Second Sunday (22 page)

Louise was quiet as she watched Mozelle fold up Oscar’s new clothes, amazed at her friend’s strength. Here she was, saying
good-bye to the only life she had known for over four decades, and she was doing it with a grace and courage Louise knew she
could never muster up in herself. Because if Oscar were her husband, those clothes would be lying on the front lawn, cut to
shreds. Louis was right. You didn’t mess with people like Mozelle Thomas.

Louise grabbed a handful of the baby blue tissue paper Mozelle had folded up so neatly in the chest, and an old brown envelope
dropped on the floor. She laid the tissue paper on the bed and bent over to pick it up.

“Mozelle, did you know you had papers packed down in this chest?”

Mozelle stopped working and held out her hand for the envelope. She turned it over and tried to place it, realizing that she
had never seen it before.

“What’s wrong?” Louise asked.

“This envelope was put in the chest
after
I gave that boy those clothes. I know that to be a fact. And what’s more, if Oscar been up in these chests, then he saw that
I had gotten rid of his clothes. I ain’t heard a peep from him. And when have you known Oscar Lee Thomas to leave something
alone like getting rid of his stuff without permission?”

Louise knew that Mozelle was right. Oscar would show his behind over something like this. She said, “Open that envelope.”

Mozelle tore open the envelope, which contained a handwritten letter.

“Louise, this letter was written by the man whose family donated the land for the church.”

“Who is he?” Louise asked.

Mozelle squinted as she tried to make out the name. “I can’t read the name—the writing is too shaky. But the letter is notarized.”

“Can you make out anything, Mozelle?”

Mozelle scanned it and then started reading out loud: “‘And in keeping with my father’s wishes for his beloved church, the
land he donated on which to build it back in 1876 will remain in its stewardship until such time as I make arrangements for
Gethsemane’s name and not my family’s to be placed on the deed. In the event that I die before making this transaction, the
land will pass on to my heirs, who are entrusted with protecting it and ultimately deeding it to Gethsemane Missionary Baptist
Church when the hundred-year grant of use expires.’”

“Why would a family donate land and not immediately give the deed to the church? That doesn’t make sense to me,” Louise said.

Mozelle continued reading aloud through the letter and then said, “I don’t think the family ever intended for the church to
have a problem with this land. I think this person believed his business would be taken care of before he died. But, Louise,
if the church got the land to use for a hundred years back in 1876, then our time is about to run out.”

“That’s right—this is the hundredth anniversary of the groundbreaking,” Louise said. “Mozelle, we need to hold on to this
information, because it seems to me that whoever has this letter can either protect the church from the wrong hands or use
it to place the church in the wrong hands. I don’t even think we should give it to Rev. Wilson, because he’s still just the
interim pastor. If Cleavon got rid of him somehow, who knows where this letter would turn up?”

“I hear you talking, girl,” Mozelle said. “This is serious.”

“I bet this why Cleavon broke into the pastor’s safe, and then he gave it to Oscar Lee when Phoebe threatened to haul his
low-down behind off to court.”

“Umm-hmm,” Mozelle said. “Only thing, Cleavon outsmarted himself by giving it to Oscar. The Lord is amazing. He be looking
after you when you don’t even know He watching.”

“Amen,” Louise said. “But since these papers are so important to our church, how we gone make it look like we don’t have them?”

“Like this,” Mozelle answered, as she took great care to put enough sheets of folded tissue paper into the envelope to give
it the same weight and look that it had had with the documents enclosed. Then she folded the clothes and put them in the chest,
making it look like she had never so much as breathed on that tissue paper.

When she was done, Louise looked at her long and hard and asked, “Girl, where did you learn to be that slick? You could be
working for the FBI, doing all this undercover work.”

Mozelle just chuckled and said, “Louise, I was married to Oscar Lee Thomas for forty years. I had to be smart enough to get
around him sometimes, or else he would have run me clean out of my mind.”

When Mozelle was satisfied that all of Oscar’s things were packed up, she went over to the telephone.

“Who you calling?” Louise asked her.

“Warlene.”

“The Mellow Slick Cougars Club Warlene?”

“How many Warlenes do you know, Louise?”

Louise kind of shrugged, as if to say, “I hear you talkin’.”

“I want to give her a message for Queenie Tyler,” Mozelle said.

“And the message being?” Louise queried.

“To come and pick up
her
man’s stuff, funky draws and all, when she get him home from the hospital.”

“Her man?”

“Yeah,” Mozelle said with a little attitude in her voice. “
Her
man. ’Cause Oscar Lee Thomas show ain’t
my
man anymore. I ain’t got no man. I’m a free agent.”

Louise couldn’t say a word. And when words did come to mind, all she could think was, “Lord, wait till Louis hears about this.”

All in a Day’s Work

I
t was only Tuesday, but as far as George Wilson was concerned, it had already been a very long week. On Saturday he officiated
over the funeral of Oscar Lee Thomas, whose death was a surprise and a stark reminder that life was too short to let it pass
you by.

It was no secret that Mr. Oscar had gotten down in his health after he moved in with his girlfriend, Queenie Tyler. Still,
nobody ever expected him to die. He was just too full of fire and vinegar, even if he had devoted most of that energy to tormenting
Miss Mozelle. No matter how bad he could act, and even though lately he had stopped attending Sunday service, Oscar Lee Thomas
was an important part of the fabric of Gethsemane Missionary Baptist Church.

On the night Oscar died, Queenie Tyler put in a call to Sheba Cochran, pleading with her to bring the pastor over before it
was too late. As soon as Sheba finished talking to Queenie, she hustled over to the church and rolled up in George’s office
so fast that she skidded across the room and into his arms when he opened the door. When George caught Sheba, he had to wonder
what ingredients the Lord used when He made this girl—she was an armful and then some.

He held her for a moment, feeling the rapid beating of her heart, before he said, “Slow down. What could possibly make you
rush in here like that?”

“Mr. Oscar is dying, George,” Sheba said quietly, inhaling his cologne and fighting the urge to grab a hold of this man. She
was not prepared for how good George felt—his warmth alone made her want to swoon.

“Are you serious?” George asked, incredulous. “Oscar Lee Thomas?”

“Yes, George. And you have to hurry. Queenie don’t think he has that much time. And she’s scared. She don’t want—”

“Sweetheart,” George said gently, as he put his clerical collar on and grabbed his Bible, “I’m not going to let him leave
without coming back to Jesus. Let’s go, because time is not on our side.”

They pulled up just as Mr. Louis Loomis, Louise, Mozelle, and Joseaphus Cantrell, a church deacon who had been visiting Mozelle
when Queenie called, were getting out of Mr. Louis Loomis’s car. Queenie, who had been pacing around the house praying that
God would wait to take Oscar until Rev. Wilson arrived, felt like shouting when she heard all those church people on her porch.
She opened the door and said, “Thank you, thank you,” momentarily forgetting herself and grabbing hold of Mozelle’s hand.
When Mozelle started to pull back, Queenie lowered her head and said, “Oscar Lee back in the bedroom,” as she ushered them
down the tiny hallway in her small home.

Oscar was sitting up in a gold crushed-velvet recliner chair, fully dressed in a navy blue suit, white shirt, and blue, red,
and silver star-print tie. Despite his thinness and pallor, he looked classy, nothing like the “Geritol Pimp-Daddy,” as Mr.
Louis Loomis called him when he was sporting his Superfly clothes.

Mr. Louis Loomis studied Oscar, fully comprehending why he had used up most of his strength to get out of the bed and dress
up for them. A man’s pride and dignity would make him want to be at his best on his deathbed.

“Louis,” Louise whispered, “Oscar look good. And he don’t look like no imitation ‘Candy Man,’ either.”

“Yeah, you right on that account, girl,” Mr. Louis Loomis answered, hoping that Oscar didn’t hear them. He had always been
told that people on their deathbeds had keen senses and didn’t miss a thing.

He was right to worry, because Oscar did hear Louise, but at this point he found the Sammy Davis, Jr. reference kind of funny.
All these years, he had resented Louise Williams’s presence in Mozelle’s life, but now he thanked the Lord that she had been
there holding Mozelle’s hand when he was doing his best to turn her every which way but loose. Christmas Jefferson was dead
wrong—Louise was a wonderful woman.

But Oscar could not only hear everything, he could feel everything—every vibe and nuance moving through that room. He felt
the Holy Ghost shoot right into his heart as soon as Rev. Wilson put his foot over the threshold, and he sensed it the moment
Mozelle stepped onto Queenie’s porch. Sadly, he also felt worry and sorrow from all of them, especially Queenie, and that
made his heart ache a bit.

Oscar beckoned everyone closer to his easy chair and started talking, his voice weak, but his spirit shining strong. When
he reached out for Mozelle with open arms, she resisted his embrace. “Mozelle,” he said in the gentlest voice she had ever
heard him use, “Mozelle, please don’t hold back from me like that. I just called you over here to set things right with you
before I left. Don’t want to meet my precious Lord with this burden on my heart.”

Mozelle didn’t move a muscle, and neither did anybody else.

“I never did do right by you. Never once treated you like you deserved to be treated. Never once told you how beautiful you
were. Even after six babies and getting old, girl, your beauty just got better and better. And me? Never once had the sense
to thank God for making you my wife. And since I been down sick, Mozelle, I been praying about that and the whys and hows
of how I acted. Queenie know. Don’t you, Queenie?”

Queenie nodded, her eyes full of tears. Oscar had been on his knees a lot lately, despite his weakened state, and he had even
talked to her about the importance of having the Lord in your life. Those words had begun to take root in Queenie’s heart,
and she had started praying and reading Oscar’s Bible and Sunday school literature. Queenie was ready to be a “New Creature
in Christ,” but she didn’t know how to get to that point.

Taking her hand, Mr. Oscar patted it and whispered, “Don’t you cry. You know I have to go. But you have made my last days
happy.”

He got still a moment to catch the tears trying to flow down his cheeks. Oscar loved himself some Queenie Tyler. In fact,
if the truth be told, Queenie was Oscar’s dream woman. But he let the women like her whom he had loved in his youth slip away
because he was a coward, ashamed to admit that he loved a kind of woman considered “not good enough to marry.”

It was sad that he had spent a lifetime missing his own blessings because he listened to what folks told him made a woman
a suitable wife. And even worse, he had made Mozelle pay for every day he’d spent away from a woman like Queenie.

Oscar looked into Mozelle’s eyes and said, “Forgive me. That’s all I can dare to ask of you.”

Everyone in the room was crying except Mozelle. And then the light dawned in her heart. She realized that she no longer resented
Oscar—that all her anger had been lifted from her long before now. Tears came to her at last and she said, “I forgive you,
Oscar. I forgave you right after I put you out.”

“Good,” he said, smiling warmly. Then he looked over at Mr. Joseaphus Cantrell, whom he had known since they were schoolboys.
He had always been jealous of Joseaphus, who was everything he was not: tall, brown, and kindly, with a hearty laugh. Back
before Oscar and Mozelle were married, Joseaphus had had a crush on Mozelle that Oscar believed had never gone away. Now Joseaphus
was a widower, and Oscar had not been surprised to hear that recently he had been keeping Mozelle company.

He took Mozelle’s hand, extended it toward Joseaphus, and said, “Take good care of her, man. She had my babies, but she has
always had your heart. I know you love her. And I know she needs to love you. Will you do that for me, Joseaphus?”

Mr. Joseaphus Cantrell nodded gravely and took Miss Mozelle’s hand gently in his, pulling her over to him, and into his strong
arms.

Then Oscar gestured toward George. “Rev. Wilson, I want to rededicate my life to Christ. I want to see my Savior’s face when
I reach glory, and I want to hear Him say, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant, well done.’”

George squeezed Sheba’s shoulder for support. His heart was full of profound emotions—deep sadness over Mr. Oscar, mingled
with joy that he had returned to the Lord in time. Then George reached out and took one of Oscar’s hands in his; it was so
frail that he feared he would break it if he squeezed too hard.

“Oscar Lee, do you acknowledge that you have been a sinner and that Jesus died for those sins and then rose again. And do
you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior?”

“Yes, Reverend.”

“Then, Father, in Jesus’ name, I ask just this—forgive Oscar Lee Thomas for all of his sins, anoint him with the Holy Ghost,
save his soul, and let him dwell in glory with Thee. Just like the thief hanging on the cross, let Oscar see glory hand in
hand with Thee. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.”