Little Girl Lost 6: The Return of Johnnie Wise (30 page)

“Again, don’t get me wrong, Christ said all manner of sin, except the blaspheming of the Holy Spirit would be forgiven, but it cannot be forgiven if it is unacknowledged and never dealt with. If it’s not dealt with, it’ll spread and permeate the entire church and Christians will end up with laryngitis because we can’t lead the world if we’re corrupt ourselves. When this kind of thing happens in the church, we should acknowledge it and help our brothers and sisters get back on the path of righteousness. That means we have to sit them down. They can’t be priests or pastors until such time that they repent and completely turn away from homosexuality, adultery, or fornication. Once that happens, then we can restore our brothers to the priesthood or the pulpit, not before.”

“Why haven’t you done anything about this, Paul?”

Chapter 56

“
Like when my aunt Ethel tried to kill me, right?”

P
aul Masterson closed his eyes for a second or two, pressed his lips together, and shook his head as the many conversations he had with men of the cloth came to mind, followed immediately by rejection time and again, because they were afraid that if the truth ever surfaced, the church would never recover. He locked eyes with her again and said, “I have, Johnnie. I spoke up, and they took my church from me. I neither said, nor did anything wrong. In fact, I told these very truths to the powers that be in the clergy, and they called me a heretic.
Me!
Then, they forced me out of the church. That leads me to believe that not only is the Catholic Church being infiltrated, but the Protestant church is being infiltrated as well. Otherwise, how do you explain the church’s hypocritical progressive acceptance of that which God’s Word calls an abomination?”

“I don’t know Paul, but assuming you’re right, why do you suppose that is? Why do you suppose the church would turn away from its fundamental beliefs?”

Masterson took a deep breath and said, “Are you sure you wanna hear this?”

“Sure, why not?”

“What if I were to tell you that there is a war going on right now right outside this window”–he tilted his head toward the glass—“and right inside this restaurant, right now, at this very minute? Would you believe me?”

She looked out the window, and then around the restaurant. Seeing and hearing no violence of any kind, she said, “I don’t see any fighting, Paul. How can I believe a war is going on right now when I don’t hear any shooting and no bombs dropping and no people dying?”

“I am . . . I mean . . . I used to be . . . I . . . I . . . I don’t know anymore, Paul. I really don’t know. I mean, I’ve done so many sinful things that I can’t be a Christian now. I mean, why would God accept me now, given all that I’ve done? And believe me . . . you don’t know the half of it. You really don’t.”

“My point is that you’ve never seen God, yet you believe. It therefore follows that there is an invisible world, too. And if that’s true, there must be evil as well. And if that’s true, evil then must be at war with God whether you can see it or not. Do you disagree?”

“It doesn’t matter what you’ve done, Johnnie. All you’ve got to do is turn away from whatever it is you’re doing and turn to Him.”

“I’ve been through so much, Paul. I’m just sick and tired of life and the way it treats me. I was a good girl two years ago. Now look at me. I’ve lost everything. And I’ve almost lost my life in the process—twice—three times when you consider that they tried me for a murder I did not commit.”

“Who do you blame for the way your life turned out, Johnnie?”

Her eyes narrowed prior to saying, “My mother and Earl Shamus, that’s who. They did this to me. I was innocent, Paul.
Innocent!
If they hadn’t done to me what they did, none of what happened to me would have happened. I would still be in the church. There would have never been a riot. My mother would have never been murdered. There’s just so much, Paul—so very much that would never have happened if those two hadn’t gotten together and used me for their own base ends.”

“Forgive me for asking, but are you saying that at no time did you have any choices in anything that happened to you?”

Feeling threatened, she folded her arms and said, “What do you mean?”

“Just what I said. I wanna know if you made any choices, at any time, that may have brought some of what you say happened to you on yourself?”

She thought for a minute. The murder of Richard Goode came to mind. She had been there when Bubbles and Lucas beat him to a pulp. She had watched Napoleon Bentley castrate him. The sound of him screaming filled her mind. It was so loud that she covered her ears even though it was only in her mind. “I only did to others what was done to me or those close to me.”

At that very instant, she heard the words of her former pastor, Reverend Staples, roar in her mind when he said at her mother’s funereal,
“Vengeance is mine says the Lord.”
She diverted her eyes to the table, nodded, and said,
“I guess.”

“What do you mean you guess? You made the decision, right?”

She nodded.

“Johnnie, perhaps you don’t realize it, but when you made those decisions, you set a chain of events into motion that could not be halted.”

She leaned forward. “What do you mean I set a chain of events into motion? The people who did this to me set it into motion. I didn’t. I only surfed, Paul. That’s all I did. I just rode the wave.”

“Perhaps, but you also caused a lot of ripples in the process. What most people don’t get, Johnnie, is that life is like being a farmer. Do you understand?”

“Exactly! The things we do are the seeds we plant as are the things we say. And just like a farmer’s field, nothing happens for a long time. If you’re not a farmer, you get impatient, waiting for something to happen, thinking, what’s taking so long? But the farmer doesn’t get impatient because he knows that it’ll be awhile before he sees the fruit of his labor. The farmer knows that something is happening with the seed. He just can’t see it because it’s happening underground—in the invisible world.

“And the things that your mother and the Earl Shamus guy—what a name by the way—didn’t see what they were doing to you because like the Spirit of God, emotions cannot be seen. Emotions are felt, and then manifest themselves in our tears, our laughter, our anger, in our quest for revenge, or a host of other manifestations of emotions, but you cannot see them. And so, when you made whatever decisions you made, you, too, set things in motion, and believe it or not, your actions have a way of coming back to get you at the most inopportune time.”

“Like when my aunt Ethel tried to kill me, right?”

Chapter 57

“
Can I be honest with you now, Paul?”

P
aul frowned and fell back against the booth, stunned at what he thought he’d heard. He locked eyes with Johnnie, searching her mind, looking for visible authentication of what he had just heard. Or, perhaps a smile that would let him know she was only kidding to add a little levity to a very intense conversation. But, she didn’t smile. She didn’t even blink her eyes. What he saw was conviction in those alluring eyes. What he heard from her was icy silence, and that was all the verification he would ever need. Her mother had sold her, and her aunt had literally tried to kill her. Then, it occurred to him that she had said that there was so much more, and that it was ugly. He wondered how much uglier it could get and wanted to ask why her aunt had tried to kill her, but thought the question might come off like she had done something that would warrant the taking of her life. Instead, he said, “When did this happen?”

“Which time? The first time or the second?”

Incredulous, he nearly shouted, “She tried to kill you twice?”

Nodding, she said, “Yes. The first time she tried to kill me was at the Beauregard mansion during Thanksgiving dinner. The second time was in a so-called court of law of all places.”

She looked at him for a long moment, trying to decide whether she should tell him. She shook her head a couple times and said, “Because my uncle said it was okay for the Klan to kill my mother.”

“What?” he blurted out without thought. Then, he realized he had gotten loud. The restaurant was nearly empty so nearly everyone there turned and looked at them with wondering eyes. Lowering his voice, he continued, “Your uncle said it was okay for the Klan to kill his sister?”

Shaking her head, she said, “I didn’t say that. I said my uncle said it was okay for the Klan to kill my mother.”

“Okay, but isn’t your uncle your mother’s brother? Otherwise, how could he be your uncle?”

“Unlike Abraham, preacher, my uncle didn’t know his sister was his sister. My uncle’s father had a child with my grandmother Josephine out of wedlock.”

Frowning, he said, “Okay, but still, why would any Negro say it was okay for the Klan to kill any member of his own race? It makes no sense.”

“Perhaps it would make more sense if you knew that my uncle and his father were white men.”

If Paul Masterson’s hair could stand up, it surely would have at that pivotal moment. He ran his hand down his face, as if he was trying to wake himself up from the dream world he was in. Johnnie sat there watching him fidget, trying to gather himself before he continued the conversation.

After a few moments of gathering himself, he said, “The scriptures teach that we all come from one blood, Johnnie. I hope you know that. Besides, the rules of attraction are male and female. So, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“Forgive me for saying this, but if you look just like your grandmother, I can see why your grandfather had a relationship with her—not that I condone adultery. I’m just saying I understand when men and women are attracted to each other. Sparks fly, and before they know it, it’s David and Bathsheba all over again.”

“Before she was killed, my mother told me that women have always been jealous of us Baptiste girls because we’re pretty. I guess she was right.”

“We were talking about whether I thought life or God had been unfair with me. I said I thought life was unfair because God couldn’t be, remember?”

He looked at his watch. “3:30! Listen. I’m gonna have to get outta here in a few minutes. I’ve gotta prepare for my sermon tonight.”

“Okay, I’m ready to go whenever you are. I’ve got some things to do, too.”

“Okay, all I wanted to say was that most people blame God for everything that goes wrong in their lives. I find this to be especially true of Negroes even though they are the most religious people in this nation.”