"True sanctification comes through the working out of the principle of love. “God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.” 1 John 4:16. The life of him in whose heart Christ abides, will reveal practical godliness. The character will be purified, elevated, ennobled, and glorified. Pure doctrine will blend with works of righteousness; heavenly precepts will mingle with holy practices." 14
Eva, looking every bit of her 52 years,
passed unnoticed along the Chicago street. It was safer that way.
Two well dressed young boys, accompanied by two girls, the oldest
of whom seemed to be their leader and was carrying a gun, ran
out of an alley hooting with delight. She didn’t have to
look into the alley to ascertain the cause of their triumph, some
poor drunk or helpless old lady had just lost his or her small
pittance of hoarded wealth. They didn’t need that money,
she thought. What has gotten into children lately. Fighting, cursing,
insolent to adults, bickering and quarreling among themselves,
never satisfied, always looking for mischief and trouble and seldom
disappointed.
An old proverb occurred to Eva as she considered
these silly children. “My son, if sinners entice thee, consent
thou not. If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood,
let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause: Let us swallow
them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into
the pit: We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our
houses with spoil: Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one
purse: My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy
foot from their path: For their feet run to evil, and make haste
to shed blood. Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of
any bird. And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily
for their own lives. So are the ways of every one that is greedy
of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof.”
She loved the old Proverbs of Solomon, never
fully realizing the incongruity of a prostitute quoting scripture.
Pausing to light a cigarette, Eva passed the alley without turning
her head. She didn’t want to see what they left behind for
then she would be responsible and she fervently desired to remain
unnoticed. Let the drunk or old lady fend for herself or himself,
she, Eva, had her own problems. The children, scarcely eight or
ten years old, were rampaging down the street, looking for further
mischief. Perhaps they would find it or maybe not, but she didn’t
care for she was intent upon doing some small amount of shopping.
Two men emerged from a dirty hotel lobby,
holding hands and smiling with some secret shared delight. The
shorter of the two, obviously the female, walked with a slight
mincing step, wigging his hips suggestively, while his taller
companion placed an arm protectively around his lover in an intimate
gesture.
Eva ignored them and walked on.
A fat lady, whom she knew vaguely, and her
friend, were approaching from the opposite direction. Wearing
green pants, a purple top, and a red bandanna in her dirty hair,
she appeared to be talking animatedly vigorously waving her arms
in great excitement. Eva ignored them as they passed by.
Her neighborhood was no stranger to gays
or other assorted life-styles, some might call them perverts,
but an astonishingly large number of respectable people were less
inclined to use this pejorative term these days. While Eva had
seen everything perverse in the last twenty years, this tendency
to call darkness light and light darkness disturbed her.
“Hi Sam,” she said with an ever
so slight flirtatious air, as she entered the small, dimly lit,
whole in the wall grocery story.
“He, Eva. How’s business.”
“I’m glad its cooled off, that
office of mine is too hot to work in.”
He laughed at her use of the word office
to describe her third rate apartment.
“Heard you got robbed the other night.”
Wiping his hands on a dirty apron, the shop
keeper shrugged. “They took $125 but I got a shot at one
of them. Think I might have hit him, too.”
“Good for you,” Eva said. “Sorry
about your loss, though,” she said making her selection of
tomato soup, port and beans, and spaghetti, things that could
be opened and warmed over a hot plate in her small room. The store
was crowded, and poorly stocked, the closely spaced aisles barely
permitting enough room for her to squeeze through without upsetting
the produce. Old wooden floors, dim overhead lightening, a musty
odor permeating the store, reminded her of the old time country
stores of her girlhood. Sam sat on a three legged stool at the
front of the store, constantly wiping his greasy hands on a butchers
apron while guarding the cash register and eyeing everyone who
entered or left, searching for the telltale bulge under the jacket
or sweater that revealed an attempted act of shoplifting.
“That’s all right,” he replied,
“I’ll just swindle someone else to make up the difference.”
They laughed, but she knew he meant it.
He was always cheating Social Security recipients or that blind
man who lived in the next block and earned his living as a beggar,
as did every one else in the neighborhood. It was a fact of life
that you looked out for yourself or no one else would.
“You got any cheesecake,” Eva
inquired hopefully?
Sam gestured toward a cooler. “Guy
dropped off a case this morning, I saved some for you,” he
said wrinkling his nose at the smell of Eva’s heavy perfume.
A woman entered the store and looked furtively
about. “Got any, Sam,” she inquired with a knowing wink.
Eva knew this women vaguely and wondered
why she didn’t purchase her stuff from Ashtray or Erny, but
maybe she feared them and for good reason. It was rumored that
customers of Ashtray’s often ended up dead. His stuff wasn’t
any good, the neighborhood claimed, but he had a thriving business,
nevertheless, with those who didn’t know how he mixed it.
Sam reached behind the cash register, removed
a small envelope, and handed it to her.
“You going pay me this time?”
“You know I can’t pay now, Sam,”
she wined in a piteous voice, “them crooks at city hall been
messing with my welfare check again. As soon as it arrives, I’ll
pay.”
He grunted and handed her another small
envelope. “You better pay. You know what Ashtray does to
his customers? Well, I can do the same thing.”
The woman whined. “O Sam, don’t
talk that way. I gotta have my stuff. I can’t live without
it.”
Sam grunted as the lady sidled out of the
store after purchasing some baby food.
“Wish she would take care of her babies
as well as she takes care of herself,” Eva commented. “Welfare’s
going to take them kids away from her, if she don’t straighten
up soon.”
“I don’t think she cares,”
Sam snorted. “She spends all her money on drugs, very little
left over for the kids. Their probably starving as it is and nobody
cares.”
“Nobody cares about nothing around
her,” Eva commented, as she brought her few purchases to
the check out stand.
Sam involuntarily gagged in the close air
of the store as Eva’s perfume proceeded her by ten feet.
Whipping his greasy hands on his apron, he yelled at two boys
who were moving toward the door. “Hay, you, there, the one
with that bulge under his jacket, put that magazine back.”
But he was too late. The boys ran out of the door before he could
catch them.
Sam swore. “Them boys are always stealing
those adult magazines. Do a good business in that stuff, can’t
afford to loose merchandise that way.”
Eva wrinkled her nose in disgust but didn’t
remonstrate with Sam over the nature of his merchandise. She remembered
her first peek at adult magazines and was definitely put off by
the nude men and women doing indecent things to each other, but
that was before she left home and began her particular line of
work.
“Why do you have to sell child porn,
Sam,” she asked with a sadness to her voice?.
Sam bridled slightly. “Because it sells,
that’s way.”
“But, Sam,” Eva persisted, despite
her recent resolve not to mention the subject, “their only
children. They shouldn’t be exploited that way.”
Sam shrugged. “Its business Eva, besides,”
he said with just a hint of sarcasm in his voice, “are you
virtuous.”
Now it was Eva’s turn to bridle. “What
I do is different.”
“How so.”
“I love the boys who come to me, I’m
their mother, they need someone to look after them.”
Sam snorted again. “Its still child
porn, many of them are under age.”
Eva changed the subject. “Did you hear
about Mini?”
Sam nodded. “Them boys again. They
just won’t leave her alone. Done her in pretty bad, the police
say.”
“How much did they get.”
“Nothing, as far as I know” the
shop keeper commented. “I think they did it just for the
fun.”
Just then several shots rang out, followed
by screeching tires.
Neither of them bothered to look. Such occurrences
were common on the street. Some rival gang settling a score, perhaps
or just more kids looking for mischief.
Eva left the shop a moment later, a small
parcel tucked under her arm, purse securely slung over her shoulder,
eyes roving incessantly from left to right. Using the shop windows
along the street, she scanned in front and behind as well, just
as a small animal would do in the jungle while watching for a
beast of pray.
Returning to her apartment, she dumped the
can goods on her bed, found a can opener, bowl and spoon, and
prepared dinner over a small hot plate stored under the bed, saving
the cheesecake for desert.
Several moments later, a knock sounded on
the door.
“Who’s there,” she shouted,
not bothering to swallow her mouth full of food.
“Open up,” a male voice demanded.
Eva complied without bothering to look at
the man standing in the doorway.
Tall and skinny, sallow, pitted complexion,
a scar on the left side of his chin, drooping eye lashes, and
dirty, yellow stained teeth, made Stanley look malevolent, Eva
thought.
“Hand it over,” he said without
preamble.
Eva set her bowl down, walked over to her
bed, lifted the mattress and emptied the Bank of Eva, handing
him the bills.
He scowled. “Is this all?”
“It was a bad night. You keep sending
me bums and students instead of high paying customers. Can I help
it if they don’t have any money.”
“You check their pockets,” her
pimp demanded, as he stuffed the wad of cash into his trousers,
before tightening his belt?
“Ya, I check them, but mostly their
empty,” she lied.
Stanley wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Don’t
use so much perfume, you’ll asphyxiate the John’s.”
Eva placed both hands on her hips and glared
at Stanley. “I like it, so there!”
“Well,” he paused, “Big John
wants to see you this evening, ‘bout seven. Be ready.”
“Come on, not him. You know what he
wants. He hurts me.”
“But he pays well, that’s all
that matters,” Stanley smirked. “You wanna go on welfare
again,” he taunted?”
Eva sighed, “no,” she said reluctantly.
“Then you do what he wants. He pays
$75. You get half and I get half, just like usual.”
He stared at her with a sardonic smile on
his lips. She knew what he was thinking, he had told her often
enough. “Get rid of some of those pounds, buy yourself a
new dress and you’ll be worth more to me.”
“Get out of her,” she retorted.
He smirked again, “See you tomorrow,
better have the money, he tips well,” he reminded her
“Sure he does, but he hurts me.”
He blew her a kiss as he retreated through
the door, then turned, “but he pays well.”
She slammed the door, as she listened to
his retreating laughter.
Looking at herself in the cracked, dirty
mirror over the wash basin, she grimaced. Maybe I should loose
a few pounds and buy a new dress. I wish he would split the coast
of the dress, its a business expense, isn’t it?
She heard Amelia returning home. Opening
her door, she walked the few steps to her apartment and gently
knocked.
“Come in Eva,” the young girl
replied.
Amelia lived in an apartment much like hers,
bedroom and sitting room combined, no kitchen or bathroom.
“How’s business?”
“Fair,” she replied.
Eva eyed the young girl’s figure with
respect and not a little envy. Bet she earns twice as much as
I do, she thought, men like them young and pretty. Slim and petite,
creamy complexion free of blemishes, good looking legs, sassy
lips and yellowish green eyes, high cheek bones, and a curvaceous
figure meant money, lots of money.
“Want some cheesecake,” Eva offered?
Amelia eyed the confectionery suspiciously,
shrugged, and accepted a small slice served on a pink napkin.
“What kind of perfume are you wearing,”
she inquired?
“Sweet ecstasy, number 7,” Eva
responded, “I like it but Stanley things it might asphyxiate
the John’s. I’m surprise he knows such big words for
such a little man.”
Ameila smiled. “Be careful, he’ll
kill you for those words, his ego won’t tolerate sarcasm.”
“You been in any of the shops lately,”
Eva said changing the subject. “I need a new dress. What’s
in fashion these days? Haven’t bought anything new in several
years.”
Amelia busied herself at the mirror, combing
her long hair before answering. “Well,” she said without
turning, “hemlines are getting longer and skirts are fuller.
You would look well in a long skirt.”
“Thanks a lot” Eva said, eyeing
her black miniskirt and heels, knowing why the suggestion was
made. Her own legs were showing their age.
“You asked me what’s in,”
Amelia commented, turning and smiling at Eva.
The daughter she never had, Amelia Oberlander
from Nevada, never failed to amaze Eva. Cut, bright, reserved
but not shy, direct with her answers, she could have earned a
Ph.D. in most university science programs, but, instead, had chosen
this profession.
“Big John’s coming over tonight.”
Amelia sat down on her bed, motioning Eva
to the only other chair in the room. “He pays well, but he
sure knows how to hurt a girl.”
“You can say that again, sister,”
Eva said. “Last time, he almost broke my arm, never apologized,
just sat there grinning and nearly broke the other one for good
measure.”
Amelia shrugged. “I think he just likes
to hurt women. Maybe you remind him of his mother.”
“Thanks,” Eva said, I needed that.
Do you want to go to an amusement park with me next week?”
Amelia brightened, “That would be fun.
I haven’t had a break for several weeks, besides I like amusement
parts. The roller coasters are my favorite.”
“Amelia,” Eva ventured. “Why
don’t you get out of this business. You could do so much
better with yourself.”
“Didn’t I tell you about my new
job.”
“No,” Eva said with interest.
“What is it, a secretarial job, maybe to some big executive
downtown.”
“Ever hear about Patricia Shearing’s
House of Fantasy and Bondage. They hired me last week. Sounds
fun to me, they say I’m a natural for their upscale clientele.
Starting salary is $17.50 per hour and I can begin on the day
shift. No more bums, no more Big John’s wantin’ to hurt
me. Kind of funny, instead of them hurting me, I get paid to hurt
them. Now, ain’t that a hoot.”
Eva frowned. Not what she had hoped for
this young girl, but at least it was a step above working the
streets for a living and a decent wage to boot.
“Yes, I’ve heard about that place.
They pay well over there, but aren’t you taking a pay cut?”
The two women never inquired into each others income, Eva really
didn’t want to know how much Ameila made. “Maybe sometime
you can tell me about it, but I gotta get ready for Big John.
He doesn’t like being kept waiting. Good luck with you new
job.”
“Iffen you want,” Amelia offered,
“we can go shopping for that dress.” She patted Eva’s
hand lovingly, as if to say, you look just fine to me but us girls
understand Stanley’s motives.
Eva walked back to her room. Big John wasn’t
due for another three hours, but she wanted to be alone. That
dream kept intruding upon her mind, all those prayers. Were they
praying for her, she wondered? Was he praying for her, twenty
years was a long time, but she supposed he might still pray every
day, as he promised he would do when she left.
Lighting a cigarette, she sighed. Feelings
of jealousy rose in Eva’s heart. I wish I had a figure like
Amelia and could get out of this dump into a nice job, even if
it was at Patricia Shearing’s. She hated herself, hated the
men who used her, hated Stanley and his perpetual smirk.
Reclining in the chair, ignoring the protruding
springs, she allowed her mind to wonder. “A new dress,”
she muttered to herself. “Lets see, purple, perhaps, black
with yellow roses, maybe, orange and green. She laughed at the
grotesque picture of herself in an orange and green dress. He
didn’t say what color dress to buy, she frowned.
She heard laughter and looked up to see
several small children frolicking along the country lane on their
way to school. The spring flowers were blooming, the honey bees
were about their business, birds caroled the rising sun, and the
cattle were contentedly munching the new grass. Laying aside her
apron, she walked out onto the porch and gazed over the hills
and mountains, watching the sun gild their summits with burnished
gold while the valleys remained in deep blue/gray shadow.
He stood with his back to her. Manly, broad
shoulders, strong muscles, his arms rhythmically moved back and
fourth as he brushed the horse’s coat until it glistened.
A slouch hat firmly planted on the back of his head, wearing bib
overhauls that held a variety of combs and brushes, every fiber
and ligament of his body bespoke masculine assurance. Her heart
filled with joy at her good fortune to be loved by such a man.
A song of rejoicing burst fourth from her lips, and, lifting her
voice, she joined the birds in sending fourth her praises to the
Lord.
Hearing her soprano voice, he turned and
smiled at her, showing pure white teeth and a face crinkled in
genuine pleasure at beholding his wife. He extended his arms and
she went to him, heart filled with rejoicing. For a long moment,
they embraced while the hoarse and other farm animals looked on
with wonderment.
Eva sighed heavily and extinguished her
cigarette while feeling his love enfolding her in his manly arms,
drawing her close to his chest. She buried her face in his shirt,
smelling the freshness of the outdoors.
“O Father,” she moaned, “I
wanna go home, I wanna go home!”
