And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
—JOHN 8:32
My little brother Stevie, my nephew Cory, and I hit the malls early and stayed there all day. I was not at all comfortable. It was very hard for me to spend money like that. There was no joy in it, but it was definitely a fever that we all got caught up in. When I ran out of ideas for things to buy, I’d just walk into a store and ask for a few hundred dollars’ worth of gift certificates. I couldn’t believe I didn’t really know what to buy.
Stevie got stuff to fix up the basement. That would be one thing Steven would love when he got home. When his sisters came, they were presented with very lovely things as well as gift certificates. As promised, Fabia was also taken shopping.
A very interesting thing happened on the second day of the shopping spree: the number twenty-four kept appearing everywhere. It was twenty-four past the hour every time I looked. The counter on the tape player would be on twenty-four. The change I had to pay at the store would be twenty-four cents. The change I would receive would be twenty-four cents. That number had always been significant for me because it is the date of my birthday. At first I thought that’s all it was—just a number I had an affinity toward because I was born on the twenty-fourth. And so I kept seeing it, perhaps because I was looking for it.
But I remembered a preacher somewhere saying that if you keep seeing a number, it doesn’t mean for you to run out and play that number. It means for you to look up that psalm, because there is a message for you. I made a mental note to read Psalm 24 when I got home.
We visited Steven, who was sleeping soundly by the time we got to the hospital, and I woke him to let him know I was there. The first thing he wanted to know was, did I go shopping? I nodded.
“Good,” he said, turning his head. “Go home, Rabbit, and get some sleep.”
I followed his instruction; I was exhausted from all of that shopping.
I told my mother and Bo Daddy that I was going to take a bath and go to sleep. Just as I crawled into the bed and was about to turn off the TV, the doctor called to say I needed to come back to the hospital right away to sign papers for Steven to get a blood transfusion or he wouldn’t make it through the night.
“I’m on my way,” I said. “Lord, what is all of this?”
Just as I was going to turn off the TV to get dressed, I hit the Time button on the remote instead. It read 10:24! That reminded me to read Psalm 24. I grabbed my Bible—it would only take a minute:
The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.
For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.
Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand in his holy place?
He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.
He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob. Selah.
Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.
Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.
Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lifted them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.
Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory. Selah.
I closed the Bible to get up to leave and the Spirit said, “Wait a minute! Meditate on that.”
I remembered singing the song “Lift Up Your Heads, O Ye Gates” in the children’s choir. The music flooded my memory. Then I opened the Bible again and my eyes fell on:
Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand in his holy place?
Then it hit me: this was about Steven. The Scripture asks this with a question mark. He was the only one, at that moment, whom I knew would soon make his ascent into the hill of the Lord and stand in his holy place. The Scripture went on to answer the very question it asked. And the answer was:
He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart…
“Isn’t Steven’s heart pure? Aren’t his hands clean?” I asked myself aloud.
The Holy Spirit told me, “Get the medical records.” I reached into the bottom of Steven’s nightstand for the four hundred dollars’ worth of medical records from Mercy Hospital. I started from the back, not knowing what I was searching for.
The Holy Spirit told me, “Start from the beginning.”
It was there that I saw it. On the very first day Steven had gone to Mercy Hospital, it was written, “Patient confirms he has HIV.”
My body went numb. “Hold up!” I said out loud, “hold up!”
I read those handwritten words again. They knew from the first day he went to the hospital? A million questions ran through my mind.
Why didn’t they tell me on day one? Why would they make me wait forty days?! How could a doctor not tell a wife that her own husband had AIDS?
I answered that last one on my own: policy.
I read the handwritten words again and then I saw even more clearly the words “patient confirms.”
That means Steven told them he had AIDS. That means he knew! He knew all along that he had HIV. I was dumbfounded. I just sat staring at the blank white wall in my room. Then right before my eyes, God replayed for me everything He had tried to show me but I had refused to see.
It started with the first day I met him, when Steven said he was in the hospital for bleeding ulcers. That was lie number one. He didn’t even know me a half hour before he started lying to me. He knew he had HIV and chose to have unprotected sex with me! He could have let me choose. He took away my freedom of choice in making the decision to be with him or not in spite of his disease.
This also meant he didn’t do this by himself, he had help in his mother. The movie continued to play…
Mama Mo saying, “Don’t wait on money to get married.” And “I’ll send you on a honeymoon for fifteen days.” And asking my parents for money because “you’ll never get this opportunity again to go to Hawaii.” And paying for an abortion.
Well, I’ll be doggone! Since they were choosing to be in denial about Steven having AIDS, they were also uneducated about the disease to the point that when I got pregnant, they thought there would also be an AIDS-infected baby, not knowing that if the mother is negative, then the baby is absolutely negative.
So now they’ve got the blood of an innocent baby on their hands. I hope Mama Mo asked for forgiveness from God like I did. Her motivation seemed entirely different than mine. For Mama Mo and Steven, the abortion was all in the name of this secret they were harboring. A deadly secret.
The movie on the wall played the wedding:
Me before: “I’ve got the strangest feeling I shouldn’t be doing this.”
The older sister: “You just don’t know, you’re taking a lot off our hands, chile!”
The younger sister: “He’s your problem now; don’t send him back to our house!”
Mama Mo: “See, Steven, I told you about all of that worrying. Everything always works out in the end.” (Wink, wink.)
“Whaaaaat!” I said, crying. “They all knew! Everyone knew but me?”
Eleven months of dating, two years of marriage, and lots of sex—funny, he never mentioned it.
The movie kept playing…
Steven spending money like a man who would never have any more. Steven wanting to take a bath before going to the hospital, because he thought he wasn’t coming back. His older sister saying she knew he had AIDS when he made the announcement. Steven being sure that I was sick, too. Steven not being sure where he got the disease—or deeper yet, not willing to admit where he got the disease. All of the disappearing acts he pulled over the years played out. And finally the night of the fire when he fell to his knees asking, “Who am I going to tell all my secrets to now?”
I was numb as I sat on the edge of my bed digesting all this. One thing was for sure: there was no way I was going to go down to that hospital to sign any papers for a blood transfusion. He’d just have to die before morning.
I started talking to God. “Help me make some sense of this?”
God had already shown me what He had been trying to tell me. But no, I was so busy worrying about not having a husband at age twenty-eight, and planning my wedding, that I refused to see things put right in my face. I also was in direct violation of the Word by going out to find a “good man.”
The Bible is very clear in Proverbs 18:22. It says:
“He who finds a wife, findeth a good thing.”
It does not say she who finds a man finds a good thing.
I had to praise the Lord for keeping me through all of my stupidity. I was just like the little kid who kept saying, “Daddy please, Daddy please.” Until finally Daddy just said, “Here!”
I repented for being disobedient. I know that delayed obedience is disobedience.
“Lord, right now I have the power of Steven’s life in my hands,” I said.
I could have very easily lain down, fallen asleep, and conveniently forgotten about going to the hospital. I could have run to show everyone the medical records that had the documentation of what he had done. I could have taken that piece of evidence to the police and had him arrested for attempted murder. And I could have taken the wedding video to the police also and brought both sisters up on the same charges, and added conspiracy to boot. Or I could have just shown the medical records to my brother downstairs and he’d have called for reinforcements from my other brothers in Chicago, and they’d have been here by morning. Not a pretty sight.
“What am I going to get, Lord, if I do the right thing here and now?” I pleaded. “I need you to tell me, how am I going to benefit from, once again, taking the high road? For once I’m asking, what are you going to do for LaJoyce? And please don’t take all night to answer me. I need to know right now. Or tonight, Steven is a dead man.”
God had never been more clear to me than at that very moment.
Vengeance is mine. I’ve got this. Stand still and I will bless you. Don’t tell anyone tonight about your discovery. Leave now.
I wiped my face, put on clothes, went downstairs, and asked Bo Daddy to ride with me. I signed the papers at the hospital. They said they thought I wasn’t coming. The doctor was just about to call me again when I arrived. I didn’t want to go into Steven’s room. I didn’t want to see him. I just signed and left.
Back in my room, I thanked God for His promise and I wholeheartedly forgave Steven. He had to have been a fool for trying to do in a child of the King. I needed to forgive him because he had no clue that I was God’s Girl—for real!
I thanked God for keeping me. Quite simply, it was nothing but the Blood of Jesus keeping me covered, with a negative HIV status and safe from harm and danger. I sang myself to sleep with “When You Walk Through a Storm.”
• • •
Steven spent another four weeks in the hospital, and they thought it was quite miraculous that he left there alive. By the time he got home, my emotions about the truth were settled. There were going to be some changes around our home. My brother Stevie stayed after Mommie and Bo left. He stayed to help me around the house and to lend a hand when Steven finally came home.
It turned out that while Steven was in the hospital barking out orders to make this purchase and that, he had been in the midst of one of his demented episodes. He would swing back and forth between periods of lucidity and lunacy. When he got home and started going through the mail, he flipped out when he saw the credit card bills. I mean flipped!
He cussed me out for shopping and buying stuff for the house. He got on the phone and called everyone in his family to report that I was trying to kill him early by bringing all of this financial stress on him. Here’s the kicker: he never even remembered telling me that he was going to file bankruptcy and to go shopping.
“That’s a joke!” he fumed. “Why would I do that, so some other nigger can come up in here when I’m gone and you all can laugh at me for being a sucker while you enjoy this stuff you bought? Why would I want to make life easy for you when I’m gone!”
“You told me to do this!”
“It wasn’t a done deal,” he said. “You shouldn’t have done it.”
I was beginning to see clearly now. All too clearly. Either Steven was truly going through bouts of dementia or he had serious game. I chalked it up to both, in light of my newfound truth.
“I need to get away from you,” he said. “I don’t have that much time left and I don’t want to be here in this cold. I want to go out to California with my godmother and die out there where it’s warm.”
“Really? And what about your doctor’s appointments? And who’s going to take care of you?” I asked him, concerned because Godmother Martha may have been a nurse, but that didn’t mean that she could do what I had been doing for him with all of my concoctions.
“They’ll do a better job than you, ’cause these bills are causing me nothing but stress,” he said, flinging the bills in my face. “Now where’s the fur coat you bought?”
“It’s still at the shop,” I told him.
“Well, return it!” he screamed.
“I’ll be returning every single thing I bought,” I said. “See, I didn’t want to do this in the first place, but nooooo, you wanted me to get this and that. So I tell you what, I’ll take it all back, gift certificates included. ’Cause it ain’t nothing but stuff to me.”
“I told everybody in my family what you did,” he said.
“Good, now you can tell them I returned it all,” I shouted as I started gathering things to put near the front door, including all of the gift certificates. “Never mind, I’ll tell them myself!”
I stomped upstairs, slammed the door, and went to bed.
He must have stayed up all night talking to my brother. He must have stayed up even after Stevie went to sleep, because there was not one gift certificate to be found in the house when I woke up. To this day, I don’t know to whom he gave so many gift certificates. There were only a handful of people coming to the house regularly. Claudette and Stacey said that he didn’t give the certificates to them, so I still have no idea.
I knew about these types of episodes, and it was my fault for not recognizing the dementia in him sooner. It was very sad seeing him slowly lose his motor skills (he flipped over the truck, totaling it) and also watching him lose his mental capacity. It was killing me deep down.
I wrote the family this following letter of apology:
31 January 1995
Dear Family:
It’s ironic I write a letter on this day. Steven and I met this very day in 1990. By now I’m sure you all know what I have done recently that has caused Steven a great deal of stress. I am writing to say to all of you that I never in a million years intended to hurt him and to say that I’m sorry.
My rationale for doing these things is not elementary at all. It goes beyond my being selfish, which is just the emotion/action that is on the surface. But what is really underneath it is a severe panic, fear, loneliness. You all are not intimate as I am with what is going on with him and the disease. I’m now well read on the subject and I should have noticed this end-stage dementia before I went shopping.
I’ve seen you all recently and you’ve commented on my strength during this ordeal. I guess I’ve got you all fooled because that is the biggest facade imaginable. That strength characteristic is a face I put on every day to make it. I put on strength so I don’t break down and cry, kick, scream and holler in front of Steven and have him to worry even more. So I do my crying each time I leave this house in the car. I break down in public places. I excuse myself from my desk daily to run to the bathroom or I sit there staring out of the window, tears streaming, hoping no one sees me “doing that again.”
So what do I do? I tell all of you and even others that I’m doing okay and not to worry. When that is a lie above all lies. But what do I really say? Do I share the litany that I live daily? Can I really scream out loud to say how much this is killing me? So I say all is well. Not just to you all but to everybody. So when it finally came down to me cracking up, I didn’t jump up and down, I didn’t warn anybody, I didn’t run off for days unable to be found, I didn’t go jump in the sack with some stranger to ease my pain. I went shopping after I was told to go by Steven.
Steven says that I had to have put a lot of thought into where I went to make those kinds of purchases. But I will tell you that is not true. I simply got in the car and started driving and charged wherever I landed. For a period of a week and a half I know I went completely crazy. I thought Steven would be pleased by having the basement fixed so I took care of that first. Because even though the doctors were saying he wasn’t coming home after five seizures and a collapsed lung, I knew he was.
Even though he had discussed bankruptcy, nothing was final yet. I rationalized the buying like everything was approved and a done deal. He says I didn’t cover my tracks very well. That’s because I wasn’t trying to sneak. I’m not a good liar. Never have been. I’ve never been sneaky. My eyes reveal too much.
So from that time, to the time Steven got the bills in the mail, I was a nervous wreck. If I would have been in a right state in the first place I would have never bought one thing to add to the pressures of what we deal with here daily. It was an intermittent escape. That’s the best way I can describe the feeling at the time.
Escapade completed. Reality still here, and back to my daily routine as follows: get in car and cry all the way to work and home; be scared to come in the house because I don’t know if Steven will be in here dead or not; cry because you go to sleep one day and the next your whole life is turned upside down; fight with Social Services about why we can’t get food stamps, cash assistance or Medicaid even though we’ve worked our entire lives; go to doctor’s appointments and listen to them tell me Steven doesn’t have long; write letters to creditors about Steven’s disability to ask for reduction in monthly payments; cry about Steven’s immobility, face breakouts, lack of appetite, dementia, shrinking frame; coordinate neighbors to check in so he won’t be here alone all day; guard his privacy—keep straight in my head who knows who doesn’t know; help him go to the bathroom; making the bed finding blood-stained sheets; call doctor because blood is a problem; don’t forget latex gloves wash blood-stained stuff separately, bleach first; cry, that in sickness and in health stuff is for real; pay a few bills—mortgage first; look for a job; go to an interview; grocery shop—don’t forget chocolate milk and cinnamon pop tarts, it’s the only thing I can count on Steven consuming; wash his hair; check in on him in middle of the night—temperature may get too high, he still insists on sleeping with the heat blaring; cry, because he’s always cold; order more wood, pick up more coal, call electric company, make payment arrangements the bill is $800!!!; feed Missy and Rambo; pay neighbor to feed and walk them after school, Steven is too weak; cry, the dogs are his pride but he can’t really enjoy them; love him so much wish I could take some of the pain; cry because I know I can’t; chase down station wagon car payment from source, convinced it was a bad business deal but we can’t pay so better late than never; cry because I need to get a better paying job to help rescue us from the system that we can’t get into anyhow and to get the best doctors without having to worry about how to pay the bill; go to Brooklyn twice a month to get $200 medicine for free; medical bills can’t pay; other bills use them to start the fires in the wood-burning stove; cry, bill collectors calling from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. getting on my nerves; get a new phone number; cry, there are a lot of people we will never remember to call to give them the new number; have to go on a business trip, I hate to leave Steven alone; call home, machine picks up, mind races cry myself into an almost sleep, race home relieved he’s still here; cry, he talks about the strangest things, about wanting his mother, how she will make everything all right and take care of him; concentrate, begin on next book; cry, want to write about these emotions but I don’t want anybody to see what I’m feeling; maybe an article about our situation would help some people, can’t do it—need to guard his privacy; go to post office, sign for certified letters, getting hauled into court for not paying a contractor; cry, money/bills stress Steven; need to go to church or Bible study, can’t, don’t want to leave Steven alone—pray at home, watch the preachers on TV and read my Bible; looking forward to nephews Robbie and Cory’s visit for the holidays; cry, no kids of our own; get up at 6 a.m. clean wood and coal stoves, dump in more coal, start fire, wash dishes, put in a load of clothes, make lunch for Steven, label and leave in fridge, feed and take out dogs, bathe, get dressed, get in the car and cry.
These are just a few of the emotions that are locked up under the “I’m doing okay” facade. We’ve got two choices here and that is to deal or to deny. I’m trying to deal. I broke down for a period and now I’m back and returning the purchases.
God forgives me; I hope you will, too.
Love you all…LaJoyce
Steven was flabbergasted that I actually sent a letter to his sisters, uncle, godmother, and cousins.
“Let’s see who returns those gift certificates you passed out,” I told him. “You wanna tell everyone our business, let’s tell it all. Why do they only get to hear your story? You do realize I have a story in all of this, too?”
Uncle Charles was the only one who called me to say anything about it.
“I’m praying for you,” he said earnestly.
For me, that was all he needed to say and it sealed our relationship forever.
When Stevie left to return to Chicago, he gave me a gun tour in my own house. He said he watched Steven look at a gun in the office one night and then hide it.
“I figured that chump had a gun hidden in every room of this house, and I was right,” my brother told me. “You be careful, and let me show you the new places every room has a gun.”
Stevie was showing me the hiding places. He was tearful when leaving and let me know that he could be there by car in ten hours anytime, day or night.
“Just call,” he said.
Stevie was absolutely on target to move those guns away from Steven. Two days later he said, “I think that little brother of yours was stealing from us while he was here.”
“Really, what’s missing?” I asked, thinking he discovered something missing for real other than guns.
“I don’t know yet, but I bet he took something.”
“Let me know what’s missing and I’ll tell Mommie to take it out of his behind!” I said to him.
Later that night, I took a peek at all of the new hiding places, and all of the guns were still nicely tucked away where my little brother had left them. I just let Steven continue to think that Stevie stole the guns from our home. He didn’t mention it again, and neither did I.
• • •
In the middle of the Pocono winter, Steven left home one day in the truck and called me later that night to say he was in Long Island and would be staying with his sisters for two weeks because he needed to get away from me.
“Okay, make sure they do everything for you that I do,” I said to make sure he would stay well.
“Oh, they will,” he assured.
Hmm, I thought. Suddenly they were all getting along and were going to take care of him?
When did this happen? Since we began the vicious merry-go-round with hospitals and doctors, I could count how many times they came to visit. Never once bringing a bag of groceries, a prepared meal, or offering respite to me. Instead, they’d bounce in from the Long Island haul—and the three-hour trip was a haul—hungry and ravaging my pots and refrigerator, leaving a dirty kitchen and dishes in their wake.
So I needed to be forgiven if I was wrong about them taking good care of him all of a sudden, when because of their glaring absence, they didn’t even know how to care for him in this condition.
“If you wanted to spend time with your sisters, I would have taken you out there. Why did you drive out there by yourself?” I questioned him because it was very obvious he was a candidate to have his license revoked due to health issues.
“Because of what you did,” he said. “I couldn’t stand looking at you another day.”
“Whatever, Steven,” I said. “You may not remember telling me to shop, but I have Stevie, Bo Daddy, and little Cory to corroborate my story. And I bet I can find a nurse or two who heard you giving me a shopping list. Don’t forget you were thirty thousand dollars in debt when I met you, that we have been paying down since we got married. You’ve barely made a dent in that. The twenty thousand dollars I’ve just spent is not only returnable, but a joke compared to the debt you already had. They can all vouch for the fact that you appeared to be lucid at the time you told me to go!”
“There you go using big words,” he said, irritated. “What’s ‘lucid’?”
“If you’re well enough to drive three hours to Long Island, then you can pick up a dictionary and find out,” I told him.
Steven hated to read and never even bothered to read one pamphlet about his illness. I did all of the reading and researching.
I had started to think that he was running a game with me about the degree of his weakness. Here’s a shell of a man who claimed he could barely walk, let alone pack the largest suitcase in the house and make a three-hour trip. I seriously wondered.
He had ordered me to come out there that weekend with items he needed to take to California.
“I’ll drive the Honda out and switch for the truck when I get there,” I advised.
“No, you won’t,” he said. “I told my sister she could drive the truck while I was gone.”
“Whaaat?! And what am I supposed to drive when it snows and I can’t get off of the mountain to get to work to pay for the truck she’s driving?” I asked. “What exactly am I supposed to do then?”
“Whatever you have to, but the truck stays here.”
I had a huge concert event with George Howard that weekend in the city and in Long Island at Westbury Music Fair. GH was on a smooth jazz tour with Grover Washington Jr., Phil Perry, and Dianne Reeves, and they were killing audiences all around the country. When GH saw me, he knew I was totally stressed because I had lost a considerable amount of weight.
GH took my face in his hands and his eyes welled up.
“You can hide it over the phone, baby sis, but you can’t hide it in front of me any longer,” he said. “What’s up?”
He knew Steven was sick, but he had the stomach cancer story.
“I’ll tell you later,” I answered, looking around at all of the people backstage.
“Stop playing, you’ll tell me now,” he said, concerned, and turned me his ear.
I whispered the truth. He covered his face and cried right backstage at Westbury Music Fair. We hugged and I assured him that I was definitely negative and my weight loss was indeed from stress. My photographer for the evening, Ronnie Wright, saw us huddled and told us to smile. I have the most beautiful photo of us with GH’s watery eyes.
I spent the night with Steven’s sisters at the house they were renting. With all of the money they got between the two of them, instead of pooling it toward ownership, they chose to rent. Go figure. One look in their refrigerator and I knew Steven was not being fed the right way. There was a load of chocolate milk, and bananas. There was no other fruit and no salad fixings, so I knew he hadn’t eaten any. I had brought groceries, the things he needed to eat and bags of herbs I had premixed so that they just had to add hot water.
Steven was pulling a not-speaking-to-me episode that weekend. It took so much more effort to be nasty than it did to be nice.
Before leaving on Sunday, I gave him an egg facial because his face was all broken out. I told him while he had his mask on and couldn’t talk back, “I’m glad to see that you and your sisters are speaking. Please patch up all the way and discuss everything you want to talk about that has had you angry. And I hope you’re not here just because you’re angry with me.”
He may have been mad with me, but he didn’t pass up the pampering session. I told him I had brought enough herbs to take to California and supplements as well. I labeled everything and sent an instruction sheet.
The sisters just said, “We’ll try. We don’t have time to do all of this.”
“I love you and have fun when you go to California,” I said before leaving. “See you when you get back.”
“I told you I was going out there to die. I’m not coming back,” he said adamantly.
I got a flash of the wedding video again as I left those siblings to themselves: “He’s your problem now; don’t send him back to our house!”
There was an eerie peace that enveloped my home in the Poconos after Steven left. He had refused to speak to me on the phone and I didn’t know what his exact travel plans were. I got a lot of rest and started looking for another job. I hated to leave Patti’s fold, but I needed more money or we were going to lose everything. Having a dying husband was expensive! I was only writing five checks a month and it was tight.
I was on payment arrangements with everyone, and if the payment was not on time with the phone company, they would shut off the long distance service. I was diligent, but it happened anyway.
Patti didn’t have enough money to pay us one Friday because a client didn’t pay. I had already mailed the bills before coming to work that morning. Three days later, I only had incoming service. It was GH who came to my rescue. He allowed me to use his telephone calling card to make calls until I got myself straightened out.
Godmother Martha called me to let me know Steven had been there three days and that he was really weak, but she would take care of him. I knew that was gospel. While he was gone, I got myself back on track with church and Bible study, and it felt good to be among my church family, who had been praying for me.
In April 1995, my longtime industry friend Jackie called me up to let me know of an opening at Arista Records as publicity manager in New York City. I jumped at the chance. I didn’t even know how much the salary was, but it didn’t matter. I needed a job with benefits, because I didn’t have any.
In my interview process, I had to tell them about my dying husband at home with stomach cancer. They needed to know he was in the final stages and that when the time came for me to be near him, I would have to be absent.
“No problem at all,” my vice president said, visibly wrecked by the news.
She even kissed me good-bye. She was also very impressed with the fact that I took the interview just off of the plane, with luggage in tow, returning from a benefit GH held in Atlanta for the Clark Atlanta University band.
“I knew I liked you, a woman who’s not afraid to travel,” she marveled.
When she told me the salary would be thirty-five thousand dollars, I almost fell out of my chair, because the week before at Bible study, Pastor K.P. had delivered an awesome prophecy.
He interrupted his teaching by saying, “If anyone can give thirty-five dollars right now, come up here and place it on the altar. I’m going to anoint your purse, your wallet…and in the next seven days, God is saying that he will increase you tenfold, some of you one-hundred-fold, some of you one-thousand-fold.”
I usually take issue with pastors who say give this to get that, but Pastor K.P. would dismiss church and forget to raise the offering and we’d all have to put our envelopes in a basket upon leaving. So I knew it wasn’t about “raising” money. What was interesting is that before coming to church I went to the store for fruit and veggies with only a fifty-dollar bill. I asked the cashier for all fives back from my less-than-ten-dollar purchase, and I didn’t know why. I took the I-don’t-know-why feeling as a direct communication from God.
When Pastor K.P. made that call, I was among the first up to the altar. He told me, “Go get your purse.” I brought up my backpack and he asked, “Is this where you keep your money?”
“Yes,” I answered, and the congregation laughed.
He ordered, “Don’t laugh at her! If this is where she keeps her money, then this bag gets anointed!” My leather backpack got all greased up with blessed oil and I went praising all the way home. Approximately six days later, the thirty-five dollars was increased one-thousand-fold. I just wished I had bought that tape of the sermon!
After we sealed the Arista start date, I bounced onto West Fifty-seventh Street and praised the Lord.
My new job was absolutely awesome! I was publicity manager and my roster included Craig Mack, Biggie Smalls (a.k.a. The Notorious B.I.G.), his wife Faith Evans, Sean “Puffy” Combs (as he was known back then), Total, 112, OutKast, and Toni Braxton.
It was fast-paced to the nth power! I had an assistant named Samantha and she marveled at how I juggled three phone lines simultaneously. When you receive two hundred and fifty calls a day, there is no way you can call anybody back. If someone calls you, put them on hold and get to them quickly.
My first task at Arista was to plan a rap party that was to happen in one week, for a deejay compilation CD. The only thing done for the event was identifying its location. I loved this work and I definitely needed the diversion.
I was summoned home to Chicago one weekend for a much-needed visit alone with my folks. All I did was sit in my room and stare out of my window, thinking. My mother would come up to the room with a different beverage—juice, iced tea, or a peach wine cooler. What she brought to drink would determine what kind of conversation we’d have.
Steven still wasn’t speaking to me. Every time I called California, he would say he was tired and then get off of the phone. Godmother Martha told me that I might want to consider coming out there to visit him, because she knew it was near the end.
My mother and I did a lot of talking and thanking God about what He had done in my life. I know she just wanted to see her baby for a minute in her house. “Grounding” is what you call it—returning to the point of safety. My grounding point was my room at Mommie’s house.
Before I left for church on Sunday, the Holy Spirit told me to get to Gus’s house to pray for Daddy Brookshire, who had recently gone blind. I went there to lay hands on Daddy’s eyes and pray for his healing.
“I have a surprise for you,” Mama Brookshire said, dialing the phone. “Gus Brookshire’s room, please.”
“Are Gus and his wife in town?” I wanted to know.
Mama Brookshire hesitated and fumbled for words. “No…well, he…”
I’ve known the Brookshires most of my life from the neighborhood, and Mama Brookshire has never been one short of words. I knew something was wrong.
“My boy ain’t washing no hair!” Daddy Brookshire piped up angrily.
“Washing hair?” I asked. “What is going on?”
Gus and his wife owned a salon in San Antonio, and the last time we spoke, they had just bought a fabulous new home. The last I had heard, their place was the number-two black salon in town. Gus had quit his job as a land surveyor to manage both the construction of the new deluxe space and the day-to-day operations. It was very plain to see that Daddy Brookshire was perturbed at the prospect of anyone wanting his boy to wash hair, considering all Gus had sacrificed.
I mused to myself, Mmmmm, seems someone feels Gus needs to do more than just manage the place.
Mama handed me a piece of paper. “Call your brother at this number when you get home tonight. It will be nice for him to speak to his sister.”
As promised, I called Gus when I got back to the Poconos.
“What did Mama and Daddy tell you?” he asked.
“Daddy said something about you ‘not washing no hair,’ and Mama just asked me to call you.”
“I’m getting a divorce,” he said, exhaling.
He told me the longest story, and all I could say when he was finished was “Wow!”
Gus was a real doer of the Word of God. He was totally against divorce, but his wife committed adultery with one of their employees’ relatives at the salon. He had moved out and enrolled in a truck-driving school in Dallas. I sat in shocked silence as I listened to his story for more than an hour. For a change, it felt good to be of support to another in a difficult situation, rather than being wrapped up in my own.
“What about you?” he asked.
I didn’t really want to discuss it, but Gus was my first-ever best friend, so I told him the truth about Steven.
“I know everything already,” he said, blowing me away. “Stevie called me at home in the middle of the night to ask me to come there to help kill your husband for what he was doing to you.” In my family’s eyes, Steven’s disease was ruining my life.
See, my family is crazy, I thought.
Gus continued, “I spent two hours talking your brother down from killing him that night by telling him I’d come if he would wait for me to get there. I knew that he’d simmer down.”
I started to cry, because the impact of this ordeal on me, my family, and my friends was just too much. I wasn’t prepared to deal with any of it anyway, and now I had to help my family deal with something I wasn’t sure how to navigate myself. It was only by the grace of God that I was functioning at all. Steven’s diagnosis had driven my brother to call Gus and ask for his help in killing him. That’s no small thing! I couldn’t believe it. That’s why my brother stayed around; he stayed to protect me. Between the Blood of Jesus and Stevie, all bases were covered.
We talked for three hours, crying and praying, and reading Bible scriptures to each other for comfort. Gus had been nearby for every major event in my life, and while we had not spoken in a long time, I felt his genuine support and familiar comfort envelop me.
That Friday, I had a cold and was turning out the lights to go to bed when Missy started barking at the door. Steven had arrived in the truck with his sister.
“Look who’s home, Missy,” I said, holding her collar to let them inside.
I welcomed them both, helped to get Steven settled, and offered food. Steven was dangerously thin, his face was a broken-out mess, and he was walking shakily. The two of them barely looked my way or even said anything to me.
“I have a bad cold, so I was about to go to bed,” I said. “Steven, you can sleep in our bedroom and I’ll sleep in the guest room so you won’t catch my germs.”
“Where’s my sister going to sleep if you sleep in the guest room?” he asked.
“Have you forgotten that there are two other rooms—an office with a futon and a pull-out couch in the TV room?” I said. “She can sleep wherever she wants.”
I knew what the deal was. He had decided to sneak up on me unannounced to see if I was going to be home with someone else or even home at all. Missy and I went to the guest room, and I heard Steven and his sister watching TV most of the night.
Saturday morning arrived with my usual flurry of activities, and I was out of the house by seven. Steven was always a late riser. I could go to town, run several errands, get back home, and cook breakfast all before he ever woke up.
I left Steven at home and went to work. I’d left food labeled in the fridge and medicines lined up on the counter. When I got home that night the house was completely dark.
I sat in the car a moment and prayed, “Lord, please don’t let him be in this house dead. I have three requests: One, please don’t let me come home and find him dead. Two, please don’t let him die in this house. And three, don’t let me be there when he dies. Amen.”
These were not unreasonable requests; there are some things I’d rather not remember. I would hate to have to think, This is the room I found him in, or watch him take his last breath. Some people are okay with being there in the last moments. I felt that was a job for a professional. I was already wiped out emotionally. I didn’t need anything else to rattle me. I was sure God would honor the requests I had made in earnest, and I went into the house.
Steven had slept all day without eating or drinking anything. He said he was very tired and cold. In spite of its traditionally warm weather, California was in the midst of a rainy cold snap that lasted for the duration of his two-month visit. Day in and day out he complained that he was freezing. I gave him an herbal concoction laced with cayenne pepper to get his blood circulating. When I checked his extremities, sure enough, they were blue.
I took him to the emergency room, and he stayed in the hospital three days. The doctor just shook his head, because he could not believe Steven was still alive.
“All indicators of his tests show that he should not still be here,” he said. “On paper, he’s technically dead already. It’s just a matter of time. He has an ironclad will. I’ve seen how he treats you, and it seems as if he’s hanging on just so he can punish you for some reason.”
That was an incredible revelation from a doctor—an outsider who saw us only once a month.
He’s punishing me for being negative, I thought.
I wrecked Steven’s plan by not contracting AIDS and riding into the sunset to die with him. So he was trying his best to make me miserable while he waited to die.