Eight
Once a month on a Thursday night at six-thirty, the men of Kingdom Builders Christian Center gathered for a gender-specific Bible study and chat session. The organized, spiritually strengthening sessions were the brainchild of Jerome Tides, the second son of Reverend B. T. Tides. Jerome had begun the gatherings at New Hope Church just a year ago as a counterpart to Women of Hope, a weekly ministry that his younger sister founded for the ladies of the church. The Hope for Men’s impact on the male population of the tabernacle quickly spread throughout the churches under the New Hope Fellowship of Churches. CJ wasted no time building the foundation of KBCC’s own Hope for Men assemblies, and so far, they’d been accepted well among the brothers.
Neil had hardly recuperated from his busy day at the school before he had to prepare himself for the meeting. He enjoyed the brief but influential gatherings. Some of the things the men shared in those sessions were mind-blowing, and it was comforting to know that they had a safe place to go where they could talk to their pastor and fellow brethren without feeling threatened. But immediate disappointment settled in when Neil walked through the doors of the church and caught a glimpse of the associate minister who would apparently be facilitating tonight’s meeting.
“Dang!” he whispered under his breath. CJ generally led the discussions, and Neil wouldn’t have bothered to show up if he had known that Elder Ulysses Mann was going to be in charge. If Deacon Burgess’s old Impala hadn’t crept into the parking lot at the same time that Neil had shut off his engine, and had the old man not shuffled into the church alongside him, Neil wouldn’t have thought twice about backing out the door and making a mad dash for his car.
Elder Mann was quite knowledgeable in the Word of God and had earned his ordination into the ministry, so his ministerial credibility wasn’t in question. The problem was that he was one of the most lackluster orators that Neil had ever heard. The sixty-year-old mortician could break down a complicated scripture like a mathematician could break down a problematic fraction. Only an idiot wouldn’t be able to understand the verse once Elder Mann got finished explaining it. But the man’s humdrum voice was enough to put a chronic insomniac to sleep. He had about as much charisma as the corpses he came in contact with each week, and the only times he ever got the chance to address the congregation were the few occasions that CJ allowed him to lead their regular Wednesday night Bible study sessions.
Hope for Men usually lasted ninety minutes, but because no one felt compelled to participate tonight, the session was cut short. By the time the hour-long assembly was over, Neil had long lost count of how many peppermints he’d eaten in an effort to stay awake.
“Forty-two,” Deacon Burgess blurted out at Neil immediately following the benediction.
“Excuse me?” Neil wondered if this was one of the old man’s senile days.
“Forty-two,” he repeated, flashing four crooked fingers, and then two more as a visual aid. “That’s how many times you gapped tonight. Probably more. That’s just how many I happened to see.”
Neil shook hands with two of the other brothers who passed by him on their way toward the exit, then he turned his attention back to Homer. “Gapped?”
“Yawned,” the deacon clarified while his wrinkled hand inched toward his keys that lay on an empty chair. Neil often wondered if Homer Burgess’s driver’s license was even valid. He found it nearly impossible to believe that the Department of Motor Vehicles continued to renew the man’s driving privileges, even allowing him to drive at night. Incredibly thick lenses gave away his failing eyesight, and the Chevrolet that the man drove never moved more than thirty miles per hour on any given day. Deacon Burgess used the keys to scratch his scalp through fat curls of silvery hair that his age hadn’t thinned one bit.
He flashed a perfect set of dentures at Neil and added, “Ain’t no sense in me beatin’ on you ’bout it, though. I was sure I was gonna die sittin’ here waiting for that boy to shut his mouth. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” the man huffed out. “I ain’t saying that I’m ready to check outta here or nothin’, but I done lived a good long life, Deacon Taylor, a good long life. I done known love, raised chil’ren, seen grandchil’ren, great grandchil’ren, and great-great grandchil’ren come into the world. I done lived so long that I done buried both my wives, two of my sons, and my only daughter. And just in the past week, I was blessed with my first two great-great grandchildren. Twin boys.”
His proud grin vanished quickly and was replaced by a disapproving look that he hurled at Ulysses Mann, who was now kneeling next to his chair like he’d really outdone himself tonight and needed to stop and thank God for how powerfully He’d used him. Shaking his head, Deacon Burgess peered through his glasses at Neil. “While you were nodding off, I was praying for the Lord to call me home to glory. I’m a dime short of being a hundred, and the undertaker was already here, so it would have been easy on everybody. Like I said, I ain’t necessarily ready to die, but a quick death would have been a heck of a whole lot less agonizing than sitting through this right here.”
Neil’s body vibrated as he did his best to withhold an outburst. But inasmuch as the old deacon’s words had been comical, Neil didn’t fail to take note that he’d learned more about Homer Burgess in those fleeting seconds than he’d ever known about the man in all the time they’d worshipped together.
“You know I’m telling the sanctified truth,” Deacon Burgess concluded.
Not wanting to add his own lashes to the verbal beating that the deacon had already given the minister, Neil settled for saying, “Well, I think we’d all rather hear Pastor Loather bring the Word on any given occasion. I don’t think we can fairly compare anybody to him. Pastor Loather has a rare gift.”
“Compared to that right there”—Deacon Burgess directed a bent finger toward the chair that Elder Mann had made into an altar—“mildew has a rare gift.”
The classroom was now virtually empty, and acoustics were making Homer’s voice bounce off the walls. Neil was certain that Elder Mann could hear the exchange despite the fact that he remained in his bent-knee position. Neil theorized that Ulysses had probably finished his prayer a long time ago. He was probably just too embarrassed by what was being said to get up and face the church’s oldest member.
In an effort to end the preacher’s torture, Neil began walking toward the exit door. “Come on, Deacon. Let me walk you to your car.”
Deacon Burgess needed the assistance of a cane, and even then, the speed of his stride could best be described as creeping. A distance that Neil could have covered in thirty seconds had he been by himself took him five minutes walking with Deacon Burgess. They had barely made it outside the classroom door when the elderly man spoke again.
“Speaking of rare gifts, you got a pair of pipes in that there throat of yours, ain’t you?”
Neil knew what Deacon Burgess was talking about, but they still had a ways to go before they would exit the church, so for the sake of conversation, he pretended to be clueless. “Pipes? What do you mean?”
Homer Burgess waved his hand out over the empty edifice and said, “You near ’bout tore up this place three, four Sundays ago.”
It was actually just this past Sunday, but Neil didn’t bother to waste his time challenging him on it. “Thanks.” Neil didn’t know what else to say.
“I remember when you used to sing all the time.”
Surprised by the declaration, Neil stopped and looked at Homer. He didn’t think the old man’s long-term memory was strong enough to make that kind of recall. “Yes, I did. I don’t do it much anymore, but I’m glad you enjoyed it.” He ended the sentence in a lasting period, a tone that said the conversation was over.
They began walking again; only a few steps came before Homer’s next words.
“I remember ’cause my grandson got saved on a Sunday that you and your brother sung. That had to be ’bout twenty years ago.”
Neil stopped again. Apparently Deacon Burgess’s memory was better than his own. Neil couldn’t remember this occurrence himself. “He did?”
“Yeah. You done forgot?” At last they stepped outside the church doors, and Homer leaned his full weight on his cane and looked at Neil, who stood on the top step. “Anthony was ’bout sixteen or seventeen at the time, and all his life that boy had done ’bout killed his parents with worry. He got in trouble at school all the time. The older he got, the worse he got. ’Fore long, he was running off from home, smoking pot, getting in trouble with the law. He had just got kicked out of school for fighting a teacher when my son and his wife brought him to church that Sunday.”
Deacon Burgess got a faraway look in his eyes. “Yes, sir. Y’all sho’ ’nuff sung that Sunday. ‘Near the Cross.’ That’s what y’all sung. And somewhere in the middle of it, Anthony come a-running down the church aisle, eyes full of water. He fell at the altar, and he was never the same no more. Went on to finish high school, went to college, and he’s a doctor right now in the nation’s capitol.”
Warm tears stung the backs of Neil’s eyeballs. He had totally forgotten that day. Forgotten the song that had been sung; forgotten the move of the Spirit; forgotten the face of the boy wearing the ripped jeans who raced to the front of the church and crumpled to his knees; forgotten how Dr. Loather had to revamp the whole service to meet the needs of one lost soul. So much about the days when he and Dwayne shared the mic were buried somewhere in the back of Neil’s brain.
It was almost eight o’clock, and there was little to no chance that Deacon Burgess could see his tears, but Neil turned his back to the old man anyway. He pretended to gaze out over the well-lit parking lot where a security guard waited for the final cars to leave so that he could lock the entrance gate.
“Yeah.” Neil wiped his eyes with a handkerchief he pulled from his pocket. It was warm tonight, and he could only hope that the deacon thought he was wiping away perspiration. Neil kept his voice steady. “Yeah, I remember that now. That was some kind of Sunday. I’m glad Anthony turned out well.”
“He did more than turn out well.” Deacon Burgess began the task of walking down the steps. There were only four of them, but for a man of his years, it was a chore. “He’s preaching now too, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know that,” Neil admitted.
“Son, a whole lotta folks in the world can sing, but everybody ain’t anointed.” Homer placed his aged palm flat against Neil’s chest as he spoke. “Your voice don’t just sound good. God done gave you a voice that can heal. A voice that can deliver. A voice that can save. Do you realize how powerful that is?”
Maybe it was all in his mind, but Neil was certain that he could feel heat transmitting from Deacon Burgess’s hand. The whole center of his body began to feel like it had just been rubbed with Icy Hot. Neil had used the cream on occasions after he drove his ATV. Depending on his speed and the ruggedness of the surface that he chose to take the 4-wheeler on, he would need the sports cream to ease the resulting soreness that crept in his muscles. It was that same heating sensation he felt now that prompted Neil to step away and distance himself from the deacon’s touch.
“You miss your brother, don’t you?” Deacon Burgess asked.
Neil looked out toward the parking lot again. He and Deacon Burgess had never had such a long conversation before. Most of the time when Neil spoke to him, it was in passing, and the man seemed to only half-comprehend what was being said. But tonight the ninety-year-old appeared to be sharper than ever. Neil answered the inquiry with a quiet nod.
“I know the feeling. Believe it or not, I’ve outlived all my brothers,” Homer said. “My sisters too. I’m the last of the Burgess baker’s dozen. That’s what our neighbors used to call me and my twelve siblings when we was kids. The last one to die was my sister, Karen. She passed away . . . uh . . . I guess it was ’bout six or seven years ago. I was the baby in the family, so she was older than me, but younger than Millie, so if Karen was alive today, she would be ’bout ninety-two, I reckon.”
Deacon Burgess started making baby steps toward the parking lot, and Neil inched along beside him. “Naw, it ain’t no fun to bury your kinfolks, and I done buried a whole heap of ’em. It’s hard enough to bury your siblings and your parents, but I think the hardest thing in the world is to bury your spouse or your chil’ren.”
Neil was sure that the deacon was right, but it was hard to imagine a pain worse than the one he felt when he had to say good-bye to Dwayne. Bidding his father farewell was hard enough, but Dwayne . . .
“That’s why you have to make life worth living.” Homer’s words interrupted Neil’s thoughtful comparison. “You got to love your kinfolks so much that when any one of them dies, you find comfort in knowing that not only did they know what real love was, but so did you. ’Cause the truth of the matter is that as sure as we born, we gon’ die one day.”
“What about love?” Neil heard himself ask.
“Love? What about it?”
“You said you were married twice.”
“Yep. Esther was wife number one, and Odette was number two. After that, I gave up. Marrying gets kind of expensive after a while.” He chuckled.
“And both of them died before you?”
“Uh-huh. Burying is expensive too.”
Neil knew that his question was a bit off-topic from their original subject, but he took the plunge. “Do you think that you would have ever married Odette if things hadn’t worked out with you and Esther? I mean, if she hadn’t kept her marriage vows, would you ever have opened your heart to trust another woman?”
They were finally standing at the door of Deacon Burgess’s car. Before he answered Neil’s question, the old man took the time to unlock his car door and chuck his cane inside. He used the open door as a leaning post when he looked back at Neil.
“Me and Esther were divorced for three years before I married Odette.”
Neil’s eyebrows shot up.
“Yep. Sho’ was,” Homer said with a firm nod of his head. “We was married for near ’bout twenty years, but probably wasn’t in love but for two.”
“Why did you stay together for so long then?”
“’Cause we took vows, that’s why. Back in them days, when folks said they was gonna stay together for better or for worse, they did just that . . . come hell or high water. Most of the time anyway.”
“But you didn’t, right? You eventually broke up.” Neil was fascinated by the story.
“Yes, we broke up. Most people say they stayed together for the chil’ren. You know . . . stayed married till the chil’ren got grown. Well, that wasn’t our testimony. We stayed together for our mamas and daddies. I think if we hada broke up early on, our chil’ren woulda been just fine. Me and Esther, we stayed together till all of our parents were dead and buried. If we woulda broke up while they were alive, it probably would’ve killed ’em. So after Esther buried her mama, we called it quits.”
“Twenty years.” Neil followed the words with a low whistle. “That’s a long time to stay married to somebody you do love, let alone somebody you don’t.”
“Tell me about it,” the deacon replied.
After a silent pause, Neil said, “So when you said earlier that you buried both your wives, you didn’t mean that literally. You just meant you outlived them both.”
“No, I meant I buried ’em both. It was an odd thing that both of ’em died of cancer. Odette died of breast cancer, and Esther had it in her . . .” He looked around as if there could possibly be someone standing close by listening to their conversation, even though there was no one in the parking lot except the security guard. He was at least a thousand feet away, pacing impatiently near the gate, but Homer still whispered when he finally said, “female parts.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Neil responded.
“Yeah. Suffering ain’t no fun to nobody.”
“So if you weren’t married to Esther, why’d you bury her?”
“Just ’cause our marriage didn’t work out don’t mean I hated her. She died, and she needed burying. What was I supposed to do?”
Neil shrugged. As far as he was concerned, if they were divorced, what Homer was supposed to do was nothing at all. No marriage meant he had no responsibility to her. Surely she had other family members who could have taken care of her funeral arrangements and the costs attached. “She never remarried?”
“Yep, but so what? I didn’t have a whole lot of money myself, but for every dollar I had, I had ninety-nine cents more than her husband did. Me and Esther had six babies together, and if a woman thought enough of me to bear my chil’ren, then no matter if our marriage fell apart or not, she deserved to have an honest-to-God burial. And that’s what I gave her.”
On second thought, Neil reasoned that what Deacon Burgess said made sense. He supposed that if he’d had children with his ex-wife, he would probably feel a sense of allegiance to help with her burial if she died before him. But since they’d had none . . .
“And even if we didn’t have chil’ren,” Homer added, “she still gave me twenty years of her life. We might have grown out of love, but she stayed until we mutually agreed that it was over. And I’d be lying if I said that just ’cause I wasn’t in love with her that she didn’t bring me no joy during that time. I’d be lying if I said she never cooked me a good meal, or never cleaned up behind me, or never nursed me when I was sick, or never gave me some good loving when I wanted it. Everything wasn’t roses, ’cause if it was, we would have stayed together till the end, but there were some good times in there, and I felt like the good times were enough to earn her a decent homegoing.”
Neil didn’t want to admit it, but that made sense too. Old man Burgess was right again, but Neil didn’t want to talk about that anymore. He wanted to go back to where his conversation was headed before they started talking about burials, funerals, and such. “So your divorce from Esther never made you hesitant about trying again?”
Through an extended laugh, Homer said, “It did till I met Odette.” He rubbed his right hand across his mass of soft, curly hair. “I wasn’t always old and on a cane, you know. I was probably ’bout the age you are now when I got divorced, and just like you, Deacon Taylor, I was a ladies’ man, a heartbreaker.”
For a minute, Neil thought that the wide smile that dimpled his cheeks had literally brightened the darkness around them, until he noted the two cars that were passing by the church with their headlights on.
Deacon Burgess continued. “Women used to try to catch my eye when I was still married, so when word spread that I was divorced, the sisters came from every which-a-way. I went out with a few of ’em, but I never saw ’em as much more than pretty faces and pretty legs.” Deacon Burgess laughed again. “I was a face and legs man.”
Neil laughed again too, mainly because he was starting to see a lot of himself in the old, off-key-singing deacon. The face and legs were two of the first things he noticed in a woman too. Shoving his hands in his pockets and wanting to hear more, Neil said, “So I’m guessing that Odette came in the picture somewhere along the way and changed some things.”
Homer confirmed, “She changed the rules, the game, the playing field . . . everything. She was the real deal. She had the face and legs, too, but what made her stand out was that she wasn’t like all them other girls who were all up in my grill.”
Another outburst of laughter was released from Neil at the use of the old man’s terminology, but his amusement didn’t keep Homer from telling the rest of his story.
“She made me chase her. That was new for me. And when I finally caught her, I was wore out and breathless, but it was worth it. Two chil’ren and forty-one years of marriage. That’s what she gave me. Plus a whole lotta good lovin’. Real good lovin’. Yes, sir.” Homer patted Neil on the arm like he knew the interrogation had been for Neil’s own personal gain. “You wait and see, Deacon. It’s gonna all be well worth it.”