A Good Man (12 page)

“Well, yeah,” Kim said. “That’s why I’m here. But if you could, you know, speed things up a little …”

Sonya smiled. I think Kim likes hanging with me. “I could do that.”

“I mean, all this is nice, but I’m liable to run out of things to do, especially since I don’t have a car.”

Ah. Transportation. “We’ll get you one,” Sonya said. “I’ll get Michelle on it now that she’s working for us.” Sort of.

“Cool.”

“And I won’t call you every night,” Sonya said. “Unless you want me to.”

“Whenever.” Kim shivered. “It’s getting cold.”

They returned to their room where Kim booted up her laptop and went to the Hunk or Punk Web site. “They’re quick. Your picture is already on here.”

I don’t look like me at all, Sonya thought, but I guess that’s the point. I doubt anyone on earth would recognize me now. Are those really my lips? I didn’t know I had any.

Kim pointed at a flashing word. “Live? You’re going on live? I didn’t know that.”

Neither … did … I! Live? Are they crazy?

“I’ll have to pop some popcorn,” Kim said. “I wish I could tape it. This is going to be some classic stuff, I just know it.”

Live? In that outfit? What if it rains, not that it would, I mean, this is Southern California and all, but … live? What if I freeze up? They said something about cue cards, but I wasn’t paying attention.

“You know what would be funny?” Kim asked.

There’s nothing funny about this!

“If I called you live on the air,” Kim said. “Would you answer your phone?”

What? “You saw that dress. Where would I hide a phone?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Live? There was nothing in the contract about live anything except for the eliminations.

“Are you nervous now, Sonya?”

Sonya nodded.

“Cool.”

Not cool. I may be calling her the second I step out of the limo.

To come rescue me.

John packed two suitcases before first service in exactly nine minutes.

He tried to pack his boots, but they wouldn’t fit.

I have so little, but that’s not a bad thing, John thought. “Better is little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble therewith.”

The less I bring, the less trouble I’ll have. Therewith.

The morning service ran smoothly, and despite an early January chill, fans still fluttered from “O Happy Day” to the benediction.

I’m going to miss New Hope. They’ve kept me going for fifteen years, and except for a case of bronchitis that knocked me out of a second service last February, I haven’t missed a single service in twenty years. That has to be some sort of record, even for a faithful member of an AME.

After cleaning out and defrosting his refrigerator after service, also in nine minutes, John had a light lunch of leftover chicken soup, two heels of bread, and an apple. He spent his next two hours missing Sheila as he dusted, vacuumed, and swept the top floor.

Freshman year at Wheaton College. Foundations of Ministry 111. The first day there were maybe twelve of us in the class, all guys. Sheila smiled her way into the room and I smiled back. “Your smile told me I was in the right place,” she told me. “I knew you were the man for me.” I don’t remember smiling at all. I was sitting near the window, so I might have only been squinting in the sun. I’m glad the sun was shining fiercely that morning. I might not have smiled.

Sheila was only one of ten black students at Wheaton that year, and despite my shyness and almost total lack of pigment, we hit it off after two slices of pizza and a soda at Jack Straw’s. She cheered for me when I ran downfield on kickoffs and missed tackles—the coach often said I looked “like a moose on ice”—and she helped me survive senior seminar and the infamous honors thesis.

And when I proposed, I was as surprised as she was. I didn’t have a ring. I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t say more than: “Please marry me.” She fluttered her thick black eyelashes at me and said, “Really?” I nodded, she hugged me, we went and found rings at Stones Jewelry, broke the news to her family over the phone—

That was interesting. Her mama must have said, “He’s what?” a dozen times. “He going to be a pastor, Mama, and I’m going to be his wife.” Her father asked, “Where?” “Down there, of course,” Shelia told him. “You tell Uncle Charles he has a new youth pastor.”

And that was the extent of John’s “interview” with New Hope AME.

I met her family at the rehearsal dinner. That was wild. Sixty people crammed into Zack’s Restaurant over in Evergreen. My parents were quiet as mute mice while Sheila’s family carried on and I ate too much, smiled too much, and said so little. But it was all right. Everything was all right. I was happy.

Yeah. I was a happy man once.

During the evening service in front of a scattering of people, most of whom worked Sunday mornings, Reverend Wilson spoke from 1 Corinthians 13, the Bible’s “love chapter,” and John tried to tune him out.

We were married right here. Her side was crowded. My parents were alone until some of the overflow crept up to within two pews of them. Most of Burnt Corn was here.

I wonder how my parents are doing. After Sheila died, I was supposed to run back to Chicago and be their only son again. Instead I stayed, and they’ve stayed more distant than ever. I doubt they’d ever watch a show like Hunk or Punk. Maybe I should warn them.

But what would be the point? They’d see me chasing yet another black woman, and for the whole world to see. If they had only gotten to know Sheila better, they’d understand why I couldn’t leave even her memory behind.

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal…”

Reverend Wilson spoke from 1 Corinthians 13 on our wedding day, too. Not many weddings have full sermons anymore. All folks seem to want these days is a quick ceremony with a few songs, the vows, the reception, and the honeymoon. There was something so holy about our wedding. The ceremony was on God’s time the entire time.

“And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing …”

I can’t remember the last time Reverend Wilson spoke from this passage. Maybe he’s trying to tell me something tonight.

“Charity—love—suffers long,” Reverend Wilson said. “Some of us surely suffer a long time because of love.”

Yeah, he’s trying to tell me something. I’ve been suffering.

“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.”

Amen, it is true, especially that enduring part. Love is an amazing gift, and it takes love to endure anything. Love even endures long after a loved one dies. Love never dies. There is always love.

“Faith, hope, and love. What’s the greatest of these?”

Love. Sheila was my greatest love. I was at my greatest when I was with her. Lord, I want to feel great again.

“Do you have faith in love?”

John nodded. Yes. I have no other choice.

“Do you have hope in love?”

Tougher question. I hope to have hope in love.

“You have to have love in your heart to truly love someone.” Reverend Wilson stepped away from the pulpit. “There is someone in here tonight who has so much love to give, many years of love building up inside, but that person has been holding back. God’s been telling me to tell you to release that love now. You’ve been holding on to it for far too long. Let it go. Let it go.”

Let it go.

I wonder if it’s that easy.

On the two-hour ride to Montgomery early Monday morning, John and Reverend Wilson kept their own counsel until they got to Montgomery Regional Airport.

“We all still think about her, John,” Reverend Wilson said. “I can still see her sitting next to you sometimes. But fifteen years is an awful long time to mourn.”

“I know.” Though I could probably mourn for fifteen more.

“You’re doing the right thing here.”

“I hope so.” John shook Reverend Wilson’s hand.

“We’ll be praying.”

So will I.

“You’ll get her. Does she have a name?”

Here we go. “Jazz.”

“Jazz, short for Jasmine?”

“No, just Jazz.”

“How long you known her?”

And now for some ridiculousness. “Um, I’ll meet her for the first time on Monday night.”

“So you’ve been corresponding.”

“Not … not exactly.”

Reverend Wilson squinted. “So all this is a blind date?”

“You could say that.” A blind date for the entire country to see.

Reverend Wilson blinked rapidly. “I, uh, I was gonna leave you with a special verse to see you through, but with what you’ve just told me, it wasn’t a strong enough verse. A trip way out west to go on a blind date? You’re gonna need Joshua one-nine then. ‘Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.’”

That’s a good verse for those exploring unexplored territory. “Thank you, Reverend Wilson. For everything.”

He shook his head. “We’ll see each other again. Don’t make this sound so final.”

Yeah, you might be picking me up from the airport in a few weeks.

Once his plane to Dallas was airborne, John settled back and tried to rest. He wasn’t exactly weightless, but at least he was moving.

I just wish I knew for sure that I was moving in the right direction.

After changing planes twice, snoozing for hours at two gates, and finally landing at LAX thirty minutes late, John walked through the tunnel to a swarm of people and a man holding a sign that read: BOND.

I hope that’s for me, John thought.

Holding the sign was an elderly, tall, and tan Hispanic man who wore jeans, black boots, and a black leather jacket. “You Bond?” the man said with only a trace of an accent.

“I’m Bond. John Bond.”

“Really.”

John smiled. “John James Bond, actually.”

“It is a good screen name.”

“It’s my real name.”

The man crumpled up his sign and wedged it into a trash can. “Do not change it.”

“I don’t plan to.”

The man led John to baggage claim, where it seemed the entire world was waiting. “This is not good,” the man said.

“Um, what’s your name?”

“I am just your driver.”

“Well, I’d like to know who I’m talking to.”

“Manny.”

John extended his hand.

Manny shook it, looking over John’s head at the crowd. “This is not good.”

Forty minutes later, John retrieved his suitcases, and he and Manny hustled to a green ’66 GTO coupe with an AM radio, a real wood-grain steering wheel, and a grab bar over the glove box.

“What’s the bar for?” John asked.

“You will need it,” Manny said. “Strap in.”

John belted himself, the straps forming an X across his chest. “This seat belt is different.”

“You will need that seat belt, too. Hang on.”

Manny drove John at speeds in excess of ninety miles per hour in and out of thick traffic, crossing four lanes at a time without signaling and generally leaving extended middle fingers and cursing in his wake.

Welcome to California, John thought. Am I scared? Yes! This car has no airbags, no ABS, and no turn signals, apparently. We are two tons of steel—whoa! I could almost taste the bumper sticker on that van! Be strong and of a good courage. Yes, God, those are powerful words, but have You ever driven on a California freeway? You might be afraid, too!

“They told me your hair would be auburn,” Manny said.

I know it’s turning white now. Slow down! “I’m just being myself.”

“You are in LA,” Manny said. “You can be anyone you want to be.”

Right now I just want to be somewhere safe and not moving at—one hundred miles an hour?

“There is a packet for you in the glove box,” Manny said.

John opened the glove box and took out a stack of papers. He scanned the cover sheet until he saw: “Arthur, thirty, film editor, Chicago.” It’s so nice to be thirty again. “Looks like I have to be someone named Arthur. Do I even look like an Arthur?”

Manny looked over. “You look more like a Fred.”

Please watch the road! “Arthur the thirty-year-old film editor. King Arthur, leader of the knights of the round table, on my way to Camelot.”

Manny didn’t respond.

“Or a man dancing at Arthur Murray Dance Studios. They could have made me a dancer, which would be hilarious because I can’t dance a lick.”

Manny did not blink.

Manny is no fun, John thought.

John read through a list of do’s and don’ts for the Crew, most of which he would never do. Don’t do drugs. Don’t curse too much. Don’t get drunk on camera. On camera. Oh. Get drunk on your own time. Don’t have your cell phone on during filming. So we can have cell phones but we can’t make calls out or communicate with anyone at any time. Huh? Oh. We can get text and voice messages, but we can’t send them. Same with the Internet. Who would send me any messages anyway? My ancient phone doesn’t even get texts or voice mail.

Oh, and there’s my “pay.” One thousand two hundred fifty dollars a week. I’m guaranteed four weeks, so I’m guaranteed five thousand dollars. I’m getting paid to stay in a mansion and flirt with a beautiful woman. Only in America. And if I “win,” I collect an extra fifty thousand dollars. If I stay the entire time and win … that’s one hundred thousand dollars plus. There’s something … wrong about that. Getting paid for winning a woman’s heart.

Again, only in America.

A blur passed them. Are you kidding me? We’re doing one-ten, and someone passed us? Where are the cops? Maybe those were the cops. “Um, Manny, is traffic always like this?”

“It is the day after New Year’s Day, so people are still hung over and irritated. It is a Monday, and the people who had to work today are coming home from work hungover and irritated. And, it is Southern California. Today is the trifecta for tremendo traffic.”

John gripped the bar over the glove box more tightly. “Are we in any particular hurry?”

“I must get you there before eight o’clock.”

“Why?”

“You will see.”

I just want to see the ground under my feet—both feet. If I had my boots, I’d feel safer.