Embrace Me (37 page)

“Granted.”

“Well, it's a new day. God was merciful to you.”

“Some kind of mercy.”

“Can you think of a better way He could have done it?”

Sure. One not involving Daisy would be a fine start. Why did He drag her into the mess?

Oh, that's right, I did that all on my own.

“And, Chris, I know what I did was wrong. I hate myself for what I did.”

That's when he gave me the repentance vs. self-loathing speech. “You see, brother, one of the reasons we need repentance so badly is because we need the forgiveness more. Have you asked God for forgiveness?”

“No. It's complicated.”

“No, it isn't. Having been forgiven much, there will be much required of you. You don't like that. None of us do. It's why so many relationships stay in the trash can. Person doesn't want to go say he's sorry 'cause if he does, he's got to stay around and play nice.” That must have been funny to him, because he laughed and laughed.

“Not to mention I don't even deserve to ask after what I did. Daisy's just one of the fallouts, Chris. After a particularly thrilling sermon”—my voice fell in sarcasm—“about how God would bless the people of my church if they gave of themselves for the church building fund, one family gave their entire savings—windows of heaven pour out a blessing and such, right?”

“I know the verse.” He squinted at me.

“A month later the wife came down with MS, and guess what? They didn't have insurance and no savings either. They're in horrible financial shape now. I don't even know what's happened.”

“Brother, if most of those name-it-and-claim-it TV preachers knew, case by case, what havoc they've wreaked across this land, I think they'd never get on the air again.”

“Really? I'll bet they do know. I'll bet they get letters all the time, but they've got planes to catch and bills to pay. And they can always blame it on the other person's lack of faith.”

“Maybe I'm a little more trusting here on my corner.”

“Then count yourself blessed.”

“So you've got to repent, Augustine.”

“I've confessed, does that count?”

“Are you sorry?”

“Yes.”

“Then ask God to forgive you, my friend. Jesus already died for those sins, so why not get the full benefit?”

“I don't know, Chris.”

“Oh, man! If it helps any, you'll still be a sorry, stinkin' old sinner. Does that make you happy?”

I laughed there on sidewalk and a young black woman with skinny little braids falling to her waist glanced at us, shook her head, and then she couldn't help it, she smiled. “You all are crazy.” But it felt like a compliment.

A minute later Chris plucked the flute from its case. “Seems to me, brother, after all the confessing you've done, just do some forgiveness asking, some turning away, and you'll be right with God.”

Sounded like something Monica would say.

He lifted the flute to his full lips, pursed them downward, and the strains of “Be Thou My Vision” floated from the end of the silver tube, rising into the sky like a prayer over all the houses, office buildings, stores, churches, and people.

The next week, a young man from Philadelphia visited The Hotel. Sister Jerusha, a jumbo-sized Sister of Charity, pulled the dread-locked, skinny young man in her arms and said, “Frish, but it's been a long time since you've been down, Shelby.”

Her face flushed and she ushered him into her apartment and made him a cup of tea. She invited me back, saying, “This is Augustine. He needs your help. He's a church boy who needs God again.”

Lord, why oh why did You surround me with frank women? And who says they can't teach men a thing or two?

Shelby told me about his “monastery” in Philadelphia, and it sounded like a bunch of liberal radical idealists who couldn't find anything that satisfied them in normal church circles.

I liked it.

I liked the liberal part because it thumbed the nose at my father. I hate to admit that, but it's true. Even at the best of times it's hard to separate the policy from the purveyor. And it got me up there.

Before I left for Philly I sat by Chris and listened to his flute. “What do you hope to accomplish here?” I asked.

“A mega-church question if I ever heard one. But I'll bite. I like to make people uncomfortable on one level. A black man with Bible verses set up around him will do that. Especially these verses.”

The verses broadcast messages of God's love and care for His creation. Verses like, “Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.” Or, “Your heavenly Father knows what you need before you ask.”

“Why would these verses make people uncomfortable?”

“It's hard to keep someone like that at arm's length.”

True enough.

I went to Philadelphia and unrolled my sleeping bag on a cot. I prayed all the time, steeping myself in communication with God, feeling sorry for my sins, begging God to forgive me, and so gaining the healing I needed. Feeling like an orphan since the age of twelve, I found a loving Father.

Chris was right about a lot of stuff.

He's still on that corner, by the way. Stacy moved her racket down closer to the Inner Harbor.

And the love of God surrounded me, wound through the inner-most portions of my soul. For two years I saw Him in the eyes of the people I served with and the people I served. I saw Him in a loaf of bread and a two-paragraph report that Chandra or Willis or Juan wrote. And we laughed a lot.

Did I tell you about the laughter?

It cleansed me.

I laughed with people who had nothing to laugh about. Who were free from the avarice and the power-hungry beast that still tried to free itself from inside me. I learned more than I taught and so took more than I gave, but for some reason it felt okay.

I realized we are all God's children. Every single one of us.

Val's in Shalom's kitchen with Bobby, a kid from the nearby trailer park. Bobby's fat and mean and by the usual definition, white trash. His parents both rely on welfare with no plans of exiting the system anytime soon, and although Bobby wears ripped, dirty clothing, they always have enough money for beer and cigarettes.

This is where serving the poor gets hard for me and I'll just admit it right now. Helping out the working poor, or the kids of a single mom who messed up but is trying to get her feet back beneath her is easy, even lending a hand to those so burned-out or oppressed they don't know how to rise above it. But it takes some supernatural interference when helping people like Carrie and Billy Morgan, who lie to get their checks and feed their habits rather than their son—Bobby's fat because Twinkies and frozen pizza are cheap. And the school meals aren't much better, burgers and potato nuggets or more frozen pizza, and guys like Bobby aren't about to take the green beans, and who can blame them? I swear they're plastic anyway. For white people, helping out in the ghetto holds a sort of glamour, but ministering to trailer trash with no jobs and a sense of entitlement—well, those people get no respect from anybody.

But there's a Bobby in that trailer who needs to know Jesus is in his corner because his parents sure aren't. They scream at him, yelling obscenities and put-downs for what I wouldn't even consider an infraction, more like a kid just being a kid.

“Shut the —— —— door, you little ————!” Carrie will scream.

No kid deserves that no matter how mean and annoying he is.

Serving the kids—that's my favorite part in all of this. I'd like to think it's the way to break the chain. Even for just a few.

From the darkened hallway I watch Val and Bobby sitting on the worktable as she patiently flips flashcard after flashcard in Bobby's face. He stumbles his way through. Then gets angry with her. He slaps the cards out of her hands.

“Okay, let's take a break.” She hops down off the table and turns her back on him. “Want something to drink? We only have soy milk and tea. And water.”

“I want Coca Cola.”

“We don't have that.”

He crosses his arms. “Well, that's all I'll drink.”

She turns around and crosses her arms. “Go thirsty then, big shot. It's your choice.” And proceeds to make herself a cup of tea. “Go home even. I'm sure it's more exciting there than this gloomy place.”

Gloomy? What's so gloomy about Shalom?

I look around me. Cracked walls, buckled linoleum floors severely lacking that lemony fresh glow you see on TV commercials.

“Anything's better than that trailer.” Bobby.

Now here's the thing. Bobby's been coming around here for a year and he's been nothing but trouble. Scares the other kids off. And when we have feasts, he fills his plate up like a mountain and eats only half of it. If you say anything to him, he flares up and makes a scene.

I guess he thinks he doesn't deserve any pity, or much of anything for that matter, from Valentine. Not with her face the way it is. Maybe she's the first person in the world he's ever felt sorry for. Who knows?

“So, you want that cup of tea?” she asks.

“I've never had one.”

“I'll put lots of sugar in it.”

What I wouldn't give for a cup of that stuff. Nothing but water since Ash Wednesday. What nobody else knows is that I've given up every other edible luxury. I'm so sick of beans and rice, that's all I've got to tell you. And I wonder if this is all really necessary, but I remember how much Christ gave up for me. It causes me to remember. My sacrifice seems pretty pathetic in light of that.

I'm dropping weight quickly. I should write a book,
The Lenten Diet: Just Give Up Practically Everything
. With my luck, it would give me the fame and money I always wanted back in the day. No thanks. I'm not that strong.

Sitting down on the couch in the main room, I miss the wave of gut that, until very recently, used to crash over my belt buckle. I sorta liked it. Drew was so thin. I don't want him to return in any way.

Fourteen days until Easter and then I've got to tell Val. I think. I've been praying and God's still silent. I decided not to ruin what Lent seems to be doing for her. The secret has kept for this many years; it'll keep for two more weeks.

I want to serve her. But I don't know what to do for her other than give her apple turnovers from the bakery over on the square, which I found out she loves. I give her funny cards and keep offering to go on her midnight walks, but she refuses.

Turnovers. God tells me to serve her and all I've got is turnovers.

I turn to Janelle and pick up her reader. She's a first grader with dark, ashy skin and a smile that pretties up even this place. “So, let's see what Al the Alligator is doing today, shall we, Janelle?”

She giggles. “You make Al so funny, Pastor.”

Oh, the south, the south. I was trying to get away from that pastor title, but they just won't let it go! I pat her head. “Well, Al has a personality all his own, doesn't he?”