"God takes men as they are, with the human elements in their character, and trains them for His service, if they will be disciplined and learn of Him. They are not chosen because they are perfect, but notwithstanding their imperfections, that through the knowledge and practice of the truth, through the grace of Christ, they may become transformed into His image." 21
A week after the Chicago welfare riots,
Eva and Amelia were walking toward the subway entrance on their
way to the amusement park.
“You start that new job, yet,”
Eva inquired, as they walked by a blind pan handler with his white
cane, dark glasses, tin can, and car keys bulging from his back,
left pocket.
“Not yet, Amelia replied.
“Bet he has a Lincoln,” Eva commented,
as they passed without offering any coins? They knew him well,
he had worked this particular neighborhood for almost five years
and was reputed to be a good shot with a Colt 45 revolver hidden
in a shoulder holster.
“Hi Eva. You girls going for a stroll,”
he inquired, as they passed.
“How’d you know it was me,”
Eva asked playfully, knowing the answer but she liked to tease
him.
“Smelled you coming, that perfume of
yours is more powerful then the stink from them buses.”
“Thanks Blinker, I needed that.”
Amelia laughed.
“Going to the amusement part,”
Amelia commented, “wanna come?”
“Can’t. Business is pretty good
today.” Then seeing several strangers approaching, he shifted
into his begging mode, “spare a few coins for the blind,
spare a few coins for the blind,” he intoned.
They paused to watch these suckers toss
several quarters into his tin cup.
“God bless you,” he said with
a vacant smile.
“I wonder if he practices that blind
look before a mirror or if it comes naturally,” Eva said
sarcastically.
“He makes a living,” Amelia replied,
“can’t blame him for that. He works long hours, regardless
of the weather, and, besides,” she continued, mimicking his
well rehearsed explanation, “does them rich folks good to
share their wealth with an honest, hard working feller.”
They both laughed at Amelia’s imitation.
Amelia yawned as she glanced at Eva out
of the corner of her eye, concerned for the older woman. “How
you feel today?”
“My neck still hurts,” Eva remarked,
noncommittally.
“He almost killed you, you know.”
Eva hesitated. “Actually, Big John
saved my life.”
Amelia looked puzzled. “What do you
mean.”
“If he hadn’t tied that rope around
my neck, I would’ve jumped out of the window, committed suicide.”
They walked in silence for several moments,
each deep in her own thoughts.
“Was it that bad?”
Eva shrugged, glancing at a high priced
dress shop and a gorgeous purple and black ruffled chiffon gown
displayed in the window. “I hate chiffon gowns.”
“Think Stanley would approve?
Eva laughed. “The students and bums
would have a hard time getting past the lace and ruffles. He only
paid me $50,” Eva commented without emotion, Stanley made
me pay the other $25, said I was holding out on him.”
“Was you?”
Eva glared at Amelia.
Do you think I went to the emergency room
cause I was having a frolic in the hay?”
Amelia apologized. “Sorry Eva, I didn’t
mean to doubt you.”
“He almost killed me. I don’t
know why he didn’t. You seen those heads on his arms?”
Amelia nodded.
“I think their women he killed. Kinda
like them old western gun fighters notching their gun belts every
time they kill someone in a shoot out.”
Amelia shuddered. “And your thinking
you could’ve been the next one?”
Eva shrugged again. “Ya,” she
said simply, then changed the subject. “There’s a bakery
in the next block that sells cheesecake, wanna stop?”
Amelia frowned. “Honey, too much cheesecake
and this here gal goes on welfare.”
Amelia shrugged.
They passed a loan office, advertising the
lowest interest rates anywhere in Chicago.
“Stay away from that place,” Eva
advised. “His interest rates sky rocket the very moment your
late with your payment. I know someone who borrowed $275, ended
up paying $1.475 before he was through. Some low interest.”
“He also has a profitable side business,
doesn’t advertise though. People say he’s good at it,
judging by the fact that he’s not in jail.”
“You mean murder for hire,” Eva
commented nonchalantly?
“Ya, he’ll kill anyone, anywhere,
for a price.”
“And you’ll never stop paying
him for the rest of your life,” Eva replied. “Once he
has that over you, he owns you.”
“Did you hear about that six year old
girl who killed her mother’s boyfriend,” Amelia asked,
as they approached a street preacher.
“Six years old,” Eva exclaimed,
“how did she do it.”
“Her mother allowed her to play with
her gun, without any ammunition in it, of course. Then one day,
she forgot to unload it, bang, he’s dead.”
“So it wasn’t deliberate,”
Eva asked in shock.
“Well,” Amelia replied evasively,
“that’s awful.”
So needless, Eva thought, boyfriend, mother,
and child just don’t mix.
They approached Creeper, their street name
for this particular preacher, so named because of his creepy looks.
Dressed all in black, despite the recent heat, long whiskers and
side burns; black, broad brimmed hat, shinny black shoes, and
black Bible which he thumped for emphasis. He was good for a laugh
or two, both girls thought. They paused to listen for a moment,
and later wished they hadn’t.
“Repent, ye sinners, hell and damnation
are on their way from God as a curse upon this godless city of
heathen sinners.
“Be not wise in thy own eyes:”
he intoned with solemn import that made the two women laugh, albeit
discretely “fear the Lord and depart from evil. It shall
be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones.”
“This means you, ye sinners. God is
calling to Chicago, as he called to Sodom and Gomorrah, of old.
Repent ye sinners before it is eternally too late.”
“Enter not into the path of the wicked,
and go not in the way of evil men.” He paused, and, looking
significantly at Amelia and Eva whom he knew, “this also
means evil women.” His impromptu congregation laughed.
“Avoid it,” he continued, thumping
his Bible, “pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away.
Brothers and sisters,” he shouted, “the Lord is warning
you to repent of your evil ways before it is too late. He extends
mercy to all, repent and receive pardon while it is day for the
night cometh when no man or woman may repent.”
Amelia leaned toward Eva and whispered,
“does he make sense to you.”
Eva shrugged.
“But the path of the just is as the
shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.
The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they
stumble.”
Eva felt acutely uncomfortable and would
have moved on except Amelia was inclined to remain and listen.
“Brothers and sisters, ye sinners,
beloved of God, he is calling you to repent and return to Him
before fire and brimstone fall upon this wicked city.”
“I agree with that, brother,”
someone in the audience shouted.
“What, the fire and brimstone or the
wicked city,” another person shouted.
“Both,” the first man replied,
to the amusement of the crowd that was growing by the moment.
“Men and brothers,” the preacher
cried aloud for all to hear. “Drink waters out of thy own
cistern, and running waters out of thy own well. Let thy fountains
be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. Let
them be only thine own, and not strangers with thee. Let thy fountain
be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth..”
“What’s he talking about,”
Amelia inquired of Eva.
“Us,” was her friend’s response.
“Brothers and sisters, sin abounds
everywhere in this wicked city. Turn from it as you would turn
from an overflowing septic tank. Avoid it.”
“I like sin,” a woman shouted,
“its fun.”
“O sister,” he replied, with sadness
in his voice, thumping for Bible for emphasis, “thou knowest
not what spirit thou art of, for thou wouldest not say such silly
things if thou understoodest thine own heart.”
The crowd laughed at this cutting rebuke.
Eva loved it when he shifted into the old
familiar thous and thines of the Bible.
“Keep thy heart with all diligence;
for out of it are the issues of life,” he thundered, thumping
his Bible for emphasis, “for the heart is deceitful and desperately
wicked and who can know it but God.”
Again Eva would move on, but Amelia remained
intently listening to this unusual man, dressed all in black.
“And why wilt thou, my son,” he
thumped, “be ravished with a strange women, and embrace the
bosom of a stranger.’ Beware, brothers and sisters, evil
lurks on every street and in every house in this wicked city.
Beware the woman with lip stick, standing upon her threshold,
beckoning you into destruction. Whosoever entereth into her house
is not wise and seeketh his own destruction, for such that enter
there, shall not find life.”
“Lets go,” Amelia commented urgently.
“As the old lady once said, now he’s gone from preaching
to meddling.”
Eva remained silent as they passed along
a noisy street, filled with honking cabs, smelly buses, delivery
vans, and choked with people busily intent upon their business.
“He’s beginning to make sense
to me,” Eva finally commented.
“About what,” Amelia replied.
“Why if he doesn’t stop, he could put us out of business.”
“Don’t worry about that,”
Eva replied. “As long as the world lasts, we will always
have plenty of business.”
When Amelia remained silent, Eva continued.
“Tell me about your new job, what do they do at Patricia
Shearing’s house of Fantasy and Bondage.”
“Can you believe it,” Amelia replied
with some incredulity in her voice, “men, and some women,
actually pay a $100 an hour to be tied up and whipped.”
“Big John would do that for $10 an
hour. Why would they pay that much?”
Amelia shrugged. “Some type of sex
thing. Patricia told me during my interview that man get some
type of sexual arousal from being tied up, especially by cute,
sexy woman.”
Eva marveled. “And they pay you to
do that.”
Amelia described what went on at Patricia
Shearing’s until they reached the subway entrance, paid their
toll, and boarded the train.
The amusement part was crowded. Men, hawking
cotton candy pushed through the crowd. Other vendors sold popcorn,
hot dogs, soft drinks or beer. Children screamed while parents
shoved and cursed each other.
Eva watched and marveled. The noise was
deafening. The roller coaster elicited screams of delight and
not a few of fear, while the Ferris wheel, appealing to more sedate
people, propelled its riders high above the fair grounds.
The shooting gallery was popular with young
boys and older men. Wondering along the midway, munching on popcorn,
Eva wondered how many would-be killers were honing their skills
with the rifle, or practicing the knife through.
Pushing, shoving, screaming, popcorn and
soft drinks spilling everywhere, cotton candy in the hair of small
children and clinging to the fingers of fat men and women, whirling,
twisting, spinning, raucous rides filled every corner, luring
and enticing the unwary to part with their money for a momentary
thrill.
Eva watched couple after couple disappear
into the tunnel of love, knowing that what happened in its darkness
could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be called love while
fathers, with children upon their shoulders, navigated the crowd,
seeking rest for their weary feet.
Why did they bring their children hear,
she wondered? Brazenly, men and women, walking hand and hand,
opening shared affectionate glances and kisses, headless of the
curious stares of the prudish. The air was foul with smoke from
a thousand cigarettes, cigars, and joints. Clouds of smoke billowed
above the pleasure seekers, while men hawked teddy bears, trinkets,
jewelry, and cheap imitation Japanese watches made in America.
The heat and stench were overwhelming, especially
in the animal house. Heat and urine made for a nasty nose wrinkling
afternoon. Monkeys jabbered, lions roared, hyenas laughed, birds
squawked, snakes hissed, tigers prowled, jackals cackled over
their dinner. What hideous sights they made, smacking their lips
over some detestable, bloody carcass.
“And this is entertainment,” Eva
commented to Amelia, as they exited the animal house, cleaning
their shoes on a patch of grass that somehow escaped being trampled.
“And this doesn’t include the
elephants,” Amelia replied, also repulsed by the smells and
sights of caged animals, as irritated as the non-caged varieties
with cotton candy in their hair and beer on their breath.
Sitting on a bench, while Amelia went in
search of hot dogs and potato chips, Eva wondered and marveled
at the sights, sounds, and smells of the amusement park.
Straddling the bench, in a positively unlady
like manner, Amelia spread their repast before them. Sampling
a hot dog, smothered in mustard, hot relish, and onions, Eva watched
curiously to see if she could detect the smoke rising form Amelia’s
head, but it must have disappeared in the general smoke and haze
that hung over the fair grounds.
Clowns strutted about doing silly things
to amuse the children. “Are men and women actually paid to
do those stupid things,” Amelia wanted to know, watching
a particularly fat clown, with a red nose, and big green feet,
teasing some babies who cried lustily to the general amusement
of their parents.
“I wonder if God is here,” Eva
asked absentmindedly?
Amelia looked at her friend with an amused
expression. “Did you come here to find God? If you did, then
you came to the wrong place.”
Shoots rang out that made both women jump
in suppressed fear, but it was only the shooting gallery. They
relaxed, somewhat.
“I know a place,” Eva commented
thoughtfully, “I used to live there, where all you could
hear were the breeze and songs of the birds; where the brooks
run clear and babbled among the rocks; where the sky is blue,
and you can actually hear the trees growing.”
Amelia paused in the midst of a mouth full
of hot dog, “where’s that.”
“The Tennessee hills. Their so lovely
this time of year.”
“I hear they have a drought down there,”
Amelia commented, and fires and hurricanes.
“The sun is bright but the days are
cool,” Eva continued oblivious to her friend’s comments.
“The cattle contentedly chew their cubs while boys and girls
frolic in innocent amusement. None of this jolly stuff,”
she waved her hand carelessly at the throng.
Amelia looked deep into her friend’s
face. “You miss those hills, don’t you?”
“Don’t you miss Nevada, the wide
open spaces, the fresh air blowing across the desert and mountains?”
Amelia swallowed before answering her friend.
“Yes, it is pretty out there, but a girl can’t earn
a living there, ain’t many jobs, except in the casinos, and
if you work there, you might as well work here, there’s no
difference.”
Eva impulsively inquired, “are you
happy here, hurting men and getting paid for it?”
Amelia frowned, watching some children teasing
their mother to take them on the merry-go-round, with its fancy
horses and million twinkling lights.
“I wish I could go back,” she
said at last, “but I can’t.”
“Why not,” her friend challenged?
“Same reason you can’t go back,
memories.”
“What kinda memories you got?”
Amelia chewed meditatively for a long moment,
then sighed. “We lived in a little community in NW Nevada,
pretty place, small home town atmosphere, everybody knowing everyone
else, that type of place. Me and my three brothers and three sisters,
kinda a large family, if you know what I mean.”
“Well I was gettin’ ready to graduate
from high school, had pretty good grades, thinkin’ about
going to one of them ivy league collages back east, maybe Dartmouth,
or Princeton.”
Eva interrupted, “what you planning
on studying.”
“I wanted to be a criminal attorney.”
She glanced at Eva for a reaction, saw none, and continued. “My
pappy got himself into some trouble with the law when I was young,
says he was railroaded, sent to the penitentiary for seven years
when I was growing up.”
“Your mother had her hands full raising
seven kids,” Eva commented. “How’d she manage?”
“We ate welfare for several years,
nearly broke her heart, proud woman, you know, didn’t like
handouts. When Daddy got out of prison, he was a broke man. Felt
he could never raise his head again in the community, so we moved
into Arizona, where they didn’t know us, so well.”
“You think your Dad had a bad rap?”
“Don’t know, but maybe a good
attorney could’ve saved him. He had to use one of them court
appointed attorneys who sat around drinking beer all day, getting
paid for defending the poor.”
Eva finished her hot dog and began on the
potato chips, noting an unconscious look of disapproval on Amelia’s
face. “What happened then,” she inquired?
“As I said, I was goin’ to graduate
in the spring, had high hopes of helping people like Pappy, when
I met this boy. He moved into our community the last year of high
school.”
“What was his name?”
“He called himself Heinrich Spengler
the third, or some stupid name like that, we all just called him
Heini for short. He didn’t much like the nick name, preferred
William, but we called him Heini anyway.”
Screams from the roller coaster filled the
air, while the loud speaker squawked music.
“So,” Eva coaxed.
“He raped me,” Amelia replied
calmly, “twice.”
Eva wasn’t surprised. “Didn’t
the police do anything about it?”
Amelia liked mustard off her fingers and
grimaced. “He was the son of the local banker, he owned all
the mortgages in the area. Course they didn’t do anything
about it, besides he had a good attorney, says I enticed him,
that it was conscencual.”
Eva remained silent while all about them
was confusion and mayhem.
“Pappy said I should go away, find
work in some big city where they didn’t know me. His pride
forbade him from helping me. I was a family disgrace, even my
sisters turned their backs on me. Pappy gave me a bus ticket to
Chicago and $50, told me to write occasionally. He left before
the bus arrived.”
“What happened next?”
“I ran out of money,” Amelia replied
simply. “Then I met Stanley. End of story.”
“Why can’t you get a scholarship
and apply to collage, finish your dream?”
Eva looked angry. “You think them fancy
educated folks in them collages would want me in their classes
when they learn about my past?”
“Now, Amelia,” Eva remonstrated.
“You know better then that. Times have changed, nobody’s
goin’ look down their fancy noses at a girl who’s been
raped. Happens all the time.”
Amelia looked doubtful.
“Are you too proud to acknowledge your
past.”
Amelia bristled.
“Your Momma and Pappy were proud, kinda
sounds like all your family was too proud for their own good.”
Amelia was lost for a moment in deep thought.
“I wanna go home,” she breathed quietly, almost lost
amid the shouts of a thousand children.
“Then go home,” her friend replied.
Amelia looked at Eva, saw her own sadness
and turned the question back upon her. “You ever think of
going home?”
“He won’t have me.”
Amelia remained silent for a long moment,
then shrugged, “try some of this,” she said, offering
Eva a mixture of gooey chocolate and peanuts.
The sun beat upon the amusement park, clowns
did their silly things, animals restlessly roared and hissed their
dissatisfaction, vendors hawked hot dogs, children cried, men
cursed, portable radios blared, calliope music boomed from loud
speakers, babies screamed, and, over all, brooded an unseen presence.
Eva watched the roller coaster pause, to
take on another load of thrill seekers, then slowly climb to its
high point before beginning its dizzy plunge, leaving stomachs
suspended and hearts throbbing with excitement.
Children and teenagers screamed at the first
downward lurch of the cars, as they plunged a hundred and fifty
feet earthward. For a dizzying moment, the sun caught faces of
laughing children, scowling parents, arm waving boys and girls,
before the cars, traveling at a frightful speed, plunged off the
rails into a swarm of clowns, toddlers, hawkers, and mothers and
dads intent upon having a good time.
