Somewhat Saved Read online

  Also by Pat G’Orge-Walker

  Don’t Blame the Devil

  Somebody’s Sinning in My Bed

  Somewhat Saved

  Cruisin’on Desperation

  Mother Eternal Ann Everlastin’s Dead

  Sister Betty! God’s Calling You, Again!

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  Somewhat Saved

  Pat G’Orge-Walker

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Also by

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  Epilogue

  No Ordinary Noel

  Copyright Page

  Most of Somewhat Saved is dedicated to all those daughters who feel discarded and unloved. It is dedicated to those women who’ve felt uncovered with their souls unprotected and at the mercy of life. God is able and willing to keep you. We are His heiresses and adopted into His family.

  And, to all those men, young and old, who are fathers . . . You are as necessary to these women as the air they breathe.... Now step up to the plate.

  I share with my readers a portion of a letter. This is the unedited letter I had buried with my own father, for much of Zipporah’s story is mine.

  Dear Dad,

  Over the years whenever the internal need for your paternal covers arose, there were none to cover me; no fitted sheet of fatherly love, no flat sheet of warmth, and no blanket of protection and respect.

  I was left to lie naked on this worldly bed to instead be covered with a fitted sheet of secondhand love, often bought on sale, and overpriced. I needed it, so I paid.

  I had to settle for the seldom honest flat sheets of warmth. It, too, often came with a price, far beyond my means. I struggled and mentally worked through the muck and mire of my everyday existence to pay for it. I fought with every fiber I had to keep it, though I knew its fabric consisted of never-meant-to-be-kept promises and erratic threads of moral heat.

  Knowing I had no blanket of protection and respect of my own, when the harsh cold winters of truth came, I needed and accepted “as is,” discounted protection and respect. Its warranties often expired before the dawn came.

  They tell me that around the same time I felt an urgency to find my only photo of you and me, eight hundred miles away, you suffered a massive heart attack and died. Were you thinking of me? Did you, somehow, suddenly realize how totally uncovered I was? Was there a reason you never held me, told me you loved me? Unfortunately, I cannot find the photo, so I may never know.

  This Saturday, February 15th, just three days before my birthday, you will be buried. Along with the dirt used to cover you, will also be covered any chance we might have had to complete and connect the sides.

  However, Father, I want you to know this: also buried with you so that you won’t be cold during your sleep, will be my blanket of undying, unspoken love and respect. I can give that to you because I have managed to find and keep a real love, a love that is boundless and unconditional, Love that exceeds and encompasses any and every thing that a love should be. This was a love that helped me to raise three children and blessed me with grandchildren. Such a love helped me to go on and become a wife, an actress, singer, writer, author, and Christian comedian; you see, Dad, I can laugh. This beautiful love, it loved me enough to give me someone to love and to stand beside me, no matter what. That love is the love of God. “For He so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten son, so that whomsoever shall believe in Him, shall have eternal life.”

  I am told that I look exactly like you and that you will never die until I do. I don’t know how true that is, but one thing I do believe.... I believe one day, when I cross over to the other side, and you and I can meet again face to face, we will complete this triangle of love.

  Acknowledgments

  JEREMIAH 8:20–22

  20. “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.”

  21. “For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me.”

  22. “Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? Why then has not the health of the daughter of my people been restored?”

  I thank God, the beginning and the ending of everything in and around my life.

  For their unwavering support, I thank my husband, Robert, my beautiful daughters, Gizel, Ingrid, and Marisa, along with their spouses and children. I also thank my aunts, uncle, siblings, and other family members. I thank my cousin, Delsia Afantchao, of Philadelphia, PA, in particular, who is more like a sister.

  I thank Bishop John L. Smith and First Lady Laura L. Smith (St. Paul’s Tabernacle City of Lights Ministry), and Reverend Stella Mercado and the Blanche Memorial Baptist Church family. And to Bishop T. D. Jakes and Bishop Noel Jones, two constant sources of inspiration, I thank you.

  To all the churches, book clubs, media, libraries who not only embraced the Sister Betty Comedy ministry but assisted in propelling my books to award levels and entry onto the Essence Best Sellers List, I thank you.

  I also thank my editor, Selena James, and all the Dafina family, and my attorneys, Christopher R. Whent and Christian Alfaya.

  I must thank my prayer partners, author Jacquelin Thomas and Intercessory Prayer Warrior Kizzie Sanders of San Antonio, TX. Whew, if only folks knew! And my third-grade teacher, who inspired my writing journey, Mrs. Bobbie Madison-Mackey of Williamston, SC.

  And to all the residents of Pelzer, Belton, Greenville, Anderson, and Piedmont, SC, I thank you for the memories and a lot of material. Thank you, Brotha Smitty, a constant source of laughter. And my friends from coast to coast, I thank you.

  I’d like to also thank Sister Marvella Brown and the Dale City Christian Church drama club, Dale City, VA, for their continuing support in adapting my stories into wonderful and hilarious events. To Sister Vivian Dixon; Mt. Pisgah AME Church, Columbia, MD; the Lofton family and So Bold Entertainment, Anderson, SC; Cheryl Questell and our Quest-Walk Production Company; the Richard De LaFont Agency. I offer a special thank you and abundant love to Pastor and Co-Pastor William and Shirley Mangum, Fort Pierce Christian Center of Port St. Lucie, FL. And to those whom I’ve omitted, please blame it on the head and not the heart.

  To all the fathers who have daughters: Your daughters need blankets of love, security, wisdom, and your prayers; step up to the plate now, or you’ll pay for it later—we all will.

  Prologue

  When a town has a population of less than twenty thousand folks and about fifteen thousand of them were jammed into a ten-mile space, fights and fe
uds were bound to happen. And when that town was as small as Pelzer, South Carolina, these incidents were often listed in the entertainment section of their one and only newspaper rag, the Daily BLAB.

  The BLAB was an acronym for Braggarts, Liars, and Busybodies. Every Pelzer reader knew that the news was hardly, if ever, accurate, but it was downright entertaining nonetheless—unless your name was in it.

  Of course, the day Sister Betty saw her name in that town rag, she fell on her knees kicking, and screamed as much as a seventy-something-old woman could. She couldn’t believe that her God—the same God she’d prayed to at least six times a day, the same God who’d seen to it that she became wealthy in her old age, and the same God who’d called her on the telephone many years ago—was now allowing the old devil to defame her good name by having it on the front page of the BLAB.

  What had she done to deserve such a thing?

  A copy of the BLAB arrived at Sister Betty’s mansion earlier that morning. And in bold misspelled print it read: GOODIE TOO SHOES SISTER BETTY SEEKS TO UPSEAT MOTHER SASHA PRAY ONN . . . “continued on page two.”

  “In a bid to bring new life and some morality into the Crossing Over Sanctuary Temple’s decrepit Mothers Board, newly wealthy Sister Betty will run for president at the Mothers Board conference to be held in Las Vegas, Nevada. She’ll pit her salvation against the encumbered Mother Sasha Pray Onn. Hopefully, she’ll be wearing the whole armor of God. Because if not, when the election is over this newspaper plans to have a ‘pull-out’ section detailing the life of the late Sister Betty. Mother Pray Onn is sure to kill her.”

  1

  In a posh home located in the wealthiest section of Pelzer, South Carolina, where worries were left to those on the poor side of town, was where Sister Betty resided.

  Sister Betty was something of an enigma. She always wore a white ugly-looking hat around town with a strange fluffy white and black feather that waved like it was possessed when she walked. She also wore a large gold cross and carried a Bible with her initials embossed along its spine.

  Sister Betty hadn’t always lived high on the hog, as some referred to her. She, too, once lived on the other side of the tracks. However, due to the untimely and embarrassing death of one of her longtime friends, wealthy Mother Eternal, her station in life had changed dramatically. Mother Eternal had succumbed to a heart attack while clutching a cash register. It was attached to the pulpit. Her generosity left Sister Betty with more money than she’d ever had, and more problems than she’d ever imagined.

  Sister Betty had lived in Pelzer, South Carolina, since her early twenties. And ever since that time, with her well-documented though mostly self-proclaimed experiences with God, she’d also gained something of a reputation as God’s go-to woman. So eventually she became Pelzer’s moral compass. She was the official, though barely appreciated, chief negotiator with heaven.

  Just barely five-foot-two, she’d gained some weight over the years, and only old photographs testified of a younger Sister Betty who’d been a well-proportioned, brown-skinned beauty. Now her shoulders were slightly stooped as she struggled to bare the burdens of others.

  She was also the chief prayer intercessor in her church prayer team of two. Just her and her longtime friend and neighbor, Ma Cile, were left. Out of what started as a team of five women praying, three had dropped out from exhaustion. So Sister Betty and Ma Cile would double up on praying and, of course, they’d do it on a daily basis. Now Ma Cile, hospitalized by a stroke, was no longer available. But Sister Betty pressed on as she stood in the gap for her people.

  So, when she saw her name and the lie about her running against a woman who some believed was truly a spawn of Satan, she wanted to know, where was her God?

  Sister Betty didn’t have to wait long for hell to break loose. If she wasn’t going to it, it would come to her. And hell had no problem coming to church; it never had.

  It all came to a head the following day after the church service. No matter how saved she claimed to be, things got so bad that morning, it was all Sister Betty could do not to put down her Bible and pick up a brick in defense. She’d barely put her hand down from repeating the benediction when it happened. She’d thought that since no one had mentioned the headline in the BLAB that God had taken care of the situation. But if He was going to do it, He hadn’t yet.

  Current Mothers Board president and resident terrorist Sasha Pray Onn, nicknamed Mother Terminator, and Vice President Bea Blister, called Mother Rambo behind her back, confronted Sister Betty in the downstairs fellowship hall. They’d read the BLAB and took offense to her running for the office of president of the Mothers Board. They’d planned on attending the upcoming Mothers Board Conference in Las Vegas unchallenged.

  As they blocked her exit, the two old women reminded Sister Betty that even before the Ain’t Nobody Right but Us–All Others Goin’ to Hell Church disbanded and was absorbed into the Crossing Over Sanctuary Temple diocese, they’d created and made the Mothers Board what it was.

  Mothers Bea and Sasha had headed the chaotic, geriatric auxiliary and had no intention of relinquishing their positions—ever. “We aren’t stepping aside for you, the Reverend Leotis Tom, the Taliban, or the United States president,” Sasha boasted.

  “And you can believe that!” Bea added.

  Those two old she-warriors were serious. They would’ve gone so far as to ask God for His I.D. before they’d move aside. Sasha and Bea were so cantankerous that even old Satan wouldn’t battle them without the Lord on his side.

  With a toss of their heads, Bea and Sasha backed out of the fellowship hall with their eyes still trained on Sister Betty.

  Sister Betty had not gotten a chance to refute the BLAB’s falsehood. Instead of speaking up when there was a moment of sanity and silence, she didn’t; she had a chance to leave the hall in one piece, so she took it.

  Arriving back at her home, Sister Betty changed clothes and went into her living room to think and pray. Seated in her favorite recliner, her feet propped on an ottoman, she laid her head back. She tried to meditate, hoping it would help her come up with a plan. She shifted her legs on the ottoman and her boney, arthritic knees crunched like they were made of aluminum foil. And, of course, she knew that those aching signs always preceded a mission from God. She was tired. The last thing she wanted was another battle with those hardheaded church folks, as she liked to call them, because she didn’t use profanity.

  The young people weren’t nearly as difficult to minister as those staunch never-gonna-change-their-minds older ones.

  “Why would You let a lie like that be printed?” Sister Betty looked toward the ceiling, waiting for God to answer. “The Mothers Board, Lord?”

  She’d dealt with the Mothers Board before. There was always something the women didn’t agree with. If the pastor asked for a donation, they’d fuss about the amount. If he said something was going to be free, they’d want to know why there wasn’t a charge. Nothing pleased them.

  However, as long as the current president and vice president Sasha and Bea led the fray, Sister Betty’s ministry life would always be one long, unending roller coaster.

  She’d never understand Sasha and Bea. Earlier they’d banded together to confront her and yet the two of them had occupied the same pew each Sunday for the past twenty-something years and couldn’t stand one another. The Mothers Board members always reelected Sasha and Bea. It was as though the other women just loved the chaos that followed their rule.

  Sister Betty rose and went to her kitchen. She brewed a pot of her favorite cayenne pepper tea and carried it with her into her bedroom. She needed to do some serious praying and the hot peppered tea always gave her a lift in both her spirit and her imagination.

  For two weeks after the confrontation, Sister Betty fasted, prayed, travailed, and even rolled around like Hannah, thrashing floor-style in her bedroom. Sister Betty had cried until her eyes bulged trying to convince God that He shouldn’t put her in the midst of another one o
f Bea and Sasha’s messes. However, God being sovereign always had the last word.

  In this case, however, Sister Betty wanted the last word. “Heavenly Father, just once, can I please go to some third-world country or even the Middle East and spread your message? Please don’t put me in the middle of another one of Bea and Sasha’s messes. . . .”

  Suddenly, Sister Betty’s left knee crunched and shot forward as though she were twenty. She howled. “Okay!” She’d have said more but experience taught her that her arms were just too short to box with God.

  So she got up from the floor as quick as she could. It wasn’t only God that spurred her to move. That cayenne pepper tea was doing it, too.

  Sunday rolled around again. Only this time it was the fifth Sunday. Many of the members used that particular Sunday to do other things. They felt their heavenly service was done by attending the other four Sundays. Sister Betty could only hope that Sasha and Bea would be among the missing.

  As she dressed and prepared to leave her home, she recalled the dream she’d had the previous night. Lifting her pageboy-styled gray wig about an inch, she scratched her head and pondered. Why would I dream about Rambo? She’d not been a fan of such violence, so she’d only seen the first three movies. In her dream Rambo wore a dress and walked with a cane. Somehow, even with the silly disguise, she still knew it was supposed to be Rambo. She couldn’t recall the entire dream, but one thing she knew for certain—Rambo was about to fight the Terminator. Only in her dream the Terminator wasn’t Arnold Schwarzenegger. The tall figure was slightly bent, with very dark skin, a natty dark wig, muscles that resembled silly putty, and, like Rambo, it wore a dress. The two superstars were about to rumble. That’s where her dream ended.

  Sister Betty went to church and praised God like her life depended upon it. Her feet moved faster than usual as her dance of worship became more like a tap dance. She shouted, “Hallelujah” and spun until almost woozy.