A Good Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

steady temperature ride electric”—what’s all that about?—was an e-mail that didn’t hawk any type of male enhancement or ask him to share a fortune in Afghani or Nigerian gold.
    The title of the junk mail usually wouldn’t have caught his eye except for the last two words: “Find the Woman of Your Dreams on TV!”
    That’s a new one. On TV? I thought all women on TV were supposed to be the women of our dreams. The only woman of my dreams was Sheila, and I only see her in my dreams. He sighed. I’ll see her in heaven, though. Now if I could only find a woman to watch TV with me.
    John sat hunched in his computer chair because the back of the chair was missing, a single metal bar his only support. He rested one hand on his antique writing desk, the only wooden furniture in his stuffy studio apartment on the top floor of an old foursquare brick house in Burnt Corn, Alabama.
    A woman would be nice. A wife would be even better. If she happened to be the woman of my dreams, okay, but you can’t ever guarantee that. I thought I had her and a dream life and then …
    Of course, if I find me another wife, I might even get to become a full pastor with my own church before I hit sixty. I wish folks at New Hope AME didn’t put so much stock in 1 Timothy 3. “The husband of one wife” verse keeps me from doing what I was called to do.
    Unmarried. Widowed. I’m an unmarried widower. Fifteen years ago when I was the youth pastor at New Hope, Sheila and I were going to grow old together and have a boy and a girl. Sheila was the only reason they let me be a pastor of any kind at New Hope, mainly because she was related to everyone there. Once she died, they didn’t know what to do with me. I tried several times to leave New Hope and her memory, but her mama convinced me to stay on and “work for the Lord in Sheila’s memory.”
    They really only needed me to fix things. “Oh, and you can teach a Sunday school class for singles.”
    John knew he should still be a pastor. I’m vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach, not given to wine, not greedy, extremely patient, and not a brawler. But because I’m not married, I can go no higher than assistant deacon, a title they created just for me after Sheila’s death, and teach a Sunday school class attended by unmarried singles, most of them older than me. Nice irony there. As soon as they marry—miracles have happened—they leave my class. As soon as I marry, will I get to teach the married folks? I doubt it.
    John sighed and looked at his wedding picture, Sheila’s eyes shining, her slender hand firmly gripping his, nothing but future joy blazing in his own eyes.
    New Hope really only needs me to be the handyman keeping everything working. AC, furnace, hot water heater, lights, sound system, even the vacuum cleaners, computers, and phones. I keep the grounds looking good, too. For that I get just enough money to eat, and they let me live rent-free in this apartment in the top floor of a church-owned house, the same house where Sheila and I began our life together. We used to have the whole house to ourselves, but after she passed, I wrapped everything downstairs in plastic and moved upstairs.
    Our picture is dusty now. I should do something about that.
    And this. This loneliness.
    John opened the e-mail and read.
    Hunk or Punk, a new reality TV show on the WB Network, is seeking men ages 25–40 to woo a Nubian princess in search of her boo.
    John shook his head. “Another lame attempt to script romance.”
    How did this e-mail get sent to me? My online life used to be pretty lively. After Sheila died, I chatted with black women around the world—religious stuff mostly. No harm in it. Just making contact with someone, giving an encouraging word, providing a verse to jump-start their days. Maybe I got this e-mail because I did that? But c’mon. I haven’t done that in years. “Woo”? There’s an ancient word for the twenty-first century.