The Jericho Band (A Short Story)

By Leslie J. Sherrod

Antoine Johnson keeps a horn on his lips and a pretty girl by his hips and believes life is as good as it gets. It's all good, that is, until he overhears the beautiful voice of the doe-eyed church soloist, Melinda Wright, sparking an unshakeable stirring in his soul and challenging all he knows. The people of First Community Church haven't been kind to Antoine or his history, so he's as puzzled as they are when he's drawn back to their pews; first to hear Melinda's sweet singing again, but then for something more.

 

Will the church survive the presence and plans of Chippenbough County's most notorious jazz musician? Not if Sister Florence Taylor, Chairlady of the Missionary Circle, has her say. She is on a mission to put an end to the "heathen hoopla" Antoine Johnson and his ilk bring to their sanctuary. However, Sister Taylor has secrets of her own, sweet Melinda learns, lending to an unexpected crescendo that may be instrumental in getting the church back in tune.  

 

Approx. 8000 words or 30 pages

Original © 2012; Reprint © 2024

• Language: English
• Publisher: Write On Time Publishing, LLC
• Release date: Mar 25, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224073214

Leslie J. Sherrod

Leslie J. Sherrod is the author of seven faith-based novels spanning suspenseful mysteries to lighthearted comedy. A clinical social worker, she aims to address heart matters, soul needs, and social issues, while offering hope and healing – and uplifting escape. When not writing or offering therapy sessions, she's probably planning a trip or daydreaming of one. Leslie also enjoys organizing game nights, walking nature trails, and streaming drama, history, or action flicks. Leslie lives in Baltimore, Maryland with her family and a little dog named Gracie. Learn more about her writing at www.LeslieJSherrod.com.

Book preview

THE JERICHO BAND

(A Short Story)

By Leslie J. Sherrod

THREE TELLTALE SIGNS distinguished the saints from the heathens in Chippenbough County: a picture of the Last Supper framed somewhere in the parlor; clean and pressed Sunday-best clothes waiting on a hook in the closet; and Mahalia Jackson—only Mahalia Jackson—records sitting by the record player. 

By all accounts, Antoine Johnson was a heathen. 

Now, some said it wasn’t the boy’s fault. He had no choice in the matter. If he had a praying grandmother like the rest of the lost souls in Chippenbough, he might have had a chance at being churched—even heathen folk knew to make it into God’s house on New Year’s Eve and Easter. But Antoine had none of the sort. 

The woman he called Grandma was called Miss Candy by everyone else. With facial features that favored Lena Horne’s, she was the shade of a sugar cookie, and she promised the men of Chippenbough that her red-painted lips tasted just as sweet. The only thing she had framed in her parlor was a sign directing her customers to the assorted flavors of women waiting on her second floor. And you better believe those weren’t Sunday clothes hanging in her closets. 

To make matters worse, the woman who bore Antoine was Rita McKnight. An outcast herself, at sixteen years old, she pushed a red, screaming Antoine out onto the perfumed, pink satin sheets of the bungalow known as Miss Candy’s Land.  Dead from a heroin overdose at age twenty, she wasn’t any more of a mother, in the proper sense of the word, than Miss Candy was a grandmother. But this was Antoine’s family, his upbringing, his world. 

And his world meant, at age five and on up, keeping the house clean, the floors polished, and most importantly—his favorite chore—cranking old records of Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith for the waiting clientele of Miss Candy’s Land. 

The righteous of Chippenbough knew about little Antoine and what was happening in that house. They would pass by the closed lace curtains, and their minds would race at the giggles and alcohol and devil music wafting into the nighttime breeze. Stories of sin on top of sin would seep through Sunday morning service at First Community Church, as wives would check to see if their husband’s excuses were true if fathers and sons and nephews had gone to catch some fish in Miller’s Creek at midnight the night before. And did