I Say a Little Prayer Read online

“No,” I said without looking in his direction or missing a beat. I picked up the covers from the floor and climbed back into bed.

  “How am I going to get there?” he asked, dumbfounded.

  “You can take MARTA—the station is a couple blocks away—or you can use your loud-ass cell phone and call a cab. I’m done. See ya.” I pulled the covers over my head, welcomed the darkness, and wished someone would create a “no more dumb mofo” vaccine. And quickly, before someone got hurt.

  A few minutes later, I heard my front door slam shut.

  If someone asked me who Chauncey Greer was, and I wanted to be really honest, what would I say? I’d start by telling them that due to a previous, painful experience my personal theme song is “Love Don’t Love Nobody. Believe That Shit!” So I’m not with the hardhead dude love/relationship program.

  I would tell them that I’m a reformed heartbreaker trying to do the right thing when it comes to dealing with other people. There was a time in my twenties when I broke a lot of hearts and didn’t give a damn about how the person felt when I told them to hit the road or when I stopped returning their phone calls. This one dude, Greg, claimed he was so in love with me that he was going to kill himself if I left him. At that time in my life I was so cold-blooded, I slammed the door in his face and silently waited for a gunshot or broken window. I ignored him when I saw him a year later with another guy I’d slept with. I started to warn the other brotha that he was dealing with a psycho but felt they deserved one another—at that point in my life I would just go along to get along.

  I’m a good-looking brotha (not bragging, just a simple fact) and I’ve had more than my share of equally good-looking brothers and maybe a half-dozen great-looking women. I have my weaknesses like any other man. I guess you could say I’m a LSC (light skin chaser). I prefer my men (and women) to be on the yellow side. Not the light bright and damn near white yellow, but that real nice golden brown. Good hair and light eyes doesn’t hurt. I’m not prejudiced or anything—I have mad respect for my darker-skinned brothers and sisters, since I’m chocolate myself—but my tastes tend to lighter.

  I’m not confused about my sexuality. I’m basically bi with a gay leaning. You could say that my sexual tastes are similar to my love for gumbo. You feel what I’m saying? Sometimes I like a little sausage, other times a bit of shrimp. And every now and then, I get a taste for fish. But today, with so many people talking about down-low this and down-low that, it’s too much of a hassle dating women, because they ask too many damn questions. I still find myself attracted to women, but I don’t like to lie. I can save that sin for something else—like cussing out Jayshawn. The only thing brothas are interested in is your HIV status (like a brother gonna tell the truth) and how much you’re packing. Which also adds to my reputation when word got out that my stuff could extend a couple zip codes. And sisters, even though they don’t want to admit it, like that shit, too. Size does matter—to both sexes.

  Lately, though, I’ve been thinking about my own mortality, and since I already got a point against me for the sleeping-with-dudes thing, I’ve been trying very hard to be nicer and not lead on women and fat ugly brothas unless they’re exceptional. If statistics are right about the life span of a black man, then I’m approaching the halfway point. Maybe God won’t hold my having been a whorish asshole the early part of my life against me. Now, when I meet somebody I want to hook up with on a sex tip, I tell them right up front that I will only go out (or, let’s be honest, fuck) with them up to three times. When they ask me if I’m kidding, I look them dead in the eye and say when a person tells you who they are, believe them. It’s the one thing I got from watching Oprah every now and then.

  Still, these days I treat people the way I want to be treated, which means being honest and saying what’s what. Some people seem to appreciate that, while others think they can change me. But I know me, and I ain’t about to change for anyone. Been there, done that, got the heartbreak.

  For me, love came calling the first time during the summer of 1982. My hometown—Greenwood, Mississippi—was as humid and sweaty as it always was when the extremely good-looking young outsider moved to town. I was strolling near an old dusty pink brick building known as Greenwood Junior High after a day of summer-school algebra. I hadn’t flunked the tough math course, but I’d made a D and my parents made me attend summer school “voluntarily,” forcing me to give up my annual trip to Chicago and my chance to play baseball. That made me mad, because I was just getting good at hitting the ball out of the park.

  I looked toward the basketball court, where six young men ran up and down the court so fast, I wished I had the coordination and height to play with them. I heard the rhythmic sound of the basketball hitting the pavement. Then the clinging of the metal nets as the basketball swooshed through. I closed my eyes and imagined that I was in the middle of Harlem, witnessing a game of New York street ball like I had seen on television. But when I opened my eyes, that’s when I saw him. He was wearing a nondescript white T-shirt and baggy shorts. He looked like a midget among a forest of tall trees. I found myself gazing at only him, and when he looked in my direction, an aggressively bright sun stung his golden brown face. His eyes sparkled like a cold glass of ginger ale. From a distance his body looked compact, without an ounce of fat.

  One of his teammates shouted for him to shoot, and the ball flew from his hand and arched high in the air before hitting nothing but net.

  I heard a guy say, “I guess you can play, D. I heard they can shoot some hoops down in Georgia.”

  Another echoed, “Your shot is so sweet, from now on we gonna call you Sweet D.”

  After a few more laps up and down the court, Sweet D stopped his stride and looked at me. He smiled as he twirled the burnt-orange ball on the tip of his finger, and I knew that somehow he would become an important part of my life. The way his eyes seemed to pierce through me cemented my feelings.

  That summer I made a B in algebra. I prepared myself for geometry and high school, and my sexual confusion began taking shape.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The rain pattering against my bedroom window and Jayshawn’s early exit several hours before almost caused me to miss church. I had decided against the early 7:30 A.M. service, and when I finally woke up around 9:30 A.M., I really didn’t have a good excuse not to go to the 11:00 service.

  I crawled out of bed and slowly moved toward the bathroom. Inside, I turned on the shower, and as I waited for the water to warm, I began to stretch, trying to release the fatigue out of me.

  As the steam from the shower misted the full-length mirror, I turned my 6'1", 193-pound frame to check out my body. I stared at my reflection and had to smile a little. My body was still as tight as a teenage boy’s. I was two years from forty, but my stomach was as flat as a biscuit without yeast. I worked hard on my body, and building a home gym was the best money I ever spent. I was determined to ease slowly, but magnificently, into middle age.

  I jumped into the shower and soon was patting myself dry with a leaf-green beach-sized towel. I spent more shower and mirror time than I planned, so I avoided my razor, dressed quickly, and then dashed off to the Abundant Joy Baptist Church in midtown Atlanta, off Peachtree Street near Grant Park.

  When I walked into the tiny church with a growing congregation of over five hundred, the praise service was in full force, with tambourines banging and melodic voices singing loudly. I had joined Abundant Joy over two years ago because it felt like a real church and didn’t have the businesslike attitude of Atlanta’s megachurches. At Abundant Joy, no one was concerned with my tax return, what type of car I drove, and more important, who I slept with.

  It had taken me almost seven years to get over my last church trauma. When Shiloh Baptist turned from a friendly and supportive congregation of 1,000 to a 15,000-member cultlike organization, it didn’t seem like anything God wanted to be a part of. It was more like a business where the mission was to put on a show every Sunday. I mean, who ever heard of
a church where you had to send in an audition tape to even try out for the choir or where the minister talked about his new house and Rolls-Royce as much as he talked about Jesus? To me it felt as though God had left me and the church I loved. That made me mad, and for years I used my Sundays to sleep off my Saturday-night hangovers.

  But I was smart enough to know I needed God in my life every day and that the right church could fill that need. It’s not like I came to church in search of perfection. Perfection is dangerous, and I am nowhere near perfect. I’m a sinner, and I continue to sin. I like to get my drink on every now and then, and have been known to use the N and F words. Okay. I like to cuss. Especially when I get upset. And Lord knows I love sex. Lots of sex. With men as stupid as Jayshawn, with women as beautiful and spiritual as Giselle, a woman I met at church and whom I lost to the cult formerly known as Shiloh Baptist. I fell in love with Giselle because she was such a kind woman and I thought maybe God had sent her to change my desires for men. It worked for a while—until one day I walked into a gym and was smiled at by a tall, well-built man with a swinging dick. All he had to do was give me the look and I was ready to switch teams again. I’ve come to know that no matter what I do and how many times I do it, forgiveness and God’s love are always there. I just have to find them. Nevertheless, Giselle was not so forgiving after my confession.

  Abundant Joy Baptist Church was headed by Pastor Kenneth Davis and his wife, Vivian, two dynamic people in their early thirties who used secular references in teaching the scriptures. It was not unusual to hear Nelly and Jay-Z mentioned right along with some of Jesus’ favorite disciples. In some ways, though, Abundant Joy was like an old-time country Baptist church where weekly announcements were read aloud, visitors were asked to stand and were welcomed warmly, and hymns like “Sweet Hour of Prayer” and “Just How Much We Can Bear” (my favorite) were sung.

  I loved the fact that the church had no dress code and both male and female members often wore jeans or, on occasion, a hip-hop designer sweat suit. The only people who wore anything close to traditional garb were the praise team, who wore all black each week.

  I took a seat on the last row of the left side of the church and said a little prayer, asking for the forgiveness of my sins of the night before. Then I glanced around. Almost all the seats in the pews were filled. There was a rumor going around that Pastor Kenneth was looking for a larger space. It looked like our little church was growing, and that had me concerned. Atlanta didn’t need another black megachurch. A few minutes later, it was time for the offering. I pulled out the check I had written the night before and placed it in the tithing envelope that I got from the rack attached to the back of the pew in front of me.

  Pastor Kenneth took the pulpit and began his service with his usual jokes. He brilliantly used examples of dumb mistakes he made in his youth. We had so many young members, many of whom attended local colleges like Clark University and Morehouse, so Pastor Kenneth was always able to reel folks in and get their attention.

  Pastor was a tall, greyhound-slim, chocolate-brown man with a bald head and dazzling smile. He talked about when he had pledged a fraternity in college and how he almost had not finished the process because he was afraid of what might happen before initiation. Even though I was older than most of my classmates when I attended college and didn’t have time for fraternities, I’d heard tales of hazing that made me wonder why anyone would ever want to join such a club. Wearing a T-shirt or a certain color and disfiguring your body didn’t seem to make sense to me.

  Pastor cited a couple of scriptures and then started shouting like he was talking directly to me.

  “Fear will keep you from accomplishing greatness,” he said as the sun’s rays beamed through the stained-glass window behind the altar. “Nobody cares if the only party you want to attend is a pity party.” He talked about how his fear could have kept him from the brotherhood of his fraternity and some of the best friendships of his life. He mentioned how he was afraid to approach his wife when he first saw her at a college football game because of her personality and beauty. But he told himself he could do it.

  Members of the congregation stood and clapped. I sat transfixed as Pastor Kenneth jumped up and down like he was on a pogo stick, shouting, “Whatever it is you’re afraid of, you must tell yourself, ‘I can do it! I can do it! I can do it!’ Y’all don’t hear me, church!” The congregation continued to shout and cheer. “What are you afraid of, church? What dreams are you going to let go unfulfilled because of fear? Where there is fear, faith cannot exist. God has not given us the spirit of fear! You can do it! Look at your neighbor and tell him or her that ‘I can do it.’”

  I turned to a beautiful woman with a blindingly white smile and said confidently, “I can do it.” And for the first time in a long time, I believed I could. It was time to dust off that dream that had been delayed for almost two decades. Even if it came wrapped up in a whole lot of bad memories, I had to do it, I had to make my dream come true.

  That night, right before I went to bed, I took out the black-and-white journal I kept in my nightstand. I used it as a prayer journal and for the occasional brilliant insights God granted me. I wrote:

  Memories and loneliness look backward

  Fear looks around

  But Faith always looks forward.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Monday morning, I walked from my car to my office excited that maybe I had reached a turning point, and I was going to make the most of it. Still high from the pastor’s message, I needed to act quickly before somebody reminded me of what I couldn’t do.

  The sky was so clear and blue that I wanted to take a huge spoon and eat it like a bowl of ice cream. Instead, I would have my usual fried egg, cheese, and bacon on a sesame seed bagel, and coffee with one sugar and a dash of cream that I picked up from the local deli.

  Once I reached my office, the first thing I noticed was my vice president, Celia, talking on the phone. A tide of hair, part weave and part real, covered half of her face, and she pulled it back with her left hand before she smiled and waved at me. Since I wore my head clean-shaven, I didn’t understand why women wanted someone else’s hair on their head, especially in the summer. I smiled back and opened the door to my conference room, where I normally ate my breakfast and reviewed my to-do list for the day.

  After I’d taken a couple of bites of my breakfast sandwich, Celia walked in with a yellow legal pad, pen, and a mug and sat down at the conference table directly in front of me.

  “How was your weekend, boss man?” she asked.

  “Good. How was yours?”

  “Just fabulous. I went to the outlet mall and the movies. Then last night I went to the club and met this phine-ass man named Lamar who just moved to Atlanta from Miami. I think he might be the one to make me dump you-know-who,” she said with the supreme confidence I heard every time she met a new man. She had recently broken up with Marvin, her deadbeat college boyfriend, for the umpteenth time, but I was afraid she still had strong feelings for him.

  “You think so?” I quizzed as I took the final bite of my breakfast. This was our drill for a Monday morning: She would tell me about her weekend, where she’d gone, who she’d met, and how he was going to be the love of her life. I wondered who had a tougher time when it came to dating: single, straight women or an almost forty-year-old gay man.

  Celia Grace Ledbetter was more than a coworker. During the five years she had worked for me, I’d come to consider her a little sister. I felt a rush of protectiveness when she talked about the various men she met; I always wanted to call them and warn them to treat Celia right.

  I met Celia at a job fair at Clark AU, where she was getting her MBA. Like me, she had attended the now-closed Morris Brown College and didn’t start until her early twenties. Even though I attended Georgia Tech for my grad studies, I kept in contact with one of my professors from MBC, Dr. Thomas Rainey. After an impressive interview with Celia, I called him, and he was excited. He told me that Celi
a was a hard worker and mentioned that she had grown up in public housing in Macon, Georgia. I knew I needed to hire her when I found out that she had paid her way through Morris Brown with scholarships and by working as a teller at Bank of America. All the while, she maintained a 3.68 grade-point average. She was a little more of an around-the-way girl (aka ghetto) than I preferred, but I had the polish she needed to become a diamond in the business world.

  Celia was a cute girl, sturdy at 5'10", 170 pounds, and peppy with cinnamon-brown eyes that were gentle, but there was a touch of sadness about her. She had a full mouth with lips that were a little too big for her face. Sometimes she dressed like she was going hiking in the Colorado Mountains (think butch), and then there were days (like today) when she dressed like she was going to the club—a skirt too short and a blouse too small.

  I glanced at Celia and noticed her earrings, which looked like teaspoons. Her print jersey dress was scooped so low at the neck, in a material so sheer, you didn’t have to use your imagination to see the shape of her nipples. I wanted to call my good friend Skylar to do an emergency extreme makeover.

  Despite her minor faults, I couldn’t imagine my life or business without Celia Ledbetter.

  “Take a look at this,” Celia said as she pulled a sheet of white paper from inside her legal pad.

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s the monthly sales report. May was great. We got fifty more stores to carry the new line of cards. Just think what will happen if we can get into Wal-Mart,” Celia said.

  I looked over the report. Business was good. This might make it easier to take some time off to follow my delayed dream.

  About ten years earlier, I had started a small card company out of my bedroom. CBCC (Cute Boy Card Company) started when I could never find a card with black men that didn’t show their dicks and asses. I wanted cards that showed handsome men, not pretty-boy model types, and I wanted messages I could relate to. I hated sending cards that proclaimed love when in fact it was simply a strong “I think I might like you.”