"The Scriptures are the great agency in the transformation of character. . . . If studied and obeyed, the Word of God works in the heart, subduing every unholy attribute."3
Branch sat on the front steps of the apartment
house, sweating profusely while she mopped her face, head, and
arms with a yellow towel which she kept handy at all times.
A fire hydrant was open, and the boys and
girls were screaming with delight, dashing through the torrent
of water spewing across the street into the gutter. She knew the
police would come by in a few minutes to shut it off, and she
also knew, after they left, the boys would open it again. This
had occurred several times in the last three days, each time the
cop warned the children that a water emergency was in effect,
but neither she nor they cared about an emergency, it was just
too hot to care about other folks’s problems.
Blanch, who weighed over three hundred pounds,
was wearing green shorts, blue sandals, a purple blouse, and a
red bandana in her long dirty blond hair.
The kids were fighting again. The boys were
pushing the girls and they were pushing back.
“Leave her alone,” she screamed
at Jasper, a black kid who lived across the hall, as he pushed
Celeste, her daughter, out of the deepening puddle that was forming
over a clogged storm drain.
“Mind your own business,” he shot
back.
“She is my business” she swore
“and you leave her alone.”
But he didn’t leave her alone and Blanch
didn’t bother to yell at him a second time. She was just
to hot and tired to bother. Her job as a part time waitress, poor
diet of pretzels and french fires, and chronic bladder infections
kept her constantly in bed, at the doctor’s office, or chronically
on edge. As a consequence, screaming at the neighborhood boys
was simply a way of life for her and them. She felt out of sorts
most of the time and seldom attempted to moderate her feelings,
venting her temper at anyone who bothered her or even looked like
they might bother her.
Hungry, hot, and irritated, Blanch Fonteneau
yelled at her daughter. “Celeste, git over here,” but
her daughter ignored her mother which irritated her even more
and caused an unusually loud outburst of temper. Rising from the
steps, she pointed at her daughter, who was splashing in the pool
of warm water, “Celeste, I said, git over her, its time for
supper and you gotta help me.” When her daughter ignored
her mother for a second time, Blanch’s temper exploded, and
the air was filled with curses, imprecations, and slurs on the
ancestry of Celeste’s absent father. When her mother reached
this stage of anger, Celeste knew, from experience, that it was
best for her to obey. Meekly, the young girl sidled up to her
mother, dripping water every step of the way and allowed herself
to be propelled into the hot, stifling building which reeked of
garbage, sweat, and urine.
Pretty for her age, with long, dark brown
hair that hung to her shoulders, Celeste was everything her mother
wasn’t. Secretly, Blanch resented her for this. Celeste was
still a girl, with just a hint of the blossom of womanhood. She
possessed the prettiest blue eyes and smooth complexion her mother
had ever seen on the face of a ten year old girl, so pretty, in
fact, that she worried about the amorous intentions of the boys
in the neighborhood, especially that pesky Jasper.
“What we gonna eat, Momma,” she
inquired, in an effort to defuse her mother’s ire.
“Jist git goin’,” her mother
replied, propelling her with a large, well rounded hand. “I’ll
think of somethin’.”
They entered their apartment and almost
gagged over the odor from the air well that seemed to admit mostly
cigar smoke and the smell of cooking grease, but, otherwise, was
devoid of anything resembling fresh air. A box fan stirred the
odors while they simmered in the heart, until fully cooked, the
unsavory mixture boiled over.
Mother and daughter bickered incessantly
over everything, and if there wasn’t anything to argue about,
one or the other would invent something.
Blanch fell upon the davenport, turned the
fan full upon her ample form and demanded that her daughter fix
something for supper. “I’m to tired to cook tonight,
besides my feet hurt me somethin’ awful and I’m exhausted
from this heat. You’ve been playin’ all afternoon, git
somethin’ out of the refrigerator, maybe one of them TV dinners,
I don’t care, just fix somethin’. I’m hungry. Bring
me some ice water while your about fixin’ dinner,” she
imperiously demanded of her daughter who sighed her resignation
and complied with her mother’s demands.
“Wish this weather would cool off,”
Blanch peevishly demanded of no one in particular. “Can’t
see why the welfare won’t let us use our air conditioner,
them rich folks cool their houses, don’t see why we can’t
keep ours cool, also. These apartments are terribly hot, can’t
them politicians down town spare some money for our electric bills.
They got lots of money for their fancy projects, but us honest
folks, we gotta suffer with this heat.” She swore expressively,
while Celeste quietly and dutifully prepared two TV dinners in
the oven, thus heating the already over heated apartment even
more.
“We ain’t got enough money for
food and them politicians say they’re gonna cut our welfare
even more, say we gotta go to work, but there’s no work to
be had, but they says we gotta work or they’ll cut our check
even more. Why, we ain’t got enough now and they want to
cut it so’s they can give themselves a raise. Somethin’
ough’ta be done about them politicians. I hate them, sittin’
in their air conditioned offices in that city hall building tryin’
to stiff us poor folks out of our money, they owe us that money,
its ours and we want it.”
Blanch stopped her tirade long enough to
accept her food, staring at it dolefully. “I hate southern
fried chicken and mashed potatoes. What’a got, Celeste.”
The poor girl meekly replied, “Ham
and cheese.”
“Let me have it, I gotta get energy
so’s my poor feet can hold me up while I work that job, so’s
them politicians can sit in them air conditioned offices and spend
our money. Let me have it,” she demanded, ignoring her daughter’s
disappointed look.
Exchanging plates, Blanch continued her
tirade. “Can’t see why I gotta work anyway, my feet
hurt and this bladder infection needs treatment but they say our
Medicare’s goin’ be cut. How’d they expect us to
pay them doctors, I need treatment real bad, but they say there’s
no more money. Why then politicians spend millions on their pet
projects while us poor folks have to beg and go hungry and can’t
get enough medicine and we gotta work to support them city hall
politicians. Celeste it ain’t right, ain’t right at
all. You knows since your Dad left, I tries to raise you right.
I pays the bills. I tries to work but my feet hurt, sore bad,
but do ya think they care, do ya think they have a heart? No heart
at all, just says there’s not enough money, might have to
cut back on food stamps, and Medicare, on electric subsides and
rent and in the middle of the worst heat wave in history, Celeste,
its not fair, not fair at all.” She almost broke down in
tears over the injustice of her situation.
The woman, reclining on the davenport in
front of the only fan in the apartment, opined the misfortune
that left her at the mercy of corrupt politicians who didn’t
care that she had a child to raise, medical bills to pay, and
a job that made her feet hurt.
Celeste left the apartment early to escape
her mother’s tirades and rejoined her friends who were scheming
how to keep the now dry fire hydrant open a little longer.
Blanch switched from channel to channel
on her cable television, looking for the local news. She wanted
to ascertain the real facts concerning the proposed cut in Chicago’s
welfare budget but all she could find were reruns of Jeopardy
or some tawdry cowboy show.
Blanch looked at the wall clock and realized
that it was time to get ready for Wensday evening vespers. She
loved these meetings, the rousing songs, rejoicing, praying in
the spirit, and sermonizing, and besides, the city allowed the
churches to have air conditioning, which tended to increase the
attendance in the summer months.
Blanch struggled into her church clothes,
cursing the heat that caused rivulets of perspiration to run down
her large arms and legs despite the feeble efforts of the fan.
She would have to pray to the Lord to stop the heat, otherwise
her laundry allowance would be exhausted and she without even
enough money to pay the cable. How could she get along without
her television? Why can’t them cheap welfare people at city
hall allow enough money in her welfare check for cable, it doesn’t
cost that much, she grumbled, as she left the apartment, yelling
at Celeste, who was again splashing in the pool of water from
the open fire hydrant that she would be back in ‘bout an
hour.
As she entered the church, the cool shadows
almost took her breath away, and it took a moment to adjust her
eyes to the dark interior. An involuntary shiver ran down her
back, but she relished the break from the heart. Quickly she found
her seat in the crowded sanctuary. Seated near her was a bum who
lived in a doorway several blocks from her apartment. What was
he doing here, she sniffed, wrinkling her nose in disgust at his
smell. They don’t want religion, just taking up the air conditioning
and keeping honest folks, like herself, from enjoying the religious
activities.
Blanch rose to her feet with the congregation
at the invitation for prayer. Joining her the pastor, she fervently
praised the Lord in loud hosannas and amen’s.
The song service came next, affording ample
opportunity to pour her whole soul and body into the rhythm and
emotion of the singing. She swayed back and forth, moving her
head from side to side, getting into the spirit, she called it,
experiencing its raptures to the very depths of her soul while
her body began afresh to perspire from her efforts at religion.
The sermon was about following Christ into
a life of humility and self-sacrifice. This again gave Blanch
an excuse to praise her Lord in loud tones of enthusiasm and joy.
She fervently desired to follow her Lord wherever he might lead
her, joyously expressing herself to that end during the praise
session that followed the conclusion of the pastor’s impassioned
sermon.
At the end of the service, Blanch lingered
to share joyous experiences with other worshipers, noticing that
the bum lingered also, loath, as was she, to reenter the heart
and humidity. What a joy it was to be a Christian, she proclaimed
to her friends. She would follow her Savior into any self-denial
He required of her, if only she could feel His presence as she
had this evening amidst the singing and general rejoicing of the
congregation.
With a sigh, she left the sacred courts
of the most high and walked the several blocks back to her apartment,
cursing the heat and bemoaning the projected Medicare cuts. How
could she possibly make ends meet and afford to send her daughter
to school in the fall? With the expense of new clothes and textbooks
and other school stuff Blanch feared for her economic future.
Tossing her soiled church clothes in the
laundry basket, she donned a light, green floral print house coat,
adjusted the fan, flipped on the television, searched the cable
for something interesting to watch and complained loudly, to any
one who would listen, which many of her neighbors did, thanks
to the air well, that she really couldn’t afford to buy real
chocolate ice cream but had to settle for chocolate iced milk
instead. Life wasn’t fare, Blanch decided, as she settled
into a detective thriller featuring Brad St. Cloud, a dream of
a actor and co-staring some creepy blond actress. With a sigh
of contentment, she savored a large bowl of chocolate ripple ice
cream.
“Life just wasn’t fair.”
Eva awakened with a start. A nameless specter
had terrified her. Glancing about the room she saw nothing but
her normal surroundings. An eight by ten foot room, scarcely large
enough for a double bed, chair, dresser, and wash basin, worn
and dirty rug of an indistinguishable color, a dirty window, and
dim light bulb in a cracked ceiling fixture were her familiar
surroundings. The green cracked plaster walls, the smells, and
choking clouds of cigar smoke from the man in the next apartment
were reassuring. Nothing here to cause the terror that awakened
her.
Eva relaxed and lite a cigarette. Drawing
the smoke deep into her lungs, she puffed contentedly, trying
to remember her dream. What was it?
Her head ached. That didn’t help her
recollecting ability. She rose and poured some warm water into
the basin. Wetting a wash rag, she ran it around her neck. This
gesture seemed to relieve the stifling heat that overwhelmed her
naked body. Drying off, she threw a cotton house coat over her
shoulders, then slumped into the frayed, over stuffed chair, resumed
her puffing, eyed the over head light malevolently, and tried
to concentrate.
Her gaze fell upon the form of a drunken
man laying upon the bed, one arm draped over the pillow, the other
groping for her body, to drunk to notice that she no longer slept
beside him. His pants and shirt were crumpled in the corner while
she shoes and socks were scattered about the room, testifying
to their owner’s haste in removing them. He had fallen asleep
without so much as ascertaining her name.
But what’s in a name. They didn’t
care about her and she didn’t care about them. The nameless
men passed through her room, paid a few bucks to despoil her,
took their pleasure, grabbed their trousers and shirt and departed
without so much as a thank you ma’am, or see you later, honey.
She leaned back in the chair avoiding the
protruding springs and stared at the ceiling as if looking for
inspiration. A hill top. That’s it. She was standing on a
hill top somewhere in the mountains. A lonely spot among the mountains
and desolate wilderness. The birds were at rest, the crickets
had stopped their nocturnal singing, the winds were wrestles,
and fear pervaded everywhere, but fear of what?
The hill was crowded, judging by the low,
whispered conversations on every side. Although she could not
see anyone in the dense darkness she felt their presence. She
felt something else, also. The presence of a nameless terror seemed
to hover over the crowded hill. Listening intently she could make
out some of the conversations. They were whispering as if they
feared being over heard but they were alone.
They were praying. This revelation overwhelmed
her with shame and guilt as she pulled the pink flowered house
coat tighter about her shoulders, while crossing her legs. Tapping
the ash from her cigarette into a paper cut, she watched the drunk
man groping about the bed.
She hadn’t associated with Christians
for many years. Not since that day, nearly a generation earlier,
when she left him. This also troubled her. Why would she be standing
upon a lonely hill top, deep in the forest at night with a bunch
of faceless people who were praying?
A matronly woman of 52, Eva lacked any outstanding
feminine attributes such as the younger girls possessed. Broad
of shoulder, narrow hips, a waistline gone to seed, stout legs,
and long, wispy blond hair, she appealed to a lower class of clientele
who were destitute of the means necessary to retain the services
of the more attractive girls, such as Amelia. Dark brown eyes,
her complexion faded from lack of sunshine, premature wrinkles
appeared around her eyes and forehead and a barely perceptible
double chin did not fail to elicit any but a casual glance from
men who might chance to pass her on the street. Blood red fingernail
polish and lipstick did not enhance her faded charms.
Eva extinguished her cigarette, rose and
tugged at the drunken man’s foot urging him out of bed.
“Come on, honey, its time to go.”
“Ah, Eva, can’t we have some more.”
“Toots, your drunk. Now get off my
bed and out that door before I call Stanley.”
The man yarned, burped, groped about the
bed, found nothing, rolled over and fell on the floor with a thud
and a curse.
Eva drooped the shirt and pants on top of
him, watching in mild amusement as he struggled into his clothes.
Fumbling with his shoes, he caught sight of her in the dim light.
Staggering to his feet, he advanced upon her bathrobe. Side stepping
his clumsy outstretched hands, she opened the door and propelled
him into the hall.
“Ah, Eva,” he protested, “can’t
we go around again.”
“Not tonight, honey,” she replied,
slamming the door and hearing a thud as he fell to the floor where
he would remain until the morning, sleeping off the effects of
a quart of Jack Denials.
Remembering something, she reached beneath
the mattress, extracted the man’s wallet, opened the door
and tossed the empty billfold between his feet.
Double the price. Not bad for an evening’s
work She was satisfied as she deposited the extra cash in the
special account within the Bank of Eva deep beneath the mattress
where it nestled contentedly beside a few other bills received
or liberated from other nameless male visitors who had passed
through her room that evening and on many previous evenings.
The heart made her head ache. Drawing aside
the venetian blinds, she gazed at the street below. Even at 2:45
A.M., there was a constant hustle and bustle in her neighborhood.
There was Erny, the pusher on his favorite corner, servicing an
upscale customer in a late model car, and Ashtray on the make
across the street, and Amelia who lived in the apartment down
the hall. Cute little girl from Nevada. What a shame she had to
end up here, she could do better elsewhere but then maybe the
same thing could be said of her.
A slight movement three stories below caught
her eye as Blanch, a good-for-nothing fat welfare mother slumped
on the steps, fanning herself vigorously. “Can’s sleep,
deary, maybe its all that ice cream you eat. Do you good to go
on a diet, but then maybe I ought to cut back on the strawberry
cheesecake, might improve business. I wonder if she sleeps with
that red bandanna,” Eva giggled, as Blanch yawned, patting
her stomach contentedly.
Closing the blinds, Eva shuddered. Who would
have a 52 year old woman in her condition. She lite another cigarette,
drank some tepid water, sank back into her chair and wondered
if she would have another customer that evening.
She listened to their prayers. Heard their
pleading, their groans, felt their terror and anxiety. What were
they praying about and what was she doing there? A few snatches
of conversation entered her ears.
“O, Lord deliver your children.”
Deliver from what, she thought?
“Dear Father, we plead night and day
with thee.”
Plead for what she asked, scratching herself?
I hope that last guy didn’t leave any unwelcome visitors.
“Your saints cry unto you day and night.”
Crying, she didn’t hear any crying.
Strange.
“Come quickly, Lord Jesus.”
These bits of conversation bothered her.
Jesus! That name troubled her, also. For the last twenty years,
she had deliberately and stubbornly put out of her mind any memory
of that name but here it was, in her dreams, bothering her again.
Could she never forget? Would she never loose the memory of that
day, twenty years ago, as she watched him driving away?
She squirmed in her chair, dropped the cigarette
but into the paper cut, sighed, glanced at the ceiling, whipped
off the perspiration and waited for her next customer.
Dreams or no dreams, she had work to do.
They could wait.
Her next customer was a skinny, freckled
kid from the university. She remembered him from several previous
visits. He was rather kinky, even for Eva’s taste, but she
couldn’t be fastidious, not in her profession, so she opened
the door with a smile and a freshly lit cigarette.
“Hello, Bobby,” she enthused.
“Come back for more?”
Bobby entered the room and wrinkled his
nose which bothered Eva.
“Can’t stand the smell. I can’t
either.”
Bobby undressed, scattering his shoes and
socks across the floor, like a man in a hurry to get onto something
more enjoyable.
As she pleasured him, she detected the faint
smell of marijuana on his breath. Why can’t these men and
boys ever visit her without some form of stimulant or narcotic
as a crutch? They were either high or half drunk. Was she that
offensive that they needed these substances.
Reclining upon her bed, Bobby stroked her
body and satisfied another boyish desire. Laying his head between
her breasts, he gazed at her with those big, brown boyish eyes
of his that reminded her of another boy in a far off place and
time.
She enfolded him in her arms, gently caressing
his forehead as a mother would do with a feverish child, then
smothered it with lip stick kisses. He snuggled deeper into her
embrace, pressing his face into her breasts, feeling her smooth
and tender skin, and sighed contentedly.
Boys, she thought, beneath their macho image,
their all boys in need of a mother. Taking a puff on her cigarette,
she gently stroked him, feeling his tremble of pleasure. Savoring
her power to please and comfort these wayward youth bent upon
a night’s forbidden pleasures, Eva relaxed and closed her
eyes.
There rose before her mind that strange
dream and its terrifying impressions. Again, she could hear those
whispered prayers ascending around her like wisps of vapor on
a dark evening. She involuntarily shivered in the cold air, folding
a garment about her for greater protection against the evening
breezes, and listened more intently.
“Dear Lord, we plead with you for deliverance.
Lord, come quickly, your faithful children cry for deliverance.”
How strange, she mused. She had experienced
nothing in her childhood or adult life that could account for
this dream. Despite their prayers, fear seemed to hang over this
hill top like a fog. It seemed that these faceless voices were
praying as much that the mist be removed as for deliverance, but
deliverance from what? Glancing about her, at the hill top and
enshrouding darkness, she could see or hear nothing to cause fear
or anxiety but these emotions emanated from the praying voices
as clearly as the noon day sun. They were afraid of something,
mortally terrified of some shadowy form or substance but she could
see nothing.
“Come on, Honey, Eva’s tired,
time to go.”
She eased him off her breasts, handed him
his shirt and pants and saw him to the door.
The few dollars he offered her she tucked
securely in the bank of Eva beneath the mattress. After he left,
she filled the basin. The first faint glimmer of dawn filtered
through the blinds. How many more she wondered, before I’m
too old for this occupation. Then what?
Laying upon the bed she lite another cigarette
and puffed introspectively at the ceiling light. She couldn’t
get the seen out of her mind. Those strange voices, how terrifying.
Eva slept while below her apartment, Chicago
awoke to another day of commerce, some legitimate and some illegitimate,
not knowing the lateness of the hour nor caring.
Such evil filled the room and spilled onto
the streets below. An evil presence hovered over Eva, savoring
every moment of her working evenings with a hellish delight. Eva
often felt his presence, but mistook it for stifling heart, hunger,
or some other nameless sensation.
But there was also another presence in that
filthy room. Although she could not discern his form, either,
nor was aware of his watchfulness, a loving and kind personage
stood over her prostrate form. He guarded over her night and day,
watched her coming and going and brooded over his beloved child
with an infinite tenderness
As she lay sleeping beneath the sheet, despite
the waves of heart radiating off the front of the building as
the sun rose, she was the object of controversy.
She slept fitfully dreaming of terror and
prayers mixed together in a puzzle of incomprehension.
The winds were terrifying. Shrieking like
a pack of daemons intent on devouring Easteban, Ismini, and his
two children, as they huddled together. Not having a basement,
he had elected to ride out the storm in his stout above ground
garage. Thunder boomed. Lightening flickered. The winds seemed
to increase in intensity as the hurricane came ashore alone the
Alabama coast. Battering everything in its path with 167 M.P.H.
winds.
Unlike the hundreds of thousands of others
who had chosen to evacuate, Easteban Montoya had decided to remain
but now he thoroughly regretted his rash decision. Terrified beyond
belief, he clutched Ismini and Felisa and Auturo. Sheltered under
a tarpaulin and shielded by their car, he listened to the shattering,
splintering sound as lightening struck a tree in the backyard,
sending limbs and branches cascading onto the metal roof.
Rain rattled against the window. The stout
garage door shifted and banged heavily against its frame then
sagged and fell inward, allowing a deluge of water to soak them
despite the tarp.
The walls shuddered and shifted on their
foundations. The lightening flashed so brightly that he was momentarily
blinded. Peels of thunder rolled against his ear drums with such
ferocity that he involuntarily covered them with his hands. Loosing
his grip on the tarp, it took flight and slammed against a storage
cabinet at the rear of the garage, upsetting several cans of red
and yellow paint that quickly formed an orange pool on the cement
floor.
Another lightening flash. Another thunder
clap. Another tearing, splitting sound as the elm tree fell against
the back wall tearing a gaping whole in the roof. The suffocating
winds swirled around the interior, bringing with them a fresh
Niagara of water, then exited through the smashed door.
Cold, tired, wet, scared, crying, and bruised
the family waited the dawn and the cessation of the hurricane.
However, it would be many long hours before they could relax.
When they thankfully emerged from what remained of their garage
to survey the frightful damage left by Fey, they could only praise
the Lord in awe for their marvelous deliverance.