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 feuds 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 nonethelessâunless 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 Godâthe 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 agoâwas 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 âpull-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 UsâAll 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 positionsâever. “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 of 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 certainâRambo 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.
“I'm praising and glorifying Your name, Father. You said when the praises go up the blessings will come down. I need a blessing, now!” Sister Betty's body resembled a switchblade as her arms shot up and out. “Victory, victory,” she screamed while she continued to praise God and shake her head. The shaking caused her hat to lean gangster-style and that ugly feather to bounce uncontrollably. Now emboldened with supposed power, she stared at Sasha and Bea. Holding her Bible across her tiny chest as a shield, Sister Betty said accusingly, “God's not pleased with the Mothers Board.”
Before Sister Betty could finish her revelation, Sasha and Bea shot up from their pews. Each woman had a revelation for Sister Betty.
“Don't say another word,” Sasha snarled, while she pointed her cane at Sister Betty's still bouncing hat feather. “Whether you say it's a word from God or whomever, I will still stick that ugly feather in a place you won't like,” Sasha promised, before heading back to her seat.
On her way back to the pew, Sasha used her Bible to tag team Bea who'd moved closer to Sister Betty to deliver the verbal coup de grâce.
“And you're gonna need someone to drag your meddling butt to a Healing service,” Bea added, as she pointed a bent finger at Sister Betty's hat feather and hips, “'cause you gonna be crippled for life!”
Knowing Bea and Sasha didn't make empty threats caused Sister Betty to stop prophesying and retreat from the church. Suddenly fearful, she'd forgotten God's word never returns void.
2
Five hours hadn't passed since that morning's Crossing Over Sanctuary Temple's spirit-filled fifth Sunday service when Bea and Sasha ran across one another in downtown Pelzer.
When faced with a common enemy, the two old women were an unbeatable force. But when it was just the two of them, each woman went into self-survival mode.
So, with the sun setting peacefully, the crotchety old women squared off. As she clutched her Bible, Sasha's beige-colored complexion darkened as she glared at Bea. Her five-foot frame stiffened on legs shaped like parentheses, which made her look like she were about to leap. Instead of a Rambo headband, she wore a little white pillbox-shaped hat pinned to a steel gray bun.
Bea “the Terminator” Blister wouldn't give an inch. She exuded venom with equal ferocity as her dark wrinkled face turned into a mask of defiance. If she had not had a curved spine and could stand straight, she would have towered over Sasha a full nine inches.
Bea had spent a portion of her younger years thugging and mugging in the countryside of nearby Belton, South Carolina. Those criminal tendencies had finally sent her to several jails to reconsider her ways. It was during those years in the prison system that she'd learned how to bend people to her will. She simply knocked them out and threatened to do it again if they told. Very few did and those who did only did it once.
“Ain't you afraid this last little bit of sunshine will melt your evil old behind?” Bea grimaced and then pointed toward Sasha's tiny hips, which resembled two old boxing gloves dangling from Sasha's waist. “You just couldn't let me enjoy the rest of the Lord's day without having to look at your wrinkled tail, could you?”
Sasha's back hunched as she hissed like a cobra. With spittle flying because of her loose-fitting false teeth, she did some pointing of her own. She lifted her cane directly at Bea. “Is there ever a moment in my saved life that I don't have to run across you in the path of my salvation?”
“You ain't on the path of salvation. You're on the road to hell!” Bea shot back. “You're wearing those horn-rimmed magnifying glasses and still can't see where you're going.”
“I betcha I can see well enough not to bring a pan of macaroni and cheese to church with the bottom all black and crispy.” Sasha tapped her cane hard against the sidewalk to make her point and to show just how hard that mac and cheese were. She continued, “If you live to be a hundred, nobody will ever eat your cooking again.” Sasha stopped abruptly to check her false teeth, which had begun to slide away from her gums. Confident they wouldn't betray her by falling out, Sasha continued her tirade. “Oh, I'm so sorry. You
are
already almost a hundred.”
Not one to be outdone, Bea lit into Sasha loud enough for anyone within ten yards to hear. “Don't worry your skinny behind about my cooking. You just make sure you wearing those magnifying glasses the next time you accidentally stick an Odor Eater insole inside your raggedy drawers instead of a Depend pad!”
“You're a liar,” Sasha hollered. She was indignant, although somewhere in the back of her mind she did remember doing something akin to the accusation. “God ain't judging no liars. I guess you'll be absent from heaven's court on judgment day and gone straight to hell.”
Bea pushed a strand of her cheap, natty red wig out of her face. She inched closer and then yelled, “I'm sorry. You're right. I did lie. I said you did it by accident. I gave you too much credit. You probably needed that odor eater pad in your old granny drawers!”
Geriatric Rambo and Terminator were about to go into round two when the approaching sound of howling police sirens stopped them. Not fully sure if someone hadn't called the cops on them, they retreated a few feet from each other. They stood like statues and smiled as though they hadn't let a single mean word flow.
When the sirens suddenly stopped, both women turned to see why. They saw a crowd suddenly gather down the block.
“I wonder why the police are raiding old Pookie's on a Sunday evening,” Bea said, her face suddenly looking as sweet as a cherub's.
“Hmmm, it does cause one to wonder,” Sasha replied softly with a mischievous grin.
In an instant, the old women temporarily forgot their bickering. They started giggling like old friends.
“You called those cops, didn't you?” Bea asked with a twinkle in her beady eyes.
“Yes, I guess I'll take the credit.” Sasha laughed. “He snookered me out of that bingo money we won on that cruise.”
Several months earlier, Bea and Sasha were duped into sharing a cabin on a cruise by Sasha's equally mean-spirited niece, Ima Hellraiser. Ima had done so in the hope that the two old women would cancel each other's birth certificates by killing one another. It was during a week of on-again-and-off-again memory lapses that the two had temporarily bonded and scammed a bingo game by feigning heart attacks. To keep the old women from sinking the ship with their antics, they were declared winners and shared the huge bingo pot.
Sasha hadn't meant to admit to Bea that she'd let ole Pookie outfox her. But it was out there and she couldn't take it back.
“That reprobate cheated me out of my money, too,” Bea sheepishly admitted. “Pastor preached from the Book of Second Chronicles and the seventh chapter. It was the fourteenth verse. So I played seven hundred fourteen. It came four seventy-one. But he said I didn't box my number. You know I always box my number.”
“Well, I'm sure you did,” Sasha agreed. “Everybody in the church who plays numbers knows you always box your numbers.” She stopped and peered up the block, before continuing. “That pocked-face demon had it coming. They should snatch him up by his raggedy boxers for cheating us poor old women out of our hard-earned money.”
“Do you think he's learned his lesson?” Sasha asked with mock concern. “I don't think he'll try and pull nothing on us poor old folks again.”
Their false commiseration was interrupted by the sounds of glass breaking and Pookie's cussing from inside the store. The women saw one officer suddenly snatch down a couple of old dusty album covers and posters announcing an upcoming Louis Armstrong concert from the storefront window. Pookie hadn't changed anything in his store except the winning numbers for losers in years.
The flashing lights from the two police cars and the ruckus inside the store were enough to draw several more onlookers. When they saw what was happening to Pookie, a few of them, still with Bible in hand after leaving evening services, started to cheer. Pookie had managed to finagle many of the good gambling church folks in Pelzer. And he never paid tithes on his money, either.
“I've always known Pookie was a liar and a blind one at that,” Bea said.
“What are you babbling about?”
“I've known Pookie probably longer than you. So the first time he told me he thought your legs were shaped like a Barbie doll's legs, I knew his eyes were going bad.”
“I do have legs like a Barbie doll,” Sasha snapped as she raised the hem of her white skirt, showing knobby knees that resembled an anorexic baby elephant's. “Jealousy is so ugly on you.”
Bea crunched her nose and pointed. “Unless Barbie has legs shaped like a pair of needle-nosed pliers, you don't have legs like her.”
Their peace pact had quickly crumbled.
“Quiet down, they're bringing him out,” Sasha warned, intending to return the insult later. “You gonna mess around and get us in trouble again.” She couldn't remember what trouble it was she was trying to avoid so she turned and hobbled away, switching her hips at Bea.
Here's my last word about that
, she thought as she put a little extra switch in her tiny hips.
“Good riddance,” Bea called out and then cheerfully added, “Are you coming to prayer meeting on Wednesday?”
“Of course, I'll be there,” Mother Sasha hollered, while continuing to shake her hips. “I'll keep coming and praying for your sorry self until you get saved.”
“I hope you shake it and break it,” Bea hollered back with laughter.
Sasha had barely turned the corner when Bea saw the squad car finally pull off with Pookie handcuffed and ranting. She giggled as she watched him grimace. He was popping up and down like a jack in the box and the police gladly beat him down every time he tried to raise up to scream some more. They drove past Bea. As much as she wanted to remain an innocent bystander, she just couldn't help it. She smiled as she waved and winked at them.
And that's when she saw a familiar figure walking carefully around the crowd that gathered to watch. “Sister Betty,” she murmured. Taking on Sister Betty with Sasha by her side was one thing. Bea wasn't about to do it alone, so she moved on.