It had been four years ago that Michelle Lewis last came to Deacon Harris for help. He wasn’t exactly sure what she was on then, but she was on something, and she wanted to get clean. Her son Antwan was staying at a friend’s whilst she tried to sort her act out and she needed a safe space to do that. Gus had offered her his couch for a few days, told her he’d help her through it, and she had repaid him by cleaning out his drawers of everything of worth not a day afterwards. Last he’d heard she’d finally got her act together but he’d not seen or heard from her person since, at least not until this morning.

She looked in better shape than before, thicker and more full of life. Her long black hair looked soft to the touch and her clothes were immaculately clean and ironed. Most of all though she had a smile on her face and in all the years she had battled with addiction he’d not once seen that. She really had turned things around. Yet here she was, so something had to be wrong.

“You know, I thought I’d never see you again after what happened.”

Michelle smiled softly, “I kept my distance, Deacon, I was ashamed. I’m ashamed of a lot of things I did back then.”

“We all have things in our past we’d rather forget,” Gus said with a knowing nod. “From the looks of things you’ve turned your life around since, so let’s leave the past in the past, shall we? I don’t see much reason to dwell on it.”

To err is human, to forgive divine. Gus understood that better than most. He had erred time and time again before he had found God and only in His light had he found true forgiveness. It had felt like a weight being lifted free from his chest. All the self-destruction, all the anger, all the bitterness was drained from him in that moment and he hadn’t looked back since. The least he could do is extend that forgiveness to Michelle.

“Thank you, Deacon.”

He shook his head and placed his hand on Michelle’s opposite him, “Call me Gus.”

“Thank you, Gus.”

Gillian, the waitress at Hobie’s Diner, came over and set down two glasses and a jug of sweet tea between Gus and Michelle. The deacon loved sweet tea. He’d have a sweet tooth since birth and had never been quite able to shake it. Something told him the habit might come back to haunt him in later life but what was a man without his vices? He figured that of all the vices, a penchant for sweet things was one of the most acceptable ones.

He reached over, poured a glass for both he and Michelle, and then took a large mouthful, making sure to wipe his moustache dry with his sleeve before returning to the matter at hand.

“So what seems to be the problem? I assume there is a problem? I can’t imagine you sought me out to have old wounds reopened. You never struck me as a masochist.”

“It’s Antwan.”

Ah, Antwan Dixon. Six feet four, one hundred and eighty six pounds, and the most polished shooting stroke of any shooting guard in the United States of America. Deacon Harris knew all about him. He was an avid college hoops fan and kept an eye on every and any prospect that might be South Carolina-bound. The only thing he loved more than sweet things were his Gamecocks. God knows they could use the help.

But it was more than that, Gus had known Antwan’s father Marcus Dixon some. In truth, as small a town that Norman was, it was hard not to know most people. Not to mention that as a deacon he was almost always obliged to know everyone’s business. It was a shame what had happened to Marcus, nasty business that was, and it would be a much greater shame if Antwan had found himself on the wrong side of the tracks too.

“What about him? I thought he was doing well,” Gus said between a mouthful of sweet tea. “Heard he hit the game-winner last night.”

“I’m worried about him,” Michelle muttered. “He’s been spending more and more time with Roland Spencer, taking things from him, he doesn’t know any better, can’t see Roland for what he really is.”

Gus was no stranger to Roland Spencer either. He ran a tire business that had branches across almost the entirety of Pickett County and there was talking of expanding out into Georgia. There was also talk that Roland had got the capital for his business by doing backroom deals with some of Pickett County’s less than favourable characters. If Antwan had fallen in with him, that really was cause for concern.

“How many times has your boy passed through the church doors in his life, Michelle? Why would he listen to me? I’m no one to him.”

“It’s not him I want you to speak to.”

Gus shook his head incredulously, “Roland? Heck, I might as well try to convince the Devil himself to change his ways.”

“Please, Gus.”

The deacon thought of Vontae Carter’s lifeless body lain in that casket earlier with but a few inches of wood between him and his sobbing mother and gritted his teeth. How could he turn Michelle Lewis down after the morning he’d had? Years ago Marcus Dixon had fallen in with the wrong crowd and Gus had been powerless to stop it from happening. He’d be damned if he’d stand by and watch it happen to his son.

“I’ll speak to him, but I’m not promising anything.”

[center][b]*****[/b][/center]
Roland Spencer sat in his office in the Norman branch of Spencer’s Tires and Rims and thumbed his way through some paperwork. It had been a long day but business had been kind, his benefactor would be pleased to know that Roland would be handing over a package much larger than usual this month. From the plush leather seat behind his desk, Roland reached for his phone and glanced at the screen. There was an unopened message from Antwan that he opened, the contents of which brought a broad smile to his face. It was Antwan and his friend Jayson in the new Dodge Charger that Roland had given Antwan as a reward for that game-winning shot. It was nothing in the grand scheme of things, he’d made far more betting against the spread than the Dodge had cost him.

From the door to Roland’s office came a knock and he looked up to see a familiar if unexpected face looking back at him.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, Deacon? It’s been a while.”

Gus Harris was a tall man, dark-skinned, with short black hair and a well kept goatee peppered with grey hairs. There was a regality to him and his movements that Roland considered to be irritating and enviable at the same time. They had come up in Norman together in a much different time, long before Gus had decided he was better than everyone else and threw his lot in with God, but even before that they had never been anything remotely close to friends.

Gus smiled politely in his direction, “It has indeed, Roland, I hope you don’t mind my showing up uninvited. I know you’re a very busy man.”

“I’m sure I can spare the time to speak to an old friend,” Roland responded, gesturing to the seat in front of his desk.

“It’s about Antwan Dixon.”

In an instance Roland’s sickly sweet smile disappeared, “Ah, Michelle sent you.”

“She did,” Gus said with a nod. “She’s a little concerned.”

Of course she was concerned now, Roland thought. Where was the concern two years ago when he was driving Antwan across Pickett County looking for her? They had found her at a trailer park in Jardin shacked up with some redneck that had providing her with meth in exchange for God knows what. 

Roland remembered the way Antwan had cried after they had taken her home and put her to bed, the way he’d promised himself that once he’d made it in the NBA he would take his mother out of Pickett and make sure they never had to live like that. It had broken his heart. 

“I can assure you she has no reason to be concerned. All I’ve ever done is look out for that boy of hers.”

Before he’d even finished his sentence he could see that wouldn’t be enough for Gus. That was the problem with church folk, they were living in the past, they thought that prayer alone could lift you up out of poverty and make a place like Norman worth living in. It was nonsense, it always had been, Roland had known that from the very beginning. You wanted to change something? You wanted to better yourself? You had to be willing to plunge your hands in the filth and get dirty.

People like Gus Harris never had the stones for it.

“Still, she is the boy’s mother and I think even you would admit that some of her concerns are valid. We both know that Antwan is destined for big things and wherever he goes attention will follow him. The money? The jewelry? That type of thing is going to bring the wrong kind of attention around here. You know that.”

His tone grated on Roland. It was bad enough having that junkie look down on him and treat him like some sort of criminal, but at least she was the boy’s kin. She brought him into the world. Gus? The Dixons weren’t religious people and Roland wasn’t sure if he’d ever even met Antwan. Who was he to tell him what was sensible? 

“You know, I can’t believe that woman of all people thinks she can send you here to lecture me. You know what she was like, Augustus, you know what kind of thing she was into. Who was it that sold the boy’s clothes for drugs? Who was it that sold their body to feed their habit whilst their son went to bed hungry? It sure as hell wasn’t me. No, I was the one picking up the pieces.”

Gus shook his head.

“She’s changed, Roland.”

“Don’t give me that,” Roland said, venom dripping from every word. “People like that, addicts, they don’t change.”

It would have been a lie to say that had Roland been aware of the deacon’s own past he would have been less likely to say something like that. In truth, he would have been every bit as likely to say it, if not more so were he privy to that information. The second the words left his lips he saw he’d struck a nerve with Gus for whatever reason and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to work out why.

He searched the deacon’s face for a sign of weakness, a pang of pain or regret, but instead all he found was calm. The brief look of shock his comment had elicited had disappeared as quickly as it had came, rather than lose his cool Gus simply shrugged his shoulders. 

“I did.”

Roland smiled knowingly at Gus, “Yeah, well not everyone has your saintly disposition.”

The deacon leant forward in his seat and placed his hands atop the dark brown desk that Roland was sat behind. The tire salesman eyed him suspiciously as Gus leant towards him, speaking slightly softer than he had previously.

“Look, I can’t tell you not to speak to the boy and I can’t tell you to leave him alone, no one can. Not even Michelle can compel you not to contact him. You’ve done right by the boy, I understand that, but at the very least you need to tone things down a little. If he keeps waving money around the way he is? It’s going to put a target on that boy’s back. There are a lot of desperate folks around here.”

Roland sat impassively and offered little in the way of a response in his facial expressions.

“Are you finished, Deacon?”

Gus nodded and stood up from his seat, “I am.”

“Then I thank you for your visit but I must be getting back to work.”

Roland walked round his desk towards the door to his office and gestured outwards. As Deacon Harris passed him he reached out and placed a hand around his arm and gripped it tightly, pulling him closer to him, he stated as ominously as he could muster. “I shall take your words under advisement.”

He maintained eye contact with Gus for a few seconds before finally releasing his arm. Without a word, the deacon walked towards the parked Prius outside of the building and climbed inside. Once Roland was certain Gus had driven away he returned to his office, sat down at his desk, and let out a frustrated sigh. Who the hell did these people think he was that they could come to his place of work and talk to him like that? He was Roland Spencer, self-made millionaire, and once his investment in Antwan Dixon paid off he’d be the richest man in Pickett County by a country mile. Then no one, not Michelle Lewis, nor Augustus Harris, would tell him what he could and couldn’t do.