Gabriel's Prayer
- While Florence cries in the church, her brother Gabriel prays. And (flashback alert!) remembers.
- He remembers when he used to be a hooligan, before becoming a Christian. On one morning in particular, after some sexy times in town, he thought of his dying mother who always prayed for his soul.
- Gabriel fell against a tree, asking for forgiveness for his wicked ways.
- He heard his mother singing, and he praised God.
- After Gabriel was saved and became a preacher, Deborah helped him out with housekeeping and spiritual chores.
- Gabriel and Deborah talked about Florence, who had gone up north and didn't keep in touch very well. They thought she was proud, and that the Lord would bring her low someday.
- A revival meeting took place in town, with twenty four preachers from all over the country each preaching one night. Gabriel was selected to preach, which was a huge deal for him. Deborah helped him get ready.
- He asked her to sit where he could see her, and she did: front and center. Gabriel had Deborah read from the Bible and preached until a boy in the back came forward to be saved. Success.
- Later, at the final dinner of the revival, Gabriel got to sit with all the bigwig preachers, and he was disgusted by their arrogance.
- One of them made a rude comment about Deborah's rape (what a dirtbag) and Gabriel defended her.
- That night Gabriel asked Deborah to pray for him all week. He dreamed of danger: Satan and all kinds of sexy women tempting him. He woke up and had…uh…"soiled" himself. He washed up, and went back to sleep to dream yet another dream. This time he was on a mountain and a voice told him to climb higher and higher, and then the voice promised him that his "seed" would be like the saints dressed in white.
- Gabriel told Deborah that the Lord told him to marry her. She looked terrified, and then started crying, but said she wasn't afraid.
- Back in the church in New York, Brother Elisha has a holiness attack and everybody sings. Elisha's crying snaps Gabriel back into the present, and he is afraid that it is John who is under the Lord's power; he's relieved when he realizes it's Elisha.
- Gabriel is sad because neither of his sons are at the church tonight (wait… then who is John?). He remembers one who died in a knife fight in Chicago, and he thinks of Roy. He thinks of John as a slave's son, standing where his real son should stand.
- He wants to get up and pray with Elisha, but he just can't do it. He remembers how, when he married Elizabeth, she had already been pregnant with John. He once asked her if she had truly repented of her sin, and she refused to say that she was sorry for having Johnny.
- Gabriel can't help but differentiate between John and his biological sons. He's sure that the promise God made him in his dream had to be about his own children.
- Now Gabriel keeps going down Memory Lane and thinks about Esther, the mother of the first Royal (Roy is short for Royal). She had worked as a servant for the same white family that Gabriel had, and he invited her to church because she was so sinful, running around with all kinds of boys.
- That night Esther showed up at church with her mother, and Gabriel preached as hard as he could. He was really disappointed because Esther didn't come up and pray for forgiveness with him.
- Deborah asked him afterward whether he had invited Esther, but he didn't feel much like talking.
- Later on, one evening before he had to preach, Gabriel and Esther found themselves alone in the house. She'd been drinking, and he offered to walk her home.
- They argued over religion, and then suddenly found themselves having sex in the kitchen. Their affair lasted nine days, which was long enough for Esther to get pregnant.
- When she told him, after they'd already broken up, he was suspicious that the child wasn't even his. She wanted him to leave his wife for her, but Gabriel said that was out of the question. She asked him for money so that she could leave town and start a new life.
- Gabriel stole the money that Deborah had been saving in a box in the kitchen, and gave it to Esther. She left for Chicago the next week.
- Deborah started acting funny, but never said anything. Gabriel earned enough to put back the money he had stolen, and they never discussed the matter. Talk about an elephant in the room.
- In the summertime, Deborah gave Gabriel a letter from Chicago.
- Esther wrote to him that he would pay for his mistake, and that she would not bring up her baby in church because she wanted him to be better than his Daddy. Oof. Burn.
- He crumpled up the letter and asked Deborah what her own letter, from his sister Florence, said. Deborah said that Florence was going to be married.
- Gabriel went back out into the field to preach in other towns, because he felt guilty around all of the people he knew.
- He was disappointed by the cities in the north, where people had wandered from God and led sinful lives. He was especially shocked by the violence of the cities.
- When he came home in the winter, Esther did too. She died in Chicago and her parents went to get her and her baby son. Gabriel and Deborah attended the funeral, and Gabriel prayed for forgiveness.
- Gabriel watched his son grow up from afar, never telling him that he was his father.
- Deborah wondered why Esther named the child Royal. Gabriel knows that it was to mock him, because he had told her about God's promise to him and his plan to name his firstborn Royal.
- To hide his tracks, Gabriel told Deborah that Royal was probably the child's daddy's name.
- Deborah hinted that she was suspicious about the Esther-Royal situation, but didn't come out and say it. She questioned Gabriel while she wrote a letter to Florence (could this be the letter that we found out about from Florence's memories?).
- When the war started up Gabriel prayed that Royal, now sixteen, wouldn't have to go fight; Deborah told him that she heard Royal wanted to sign up.
- Even though Royal didn't go, he left town for the duration of the war to work on the docks somewhere.
- One night, after the body of a black soldier had been found violently murdered, Gabriel went out to find some medicine for Deborah. All of the other black people had stayed home for fear that more black people (like the soldier) would continue.
- Gabriel ran into Royal in the street and begged him to get home for his own safety.
- A couple of years later Deborah told Gabriel that Royal was dead.
- Back at church again (anybody feel like doing the time warp?), John tries to pray.
- He hears a voice telling him that God and salvation are real. He doubts that God can save his family from all of their troubles, but he would like to trade in his father for the Heavenly Father so that he could go over Gabriel's head in arguments.
- The only problem with the idea of reconciling with Gabriel is that John really hates him, and actually kind of enjoys hating his dad.
- He wishes his dad would die.
- Hang on tight, because we're revving up our DeLorean and moving back in time to Royal's death.
- It was raining cats and dogs, and Gabriel walked home to where Deborah lay in bed, sick and old.
- He sat down at the table to eat and she told him the bad news: that Royal had gone to Chicago, fallen in with a bad crowd, and been stabbed one night over a gambling argument.
- Royal isn't coming home, like Esther did, to be buried in the churchyard. He's already buried in a potter's field in Chicago.
- Gabriel started crying, spilling his coffee and wailing. Deborah finally asked him if Royal was his son and he confirmed it.
- Deborah told him that she would have raised the boy as her own if he would have asked, but he never said anything. She told him he had better pray hard for forgiveness.
- Okay, come on back to the church. Gabriel stands up because everyone else is standing over Elisha, who's lying on the ground.
- John stands up, too, and he and Gabriel stare into each other's eyes. Elisha starts speaking in tongues. Gabriel feels John's hatred for him, and silently tells him to kneel.
- John obeys.