Second Sunday Read Online Free PDF Page B

out?”
    “Yeah, Sheba,” Katie Mae said in a nasty voice. “What can
you
tell us that is helpful for
our
church?”
    Sheba resisted the urge to stab her eyes into Katie Mae as she had done her husband. She knew Katie Mae’s little attitude
     wasn’t about anything but Cleavon, with his jive, no-good, lying self. Sheba couldn’t stand Cleavon Johnson. And if Katie
     Mae wasn’t always snubbing her, she would have set the record straight on what really happened between herself and Cleavon—not
     that much of anything.
    “So, you gone meet the Reverend up in the office?” Nettie asked, hoping that Katie Mae wouldn’t keep talking and make Sheba
     so mad that she changed her mind about helping them.
    “Nettie,” Sheba said, looking at her like she was crazy, “did you see Blue Patterson’s hair?”
    Nettie nodded, as Sylvia broke out laughing, saying, “How could she not see
that
?”
    “I know,” Viola added. “His hair convinced me that he don’t really listen to the Lord all that much. ’Cause I know the Lord
     has said
something
about his hair on many occasions.”
    “Blue, Blue,” Sylvia said, imitating Rev. Patterson. “Your hair, son. It’s
Me.
Your hair, your hair.”
    “Sylvia, you know you need to quit,” Nettie said, laughing.
    “No, this whole church need to quit,” Sheba said very seriously. “Y’all need to quit fooling around with that trifling Negro,
     who here lying and acting like he’s a big-shot preacher, when he know he ain’t nowhere close to that. He did all that hollering
     and screaming, talking junk about how he been called to lead this church. And yet he didn’t even think enough of this church
     to bother with how he looked. The hair said it all. Why, that Negro didn’t even have the decency to put some grease on his
     hands.”
    Viola nodded. “Come to think of it, he did have some rough and ashy hands. Make you wonder about how bad his feet must look.”
    Katie Mae grimaced. “Ugh, don’t make us think about his feet. We just got through eating.”
    “And the clothes,” Sheba said. “The fool didn’t even have on a decent suit or real leather shoes. Now, if his church was all
     that he saying it is, would it have a pastor running around looking like Bozo the Clown?”
    Everybody shook their heads. Sheba was on target. No self-respecting congregation would want a pastor representing them who
     looked like that.
    “So,” Sheba continued, “I ain’t wasting my time with that Negro. Because it don’t take a whiff of church-fan-air to figure
     out that he ain’t worth jack.”
    Sheba rolled her eyes as she asked Nettie, “Girl, what made Bert an’ them bring Blue Patterson here for anyway? Gethsemane
     may not be a big fancy church, but it got enough going for it that y’all can do better than him.”
    “Well,” Katie Mae answered, “Cleavon told me Rev. Patterson had good references.”
    Sheba just closed her eyes and sighed. Cleavon needed to be reined in before he ran this church so far into the ground, they
     would be looking right into the devil’s living room. She said, “I don’t care if he got a reference from the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
     Blue Patterson is a chump and a two-bit hustler playing church—and playing a very dangerous game with the Lord. Shoot, y’all
     let him up in here as y’all’s preacher, I know
I
ain’t coming here to worship no more for Christmas and Easter.”
    Sheba turned down her mouth in disgust. “Nettie, tell Bert to send him packing. And if I were y’all, I wouldn’t even give
     him gas money.”

III
    Three weeks later, the second candidate came to spend his trial week at Gethsemane. The Rev. David O. Clemson, III, a handsome,
     light brown, expensively dressed man with a head full of dark brown, well-groomed, and naturally straight hair, was smooth
     as silk and charismatic. He had most of the members of the Deacon and Finance Boards practically eating out of his hand—with
     the notable exceptions of