Come Sunday Morning Page 3

  The rear door opened and Samantha Cleaveland walked in as he spoke. She sat down at a table near the door. Her beige pantsuit was constructed with skilled precision to complement her body. A silk scarf, knotted to perfection, hung over her shoulder, revealing the subtle red tones in her unblemished skin.

  Hezekiah paused midsentence and greeted Samantha. “Good morning, honey,” he said. “I was just reminding everyone that we have to increase our fund-raising efforts over the next six months….”

  “Correction, Hezekiah,” Samantha interrupted. “Everyone who expects to keep his or her job will have to double the amount of contributions, publicity, and the number of new members they bring to the church in the next month.”

  Hezekiah attempted to change the subject. “Thank you, Samantha. We received more good news last week. The Trinity Broadcasting Network has asked us to allow them to air the opening ceremony for the new cathedral.”

  Samantha ignored Hezekiah and stood abruptly. She walked to the front of the room and peered into the now mortified crowd.

  “Some of you don’t seem to realize this job is not just a paycheck. It’s a calling. People all over the country depend on this ministry to fill the empty void in their lives. Every Sunday morning New Testament Cathedral gives hope to millions of viewers who, without us, would have no reason to live.

  “Let me remind you that you represent Hezekiah and Samantha Cleaveland, and if you don’t do your jobs and raise more money the ministry suffers and if the ministry suffers, so will each of you.”

  Everyone sat frozen as all eyes in the room searched each other’s faces for the humiliation they all now shared.

  Samantha exited the room through the door she had entered without further comment. The staff meeting continued for the next half hour. Several brave staff members asked pointless questions in attempts to appear unfazed by the thrashing delivered by Samantha.

  Bodies retrieved briefcases and coffee cups and filed solemnly through the double doors into the cavernous hall and retreated to their designated cubicles and offices.

  Catherine Birdsong, New Testament Cathedral’s chief operations officer, gathered her belongings and darted through the crowd behind Hezekiah. Public relations director Naomi Preston followed closely behind. Both women ignored comments and questions from staff members as they passed through the crowd. They focused on catching up with Hezekiah who had exited the room and now moved rapidly toward the elevators.

  Naomi was a tall woman who, regardless of the season, always wore two-piece monotone suits. Her stiff hair bobbed like a straw hat as she maneuvered around people whose names she never felt the need to remember. A costume bracelet rattled with each step she took.

  The two women caught up with Hezekiah and together they fell quickly into step as if they had been at his side the entire length of the hall. Lesser staff members moved to the side as Catherine and Naomi took their rightful places beside the pastor. Hezekiah stared directly ahead.

  “What time am I scheduled to be interviewed by Lance Savage and what’s the article he’s writing about us?”

  Naomi’s throat dried as she strained to respond.

  “Eleven o’clock, Pastor Cleaveland. I believe he wants to get an update on the cathedral construction.”

  The three stepped into an elevator heading up to the fifth floor. The doors closed and Hezekiah’s firm body slumped against the back wall with a thud.

  “Catherine, get me the most recent construction figures,” he said, peering directly at the doors ahead as if a face were looking back at him. “How much we’ve spent and how much we’ve raised. I want to be ready for Lance.”

  Catherine scribbled the pastor’s instructions and answered, “Yes, Pastor Cleaveland,” as the elevator doors slid open.

  Hezekiah, Catherine, and Naomi exited the elevator and walked directly toward the pastor’s suite of offices. Floor-to-ceiling glass double doors stood before them. Naomi took a double step ahead of the pastor and opened the door. Hezekiah entered the suite without altering his stride as she stepped aside.

  The outer office now held many of the same faces from the staff meeting. Attractive young women shuttled important-looking documents from one side of the room to the other. Handsome men wearing cheap suits and expensive neckties huddled in various corners of the office as they conferred on urgent church business.

  Lush burgundy carpets muffled the sound of multiple conversations. Mahogany panels covered the walls from which architectural renderings of the new towering 25,000-seat glass cathedral hung.

  Hezekiah scanned the room. His eyes rested on no one in particular. They were all just bodies. Empty faces serving at his whim. The people he and Samantha surrounded themselves with were there simply to do their bidding—not to think, analyze, or make decisions.

  A lanky man with wavy black hair approached him. Associate Pastor, Rev. Kenneth Davis was the only staff member brave enough to break bad news to Hezekiah so early in the morning.

  “Good morning, Pastor Cleaveland,” Kenneth said as Hezekiah looked up from a stack of telephone messages.

  “Sorry to start your week like this but there is another protest going on in front of the church.” Kenneth pointed toward open French doors along the rear wall.

  “What is it now?” Hezekiah asked sharply.

  “It seems another group of homeless advocates are angry about the amount of money we’re spending on the construction of the new cathedral. They think we should be spending the money on the homeless instead.”

  The sound of a man speaking through a megaphone met Hezekiah’s ears as he looked from the third floor onto the grounds of New Testament Cathedral.

  A group of over 200 people waved protest signs that read: LOS ANGELES NEEDS MORE AFFORDABLE HOUSING, NOT SHRINES TO GREEDY PASTORS AND HEZEKIAH CLEAVELAND DOESN’T CARE ABOUT POOR PEOPLE.

  New Testament Cathedral was a two-block-long, five-story stucco structure with a row of stained-glass windows lining each side of the building. Park like settings wrapped around its perimeter. Cobblestone paths dotted with benches, curved brick walls, gurgling rock fountains, and lush greenery provided parishioners with aesthetic justification for the millions of dollars they gave to the Cleavelands each year.

  Worshippers were greeted by a sweeping flight of steps that spanned the width of the building and led up to a two-story-high glass wall containing six sets of double doors. Through the windows a massive crystal chandelier could be seen dangling in the sun-drenched lobby. A twenty-foot sapphire blue cross was the centerpiece of the stained-glass window that dominated much of the front of the building. Massive birds were on each side of the cross. Their outstretched glass wings were made of blue, red, yellow, lavender, and white opaque panels, and they held olive branches in their powerful beaks. Visual proclamations proudly declaring the edifice to be the home of New Testament Cathedral and presided over by Dr. Hezekiah T. Cleaveland, pastor sat above the stained-glass centerpiece.

  “Hezekiah Cleaveland is spending forty-five million dollars to build a shrine to himself while homeless people, sick people, and mentally ill people are living and dying on the streets all around him,” the megaphone-toting man below shouted to the crowd. “New Testament Cathedral and Hezekiah Cleaveland should be spending that money to build affordable housing, shelters, and clinics for the poor in this community!”

  The crowd cheered and the grounds of New Testament Cathedral were alive with the sounds of boos, whistles, and clapping hands. Burly men hoisting television cameras on their shoulders captured the scenes for the evening news.

  Hezekiah could see the construction site of the new cathedral directly across the street, on Imperial Highway. Bulldozers kicked up dust as they moved dirt to clear a space for the new parking structure. Men in yellow hard hats and wagging tool belts walked around the site carrying blueprints, lumber, and power tools. Cranes carefully positioned steel beams onto the rising structure. The new site was twice the size of the one the church now occupied. It includ
ed a 25,000-seat sanctuary to hold even more generous congregants each Sunday morning, three thirty-two-by-eighteen-foot JumboTron screens, the Hezekiah T. Cleaveland elementary, middle, and high schools, a theological seminary complete with dorms to house future missionaries, a sprawling park with two restaurants, a bookstore and gift shop, and a 5,000-seat amphitheater for outdoor summer concerts. The new campus also included a fitness center and an automotive repair complex.

  Hezekiah spotted the Los Angeles Chronicle reporter Lance Savage talking to a man wrapped in a trench coat that looked like he had slept in it for months.

  “Maybe you should go down there and address them,” Naomi said, walking up behind Hezekiah and Kenneth. “Since there are so many reporters, maybe this would be a good opportunity to tell the public how we already help the homeless.”

  Hezekiah’s smile quickly vanished. His shoulders tensed as he stared directly into her eyes.

  “Are you crazy? Do you want me to be on the six o’clock news, being yelled at by a bunch of bums?”

  “I didn’t mean…”

  “That’s your problem. You don’t seem to know what you mean most of the time.”

  Hezekiah spun on his heels and stormed through the door leading to his private office suite.

  Everyone present pretended not to have heard the lashing Naomi had just received. Nervous hands throughout the office frantically groped for telephones on the first ring; papers were shuffled and feet darted toward the nearest exits when she turned from the window.

  Kenneth looked at Naomi with a sympathetic eye and said, “He’s in one of his moods today. What is going on?”

  “He’s been like this for weeks now and it seems to be getting worse,” replied Naomi as the crimson hue slowly drained from her face.

  Hezekiah retrieved more telephone messages from an assistant positioned outside his office.

  The scheduling secretary greeted Hezekiah as he approached.

  “Good morning, Pastor Cleaveland,” she said. “Senator Swanson’s office is on the line. The senator will be in town next week and wants to know if you’re available for lunch.”

  Hezekiah looked unimpressed as he retrieved more telephone messages from her neatly appointed desk. “That’s fine,” he said. “Go ahead and set it up.”

  When he entered his office, the private telephone rang. After dropping the stack of telephone messages on the desk, he picked up the receiver.

  “Hello. This is Hezekiah Cleaveland.”

  “Good morning, handsome,” said the voice on the line.

  The tension in Hezekiah’s shoulders slowly dissolved. “Good morning, baby,” he said in a whisper.

  “I’m driving down Imperial Highway past your church. I’m on my way to give out condoms and socks to a group of homeless guys at an encampment under the freeway near your church and I just wanted to hear your voice.”

  “Condoms?” Hezekiah asked, laughing. “Why do homeless people need condoms? They shouldn’t be having sex under the freeways.”

  The voice on the phone laughed with him.

  Hezekiah lowered his body into his huge black leather chair and said, “I loved being with you last night. I miss you already.”

  “I miss you too.”

  “Do me a favor?” Hezekiah said. “Drive in front of the church and tell those protesters to get off my property. I think they might be friends of yours.”

  “Friends? What are you talking about?”

  Hezekiah could hear the blaring horn of a city bus through the receiver. “It’s those homeless advocates who’ve got nothing better to do on a Monday morning than harass me.”

  The voice on the line began to laugh again. “Don’t let them get to you, Hezekiah. Everyone knows you do a lot for the homeless.”

  “I’ve got a meeting in a few minutes,” Hezekiah said as he spun around in his chair to watch the protest escalating outside his window. “When am I going to see you this week? I miss you.”

  “How about tonight?”

  “I can’t tonight. I think I’m free tomorrow evening. I’ve got to meet with my attorneys at six but I should be free by seven.”

  “Sounds good. I can hold out until then.”

  Hezekiah whispered seductively, “You know I love you. Be careful out there and tell those guys to stop having sex near my church.”

  The voice laughed again and said, “I’ll give them the message. I love you too, Hezekiah. See you tomorrow night.”

  3

  One Year Earlier

  Hezekiah first saw the young man kneeling at a corner on skid row. His green canvas backpack lay on the sidewalk beside him, filled with the daily rations of vitamins, warm socks, and condoms for homeless people he encountered on his rounds of the city.

  The sounds of horns honking and public-transit bus engines revving echoed off glass towers and graffiti-marred hotel facades. The block was cluttered with wobbly shopping carts filled with plastic trash bags, aluminum cans, plastic bottles, soiled clothes, and half-eaten cans of beans and sardines. Cyclone fences served as the only barriers between the human debris and parking lots filled with BMWs, Jaguars, and other nondescript silver foreign automobiles.

  The pungent smell of urine and human feces was everywhere. Emaciated dogs foraged through piles of trash, looking for the morsel that, for them, stood between life and death. Drivers sped by, making extra efforts to avoid looking to the left or the right. The human misery was too painful to witness, and the filth too disgusting to stomach.

  One man lay sleeping in the middle of the sidewalk. His limbs were twisted and his face was pressed into the cement. His blue denim jeans were stained from being worn for over two months. Alcohol fumes were almost visible as he breathed. He looked as though he had been dropped from the roof of a five-story building.

  A woman sat on the curb with her legs spread to the street. She wore a dirty pink scarf wrapped around her matted hair, a dingy, tattered yellow sweater, and no shoes. Her feet were covered with scabs and open wounds. “I told you ta stop bring’n dose peopo in’ta my mothafuck’n house. I’m mo kill that mothafucka if he do dat ta me again,” she cursed to the air as it breezed by.

  Other men and women lay coiled and hidden under oily, lice-ridden blankets and behind cardboard fortresses.

  When Hezekiah first saw Danny St. John, he was speaking to a homeless man named Old Joe, who was sitting on the curb, rattling a paper cup filled with coins. Everyone who lived in or walked through the shopping cart shanty-town knew Old Joe. He was a tall man with matted black hair, wearing oil-stained clothes.

  Brakes screeched, a car barely missing elderly pedestrians, as Danny and Old Joe talked below on the sidewalk. Lights flashed green, yellow, and red, and pigeons danced amid the remains of half-eaten burgers and discarded French fries. The two men spoke of warm places for Joe to sleep when the cold returned for the night.

  Danny reached into his bag for a clean hypodermic needle sealed in cellophane. He searched in the bag around packages of alcohol wipes, a tin canister filled with condoms, bottles of Purell hand sanitizer, and bundles of clean socks until he found the syringes. He looked over his shoulder to ensure a private moment for the exchange and found himself staring into the eyes of Hezekiah Cleaveland.

  The pastor was watching him intently from the driver’s seat of a silver Mercedes-Benz. Before Danny could look away, Hezekiah called out, “Excuse me. Are you a city employee? May I speak to you for a moment? I have a question for you.”

  Danny recognized the handsome face immediately. He excused himself from Old Joe and walked to the car.

  “No, I don’t work for the city,” Danny said bending to the window. “I work for a nonprofit homeless-outreach agency downtown.”

  Hezekiah’s brain went uncharacteristically blank as the tall, attractive young man looked into the car. He hadn’t expected to see such a beautiful face or hear so gentle a voice come from a man who worked so closely with the outcasts of the city.

  At twenty-eight Danny lo
oked as though he had never had a difficult day in his life. He was a handsome man, with smooth almond-brown skin, who attracted admiring glances from both men and women. Just over six feet tall, his slender body was modestly hidden under a baggy T-shirt and green army fatigues.

  Hezekiah quickly regained his composure and introduced himself. “My name is Pastor Hezekiah Cleaveland. There’s a homeless woman who sleeps near my church on Cleaveland Avenue at Imperial Highway,” he said. “She’s obviously mentally ill and has a dog in a shopping cart. You can’t miss her. She’s always there. Can you go over and talk to her?”

  “I know her. Everyone in my agency knows her but she has a long history of refusing services from our agency.”

  As Danny spoke, Hezekiah became distracted again by a glimmer in the beautiful young man’s eyes.

  There was an awkward silence after Danny finished his sentence. Then Hezekiah replied, “I would appreciate it if you would speak with her again.”

  Danny looked surprised. He never thought Hezekiah Cleaveland had any interest in people who couldn’t send him a donation.

  “I’m glad to hear you’re concerned Rev. Cleaveland. When I’ve seen you and your wife on television it seemed you were only interested in people who could make large contributions to your church.”

  “Don’t believe everything you see on television,” Hezekiah said, smiling. “I was poor once myself and I’ve never forgotten it.”

  As Danny walked back to Old Joe he heard Hezekiah call out again. “After you talk to her would you mind stopping by my office at the church? Just to let me know how it goes,” the minister explained.

  “I’ll stop by and see her this afternoon.”

  “Thank you,” Hezekiah replied with an odd sense of relief. “By the way, what’s your name?”