The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Caught (18 page)

“We definitely did not wait for you,” Denny deadpanned, twitching one corner of his mouth at me. “Just having a late dinner. Come on. Sit.”

Josh filled a plate with leftover latkes and sausage from the warming oven, slathered them with applesauce and sour cream, and sat down. He looked at us suspiciously. “Whassup? ”

Denny shrugged. “Mom and I were just saying it'd be good to talk about your plans for the rest of the summer since this is the last week of sports camps. Your plans for the rest of the year, actually. Not going to college this fall is one thing. But . . .”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Josh stuffed a forkful of latkes into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “Actually, that's why I took the skateboard—to get out by the lake and think. I kinda want to spend a year at Jesus People, but . . . I dunno. It's pretty intense. Most of them live right there in an old SRO hotel, pretty much like dormitory living.Not just singles; families too. Nobody has jobs—I mean job-jobs out in the city, like regular people. They support themselves with their own roofing business. But I like the kinds of ministry they do—housing for the elderly, an after-school program, weekly meal for the homeless, stuff like that. Plus they staff at least three shelters—some for women and children, some homeless, some abused, even a couple of floors for families, trying to keep them together. That really got Edesa excited. She's been visiting some other women's shelters in the city, too, realizing how few of those women have any kind of health care. Or even basic knowledge about self-care. But . . .”

Josh stopped long enough to tackle the rest of his supper. Edesa? Interesting how Josh just slipped her name in there hand in glove. All sorts of questions popped into my head. But the Voice in my spirit overrode my mouth.
Just listen, Jodi.

Josh finally pushed his plate away and gulped the last of his milk. “OK. I know this sounds stupid, but I'm kinda waiting for God to tell me, ‘This is it. This is what I want you to do.' And . . .” He shrugged. “I don't feel sure. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Maybe I should just get a job. I'm trying to pray about it.”

I looked at Denny. Couldn't read his face. A job. Glad
that
got mentioned. Couldn't see Josh hanging around the house for a year, sleeping in, coming in at two in the morning,wasting his time. Uhuh. No way.

Denny scratched the back of his head. “I've never been to Jesus People here in the city. Just Cornerstone a couple of times.” He grinned at me. “Back when we still had eardrums. But it'd be easier to talk about this if we had a little firsthand experience ourselves. Maybe go with you a time or two.”

To my surprise, Josh brightened. “Good idea. How about this Saturday? Edesa and I volunteered to help with their Saturday meal for dinner guests.”

“Dinner guests? ” I was confused. “I thought they did a weekly meal for the homeless.”

Josh grinned. “That's it. Dinner guests.”

I FINALLY WORKED UP COURAGE to call Ruth that week and apologize for spilling the beans about the twins to Ben. Silence thickened on the other end of the phone. “Ruth? ” I'd told myself not to wallow in guilt, that the real problem was Ruth not telling her own husband when she found out. But her silence killed me. “I'm really sorry. It just slipped out.”

She sighed. “Tell me something I don't know.When he starts speaking to me again, I'll let you know if I forgive you. So—what's this I hear about the Baxters moving to Jesus People? A little off the deep end for you, Jodi, no? ”

OK. If Ruth was still speaking to
me
, I'd take that as forgiveness. Just had to set her straight about Jesus People. “Not
moving,
Ruth. Just volunteering this Saturday.”

When Amanda heard what we were going to do that weekend, she wanted to come too.
And
José. Josh called to make sure it was all right and was told some youth group from Indiana had to cancel, so “come on down.”

We arranged to meet Edesa and José at the Wilson el stop—they had to come from Little Village on the West Side—and walk over to the JPUSA shelter. We still had a transit card from the last time we'd ridden the el—on July Fourth weekend, with Little Andy. Not many suit-and-tie commuters on Saturday, but the trains were still half full—Latino grandmothers with giggling grandchildren; teenagers of all shades plugged into their music; young women in short tops and hip-hugging shorts or jeans, their tummies bared to the world; middle-aged shoppers heading downtown. The doors slid open at Bryn Mawr, loaded and unloaded, then slid closed again. Florida's stop.
Wonder how the packing's going . . .

I tugged on Denny's T-shirt. “Um, forgot to tell you. The Hickmans are moving next Saturday. They found a house to rent near Adele's shop. Can you help? ”

Denny gave me that Look. The one that said,
I used to lead a quiet life until you Yada Yadas filled up my schedule.
He sighed. “Yeah, guess so. Far as I know.”

Four more stops. “Wilson,” crackled the speaker. “Wilson and Broadway.”

We piled out and waited until the train pulled away. Edesa and José weren't on the opposite platform. “Let's go down to street level,” Josh urged. “They'll find us there.”

Correction. We found
them
on street level. They'd already arrived and were standing in front of a long concrete wall beneath the el station, gazing at a mural of sorts. Edesa, dressed in a breezy summer shift of yellow and orange, colors that brought out gold tints beneath her mahogany skin, waved us over. “
Hola!
Not your usual gang graffiti, eh? ” she said, waving a hand at the wall. “Some of these taggers are pretty good.”

José was gazing intently at a figure spray-painted on the wall, surrounded by some kind of gang signs. He traced something with his finger. “Josh!
Venido!
”

Amanda, not to be left out, hustled over with her brother. The trio studied something on the wall, talking in low tones.

“What? ” I said when they rejoined us.

“Uh, can't really be sure,” Josh said.

José stuck out his lip. “I'm sure.”

“What? ” Denny, Edesa, and I sounded like a Greek chorus.

José pointed at the life-size drawing of a brown youth on the wall,muscled arms, arms folded, legs apart. “I thought I recognized that drawing—well, the style anyway—but I wasn't sure. Then I saw the signature.” He pointed. Our gaze followed. It wasn't a name. Just a
C
with a slash through it. “I saw it at Cornerstone. That's his signature.”

We looked at each other. “Who? ”

José hesitated as several people walked by. Then he lowered his voice. “Chris,” he said. “Chris Hickman.”

16

S
erving JPUSA's “dinner guests” for the next several hours in their community center chased my emotions around like a cross-country race. At first I felt awkward, feeling rich and privileged and conspicuous even in my jeans and T-shirt beneath the clear plastic apron we each put on. A woman in a security vest greeted people at the door and waved them toward the long tables where we served from big aluminum pans of rice, chicken-something in a sauce, iceberg lettuce salad with a smattering of grated carrots and tomatoes for color, and a yellow sheet cake with chocolate frosting. I thought the greeter was one of the Jesus People, but it became apparent that she herself was a “dinner guest” who had found a way to give back by helping out. The same was true of several men—a hard life on the street outlined in their faces and scruffy clothes—who wiped tables, folded them up, and swept the floor afterward.

My heart ached for some of the younger adults who came through the line. Too young to be living on the street; too old too soon. Some dinner guests ate alone; others chatted with each other, like old friends meeting at the local coffee shop. As far as I could tell, anyone could come to dinner—those living in the shelters or those who just needed a meal. No one was turned away.

The volunteer coordinator—a woman who said she'd been at Jesus People at least twenty years—offered to show us around. The community center had an after-school program and a childcare center for children of shelter residents, so moms (and sometimes dads) could look for work or sell the
Streetwise
newspaper or apply for welfare benefits. I was delighted to see the bright colors of the toys and equipment and the artwork by the children. But my heart sank to my knees again when the coordinator showed us the large residential room for women with children—a sea of bunk beds, the only privacy provided by a sheet or blanket pinned to the top mattress marking off two bunks as “family space.” We were told some of the women were simply homeless, a litany of hard-luck stories or chronic drug abuse. Others had been abused by husbands or boyfriends.
Like Rochelle
, I thought. I couldn't imagine Avis's beautiful daughter here, even though the room was surprisingly tidy.

At midafternoon, the room was mostly empty, except for two little boys playing with action figures on one of the bunks. I stopped to talk. Dwayne and Tremaine, they said. Brothers. First and second grade. I wanted to sit down and read them a story—but we moved on. Just visitors passing through. It made me feel like a window shopper of human misery.

The “family floor” had individual rooms and parents of both sexes. A mannerly black man, maybe thirty, greeted us politely in musical French. Staff? No, said the coordinator. He and his wife and child were shelter residents, immigrants from French-speaking Senegal with no place to go. The floor for single women (no children) occupied two conjoined rooms—one with rows of single bunks, like an army barrack; the other a day room, brightened with colorful walls, comfy couches, a TV, a small kitchen in one corner. At night, the coordinator said, the day room floor was covered with mattresses for overflow who came in from the street “just for the night.”

Later we sat and talked with the volunteer coordinator in her little office. I felt overwhelmed. How did Jesus People deal with this level of stress, day after day after day? Even more, how did homeless women—especially the women with children—survive in a shelter for two, three, even six months?

No wonder Avis didn't want to see Rochelle end up in a shelter. But the tension on her face when we'd talked in the school office several days ago punctuated her words:
“I have to admit, Jodi, I feel caught between my daughter and my husband. I don't know how to do what's best for both of them. A few weeks is one thing. But long term? ”

I reined in my thoughts and tried to concentrate on Edesa's questions about the health needs of the shelter residents. “I am still a student, third year, and have just changed my major to public health. Is there some way I can help? ”

“To tell you the truth,” said the coordinator, “we've got a fair number of resources lined up for our residents, and a lot of available staff. Oh, I don't mean we can't use volunteers—there's always
something
to do and toilets to clean!” She laughed. “But there are other shelters that are woefully understaffed. A new one, Manna House, here on the North Side, is desperate for volunteers . . .” Edesa and Josh leaned forward, listening intently. Amanda and José too. Denny and I looked at each other.

Only on the way home, as we passed that brooding figure spray-painted on the long wall of the Wilson el station surrounded by gang symbols, did I think about Chris Hickman again. The wall bumped my emotions over one last set of muddled hurdles: the art-work on that figure was
good.
The kid ought to have art lessons! But was Chris part of the gang that had taken over this wall?
Oh God, please no.
Should I tell Florida? Wouldn't she want to know? But what if José was wrong?

I leaned against the cool window of the elevated train as it squealed out of the station heading north. The Hickmans were moving in two weeks. Maybe the move was the answer.Give Chris a fresh start . . .

TEMPERATURES HAD COOLED OVER THE WEEKEND to the midseventies by the time we climbed the stairs to the second floor at Uptown Community Church the next morning. Good thing, because by the time kids, teenagers, and visitors crowded into the rows of chairs along with the usual adults, we barely had elbow room. Add muggy hot and we'd probably get mutiny. A couple Uptown women were setting up the Communion table at the front of the room with its special embroidered cloth depicting children around the world. First Sunday of August. Communion Sunday.

Avis, Bible in hand, was talking to Rick Reilly, who played lead guitar in our praise band; she must be the worship leader this morning. Didn't see Peter Douglass—or Rochelle and Conrad the Third for that matter. I swallowed a big sigh.
Here we go again, back to our separate churches, same space, different times . . .

Stu came in with Becky and Little Andy. The toddler with the chocolate-and-whipped-cream complexion waved at me and my heart squeezed. We Baxters had offered to help pick him up each Sunday from his paternal grandmother, who had temporary custody, but Stu had never asked for our help. Just as well. From what I'd heard, his grandmother was rather recalcitrant about getting Andy ready for his weekly visit with Becky. Stu probably put on her
I'm-DCFS-and-he-better-be-ready
persona to get results. Never mind that she wasn't Andy's caseworker anymore.