“So when I got too old to dance in the clubs I wanted to dance in church. And when it was time for me to set down in church, I decided to do something to help somebody out. You young girls runnin’ round out here, in these streets carryin’ on like the devil can’t come up from hell and bite your butt. Well, he can and he do whenever he get the chance. Soon as you open that door you done invited sin in to set right on down. Problem with y’all young girls nowadays is you bringin’ babies into this world and don’t give a damn—forgive me, Jesus—’bout the devil bitin’ their little behinds too. Like they just fall out your thang and all of a sudden grown with a paycheck. So what y’all do when you find out that ain’t the way of it? Huh, what y’all do?”

I just hunched up my shoulders as if I was talking to Ma.

“I’ll tell you what most of y’all doin’. Leaving, half doin’, goin’ on to live your own lives and not carin’ what happen to these babies. I could be making a lotta money renting out this house, but I decided to try to do something to make more of these girls want to stay. Used to be just our mens leaving us, gettin’ killed and gettin’ themselves killed, now women trust to do the same. We in the last days, yes we is.”

I didn’t dare fidget or squirm.

“But Psalms 27:10 say, ‘When my father and mother forsake me then the Lord will take me up.’ You hear that. The Lord. That’s all this house is right here, to you and any other gal out there who need it. This the Lord’s work. I ain’t had nothing but the Lord when I was growing up. Just five years old when my daddy was shot in Harlem and not even six when my mama drowned herself in a tub. Now, that was my lot, my hand in life. Try being five years old with your mama dead on the other side of the bathroom door and you can’t even get in, nobody tellin’ you what happened, after you done came to school with piss running down your legs. Try that! And you wanna set here in my face and complain ’cause somebody you ain’t even got to ever lay hands on might have something you can catch you just sharin’ a room not having sex with her gal get on out my face with this nonsense.”

I had been dismissed, and couldn’t wait to get out of the tiny, cramped office which had gotten stuffier with each one of her remarks.

“What you supposed to be going upstairs to read?” she called out to me as I walked out.

“John 8:19 and Luke—”