Church Folk - Michele Andrea Bowen [1]
To my two beautiful daughters, Laura and Janina. My sweet babies have lived this novel for a big portion of their lives. Laura, you have cheered Mommy on and have been proud of me since you knew about the book and you helped me so much. And Janina, you sat in Mommy's lap, drinking from your bottle, playing writing and editing, while I worked. Thank you Pookiey and Nee Nee.
To my mother, Minnie Bowen, who told me to write my stories on paper when I was little and was prone to telling these long and detailed dreams and stories. My grandmother Anniebelle Bowen, who didn't live to see this book. But I know you would have liked it. My grandmother Jeffie Hicks, who always listened to my dreams, no matter how outrageous and funny. To my father, Wadell Bowen. Daddy, I sure do wish you were still here. It would be wonderful to hear your "hey now" when you read Church Folk and then took it around to show to your friends.
Thank you Elisa Petrini, my editor for Walk Worthy Press. I learned a lot from you and really appreciate your kindness, humor, and sensitivity.
And last, but not least, thank you Denise Stinson. Thank you for taking Church Folk on when it was still in its 'infancy.' Thank you for being patient with me through my life's challenges, like having a baby in the midst of rewriting an earlier draft, and for making me a member of the Walk Worthy Press family. Like I once told you, if you were a singer and Aretha Franklin were a publisher and literary agent, chile, yawl would be the same person!
Michele Andrea Bowen, January 3, 2001
P.S. Thank You, Lord!! Thank You. Thank You.
Church Folk
Prologue 1960
AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-NINE, THE REVEREND Theophilus Henry Simmons had developed one unshakable conviction about God—that He loved women. If He didn't love women, how could He have created such a magnificent creature as a fine, deep, dark chocolate woman who looked real good in pinks and oranges, had big, sexy legs, and a stardust twinkle in her smile—the kind of exquisite Negro woman who compelled the Universe to praise every swing of her large, shapely hips?
But there was a time during his senior year at Blackwell College, before he entered The Interdenominational Theological Seminary in Atlanta to study for the ministry, when he had mistaken God's love of women as an excuse to become entangled with one Glodean Benson. Being a young, single, good-looking Negro man, the kind many a Negro woman wanted to make her own, he had constant opportunities to get in trouble but managed to fight off that particular temptation—until Glodean. Her brand of loving was intoxicating but deadly, like cheap corn liquor that numbs your brain before you have the sense to figure out it's no good for you. Then when you finally let it go, its bitter aftertaste lingers, along with the burning in your stomach and the aching in your head.
When Theophilus finally told her, plain and simple, "I'm leaving you, Glodean," she blinked back her tears, looked at him like he was crazy, and smiled as she said: "You poor man—walking around thinking I wanted you just for you. Just what is it you thought you could offer me—unless and if you ever do become a reverend—besides the seat in the front pew of your church reserved for the First Lady?"
Those words sliced through him right down to the bone, but she wasn't through: "And now that you're off to the seminary, Mr. Hope-to-Be-Reverend, believin' you're too high and mighty for Miss Glodean, don't think I can be dismissed like some silly little shouting churchwoman, shakin' all up in your face. I'm going to stick to you, 'Re-ve-rend'—and some day, some way, I'm going to get you . . ."
Theophilus couldn't imagine what she could do to him. But he was already so ashamed of what he had done, it didn't matter. What did matter were her words, which crushed him so until he thought he heard his heart shatter from the impact of them on his spirit.
He knew he was wrong to go with Glodean—"a gal with somethin' in her drawers