Up at the College (11 page)

The three men walked down the side aisle and hurried up into the pulpit. Denzelle sat down in the pastor’s chair, right in
the middle of the pulpit podium. Maurice sat to his left, and Curtis, who was very uncomfortable with the overall seating
arrangement, was on Denzelle’s right. Curtis would have preferred to sit in one of the front pews with Trina and Yvonne, who
he didn’t know was going to be here. But then again, maybe this was the best place to be. He had a full view of Yvonne and
her every move—and that was a mighty blessed thing as far as Curtis was concerned.

He took great pleasure in being able to look at Miss Lady in that pretty mint-green knit suit, with what Trina had once told
him was a shawl collar, and a skirt that he just knew without seeing hugged every delectable curve on the baby girl’s body.
What had started out as an
upside of the rough side of the mountain
evening was practically looking straight up to glory. Curtis sat back in his chair and smiled at Yvonne, who lowered her
eyes, reminding him of how sweet and delightful an authentic church girl was. And while there were a good helping of churchgoing
women in the sanctuary this evening, not all of them qualified to wear the title of
church girl
. Sister Doreene, for one, was anything but authentic. Her need to be seen and heard to the
n
th degree was proof of that, as far as Curtis was concerned.

The church was packed for a Friday night. Maurice, Trina, and Yvonne had arrived early and were able to get good seats at
the front of the sanctuary. The only drawback though was that they had to sit through the Praise and Worship Team too long.
Sometimes the Praise and Worship Team leaders had trouble knowing when to bring a song to an end. This group sang one song
for fifteen minutes straight, which really worked on Yvonne’s nerves. She was on the Praise and Worship Team at their church,
along with Miss Baby Doll Lacy and Marquita Robinson Sneed. They knew how to usher in the Holy Ghost during the pre-service.
And they also knew when it was time for a song to end and, even better, when it was time for them to go and sit down.

And not only was this service packed, it was filled with a few very surprise guests. One of the most surprising was Charles
Robinson, who Maurice later learned came for two very disparate reasons. One, Charles, who was a millionaire, and trying to
find a way to the Lord without giving himself over fully to the Lord, wanted to help with Denzelle’s efforts to support the
basketball team. He had written a pretty generous check and had given it to Reverend Flowers to add to the amount raised by
New Jerusalem for the Fighting Panthers.

And two, Charles wanted to be able to sit near Veronica Washington, whose divorce was scheduled to be issued any day. He could
not understand why Veronica’s pending ex-husband, Robert, actually believed that Tracey Parsons, the woman he had left her
for, was the way to elevate himself out of the muck and mire of being a lowlife and a jerk.

Maurice was well aware, sitting in the pulpit watching Trina smile and wave at him, that Denzelle hadn’t called them over
to Raleigh for their health—Reverend Flowers planned on making a difference in their lives as it related to their needs for
the basketball team. That was one thing Maurice really liked about Denzelle, in spite of his skirt-chasing—the man had heart
that led him to help so many people, groups, programs, and organizations in need. Plenty of folks around the Triangle had
powerful testimonies about how the Lord used Reverend Flowers to help them when they were in dire need.

Maurice and Yarborough were good friends, and they constantly lifted up Denzelle, asking the Lord to lead him to the right
woman, and to give him peace with the time he was to spend with God alone while he waited on the Lord to point the girl out
to him.

Denzelle got up and smiled at his guests and favorite parishioners. Unbeknownst to many churchgoing folk, the favored members
were not the most prestigious ones, or the ones with the most generous tithe checks. Folks forgot that the most noteworthy
tithe in the New Testament amounted to a few pennies because it had been given with such faith and love.

His favorite members were the ones who kept him lifted in prayer, forgave him when he fell short and had to struggle with
his battle with the flesh, and always treated him with the love of Christ blazing out of their hearts. They were people like
Veronica Washington, L. C. and Lynette Smith, Kevin and Kimberly Wade, Timothy and Sheila Reed, and Marsha Metcalf, who was
the only woman at his church who pulled at his well-guarded heartstrings, and she didn’t even know it. Charles Robinson was
the only other brother in Durham who guarded his heart more fiercely than Denzelle did.

“Praise the Lord, everybody!” Denzelle said, his heart getting warmer by the second at just the mere thought of the glory
of the Lord. Contrary to public opinion, Denzelle Flowers loved the Lord but had a serious battle with being obedient to the
Word of God when it came to the area of romance and what he could and could not do. He knew that for him marriage was the
answer. God had placed that on his heart years ago when he asked for help after a horrific and embarrassing breakup with a
woman Denzelle
knew
he was not going to marry the first time he went over to her house for dinner. God had told him then, and God kept telling
him now, but the boy was just hardheaded when it came to matters of the heart.

Denzelle glanced back at Coach Parker sitting in the pulpit looking like he hoped the Lord wouldn’t
get him
for sitting in a place he didn’t think he deserved to be. But as much as Curtis would have argued with Reverend Flowers over
that decision, Denzelle knew that Coach had a right to be in that seat. Because Denzelle knew that Curtis had a deep hunger
for the Lord, and that unlike Charles Robinson he wasn’t trying to barter and purchase his way to salvation. The only reason
Denzelle had accepted that check for ten thousand dollars from Charles was to get him in church for a reason other than trying
to mack on the sisters he himself didn’t have time for or any desire to be bothered with. This skirt-chasing was getting old,
and Denzelle knew his days at his church, the church he had built up from nothing, were numbered if he didn’t repent and get
himself together. His brother was right. It would be a sin to let that happen as a result of some trifling booty-call foolishness.

The
Praise the Lord
s, were kind of feeble-sounding, so Denzelle came out of the pulpit and said, “Praise the Lord, everybody. What’s wrong with
y’all tonight? We had enough gas money to get here. We’re in our right minds—”

“Some of us are, Pastor,” Lynette Smith called from the back of the church, causing folks to laugh and relax and begin to
let the Holy Ghost start to flow again through the church. She always wished that the pastor wouldn’t let Sister Doreene be
on the Praise and Worship Team because the girl always managed to throw a wet blanket on the fires of the Holy Ghost when
she opened her mouth to testify. She knew that in this case Reverend Flowers was being kind and compassionate. But sometimes
that wasn’t all it was cracked up to be—especially in the case of Sister Doreene.

“… Okay,” Denzelle said, flashing the smile that got him in so much trouble, “some of us can praise the Lord because we
are in our right minds. And the rest of us can praise Him for giving us enough money to buy our medications so that we can
think we are in our right minds.”

“Praise the Lord, everybody” came from one of the ushers sitting on a pew in the back of the church.

By now everybody was smiling and laughing and warming back up. Denzelle decided that he would change the service around a
bit. One of the things that he really liked about his Friday-night services was that they could relax traditional service
protocol and follow God’s lead concerning what to do and when and how to do it. He said, “You know something, church, tonight
we are going to get up and greet each other in a big hug of Christian love. Go find somebody you haven’t seen all week and
tell them
I love you, and there ain’t nothing you can do about it.
”

Curtis came out of the pulpit and headed straight to Yvonne. He wrapped her up in a big, warm hug, kissed her cheek, took
in the lovely fragrance of her Stella McCartney perfume, and said, “I love you and there ain’t nothing you can do about it.”

Yvonne stood there in Curtis’s warm and secure embrace, trying to return this church greeting, but found that she couldn’t
say a word. So she hugged him back and mumbled out, “Ditto.”

Curtis laughed and kissed her soft cheek again and then went back to his seat. Maurice and Trina just looked at each other.
Everybody else was hugging everybody they could find. Curtis had hugged only Yvonne and then gone back to his seat to sit
down.

Denzelle decided he needed to go back up in the pulpit when he saw the choir making its way to the choir loft, and two women,
whose offers to bring dinner by his house he’d turned down, making a beeline in his direction. When one of the women saw him
going back into the pulpit, she ran toward the pastor and almost fell flat on her butt, when Denzelle, who used to be a star
basketball player for Eva T. back in the early eighties, leaped out of her way and back up to his podium.

Charles Robinson, who was sitting with his boy and Rumpshakers’ manager, Pierre, started laughing. He leaned over and whispered,
“Pierre, man, playah wasn’t playin’, was he?”

“Naw, boss,” Pierre said, cracking up and reaching out his fist for some dap from Charles. “Baby girl was on a mission, and
playah wasn’t havin’ it. You know I love coming to Denzelle’s church.”

“Me, too,” Charles said as he took a quick peek at Veronica, who was looking all sweet and churchy in a pale pink St. John
dress that wrapped around her body like it was some GLAD wrap trying to keep all of that fresh fineness in. He nudged at Pierre,
who was looking toward the back of the church, nodded in Veronica’s direction, and said, “Check it out.”

Pierre turned back around and said, “No, you better check that out.”

Charles frowned. There was Robert Washington standing in the back waiting for an usher to seat him and his woman in the crowded
church. The head usher saw them, too. He stared up at the pastor, waiting for a sign as to what to do.

Veronica Washington was the usher’s neighbor. He remembered the day Veronica called him and his wife in tears because Robert
had a Triangle Company moving van sitting in her driveway and three movers standing at the door waiting for their orders.
Without any warning, Robert had ordered movers to Veronica’s house so he could live with that woman the usher had seen him
sneaking around with in Cary because he was dumb enough to believe that he wasn’t going to run into anybody from Durham or
Raleigh in Cary, North Carolina—a suburban enclave located between both cities.

His wife had told Veronica to calm down and get herself together. The two of them prayed over the phone while the movers took
a seat on the front steps, and the usher went and burned a complete CD of Beyoncé’s
Irreplaceable
, to be played over and over and over again until the move was complete. It worked. The Lord blessed Veronica with courage
and grace she didn’t even know she had. That
You must not know ’bout me … you must not know ’bout me
, playing constantly, tickled the movers to no end, even though it had made Robert feel like he would go crazy every time
it started up again.

The movers figured out exactly what was going on when Robert strolled up to the front door, determined to supervise and control
a move at the house he no longer resided in, and found the head usher/neighbor, who was a locksmith by profession, busy changing
every single lock in the house. The movers, who were now sitting in lawn chairs and sipping on fresh-brewed gourmet coffee,
knew that Veronica was a classy lady. They favored her, ignored Robert, who had to wait in his car during the move, and made
sure nothing left that house that needed to stay there.

Denzelle stared at that grinning, raunchy negro marring the back of his church and frowned. He couldn’t help but think about
Malachi 2:16:
“For I hate divorce!” says the Lord, the God of Israel. “It is as cruel as putting on a victim’s bloodstained coat,” says
the Lord God Almighty. “So guard yourself; always remain loyal to your wife.”
The first time he’d read that scripture, it had cut through him like the sharpest knife. It was ten years ago and his divorce
papers had just arrived in the mail. Denzelle had read the papers, read that scripture, and then gone and sat on his back
porch and cried like a baby. That Word hurt him down to the bone. But today he really understood what God was telling him,
looking at Robert Washington flaunting around with his woman, Tracey Parsons. This kind of thing was a disgrace, and it was
cruel.

Reverend Flowers made eye contact with the usher, who in turn gave the signal to the other ushers to go sit down and act like
they didn’t see Robert and the woman with the Stewie-in-
Family-Guy
-shaped head. Robert bristled, with his nose flaring and air puffing up in the front of his mouth, making him look like a
pissed-off swamp monkey. His woman Stewie was hot, and walked right out of the church, with Robert hot on her tail.

The choir was now in place and the musicians started playing the instrumental part of one of the pastor’s favorite songs,
which was sure to have folks up on their feet dancing and praising the Lord. But Denzelle didn’t want to stifle the flow of
the Holy Ghost when things heated up and decided that he needed to make the presentation right now before the choir started
singing.

He motioned for the musicians to calm down for a minute, and then signaled for Curtis and Maurice to join him at the pulpit
podium. He said, “New Jerusalem is one of the fastest-growing Gospel United Churches in the Triangle. We’ve been so blessed.
We celebrated our mortgage burning a year ago, we have money invested and our investments are earning money, we own property
outside of this church, we have built and furnished more houses for Habitat for Humanity than any church, black or white,
in Raleigh, and our monthly Friday-night services have been constantly gaining in popularity throughout the Triangle.