Reverend Feelgood Read Online Free Page A

prophesy so accurately that she could not only tell you the color of underwear you wore at the moment, but the pair you’d choose a week from now. Her son’s brilliance was also courtesy of his mother, as was the compassionate heart that often got his lower extremities into so much trouble. Nettie knew her son well and had finally concluded: Two out of three ain’t bad.
    “Hello?”
    “Nettie? Maxine Brook.”
    “Lord have mercy, Mama Max!” Nettie’s mood immediately brightened at the sound of her voice. Maxine Brook had four children of her own, but she mothered almost everyone she met. Everyone loved her for it, and everyone affectionately called her Mama Max. “As I live and breathe, sistah, the Lord put you on my heart just yesterday. Told me you’d be calling.”
    “Well, chile, your hearing is good because the Lord sho put you on my heart a couple days ago. The Reverend Doctor has been ailing a bit, but I knew I’d call first chance I got. He’s resting now, praise be to the Almighty, so here I is. How you doing, Nettie Jean?”
    “Oh, tolerable. I can’t complain.”
    “Gordon?”
    “He’s fine, too.” Gordon Johnson was Nettie’s quiet, hardworking husband of the past nine years.
    “And the ministry?”
    Nettie’s sigh was barely audible. “God is good.”
    “God may be good but that quality don’t always extend to church folk. Talk to me.”
    “Oh, Mama Max…you’ve been on this road long enough to know what the scenery looks like. It ain’t changed since you and Mama first became friends.”
    Nettie’s mother, Amanda, met Mama Max when both were minister’s wives surviving harsh winters and even harsher congregations in the Texas countryside. Ten years her senior, Amanda became Mama Max’s confidante, and Mama Max had known Nettie since she was a child. When Amanda went to be with the Lord more than a decade ago, after battling cancer, Mama Max stepped in and did her best to fill the shoes that no one else’s feet could ever truly fill. She’d done a pretty good job of mothering though, supporting Nettie through crises and controversies, always there with a dose of “Mama Maxisms” and a listening ear.
    “Naw, chile, you’re right about that,” Mama Max replied. “The felines might change from a pedigreed Persian to an alley cat but at the end of the day…it still comes down to pussy.”
    “Mama Max, you get on away from here with that kind of language!”
    “Chile, don’t act like I shocked you. You’ve been knowing me too long to think I’d change. So am I right?”
    “About what?”
    “About the problem revolving around puss ’n boots. Some woman’s pussy and some pastor’s boots?” Mama Max whooped at her own Maxism. “Nettie Jean, you’re fifty-four, got three kids, and been in church your whole life. The truth ain’t always pretty but it’s usually pertinent. And you know I’m telling the truth.”
    Nettie laughed. “Well, there is a little something going on.”
    Mama Max crossed her legs and waited, took a sip of black coffee and looked out her picture window at the snow-covered lawns of a Kansas winter.
    “It’s Nathaniel. He’s getting married.”
    “To who? When? How long has he known the girl?”
    “Whoa, Mama Max, one question at a time. Her name is Destiny. They’re going to have a long engagement, and he’s known her since, well, since she was born.”
    “Known her since…Nettie? Are you trying to give me a heart attack so I can join your mama in paradise? You better explain yourself and quick, lest I be on the first thing smokin’ outta Kansas for Texas. Nate may be grown, but he ain’t past a good butt whoopin’.” Even as she spoke, Mama Max picked up a newspaper off the coffee table and swatted the furniture twice—for practice.
    “It’s Katherine’s grandbaby, Destiny.”
    “Katherine Noble? Lord have mercy, Jesus, and Mary, mother of God, why can’t the Thicke men stay away from those Noble women?”
    “Well, I could