Church Folk - Michele Andrea Bowen [103]
"Saphronia, Saphronia, are you okay?"
She calmed down. But as her breathing became normal, she felt bile rising in her throat as she thought of all of those ministers' names and the descriptions of women in Marcel's red leather book. She lay the telephone receiver on the floor and put her head between her knees. When the nausea began to subside, she picked up the telephone and said, "I'm better. Just that I can't really believe what I am hearing."
"Saphronia, believe it. Your fiancé, the Reverend Marcel DeMarcus Brown, is running around this Triennial Conference like he one of the biggest pimps in Richmond. He, Rev. Sonny Washington, and Bishop Otis Caruthers, all working for Cleotis Clayton, and helping that lowlife run a ho' business for a select group of preachers at this conference who have some very deep pockets.
"Saphronia, girl, the only reason I'm in Richmond at all was because Marcel asked me to come out here and do the books for what he first told me was some kind of refreshment club—a place where the ministers could come get a drink, read the paper, talk, swear, and grab a cigarette away from the eyes of the church folks. Offered me some good money, too. And I won't lie to you. I wanted to be with Marcel real bad. But girl, on the first night I stepped up in here, I knew that something funky was up. First thing, you know something's wrong when a bunch of Negroes want to hang out in a funeral home."
Saphronia started laughing. What Precious said was so true. Negroes just didn't want to socialize in a funeral home.
"I did confront Marcel about this. And you know what he did? Girl, he started laughing and then patted me on the head, and told me to keep my nose out of things I didn't understand."
"Why didn't you go to someone in authority at the conference and tell them what was going on when you figured things out?"
"Saphronia," Precious said, resentful of being questioned like that. "Who in the world was I supposed to go to? Honey, you just don't know who has been to this place and ordered themselves up a treat. Now tell me, who do you think could be trusted in the midst of all of this mess?"
Saphronia knew Precious was right. There was no telling what ministers and bishops were involved in this thing.
"But you didn't have to keep working for them, Precious. You may not be able to do anything to stop it, but you didn't have to be a part of it."
Precious got real quiet. Saphronia was right. She had stayed, knowing how wrong she was, for two reasons—Marcel and the money. She needed the money bad. She figured Saphronia couldn't understand the first reason. Saphronia gave the distinct impression of being a tight-lipped priss, who probably held everybody to impossible standards that she, herself, could not keep. And she knew that she had never been in a situation that would help her understand the second one.
Saphronia interrupted her thoughts, saying, "I cannot understand how all of this could happen and in church. I don't understand how Marcel could get involved with something like this. And I don't understand how he could do such a horrible thing to me."
"Look, Saphronia," Precious snapped. "This funky mess ain't about what Marcel doing to you. It's about some trifling and greedy men messing over they church and disrespecting they own Negro womens. And your fiancé, a bigtime preacher from Detroit, is trying to sell their souls so that he can have some heaven right here on earth. That's what this is really all about."
Precious was surprised at the vehemence of her anger about this mess. Just a few hours ago, she wanted to be with Marcel. Now she was beginning to wish she had never met him.
Saphronia was hurt and angry. She loved Marcel, but it hurt her deeply that he would ask her to marry him when he didn't even love her—and now this, that he would be mixed up in something definitely immoral and probably illegal. She blew her nose and sniffed. But then she heard her grandmother stirring. If her grandmother caught her on the