Zora and Nicky: A Novel in Black and White (3 page)

Now mind you, Light of Life Christian Center wholeheartedly condemns
these unfortunate lifestyle choices, as LLCC’s PR materials clearly state. But
people have a way of being human. And humans have a way of sinning.
Besides, who around here has time to teach anyone about living holy when
we’re all chasing abundance and a life of no lack, especially when the evidence
of our
blessedness
is stuff?

And we have stuff. Lots of stuff. And we have prophets with promises of
new cars and houses we’ll build from the ground up. Our dirty deeds remain
hidden, obscured by all the glorious things we’ve amassed.

I wish just
one
of the songs on the screen inspired the kind of awe that
would make adulterous deacons and aborting teenagers fall right on their
faces. I want to fall on my face too, not so much because I’m a sinner, and
I am—though we aren’t allowed to call ourselves sinners. We even changed
the words to “Amazing Grace” and made ourselves “someone” instead of
“wretches.” I almost fainted when I found out the real lyrics said
wretch
. No,
I want to fall down before God because it has to be amazing to love and revere
Him that way.

Holy, holy, holy. Lord, God almighty. That’s how they do it in heaven.

We aren’t a fall-on-your-face church, though if the choir is doin’ its thing
we can shout the paint off the walls. We don’t have to fall down though.
That isn’t necessary. We don’t even have to get our expensive clothes soiled
by getting slain in the Spirit anymore. We are little gods. We confess not our
sins, but promises, and we shall have whatsoever we say.

Jesus’ word to the
church
—not the Christian Center—in Laodicea in the
book of Revelation?

Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need
of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor,
and blind, and naked.

But I
am
rich, Jesus. My parents are crazy paid. I have everything I
need, want, desire, and more. I drive a Lexus. I have the perfect, Denzel
Washington look-alike boyfriend. My Kate Spade handbag cost more than
my salary pays in a week—the salary I earn at my daddy’s church. I’m a Black
American Princess, black Ivy League educated, who wants for nothing except
everything Jesus is talking about in these verses.

“I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be
rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of
thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou
mayest see.”

That’s not the kind of thing I tend to buy when I go shopping, Lord.
I don’t know where to buy gold tried in the fire. Can you purchase white
raiment with a platinum Visa? Is that eyesalve available at Nordstrom?

“As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and
repent.”

Did you just say, “
Repent
”? Like John the Baptist?

Sorry, Lord. We never get that kind of prophecy around here. The people
won’t give a good love offering for “a Word” like that. Repent implies we are
wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked, and that does not jibe with our
statement of Faith, with a capital
F
.

Oh, God. I can’t stand another moment in this pseudosanctuary country
club. I need to go to a hospital for the spiritually ill.

My bad. We aren’t allowed to be ill at LLCC. Sickness is evidence that
you don’t have enough faith. Isn’t that right, Ms. Pamela? Keep confessing
until you drop dead.

What’s gonna happen to you, Ms. Pamela? What are we going to do? I’ve
got to help us.

The singing finally stops. Daddy tells us to hold up our Bibles. We do
this every Sunday. I repeat the words I know so well, Bible held high above
my head.

“This is my Bible. I can have what it says I can have. I can be what it says
I can be.”

I can have what it says I can have.

Gold tried in the fire. White raiment.

I can be what it says I can be.

“As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten.”

I can be rebuked. I can be chastened.

Daddy starts in on Genesis 1:28. Blessings. Fruitfulness. Multiplying.
But I keep hearing Jesus talking about wretchedness, misery, and blindness.

I’ve gotta get out of here.

I stand up and step away from the chairs and Prophet’s Row, and walk
right down the center of the aisle, Daddy’s voice fading from my hearing. I
can sense the Plexiglas podium growing smaller and smaller behind me, as do
all his ideas about taking dominion over every living thing that moveth upon
the earth.

Can he discern, with all that divine revelation he claims to have, that my
heart has splintered into a thousand pieces?

In the April-sweetened air, I let myself hurt for the Laodicians I’ve just
walked out on, and for the Laodician I’ve let myself become. I reach my black
Lexus without comfort, praying for God to send Ms. Pamela a Word from
Him, and God, please, please, please, let it be, “Go outside so Zora can take
you to the emergency room.”

Please, God. That ain’t much to ask for.

NICKY

An old rugged cross made of maple wood that my great, great grandfather
carved is the focal point of our altar at True Believer Gospel Tabernacle, and
now my dad stands in front of it at the pulpit, red faced and earnest, like his
father before him, and his father before him, and his father before him. This
is the legacy of the Parker men.

Blah, blah, blah.

The cross is about the coolest thing we’ve got going. Everything goes
downhill from there. From the synthetic blood-red carpet—I don’t have to
tell you whose blood the color is supposed to represent—to the crushed-
velvet cushioned pews—a really bad idea, might I add—to the corny stained-
glass windows done by the biggest drunken hack in town. I mean, if you gotta
do stained glass, the least you could do is get a real artist to do it. Trite stained
glass is just wrong. Visually, we’re a mess.

And don’t get me started on the message.

I know the sermon Dad is preaching so well I could give it myself, and
have given it, in fact. Nobody noticed when I repeated it, either. It sounds
like every other sermon he’ll preach—the same phrasing, same inflection,
same modulation. Truth be told, he’s already recycled this exact sermon three
or four times this year, and it’s only April. I don’t think the tree huggers had
that in mind when they admonished us to reuse, but it seems to work for
Dad. For us.

I look behind me, my gaze roaming around the congregation. The people
look pleased as punch. I wish somebody—anybody—would shoot me in the
head. The thought of my blood and brain matter flying in my dad’s red face
holds my interest more than his sermon.

Man, I have to stop watching all those forensic shows, but they make
for great story possibilities—nothing like violent death to heat up the battle
between good and evil. I always think in story. Not that anybody ever
encouraged that. My parents almost burned me at the stake when I suggested
the Bible is literature. I fancy myself a novelist, though God knows I’m more
blocked than a nursing home population without prunes. But what I’m
not
writing interests me more than Dad’s sermon. And it looks like, based on the
earnest faces around me, our members are wolfing down his every word like
starving dogs begging at the master’s table.

I’m gonna blow. Big projectile vomiting, which I hope lands on my dad.
Or maybe on the hackneyed, stained-glass scene of the anemic-looking good
shepherd.

However, providence is with him. Dad, that is. Maybe with the anemic
good shepherd too. Instead of regurgitating like my dad is doing, only in a
different way, I decide to think about God. Now, I
could
just fantasize about
what I’ll do to my girlfriend once I marry her—okay, I plan on getting a few
favors once I put a rock on her finger. The mere thought of Rebecca, fair and
unsullied, stirs the cauldron of lust constantly brewing in me. I ponder God
for two seconds, Rebecca a full five minutes, and my ex, the stunning Brooke
Bennett, for a good while longer.

I still think of Brooke fondly as a gorgeous version of the rich young ruler
whom Jesus told to sell all he had and give it to the poor. Brookie wouldn’t
walk away heavy hearted and still rich as sin. She’d hit her knees and wash
Jesus’ feet with her tears. I know this. Innocent Rebecca would drop dead on
the spot if she knew exactly
how
well I
know
Brooke, and how well she knows
me. God, help us.

I met Brooke at Berkeley, I the prodigal son, and she a Bible thumper
with a social conscience. Suddenly Bible Boy, who I’d heartily abandoned,
returned with great zeal, and I tried my best to impress her with my advanced
Scripture brainwashing, er, memorization. Brooke had me strung out like she
was meth and I was in need of a thorough intervention.

By some miracle, I talked her into moving in with me and being my
lover. Jesus promptly talked her out of it. I’d have married Brooke. I would
have, but she loved Jesus more than me, as well she should have. She ended
up joining some kind of Jesus-freak community and became a sprout-eating
hippie nun who makes her own clothes. But sometimes I miss her.

A lot of times I do.

I really should have married her instead of making her. But maybe I
did God a favor. After I deflowered her, she stopped
thinking
about giving
to the poor and actually gave them everything she had. I deserved her hasty
departure. And no, I don’t actually think I did God any favors, not at all.
I wouldn’t know how to do God a favor if He wrote it on my calendar
accompanied by fiery angelic visitations. My best effort to serve Him has me
sitting on the front pew, wishing someone would kill me rather than force me
to endure one more sermon that moves nothing in me but my gag reflex.