I done been there and done that ... and then I had the nerve to go back there and do that again. I'm tired now. This old back ain't what it used to be.”
Neil was wiping moisture from his eyes now. The laugh felt better than good. He needed it. “How are you, Deacon? You sound good today.”
“I'm in the land of the livin', thank the good Lord. I been doing good for the past four days. Ever since you sung my song at my birthday party.”
That wasn't four days ago; it was four weeks. But Neil didn't correct him. “Glad to hear it, Deac. I just ...” Suddenly he wondered if now was the right time, or if Homer was the right person for the conversation that was weighing heavily on his heart. “I just wanted to call and check up on you. I didn't get to speak to you after church last Sunday. I had a personal meeting with Pastor Loather following service.”
“Oh. I didn't even see you at church last Sunday. I thought maybe you and that sweetheart of yours had done rode off into the sunset or something.”
Neil sighed. Deacon Burgess had certainly been out of it Sunday if he couldn't recall seeing him. Neil was sitting right beside him in the deacons' corner, and he'd spoken to Deacon Burgess upon his arrival. The two of them almost always sat side by side. Not because the church had individual assigned seating or anything, but because none of the other deacons ever wanted that space. Deacon Burgess had to be tone deaf, because when he sang, it sounded like he was gargling rocks ... and he sang loud every Sunday. The other deacons avoided sitting next to him because of it, but Neil had learned how to stomach it.
“No, sir. I was there,” Neil replied. “Both of us—me and Shay—were at church Sunday.”
“Shay, yeah, that's her name.” The smile on Homer's face could be heard in his voice. “Boy, you sure do have yourself a looker, you hear me? And she young. Got pretty legs, too. Young, pretty, and sanctified: now them's some good qualities to have. That's a good woman you got, son. If I was younger, I'd fight you for her.”
Neil wanted to blurt, “You wouldn't be fighting me, you'd be fighting Emmett Ford, and I can tell you from experience that that's a fight you can't win,” but instead, he held his tongue and remained silent. Some things were better left unsaid.
“Emmett Ford? Who is that?”
Neil's heart threatened to pound a hole in his chest. He couldn't believe he'd said it out loud, but evidently he had since Deacon Burgess had responded. “Sir?” Neil didn't know what else to say.
“I said, who is Emmett Ford, and why in the world would I be fighting him for your lady?” When Neil remained silent, still unable to conjure up a lie that would explain it away, Homer Burgess proceeded with caution. “That girl ain't ... she ain't married or nothing, is she, Deacon? I seen her son, but I just thought maybe she had a baby out of wedlock. You ain't messing with no other man's wife, are you?”
It was the perfect segue, and Neil decided to go with the flow. “Not technically.”
“You talkin' to a man with a third grade education, so you got to use smaller words. What you mean by technically?”
Neil relaxed his back against his chair, but he felt anything but relaxed. “She's widowed. Her husband died over eight years ago, but she still has an attachment to him. She still loves him.” That sick feeling was returning to Neil's stomach again. He always got that way when Emmett's name came up in the conversation.
“So what?” was Homer's response. “What that got to do wit' anything? She yours now, ain't she? Boy, if your biggest problem is a dead man, you better go 'head on and marry that woman.”
“I want to, but—”
“But what?”
“I don't think you heard what I said, Deacon Burgess. She's still in love with her late husband.”
“Ain't nothing wrong wit' my ears. I heard you the first time. If you want her, that ought not to stop you. You think I ain't still in love with Odette?” Neil was familiar with the name. Odette was Homer's second wife—the one he called the love of his life—and they were married for over forty years before she passed away. “I'm gonna always love Odette,” the old man continued, “but just 'cause I love her don't mean I'm off the market. Didn't I just tell you that this one I got over here at my house right now wants to take more than my temperature?”
Neil stifled a laugh and shook his head. “Even if that's true, it's not the same. If Ms. Teena wants you, that's like me wanting Shay. That part's not the problem. The problem is her wanting me back. She loves Emmett so much that I don't think she'd ever want another man. Not in that way.”
“Don't kid yourself, son. Everybody wit' the good sense God gave 'em wants to love. And they want to love somebody who can love 'em back. Sometimes they just need that other person to be the one to make the move. That girl might just be waiting for you to do what you think you can't do.”
Neil gnawed at the skin on the inside of his left cheek and mulled over what the deacon had said. It all sounded good, but Neil doubted it more than a little bit. As an afterthought ran through his mind, he chuckled and said, “If that's true, Deac, that means that you're just waiting on Ms. Teena to make the first move.”
“I'm old, I need this stick to get around, and I done had the same name for ninety-two years, but there are some days that, hard as I try, I can't even remember it,” Deacon Burgess said. “But so long as I got breath in this old body, there's always hope.”
Neil broke into a laugh, and Deacon Burgess laughed with him. Neil supposed that if Teena Marie Mitchell was anywhere within listening range and could guess what they were talking about, she was probably laughing too.
Real
hard.
Neil caught his breath. “So what you're saying is—”
“What I'm saying is, stop being scared of the dead, and go buy a ring.”
“I'm not afraid of Emmett.”
“Look like it to me,” Homer said. “You just said a minute ago that you wanted to marry that girl. If you wasn't scared, you would've bought a ring by now.”
“I did,” Neil blurted. The resulting noise on the other end of the line made Neil wonder if Homer had passed out at the news, or if he had just dropped the phone.
“You did?” he finally replied. “Well, glory to God! Why you ain't said that 'fo' now? When's the wedding?”
“Don't shine your shoes just yet,” Neil said. “I took it back.”
Silence.
More silence.
“Deacon Burgess?” The silence was deafening. Neil sighed. “I know you're still there. Don't do this to me, Deac. I need you to talk to me.”
“If I talk ... you gonna listen?”
“Yes.”
“Good, ‘cause I ain't never know you was a dummy 'til now.”
Neil pulled the phone from his ear and looked at it in disbelief. Had Deacon Burgess just called him dumb? Was his Alzheimer's kicking in or something? Neil put the phone back to his ear. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” He was pulling no punches. “That's about the dumbest thing I ever heard in my life, and that's a long, long time. You mean to tell me that you bought a ring and took it back 'cause she still loves her dead husband?”

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