Church Girl Gone Wild

by Ni'chelle Genovese

Genres: African American Christian; African American Urban; African American Women's Fiction

Synopsis

What makes a good God-fearing woman go bad? And once she’s gone, is there any way to get her back?

Eva spends much of her life torn between the man she had and the man she has. On paper they both look like ideal husband material. But looks, as we all know, can be bought, faked, or photoshopped.

Everyone around Eva seems to keep shoveling lies to bury their secrets. As Eva starts to dig for the truth, she realizes it’s impossible to stay clean, especially while playing in someone else’s dirt. When she finds herself framed for embezzling from her own clients, her future depends on whether this “church girl” can adapt and survive the gritty, dog-eat-dog reality of prison to set right the one who’s wronged her.

Release date: September 30, 2014

Publisher: Urban Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

June 2004

My birthday was only a couple of days away. Turning sixteen should have had me on some mess like cake, car, and party. But since I was stuck living under Deacon’s ever watchful third, fourth, and invisible eye, with Papa Psion coming any day now, the only thing I wanted was to get away. You see, in Deacon’s church you didn’t follow the bible; you followed his interpretation of it or what he liked to call Deacon’s Law.

People would give everything they had in offering. Deacon would use his connections to answer their so called prayers. The church was full of business folk, itching the left hand of the person beside them so they could scratch it in the church’s pocket. They’d help find you a better job, house, life, it didn’t matter. They knew as soon as you started getting what you asked for, you’d tithe more out of thanks. Because law number one was, “anything multiplied by zero is zero.”

The Church of Kings would never build with somebody that “ain’t got” to begin with. And it didn’t even have to be money. You could roll up like Ava offering your own children to for the choosing. Choosing could happen at any age, but Deacon liked to start as early as five or six. Kids even came with fake adoption paperwork so neighbors wouldn’t get suspicious. That’s how crooked, conniving, and sideways Deacon’s church really was.

Deacon’s views on women could get even more twisted and complex than the Jacob’s Ladders Leslie was obsessed with making out of string. I was stretched out on my back pretending that I was paying attention and not trying to take a nap. Leslie was stretched out on top of me using my boobs to rest the back of her head.

“And this one is breastbone and ribs,” she announced proudly.

The blue yarn was looped a gazillion times around each of her little fingers. I nodded, giving her a mumbled ‘mmm hmm.’ Each and every one of those things looked like tangled yarn, or straight up knots to me.

“Eva, I don’t want boobs.”

I frowned down over the natural arch of her eyebrows towards her sandy-brown lashes. She had no idea how much she reminded me of our parents. Those brows were all Ava. My girl Storie shaped mine up in the bathroom at school. At least it stopped everyone from calling me Attila the Hun. But then they replaced it with Attila the Nun, as in don’t even try to date me because you will get none. Not that anyone was every actually checking for my eyebrows anymore. My chest usually caught everyone’s attention before the rest of me.

I don’t even know how it happened. One day I was five ‘one, flat as a board and straight as an arrow. The next day my boobs were hurting so bad I’d have sworn Momma Rose was beating them in my sleep. Yes, on some straight-up African breast ironing mess. A few weeks later I was still five ‘one, but my hips were wider, my breasts grew, and my ass had even gotten bigger.

My growth spurt went all out instead of up. And it made me wish Leslie would stay a kid forever. She’d be super pissed, like Claudia the little vampire girl that couldn’t age from Interview with a Vampire. I loved the book so much I forgot to return it to the library on purpose. Had to pay forty-five dollars for a twelve dollar book but that was easier than letting Deacon find out I’d borrowed it. But the thought of Leslie with eye-catching, attention-grabbing, chest-pillows made me shift uncomfortably.

“Is there a way to just not grow any?” Leslie asked.

“Why would you say something like that? Every girl wants boobs.”

“I’m not every girl. And Momma Rose said you’re leaving us. Sue said if you don’t go you’ll turn into Onibaba, the demon witch. And that you’d start tryin’ to eat my skin. But Momma Rose said it’s because you need a man to take care of you and keep other men off your goodies.” She rocked her head back and forth between my breasts. “I’m pretty sure she was talking about your boobs. So, I just don’t want no man or no goodies. And since I ain’t got any now I can take care of you, Eva.”

As usual, whenever my choosing was brought up my throat would shrink to about the size of a rice grain. All these years I did everything to protect her and now she was one talking about protecting me. I pressed my lips to the top of her thick wavy hair. Who was she gonna’ protect when she still smelled like a damn baby? Momma Rose had caked so much Just For Me detangler in her hair it probably came out her pores when she sweat.

“Les, I told you not to listen to Sue and what in the world would you do—”

“Why is my TV on channel twenty-two?” Deacon snatched the bedroom door open letting it bang against the wall. He stood in the doorway making his crazed with religion face at us.

Maybe it’s because, I was watching MTV when you weren’t home. I needed to think up a quick lie before he decided to snatch the coaxial cable right out the wall to beat us with it. We’d just gotten cable back in the house from the last time he did exactly that. He was good for turning a broken rule into a punishment. It didn’t make any sense for me to be able to have a husband and babies, when I wasn’t even trusted basic cable. There wasn’t even a lock on my bedroom door. Which I was reminded of every time he just bust right in.

“Because, Momma Rose sits on the remote. And, sometimes she don’t even know it’s underneath her.”

Leslie was right on it.

“Yeah, and you sound like you don’t have any sense or upbringing when you use don’t instead of doesn’t. Both of you up and dressed in thirty. Dinner with Ava. In honor of Eva’s birthday and all.” He spat his orders and shuffled away yelling through the house for Sue to get off the phone.

She’d started using telemarketers to practice her English whenever they called. They’d get stuck on the phone with her for hours in a reverse outsourcing call center hell.

My breath was already gone and Leslie going into excited kiddie overdrive on top of me didn’t help. I just stared at the spinning blades of the ceiling fan until they faded from sight. The thought of being in the same room with Ava made me see black. My breath hitched and there was the lingering smell of burning wood and misery. All the tiny hairs on my arms were standing at attention. What made Ava, think I’d want to be anywhere near her? Oh, no what if this is it and Papa Psion’s ass is there too. I was getting light-headed from the thought of finally facing it all.

Leslie propped herself up, jabbing me in the stomach with her bony elbows.

“Hello Earth to Eva? I asked you if you think momma will like me. Why aren’t you smiling? She used to like me when I was a baby right? What should I wear? Do you think she’s with daddy and they want us back? That would mean you wouldn’t have to leave Eva.” She was out of control with all her questions.

Considering the way things went down the last time I’d seen Ava I could only imagine what this whole dinner thing was going to be about. Me or money. Especially since she’d single handedly shut down my bullshit choosing ceremony. I might have seen Papa Psion once or twice since. It left me wanting to hate and hug her for distracting him, even though she hadn’t done it by choice.

Leslie was still going on and on about “mommy-this and does-mommy-that facts.

“Damn Leslie, how many times do we have to go over this?” My voice came out harsher than I meant it to. “It’s just us and it’s always been that way. If I hadn’t told you, you wouldn’t know a thing about daddy or Ava–” I took a deep breath. “Let’s just go pick you out something cute and do something with all this hair okay?”

Half an hour and five arguments later we were dressed. Leslie finally lost the fifth argument on why she couldn’t wear her hair in a wavy afro. After taming her mane, I decided that we’d both dress as informal as possible so I picked out stone wash jeans, black t-shirt, and beat up black Chucks for me. Leslie was my twin except her Chucks and her t-shirt dark blue. It was my version of a silent mutiny. Deacon, Momma Rose, and Sue were all dressed like we were going to a formal dinner party.

“What in the world, are we going to a dinner or out fishing?” Momma Rose stared us up and down violently shaking her head. “Where are the sundresses I got y’all when I went to Potomac Mills. We have a reputation to keep up ladies, I can’t have ya’ll–,”

“It’s just Ava, they look better than the condition we got them in. So it’s fine,” Deacon interrupted her.

As we made the two-hour long drive towards Franklin and Mecklenburg County on what had to be the hottest day in June, they were the ones looking stuffy and overdressed

Part of me wanted to know what Ava had been up to and why she’d moved all the way out bum-fuck-Egypt. On the other hand I could have cared less. I’d spent six years listening to the gospel. And eavesdropping in on the “nigga-news” at night, trying to figure out who or what Ava was doing before I stopped caring about her not caring about us.

The nigga-news was usually started by somebody that seen what happened and they hooked up the story a little bit before retelling it. By the time it got to you you’d have to pick the pieces apart to find the truth. Like the time they said Ava was hookin’ on High Street for a pimp named Reena. That just sounded completely made up, everyone knew women weren’t pimps. The gospel was the sanctified, cleaned up version passed down the pew on Sundays. Ava resurfacing was like a punch in the nose. It hurt like hell that’d she waited so long to see us but I kept blinking back tears waiting for that feel-good sneeze that never came. Leslie had been driving me crazy with questions and now she could just ask Ava herself.

We drove for what seemed like hours passing a sprinkling of abandoned wooden shacks.

“That looks like those vampire nests from that movie we watched,” Leslie open-loud mouth whispered against my ear.

I tried to melt into the side paneling of the car and peek out the window at them. My toes involuntarily curled into the bottom of my shoe, my chest got that achy heavy feeling. They were rotting reminders with their shutters barely hanging by a nail set against the graying cloudy sky boarded up with old rotted wooden boards. Each shack could have been the perfect safe haven for a vampire, serial killer, or choosing ceremony.

“Deacon, why don’t they just tear those creepy things down?” I asked when I couldn’t stand the sight of them anymore.

He never took his eyes off the road. It was as if his answer was rehearsed.

“Those houses are older than freedom itself.”

What he meant was that they were probably from the slavery days.

We finally pulled up in front of a small wooden greenish-yellow house with rickety shutters. It was all by itself in the middle of the woods at the edge of town. All the spit dried up until my tongue felt like I’d bitten into one of the unripe persimmons Sue had given me one day.

It wasn’t the tear-soaking, “I’m sorry and I take it all back” greeting I’d been secretly hoping for. This woman who was supposed to be my mother methodically unhooked the latch on her raggedy screen door. The springs creaked like we about to walk into a crypt. Without saying a word she stepped aside and let us in. Her eyes were red and tired, like she’d been awake for days at a time and was about to fall asleep any minute. I could still see they were the same Jupiter-round light brown eyes as mine, and the same spiky-spider-leg thick lashes. I was expecting her to have wider hips maybe put on some weight, but her orange sundress fit her like a second skin. It tapered in at her tiny waist that was still small as if not smaller than mine.

Her house was dark for the middle of the day. The bare hardwood floor creaked and groaned with every step. Everything was covered in a layer of dust. You could even see the particles in the air as they floated through the tiny slivers of sun that managed to squeak between the aged yellowed blinds. Ava wasn’t acting nice, motherly, or even friendly. For all intents and purposes I wasn’t going to jump back and forth between her periods of solitude and suddenly wanting to be a part of our lives.

“It’s a dirty dirty bird that won’t keep its own nest clean,” Momma Rose whispered behind her hand to Deacon as we filed into the squelching heat of a tiny windowless kitchen. Leslie, held onto my hand with a vice grip. She stared at Ava in awe and fear. If she wasn’t going to speak to me, the least she could have done was acknowledged Leslie. I wanted to scoop her up in a big hug and apologize on Ava’s behalf but knew it would be best to just wait until we got back home. Sue was the only one that wasn’t the least bit bothered. The other day, I’d overheard Deacon promising her everything from shoes to a cruise. He wanted her to suck his thing in the study and go somewhere, now I know where that “somewhere” was. That was one snooping session I could have done without.

A black bucket sat by the stove with fruit flies hovering over it. I glanced in it and gagged.

“That’s for the hogs around back. It’s a slop bucket. I don’t waste anything. Old food to me is good food to them.” Ava spoke to me for the first time since the last time I’d seen her. It wasn’t exactly what I imagined our first words to be and if I wasn’t mistaken her tone was a little snippy. I can’t help if I’ve never seen a bucket full of rotten slop. And what happened to all that money Deacon supposedly been giving her?

We all crowded in Ava’s kitchen, waiting to be offered a seat, taking one on our own when we realized she wasn’t going to offer. Roaches scurried underneath the cabinets and thick cob webs waved from where they hung in the corners. My Motorola flip-phone dinged in my back pocket. I already knew it was Storie, asking for an update. Trying to make sure I hadn’t killed anyone yet. Deacon cleared his throat shaking his head at me. He was strict about my phone and would take it in a heartbeat if he thought I was being disrespectful.

The air was so thick with the smell of salted pork, hickory wood, and mildew I could feel it seeping into my pores banding together to plot a secret blackhead attack. The smell was worse than cigarette smoke and fried chicken grease combined. It was liable to be in my hair and my clothes for at least a full two day stretch. I picked invisible lint off my jeans nodding at the thought that of treating the smell like skunk spray, using tomato juice to get it out.

Once we were all seated at the small wooden dinner table Ava laid out what I guess was her best. The plates were chipped and cracked and the blue designs that might have been flowers or birds were all worn off. We sat in an uncomfortable silence with the plates clacking against the table like we were strangers with those “hello-my-name-is” stickers on our chests. I quietly scrutinized her as she moved mechanically around the kitchen. I was expecting apologies and instinctive sparks of love to come shooting back. But, watching Ava, with gray starting to creep into her temples and worry lines creasing her forehead I felt more curiosity about her than anything else.

She didn’t look at me or Leslie. Ava didn’t look at any of us or say another word as she scooted into the seat across from me. The chair groaned under even her tiny bit of weight. Her back went drill-instructor straight. The veins snaked along underneath the skin on her hands and forearms as she folded her napkin into her lap. I wonder if that means she has high blood pressure or diabetes. She’ll probably get pissed if I ask. Don’t ask.

She glared at my napkin on the table before tilting her head and then glaring down at my lap waiting for me to do the same. I snapped it off the table with so much gusto I’d have made a magician proud. The thin coarse material rested lightly on my lap. This cheap heffa didn’t even have real napkins. They were old as day thrift store men’s handkerchiefs. Boy, she had some nerve, have us sitting up in the middle of a pigsty while she’s acting like she’d been trained at the academy for spoiled rich bitches. Ava’s eyes were hardened like someone used to having things held just out of her reach. I kept staring at her looking for something, anything to make me feel love or some kind of connection but I couldn’t find it.

My stomach complained extra loud. At least the food smelled good. Ava could always cook. She used to turn powdered milk and eggs into a five star breakfast. Dinner definitely was not what I’d consider much of a birthday feast. Mostly because none of the foods were things I liked and they didn’t really go together. There were candied yams, Mexican corn with cheese and cayenne, nasty bitter turnip greens which none of us liked, but I remember them being Ava’s favorite. She’d made two small glazed hams with pineapple rings and a cherry top. From my angle one looked kind of charred. The other one didn’t look as bad which is probably why there were two. Deacon said grace and Ava insisted on fixing our plates. As we ate it was so quiet you could hear the cob webs shifting in the corners.

I was trying to work down a stubborn piece of ham when Momma Rose’s fork clattered to her plate. She started pointing wildly, tapping Deacon’s arm. Leslie and I both giggled when she spit her food into her napkin, I looked over curious to see if she’d bitten into a roach. Now, that would have been priceless. Deacon’s fork clattered to the table then Sue’s. I stopped mid-chew. My fork was frozen in a death grip. My brain was telling my mouth that only Daddies came with tattoos that read, “Do Royal Deeds or Pay Royal Dues,” not hams. I got that watery feeling in my mouth around the piece of mystery man-meat. It was the same lettering, spacing, even the same size as the tattoo I’d seen on my daddy’s upper thigh.

Deacon bucked up out of his seat. “Ava! Tell me this is your idea of a sick joke. Tell me this isn’t what I think it is!”

A brief smile flashed across Ava’s face as she raised her fork to take another bite. She pointed the bent prongs at Deacon.

“No Deacon, not what, but who you think it is. Psi with his all his lies, he was never good enough to marry our baby-girl and you know it. I was hoping you’d choke on his stinking ass. That is where the meat came from since he was mostly fat.” She stood up and slapped her hip.

“Your what?” Momma Rose suddenly blurt out. Her chest was heaving as she stared between Ava and Deacon.

Sue launched into what must have been every Japanese curse word in the book.

The rickety wooden chair splintered when Deacon slung it out of his way. He charged around the table with the greasy carving knife gleaming in his hand.

My mouth unhinged in slow-motion. The achy hole that’d just opened up in my soul blocked out the sound of Leslie crying next to me. I used the back of my hand to wipe my eyes.

Ava laughed. It was more like a stole-the-winning-base cackle. “Oh, let me guess. You never told Rose about us. Never told her Eva is your daughter?” She teased him, dancing out of his reach with more oomph than we’d seen the entire meal. “Don’t look so shocked sis. Ain’t like you was ever good with men, but you always had a way with money. Ozias, you could talk a nun out of her habit and into a bad one couldn’t you Deac? So, how much of our inheritance did you sink into this black hole of a nigga Rose?”

“Enough!” Deacon roared lunging at her with the knife.

Ava twirled away from him. She spun past the counter turning to face him with the black barrel from memories past pointed at the center of his chest.

That was the same gun from my real life nightmare all those years ago.

It was too much to process at once. I stared at the sliver of Papa Psion meat on Deacon’s plate back to the piece of my daddy on my own. The salty ham but not quite ham taste was becoming more obvious by the second. My chest felt tight. He wasn’t my daddy. Deacon was my daddy.

Ava waved the gun around taunting Deacon.

I wavered between wanting her to shoot him and fear that a stray bullet would hit me or Leslie.

The room spun, everything went black. And suddenly I was eight-years old again standing outside our old house in Norfolk.

A scream came from inside. It split the air open like a vocal lightning bolt, spooking the finches out of their nest in a nearby snowball bush. Sweat tickled its way down my forehead. It burned my eyes as I squinted up at the white hot ball of heat in the sky. The flimsy crown I’d been braiding out of dandelions dangled from my fingers. If there was anyone in this world crazy enough to hurt the Devil, it was my momma. I’d never heard a man yell like that in all my life. He sounded like he was hurtin’ so bad it made my stomach hurt for him. She’d brought the Devil in and was just a smiling all in my face. Then she ordered me outside to play.

It wasn’t fair. Leslie got to stay inside. She was taking a nap in her crib where my Polly-Pocket princess castles used to be. Momma gave away half my toys to make room for “the new baby.” Then she spanked me and made me promise not to give the new baby away. I’d tried twice. The mailman laughed at me and walked off shaking his head. Mrs. Tomlinson, the lady next door took her just so she could call my momma and give her back. She had three babies in diapers; one more wasn’t gonna make a difference. Snitch. Nobody even bothered asking if I wanted a new baby.

“Hey pretty girl, your momma inside?”

Trisha, momma’s old best friend, slinked from around the side of the green truck parked in our driveway, the Devil’s truck. Her sugary-sweet voice didn’t match the hard look on her face.

I started to nod but stopped. She hadn’t been coming over since the day I heard momma call her the b-word on the phone.

She stopped in front of me long enough to pull her bright gold weave back into a black scrungee. It matched her baggy black sweatsuit.

I looked from her to the bomb-pop-blue sky and back.

“Don’t lie to me little girl, you can burn in hell for lying. Is your momma in there? I just wanna’ ask her about my shit over here in y’alls driveway.” Her face furled up into an ugly frown as she stared at the truck blocking my usual play space.

“She’s busy.” I lied, I don’t know why momma had Trisha’s man inside but if momma didn’t like her anymore, I didn’t like her either.

“Busy? I bet they “busy.” She laughed. “Stay your little ass right here.”

My answer had the opposite effect of what I’d hoped for.

Trisha went barging up into the house and I waited for the roof to blow off. Minutes ticked by and I dreaded the moment the door would open again. Now I’d catch it from Momma for letting her in and from Trisha for lying.

A tiny squeak slipped out of my mouth as hands grabbed me around the waist lifting me off the ground.

“Why is my Poodah-poo out here sulking all by her lonesome?”

The sound of daddy’s voice made my cheeks feel like they were about to explode from smiling so hard. I squealed. “It’s not chicken chow-mien day yet. You’re back early.” I squirmed around until I could wrap my arms and legs around him like a baby koala. The Navy had sent him away for work right after Leslie was born and it felt like he’d been gone forever.

A deep laugh rumbled up through his chest. “Chicken chow-mien day girl?”

I pulled my face out of the warmth of his neck. He smelled like iron ships and soapy aftershave.

“Yeah, I was using my school lunch calendar to cross off the days until you got back.”

“Well, I flew in ahead of the ship. Couldn’t wait to surprise my three ladies. Where’s your momma and the baby?”

He sat me down scooping up his big sand-colored sea-bag. The sun made the perfect waves in his hair look like black ocean water. He still had on his dark blue work t-shirt and matching camouflage pants.

I glanced towards the house twisting up my mouth. “It’s non-denominational pizza day. She was beating up the devil, and then Trisha came over. She seemed kinda mad.” I eyed his sea-bag curiously.

He eyed the green truck.

I poked at the bag in his hand. “So, did you surprise us with surprises too Daddy?”

He quirked an eyebrow up in my direction and started walking. “You’ll see. Tell me where you learned a word like non-denomina . . . wait, what is your momma doing?”

I shrugged tak. . .