for Rolando

from the Tao Te Ching:
22
“Therefore the sage holds in his embrace the one thing (of
humility), and manifests it to all the world. He is free from self-
display, and therefore he shines; from self-assertion, and therefore
he is distinguished; from self-boasting, and therefore his merit is
acknowledged; from self-complacency, and therefore he acquires
superiority. It is because he is thus free from striving that
therefore no one in the world is able to strive with him.”

When I was a child, I believed that Jesus walked on water.  I could see his sandaled feet, maybe a hairy leg or two sticking out of a wool robe.  In my mind I could picture the disciples and their awe-struck faces when the see their savior standing in front of them, on the water.  And, of course, his pristine, white hand (since I only saw Jesus as a tall, white fellow in pictures in my Bible and at church when I was young) beckoned them to join him.  Peter tried, but ultimately he failed at something we’re all called to do, maybe because of his lack of faith or maybe it’s because he believed in his mind that it was simply not possible.  Perhaps he chose to believe that walking on water was not possible and that the impossible can never happen.  And then the miracle never happened because he could not or would not humble himself to the experience.  Maybe he fought it all the way.
Most days tend to fall into themselves for me.  I eat the same breakfasts, drive the same routes, listen to the same music, see the same people.  Time tends to have a pace that I can easily follow and that thumps like the heartbeat of a person sleeping.  It’s quiet, consistent, and comforting.  But unremarkable.  I see and expect and I get without any real thought to a past, present or future.  This is because I can predict and expect without any real effort. There is no mystery.  There is no beauty in routine.
No, that’s not true.  When things glide from one thing to another with effortless finesse, I can see how that could be beautiful.  This can happen within the midst of routine.  Like when I wait with my son at the bus stop, and the bus arrives, and he kisses me with his child breath that smells faintly of cookies and peanut butter (even at 7:00 in the morning) and climbs in the bus with his heavy, blue backpack and yellow rain slicker while saying, “Bye, mom,” in a half-thought as he steps on the bus…yes, there is beauty in that.  Or when I drive my usual route to the seminary and college, and I hit no red lights from house to school.  Yes, that is a beautiful moment, also.
But it’s also expected in a way.  I don’t know if those things are miracles.  Maybe they are.  And they are special, of course, but for some reason, I don’t find them memorable unless I consciously try to remember them, like a phone number or an address.  They hide in my subconscious like the quiet details prepared privately in a sacristy of a chapel.  They are forgotten essentials.
Yet the most memorable moments for me are those actions that we see on a grand scale.  It’s during those times when we see the unexpected coming at us, unstoppable and unbelievable.  These things happen fast and graceful, like the hand of God herself moving humanity to its next level in one swift action that transcends anything we could ever hope to experience or achieve in this life or the next.  It’s quick.  It’s meaningful.  It’s powerful.
And when I experience these moments, I know I observe God at work.
In my life there have only been a few moments when I can honestly say I felt that hand of God or I felt that movement from the hand of God.  The first time was when I was six years old and my mother died.  She had been drinking after work with some colleagues and got in the car to drive home.  The police found her car the next morning in the lake; she had driven off the highway bridge right into Lake Ontario.  Everything, the discovery, the funeral arrangements, the wake, the burial, everything was completed in one swift wave of God’s hand.  To this day the memory of her death is a blur; my father tells me that it happened in the course of a week.  In my mind it happened in the course of a day.
Another time I experienced the same feeling when I graduated from my teaching program.  It was my third time in graduate school and by then I had grown accustomed to failure.  I’d left two schools already and by the time I began the third I told myself that I would only take a few classes to improve my teaching experience.  Before I knew it I finished early and with honors.  Graduation happened quickly, painlessly and seamlessly.
Most people believe that only good things can be called miracles.  Good things, meaning events or occurrences that have an obvious happy or positive nature.  But I disagree.  Even moments that seem like curses can come out in one’s favor.  Just look at my mom.  Sure, she died, but it turns out that she was having an affair at the time and my parents, my mother mostly, were in the midst of planning a divorce.  I can’t imagine my parents getting a divorce when I was so young.  Obviously I never really experienced that; Janet did and she said it was the worst experience of her life because she can never reconcile the feelings of anger and disappointment she felt for her mother when she left her family.  I can’t imagine having to feel that.  I’d rather my mother die than have her betray our family.  It was a miracle for me that she died.
The most recent miracle I’ve witnessed did not happen to me; it happened to Rai.  Or maybe it happened to all of us through Rai.  No, it happened to Rai; we observed and he experienced it.  It happened in the chapel… no, it began before his monologue at the chapel, but we experienced it as a community in the chapel.  That’s when we saw the greatness of his choice as he prostrated himself so that God’s hand could wipe the slate clean.
It was in the conference center that I first met Rai.  He sat in my interview.  Immediately I liked him.  He did not come off as rash or arrogant or superior or self-absorbed.  He slouched a little like me as I shook his hand and he smiled a little.  I felt I could relate to him, or that he could relate to me, rather.  Whatever.  Either way he seemed thoughtful and kind and interesting like an enormous oak tree that’s stood in the woods for a hundred years and I knew he would listen to what I would say, even if he didn’t agree with the message.
I also remember the interest he had in putting me in the position of coordinator a few years ago.  We would sometimes talk about the job as if we were planning a vacation or escape from prison.  I told him about what changes we could make to the program and he would simply answer, ‘yes’ without argument or doubt.  His faith in me started my faith in him, and I still have the same faith in him, even to this day, even though I don’t work with him anymore.
He was first one at the college I trusted completely.  Even before Carmen de la Vega, before Sr. Prudence.
During the interview I did not notice his shoes; once he walked me down the stairs, assuring me that I would work for the college later on that month, I noticed something more about him.  He wore different shoes of two different heights because, as I soon noticed, one of his legs was shorter than the other.  But he walked normally, like everyone else, so I never asked him about it and never plan to because he’s probably had enough people ask him about his shoes and his legs already to be damn near sick of talking about it.  Had I not noticed the shoes I would not have noticed anything wrong or different with him.  And besides, at the time I preferred to talk about other issues, like my responsibilities in the classroom and such, so I didn’t care about the shoes.
So I worked with him and everyone else and saw the days falling into one another like I said they so often do with me, and eventually found myself on my last week of work.  At that time, Rai still worked as our human resources representative,  so he knew that I was leaving before most other people did.  And I suspect he knew the real reasons, or at least some of the real reasons, I was leaving but could not or would not say because there was no need to mention what is already known.  We did talk around it, but only within the context of my leaving.
I had asked him for a recommendation on the grounds that I didn’t think I could get one from either Fr. Rafael (whom we all affectionately called Fr. Rael), president of the college, or Dr. Murphy, the academic dean.  And that was partly true.  But the reality was that I didn’t want to ask for a recommendation from either one of them because to do so would require an abnormal amount of humility that I normally do not have.  I could not ask them for a favor when I felt too much anger and frustration for both.  And really, after all that groveling I would have to do, I would still not be guaranteed a proper recommendation I could use when we moved.  So I decided to ask Rai.  And he was kind enough to help.
It’s funny how sometimes after years and years of discussions and requests and emails and meetings with him I never really realized we were friends until that last week.  Classes were almost over except for our English classes.  As so often happened, the administration office scheduled a week of Staff Days in an inconvenient time, this time during our English classes, so that I could not teach and attend the meetings at the same time.  It was annoying at first, then humorous, then insignificant.  And since I knew how important it was to Fr. Rael that all staff attend every meeting, I decided to refrain from arguments and simply be there, even if I had to skip every class I taught.
There were the requisite activities during Staff Days: the day of retreat (from which one needed a retreat by the end of the day), at least one important Mass celebrated by one of the more important priests, a lunch either supplied by the college or by the colleagues who knew how to cook, and several days where we met with our ‘faith sharing groups’.  These groups generally felt like an enormous waste of time, not because of the triteness of the topics, or the insincere way in which Fr. Rael conducted the meetings, but because no one really wanted to truly participate. Often, they ‘shared’ talking about Jesus in vague, muddled ways, skating around religious topics as if they were thin ice, and repeating half-thoughts that they thought they heard in church uttered by their priest so that they would not have to come up with a meaningful response themselves.  By the end of the series of meetings I was bored, they were bored, and I had nothing to say because if I were to say what I really felt I know the reaction would be of shock, fear and denial, not because they disagreed with what I had to say but because they probably would agree with me and this would not be acceptable to Fr. Rael.
But my last week was different.  Normally I dreaded Staff Days like a cleaning from the dentist, but since it was my last week I decided find entertainment in what I usually found pointless and insane.  I arrived at the same time as always, 7:30 am because I had to drop John off at the bus stop like I always did and I had the extra time so it made sense to me to simply go to work.  Also, I wanted to make sure that students arrived in their classes.  They knew I would be in meetings during that last week, but it didn’t mean that all other classes were cancelled.
I arrived with my drink in hand, meaning my ridiculously expensive, 4000 calorie drink from the local coffee shop.  It was on my route to work, and did not take long to order.  I liked ordering something so decadent so early in the morning; it was like having a beer on an early Sunday morning.
Since we did not have to meet until 8:30 am on the first day, the grounds remained largely empty when I arrived.  I was one of the first people on campus, as usual.  I generally liked arriving early because I could take my time entering the building, turning my computer on and finding my books for the morning.  Often, I felt a little like a ghost wandering the buildings, eagerly waiting for people to haunt.  There were only a few people that arrived earlier than me: Agnes typically arrived at 7:00 am or so, mostly because she woke up at 4:00 am with her husband and had nothing else to do but arrive early and read the paper in the cafeteria.  Meanwhile, Dr. Murphy l also would sometimes arrive during that time, unless he was at his church attending Mass, which was often, and Rai would arrive around 7:30 in his beat up purple Saturn which was about 20 years old and boasted peeling paint on both the hood and doors.  Sometimes I would arrive before him and then wait in my car to see that he arrived to unlock the doors.  It felt reassuring to see him pull up in that goofy car day after day and I often felt disappointed if I did not see it in the parking lot, like a the last child to picked up from sports practice.
Again, even with the pit stop at the coffee shop, I arrived at around 7:25.  With coffee in hand and purse on shoulder, I took my requisite route on the sidewalk from the student cafeteria just to the left of my car, towards the college, passing Rai’s purple car, then passing one of the dormitories.  Looking around the tiny campus I saw Rai talking with one of the groundskeepers.  He held his briefcase by the handles and with his other hand he pointed to the newly made patio.  I didn’t say hi because such things do not come naturally to me, but felt once again reassured by his presence on campus and walked to the administration building, to the second floor, and then the language office.
After 8:00 am the staff started to creep in and check email.  I took a quick stroll around the language classes to see that students and teachers were where they belonged at such an early hour and slipped back to my desk to prepare for the day.  I remembered to take a pencil, a paper and the schedule for the week.  The pencil and paper were for doodling and drawing, entertainment mostly.  The schedule was so that I could record Fr. Rael’s inevitable changes to the week; he changed his mind so often it could have been the flavor of the month at Carvel’s and I anticipated there would be something different at the last minute and we’d have to change the schedule.
We met in the Sr. Mary Ellen building for the morning’s reading at 8:30am.  The door to the meeting room was uncharacteristically locked.  As I arrived, Sr. Adelaide stood at the door, looking in the window and peeking around to see if anyone was already in.  She saw me and turned around, “It’s locked.”
I shook my head once and turned my head automatically to the door of the administration building, hoping to see someone with the key.  Carmen de la Vega and Sara came out of the administration building and walked over.  “It’s locked,” repeated Sr. Adelaide.
The sky looked sunny but I could see clouds coming like an inevitable argument that you just can’t win.   At that point Fr. Rael walked out the door of the administration building and wandered over.  The women told him about the door and he looked at Sr. Adelaide, “Sr., why don’t you go find Raimundo and see if he has the key to the door.  I know he’s here because I’ve already seen him around …” his eyes wandered up as they so often did, like a two balloons in the sky sailing higher away from the ground with his voice trailing close behind, until you couldn’t see any of them at all because they floated up way beyond the clouds.
People continued to gather until Sr. Katherine with her thinning hair and acid-washed jeans shorts came out of the administration building with key in hand.  We all filed in the building once she opened the door, then rearranged the tables and seats so that we would be sitting in a circle and we could all watch each other’s faces turn various shades of disinterest and boredom as we talked about things we really did not understand or want to talk about.
I chose to sit directly opposite to Fr. Rael so that I would truly form part of the audience; Sr. Adelaide sat to my left, Carmen de la Vega to my right, Sr. Katherine at the table to the right along with Sr. Bernarda, Br. Frank, Rose and Leo (whom I referred to in my head as ‘the turtle’ because of his striking likeness to an actual turtle).  Edith, Fr. Rael’s secretary, and Sara sat at the table to the left.  We were missing two others: Dr. Murphy and Rai.
“Has anyone seen Patrick and Raimundo?” asked Fr. Rael in his ‘calm’ voice, which sounded fake and contrived, mostly used for large gatherings, along with the smaller meetings and whenever he wanted to sound holy and otherworldly.
“Didn’t you say you saw him earlier this morning?” asked Sr. Adelaide.
“Yes, but I mean now, recently,” Fr. Rael’s voice degenerated into audible frustration, “I mean, he knows we are meeting now, right?”
Just then Dr. Murphy arrived with notebook and pencil.  “Patrick, have you seen Raimundo?” asked Fr. Rael, sounding more like a person and less like a rehearsed message.
“Uh, yeah, he was coming down the stairs when I saw him.”
“Okay, we’ll give him another minute,” his voice returned back to calm.
Dr. Murphy sat down next to Edith and Sara and we all observed silence until we heard the door behind us and turned around.  Rai walked in, again back slouched a little as carried a notebook and looked around for a place to sit.  With no other place to sit, Rai found a seat next to Fr. Rafael and sat down.
Edith passed around the reading for the morning and we sat silently for a minute until Fr. Rael said a prayer to begin the session in his calm voice, “In the name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Father we ask you to descend on us as we begin these Staff Days, during the days leading up to Christ’s ascension into heaven.  Give us the vision to sense Your will and give us the strength and ability to put Your will into action.  We ask this through Christ, our Lord.  Amen.”
“We’ll start today’s session with a reading from the Bible regarding the days before Christ ascends into heaven.  Let’s take about 20 minutes to read the text and then we’ll come back here and discuss our reflections from the reading.”
This was the cue to disappear for a while.  I looked at the reading for a few seconds.  Already Fr. Rael and a few others left their seats and walked out the door.  Even though this was my third time at the Staff Days retreat, I never really knew what people thought during this time, or were supposed to think about.  But I brought my paper with me anyway and walked out the door.
As I looked around outside, the sky was growing more and more cloudy and because of this the buildings did not look as warm and creamy like a cappuccino on a winter day.  Instead they took on a pale gray tone and the sky muddied the trees and the concrete sidewalks as well so that everything took on a grim and gloomy tone.
Watching Fr. Rael walk around the administration building and disappear behind a wall, I decided to take a different route, away from the building and towards the sidewalk that stretched from the administration building to the back door of the campus.   I was close to that door when I saw Rai coming out of the administration building.  He walked directly to me, and I figured he was going to one of the classroom buildings.  But he stopped when he got to me and said hi and we both watched Fr. Rael appear again from the other side of the administration building and then disappear behind a wall.
“We had another talk,” Rai said, sounding a little nervous or distracted and he looked down at the ground as he spoke.
“You mean you and…” I wasn’t sure who the other person was, like I had walked in on a conversation that was already going on.
Rai looked in the direction of Fr. Rael and pointed with his nose, “Him.”
“You mean Fr. Holy?” I asked, meaning Fr. Rael.
Rai nodded.  We called, or rather, I called Fr. Rael Fr. Holy because he always behaved the way people 50 years ago imagined Jesus to be, like in the old movies where Jesus was portrayed as a tall Caucasian who walked around like he were walking on a higher, more important plane than those of us pitiful humans.
“What happened,” I asked, not sure what Rai ment.
“He told me that I wasn’t working out.  I was not the right person for my job.”
“What?” I asked, not believing what I was hearing.
“We had a talk last week and he told me that I had failed the college and I had failed him.  That I have not been successful and that won’t be successful here in the future.”
I glared at Rai.  That sounded weird; like he had made it up at first because normal people just don’t talk like that to others, especially at the college.  But I had forgotten that we were talking about Fr. Rael, a character that was obsessed with the appearance of the college and about how the staff appeared to others.  Indeed, what a character.  In large groups and in front of audiences Fr. Rafael used his ‘calm’ voice and walked around like he were that Jesus from the movies 50 years ago.   But I knew from personal experience that meeting with Fr. Rafael in his office without the audience he became someone else.  He wasn’t afraid to say what he thought, regardless of how it made the other person feel, how cruel the words were or how biased they might have been.  Or maybe it was because he was afraid that he spoke this way.  Either way, it always happened behind closed doors, away from a religious audience, and was never documented.
“He said that.” I confirmed in a more of a statement than a question.
He nodded.
“To you.”
He nodded again.
“Last week.”
He nodded again.
I nodded, shaking my finger at him reminding him of my experience a year and a half before, “Remember last year?”
He turned his head and looked at the cafeteria.  “I’ve been applying to other jobs.”
“Oh?”
“Binghamton University called me a few days ago to offer me a job as the head of ground maintenance around their campus,” he was looking around, making sure no one else was around.
“When do you start?”
“They haven’t said for sure.  But after last week’s meeting I am thinking leaving real soon, even before I get a start date from Binghamton.”
“Can you do that financially?”
I knew that the staff members who worked at the college made very little money because I made very little money.  And even if they had spouses who worked it was very unlikely that they could make enough money to have a proper savings account.
As he nodded, we watched the staff members slowly wander back in the building and I looked at my watch.  It was 9 am.  The conversation finished for now.
Everyone sat down and kept their eyes on their paper, as if we were students and did not want to be called by the teacher because we did not do our homework.  Fr. Rael spoke first because he understood the importance of modeling a task even though he could never transfer that skill outside of religious meetings.  He talked about the reading, giving us just a bit of an introduction to what was happening at the time of the verses.  And then he added a bit of rhetoric to his speech, wondering aloud how the disciples felt and asking himself about what Jesus meant by the specific things he said.  Fr. Rael gave us no simple answers but he added his opinion to the text and then ‘invited’ another person to share.
The process of participation through invitation reminded me a little bit of peer pressure, as if we were each given a cigarette and lighter while the leader lit his cigarette to smoke but saying in between drags that we had the choice of whether or not to smoke but that those who smoked could hang around him.  I never liked peer pressure. Even as a child I never played ‘follow the leader’ or ‘Simon says’ because I believed that it was better to refrain from something if you felt skeptical about even if everyone else did it.  I refused to be part of the herd when the goal smelled fishy or dirty or rotten or tasted funny.
A lot of the staff tried to relate their lives to the verses, including Rai.  He talked about the death of his mother which happened about a year before, and even shared what he had said to her by saying, “Why are you going away?” which I could relate to since I had asked that exact question to my mother when I was young.  Listening to him, I could hear his voice shake and hesitate, and I knew that what he was thinking about did not necessarily match what he was saying.  It’s tough to concentrate on the present when someone harasses you about the past and the future.  So I paid him respect by listening to him and thinking about how his words related to my life.
And after hearing everyone else try to talk about the topic but missing the mark, such as Dr. Murphy’s comments that danced around the verses but did not offer even an ounce of personal reflection, or Carmen de la Vega’s jumbled words that lacked the necessary ingredients to be clearly understood, I think it was probably a welcome change for everyone when I responded to Sara’s invitation to speak by saying ‘I’m passing today’. I was the last person to be invited and the last thing anyone wanted to hear at the end of a long series of invitations was more babbling about something the speaker knew literally nothing about.  So it was probably good to keep my mouth shut.  And we took a break so that we could have coffee or return to our offices to hide until we had to meet again an hour later.
————————————————————————————
On Wednesday morning, before anyone else arrived on campus, I talked with Rai again, near the dormitory closest to the parking lot as he gazed at the flowers and picked one for himself.  It was a rose in full bloom, bright and red and if he had waited any longer I imagined he would have missed such a flower in this stage because it would have started to turn brown and lose its bloom.  He told me that Fr. Rael had been meeting with him for a few months and that Fr. Rael had been saying that he was not living up to Fr.’s expectations and that most likely the college would need to find another person to take over some of Rai’s responsibilities.  “But really, I don’t think he wants me around any more,” explained Rai, gaze to the ground.
“He must have someone else in mind for your job,” I suggested.
“Either way, I’m going to take that job at Binghamton.  I know that I don’t have a start date yet, but I’m ready to go,” he carefully broke the stem in the top, taking care to not touch the thorns and leaving the stem sit in the dirt without its flower.
“Can you do that, I mean financially?” I asked as I did a few days ago.
“I have six months of savings in the bank,” he made a face that wanted to frown but couldn’t because really he had been planning this for some time.
“That’s funny.  Is your wife okay with that?”
“She suggested that I leave early.”
We smiled and watched a few people arrive on campus; Br. Frank arrived with his brief case full of odd papers and got out of his green van he has had for sale since forever.  Sara and Sr. Katherine walked from the parking lot and entered the administration building.  “When are you going to leave?” I asked as we started back to the building.
“Friday.”
“Who knows?”
“You and my wife, and me.”
We walked back to the building giggling because humor was the only sane response to the feelings of inadequacy and humiliation when one is told that he or she is a failure.
That morning once again we received the text, again about coming of the ascension of Jesus, and were told to spend 20 minutes with the text.  Once again, everyone took off.  I sat alone on a bench on the patio of the classroom building closest to the cafeteria.  The sky continued its gray overcast with the colors and the muted tones that were reflected in people’s somber and sober attitudes.  Gazing at the paper, I read another set of Bible verses, again about the coming ascension of Jesus.  What I couldn’t understand was why the disciples couldn’t wrap their heads around the fact that Jesus was dead; at some point they should expect his ‘ghost’ to return to heaven, shouldn’t they.  Nothing lasted forever.  The semester was practically over, the flowers behind the front dormitories were dying.  Spring had almost ended.  The disciples must have known that at some point Jesus couldn’t stay forever.  He had other responsibilities.  He had to take care of the rest of the world.
We returned to the building, and this time we gathered in groups of four.  A few of the members did not appear during that morning which seemed to agitate Fr. Rael a little, but he tried not to show his frustration so he continued to speak in his calm voice, and when we formed groups he and I sat with Carmen de la Vega and Rai to discuss the reading for the day.
In order to identify who would speak first, we decided that the person whose birthday fell first in the year would start.  I thought that since mine fell in June I would not have to speak first, but I was wrong since the other three had birthdays in the fall.  But still, I stuck to my original decision earlier in the week and chose to pass.  I called on Carmen and she dutifully spoke about the text but did not say anything novel so I blanked out for the time she talked.  She called on Rai and again, he spoke about his mother as he looked down at the floor and hands folded on his lap; he then changed the focus on the disciples themselves.  As he rubbed his hands together, legs crossed and gaze now at the wall, he commented on how the disciples stayed together, how they worked together and how encouraged each other to be the best Christians they could be.  Afterward, he called on Fr. Rael to speak about the text.
As Fr. Rael, a large, somewhat overweight man, began to speak, he shifted the direction of where he was sitting so that he faced the group better, and changed positions of his legs.
“Yes, Rai.  The disciples stayed together,” he chuckled a little, “And ‘together’ really is the operative word.”  Fr. Rael smiled to himself and then looked down at the floor.  He shifted himself in his seat.
“You know, it’s never easy when change comes because we’re rarely ever really ready for what will happen.  It’s true that the apostles stayed the apostles and worked together to evangelize and spread the gospel.  But they were, more than anything else, friends.  And friends need to be honest with each other.  I’m sure that the apostles were very honest because they loved each other and wanted the best for each other,” Fr Rafael shifted again, shrinking himself a little in the seat, hands folded at his lap, tucked between his legs, feet crossed at the heels.  It looked uncomfortable as he twisted himself around the chair.
“And sometimes when we love one another we have to tell the truth, you know,” he nodded to himself and twisted himself a little more and shifted his feet so that they sat on the ground on their toes.
“I used to have a problem drinking when I was younger; I mean I drank too much alcohol on occasion.  And a friend of mine one time had to sit me down and tell me the truth.  It was hard; the truth hurt…”he now twisted himself again, this time folding his arms and sitting up at the edge of the chair.
“But I’m glad that my friend did because I needed to know the truth.  I needed to know how to change my life for the better,” Fr. Rael twisted once more, curving his back inward and resting his elbows on his knees and his head on his hands.
“I’m sure the apostles always told the truth to each other, no matter the cost; it’s always better to tell the truth than to continue with a lie,” he then stopped talking.  Even though he was a large, slightly overweight man, he somehow had managed to make himself fit in the chair, scrunching his body to fit on the seat, chin almost to his knees, toes of his feet resting on the floor.
Carmen and I looked at him, both frowning.  Rai continued to stare at the floor.  With her frown, Carmen shook her head mumbled, “Poor Fr.”.  Fr. Rael looked at his watch.  Everyone else had finished sharing.  “Let’s take an hour for lunch and then return here this afternoon for more discussions,” announced he announced, lifting himself off the chair, standing up and returning his seat to the tables in the middle of the room.
“Asshole,” I mumbled, glaring at Fr. as he walked away.
———————————————————————————————————-
It was Thursday morning, before the staff showed up for work, when Rai told me that he gave notice.  The sun shone brightly that morning, as we stood next to the back door to the administration building, waiting for everyone else to show up.
“I told him,” announced Rai, again with another forced frown.
“When?” I asked.
“Yesterday.”
“How’d it go?”
“He said that I was leaving him in a bind because of the summer.”
“But it sounds to me like he wants you to leave.”
Rai shrugged his shoulders.
“When I gave notice,” I said, “I was given some time to think it over…”
“He didn’t even give me that,” explained Rai, looking over his shoulder a little.
“I’m sorry…you know you’ll be missed,” I put my hand on his shoulder and frowned a little because that was all I could do.
Rai shrugged his shoulders again.
The sky turned gray again later that morning when Fr. Rael announced that there would be a change in plans, and we’d meet in the chapel after lunch.  And so when the time came for the meeting, I went around to make sure everyone would attend because I knew of its importance.  It was to be a political statement in the end; a type of peaceful resistance to the abusive management and poor administration that we all knew existed but never mentioned.
We all slowly wandered in the chapel with traces of confusion and concern on our faces because when Fr. Rael announced a change in plans he did so with a sigh and frown, so that the news did not appear happy.  I sat in the back of the chapel like I usually did, to the left of the altar, near the door and the painting of Our Lady because I liked sitting next to her.   It was a piece of art that spoke to me because at the time the cross behind the altar could not and I especially enjoyed the colors, the lines drawn in deep black against the pale complexion of Mary and the blue of her veil.  I could concentrate on her when Christ could not hold my attention.
So I sat as everyone quietly filed in; Sara sat directly next to me because she felt bored and I entertained her.  Others sat in their usual seats because when something confusing happens it is always comfortable to stay in one’s territory.  And so at the end, precisely at the time we were to start, Fr. Rael entered and sat in the middle row, back seat, again bent over and rubbing his hands together while staring at the floor.
Rai walked in the chapel.  Fr. Rael gestured him to go to the pulpit and give the announcement.  And it was sitting there in between Sara and Our Lady that I truly learned about Rai.  He described his experience at the college, that he had worked at the college for 16 years, that he earned multiple college degrees while working at the same time, and that his family at home formed a part of the college’s family.  But mostly I learned about Rai because of what he did not say.  He claimed that God was sending him to another, unnamed place.  He claimed that he was not leaving the college in spirit.  He claimed that the decision was his alone.  Never once did he mention anything else.
There were tears, gasps, looks of disbelief and sadness, and long faces.  Anyone who had anything to say said what they needed to say, expressing their feelings of shock, fear, surprise and sadness.  There were prayers and kind words.  There were hugs and handshakes.  And while all of this was going on, Fr. Rael kept noticeably silent, still and scrunched up in his seat.
I can’t say what he thought at that time, whether he regretted his decision to eliminate Rai from the roster of the staff amid all the tears and fear in the chapel that day.  It was later that Rai, attending my going-away party, told me that Fr. Rael apologized about the way he got rid of him.  But I can’t speak to that because his apology could have been just as false as everything else he had said in that week.
I’d like to say that I believed everything that Fr. Rael told us during that week.  And furthermore, I’d like to say that I believe everything that he told me during my entire time at the college.  There are people at the college I believed at the time and still do.  I still have faith in them and therefore choose to live up to my name.  But it is unfortunate that not only is it impossible for me to believe anything Fr. Rael told us during that last week.  I no longer have faith in him, his vision, or what he said to me during my two and a half years of work at the college, either.
Thinking back to my last day, a rainy, stormy Friday afternoon filled with flash floods and thunder, I remember, amid all the festivities of the party my students gave to me, seeing the both Rai and Fr. Rael walk away in separate and distinct directions.  Fr. Rael walked away in the rain without an umbrella, after having said a polite blessing for me.  I remember his heavy feet sloshing through the deep puddles sinking to the bottom as he made his way hurriedly back to the administration building.  I imagined him returning to the building, looking for paper towels to dry his feet and shaking off the excess water from his suit jacket with no one to help him.  I imagined him sitting alone in wet pants with socks drying on one of the chairs and with no one whom he could talk to for friendship, camaraderie or support.  He couldn’t have felt victorious even though he won.
Not much later, Rai also had to leave.  The rain had stopped by then and what little sun that came out at that point surfaced mostly on the puddles, making them shine and glisten.  Because of the heat and in spite of the storm, the water began to evaporate.  And as he walked away to the parking lot to find his car and drive back home to the support of his family, I thought I could see him walk on top of the puddles with his legs of different lengths and strange shoes.  The humility that he wore in those shoes and in his words and in his deeds raised him so that he could walk on the puddles and not in them, rising to the occasion of his greatness and keeping him dry despite the weather.   It appeared to me at that moment that he walked on that water like Jesus himself and after stood in the parking lot, the very picture of defeat that will forever triumph over it all.  It was another miracle I had witnessed, and one of Christ’s own had accomplished the feat.   It was then that I began to believe.

June 1, 2010
Faith Sandoval Miller

Carlos and Juan quietly exited out of the main dormitory on a cold, early April Friday morning each dragging a rolling suitcase behind them in one hand and carrying a backpack on the other shoulder.  The large, glass doors opened automatically as they walked past the sensors, and the chilly air came at them suddenly as a hawk to its prey.  Even though this was the last day of classes before Holy Week, there was little movement on campus.  Lights were on in rooms because the sun had not yet risen, and a few students walked briskly from the cafeteria to the dormitories or even to classrooms, but most of the campus appeared disserted.
They walked past the old dormitory, now seldom used, the semi-circle driveway, and across Prince of Peace Street to the fenced-in parking lot used by students.  The door to the lot was usually locked and anyone who wanted to enter needed a password, however, the door was left ajar that morning and the two felt fortunate since neither possessed a car and therefore did not possess the pass code to enter.
With a squeak and a pop of a hinge, the two entered the parking lot, stopped and looked around for their ride.  He was not easy to find; most of the lot was full since it was still morning and students had not yet left.  They stood on their tippy-toes and craned their necks, looking for the correct car, a green, 1994 Toyota Tercel, with a broken antenna.
The driver of the car they were looking for waved his right arm above his head in a large and over-the-top gesture so that the two could see where he was.  Once they saw him they slithered their way around the cars, going behind one and around another in order to get to where they wanted to be.  The wheels of the suitcases squeaked and every time a stone was in front of them they bumped over them like a hiccup.  And the backpacks bobbed up and down on their backs in time with each step.
Arriving at the Tercel, they braced themselves for the requisite verbal slap of greetings: “You’re late,” complained Stanley, still wearing his priestly collar.
He walked around to the back of the car and popped the trunk.  Each of the two students gave him a suitcase and backpack.  He put the suitcases neatly in the trunk on the other side of his and then shut it.  “My stuff’s in front.  You two’ll have to sit in back with your backpacks.”
Each student pulled the door and opened the doors in back.  A smell with a mix of gasoline and old, cheap leather seats rushed out the door, meeting both men in the face.  They sat on either side, backpacks on the floor with their feet.  One took his jacket off and left it on his lap.  They both buckled themselves in.
Stanley opened the door to the driver’s seat.  On the passenger’s seat in the front was his suitcase, his backpack on the floor, and top of the suitcase was a pristine, white laptop with the top flipped up.  The screen was black except for stars floating in space.  Stanley sat himself down on the seat, shut the door and started the engine.  The comfortable sound of the engine calmed the mood briefly until Stanley opened his mouth again, “Mass let out 20 minutes ago.  You should’ve just grabbed a banana and toast.”
He put the car in drive and pulled out of the spot and out to the exit.
“Sorry Stanley,” stated Carlos in stacatto, one of the two passengers, “I had to meet with Fr. Brian before we left.”
“What for?”
“He wanted to ask me if I could help out with the open house after Easter.”
“He could’ve just asked you about it after vacation.”
“I think he wanted to find a replacement for Pepe,” said Carlos, almost as an afterthought.
“A replacement for Pepe,” repeated Stanley slowly, in his whisper tone.
Stanley used exactly two tones when he spoke, depending on his mood and anger level.   And since he enjoyed hearing that the seminary needed a replacement for Pepe, he spoke softly to repeat it to himself, celebrating it a little as he pulled out of the parking lot and took a left to leave the city,
The morning felt bleak and sentimental with the heavy fog, rain and budding trees.  Cars floated this way and that, stopping at corners with barely visible red stop signs and smokey red streetlights.   Not seeing much past his own trunk, Stanley turned on his brights and slowed down a little once he hit the first intersection.  He paused, waited for the traces of light in the streetlight to turn green and then took a left to the highway.
Juan looked out the window in silence.  His hands laid in his lap under his jacket folded because of the crispness of the morning, and his backpack sat dutifully at his feet.   He watched the cars slowly swim by like little fish in the sea, in schools.  People dressed in warm weather clothing, heavy coats, knitted hats and heavy gloves walked up and down the street with heads lowered, eyes gazing downward.  Others stood at corners, at bus stops, in the middle of the sidewalk, shivering and looking down the street in anticipation of the warm bus.
Carlos, the other passenger, sank a little in his seat his stomach a little heavy from breakfast.  He usually ate whatever the sisters cooked, black beans and yellow rice with red peppers, brisket and tortillas, ham and eggs.  Rarely did he eat just a banana or just toast.  With a little butter, perhaps, but he didn’t feel satisfied without a feeling in his stomach, his belly needed to feel the food.   Carlos remembered his drink he bought from the vending machine in the lobby of his dormitory.  He pulled the coke from his jacket and put between his legs.   It was still cold and wet from condensation.   The fabric from his pant legs instantly felt a little wet from the drink, but he liked seeing the promise of something for later on so close to him as though it couldn’t get away.
“Can you believe this weather?” growled Stanley loudly, slowing down to 20mph from 30 because of the school zone he entered,  “Even when it’s not raining or snowing in this country it’s still bad weather.  We’ll make bad time getting home,” he shook his head in requisite disappointment.
“Maybe if you turn on the radio we can hear about road problems,” suggested Carlos, shifting the weight of the food in his stomach a little, squeezing the Coke bottle with his legs.
Without answering, Stanley turned on the radio.  The static fuzz brought a familiar comfort that the men knew of as children growing up poor in poor countries.   Stanley turned the radio channel dial back and forth until he could find a station that he could hear, and the fuzz was no longer as loud so that they could hear the objectively-sounding news reporting voices that announced information vital for the morning.
“Traffic is generally heavy and slow this morning due to the fog.   There are a few accidents to report, one of which is on 17 West, just past Veterans Memorial Park and another on 201 right before Johnson City…”
The three celebrated in silence to themselves; the accidents were nowhere near 81 North, the route they needed to go home.  Stanley took his right hand off the wheel and put his index finger on the pad of his laptop and the screen came alive and showed him route 81 North.  He then put his hands on the wheel again and left the radio on.
“You two should buy a laptop, if you can afford one.  They are fantastic,”  Stanley whispered loudly, making sure he brought up his expensive laptop, the new kind that just very recently came out.  They were made smaller, with twice the memory, and pricier than the older versions.  Stanley remembered ordering one about a month before they came out and then waiting in line the day they arrived at the local computer store.  The line of people waiting for the new laptops wrapped around the entire shopping plaza and down to the corner of the next.  Like Stanley, most of the people had never even seen one up close, but the desire for one was viral, and so they couldn’t help but stand in line for the product anyway.  Two weeks ago, during class, he started taking notes in his English class with the laptop so that others could see his new device.  But he didn’t need one to take notes; when he used regular old paper and pen he took messy notes that hinted at poor spelling and language usage; on the laptop his penmanship improved considerably, but the spelling and other language mistakes were much more noticeable.
Up ahead was the highway, the one leading in and out of town.  The three rarely took the road since they never really needed to.  Sometimes they’d go past it to find the grocery store or the theater if an appropriate movie was playing.  And if they had to help out at a parish they’d catch a ride with the priest they were helping.  But the highway wasn’t something they’d normally travel; it was reserved mostly for only certain occasions.
Stanley waited in line with the rest of the cars to take the highway.  He stared out in front, no comments, with his head turned a little to the left, watching the cars go past him in one direction and another.  His large thumb gently tapped the steering wheel. He turned again to his laptop and moved his fat, right index finger around the finger pad until the screensaver disappeared and he could see his map again.  The light turned green; the line slowly moved again.
“Stanley,” called Carlos from the back, prematurely restless, “Why don’t you put on some music; I have a few tapes we can listen to…”
“No, I’d rather listen to news.  You two should also.  We need to pass that test.  We need to practice your listening skills, especially Juan,” he turned his head a little to the rear of the car, “Are you listening?  Juan?  You need to practice your listening,” Stanley spoke louder, turning up the radio a little.
“Uh, yeah,” Juan responded.
Juan peered out the window and watched the cars go by, a little faster now. They weren’t floating anymore down the highway; they stayed on the road, appearing to follow a track like a train.  Juan looked into the cars as he could, imagining the lives of each passenger and what their plans were for each that day.  He moved a little to lean more on the door, feet moving to the right a little, taking up a little of Carlos’ space.   He thought a moment, and then bent over some to find the zipper to his backpack with his fingers.  He unzipped his bag and took out a hardcover book.  Then he opened the book to the bookmarked page with the top tip of the page turned down and looked at the page.  The book was about pope John Paul, his life, and how he was able to forgive his attacker.  The jacket had a picture of the pope when he was alive.  It was the type of book everyone at the seminary had, like the requisite text on Vatican Two or the Holy Bible.
“Can you believe about Pepe and Quico?” started Carlos, finally mentioning the very pink elephant in the car,
“What an idiot,” responded Stanley, shaking his head, “He made a big mistake.”
“Yeah, but you know he’s young, maybe he’ll come back.”
“Nah, they won’t let him back in.  After what he did?  Nah,” Stanley turned his head a little to check traffic and then moved into the left lane, “You can’t behave like that; you have to stay celibate.”
“And Quico?” asked Carlos, “Has he left yet?”
“Yeah, two nights ago.”
“Back to Colombia?”
“Yeah.”
“And Pepe?”
“Back to Mexico,” whispered Stanley slowly, savoring his words and liking himself very much because he had the information before any of the others in the car and because it wasn’t him who got sent back.
Juan pretended to read, but thought of Pepe, that free-spirited, loud-mouthed, quick-to-react personality who just couldn’t sit still.  He couldn’t keep his mouth shut or his hands to himself.   And he had really beautiful hands, long and slender fingers, like an artist almost.  His hair really contrasted well with such light skin.  Such young skin.  Yes, still very young.
There was something that he brought with him to class, or at formation, or even in the cafeteria.  The thought that Pepe was gone from the seminary, really gone, forever… Juan just wasn’t ready for that.  They weren’t great friends; that was true. They never met in each other’s room for study sessions nor did they ever go to the gym to play basketball, go together to the library nor did they even really take the same classes together.  Juan had already been in college, earned a degree in business and then took a U-turn and decided that he’d rather wear vestiments instead of a business suit.  The courses Juan took presupposed previous coursework.  He studied philosophers such as St. Thomas Aquinas or Hagel, and studied theological concepts the trinity or the nature of evil.   Pepe had yet to earn a college degree and so he was still taking classes like basic composition or mathematics.  He had taken many of the courses he needed at his seminary in Mexico but passed only a handful.  No one really knew why Pepe hadn’t passed all the coursework he had taken; but most assumed it was because he was not really ready.
So he never shared a class with him.  From time to time Pepe would wander in Juan’s classroom, just next door from Pepe’s, and would visit Carlos, who had little in common with Pepe but took more than a few classes with him and therefore had more opportunities to be better friends with Pepe.  They would sometimes sit together in the cafeteria or they’d share notes from a class if one of them couldn’t attend.  And whatever Juan knew about Pepe it came through Carlos. Often, he’d share different anecdotes that Juan dubbed ‘los errores de Pepe’ in his head like the time when Fr. Sanchez made Pepe write an extra five pages to the 15 page paper due not too long ago just because Pepe fought with Fr. in class, or when Pepe handed in a project two weeks after it was due, and the time Pepe complained about the fact that the reading homework took over two hours to complete.  Pepe tried to bargain with Fr. Brian often, advocating for a weekend free of homework and in return the students would do extra work during the week.   He voiced every concern he had about the class in class with everyone there, including the professor.  Loudly.
Most of the priests, faculty members and even some students like Stanley felt relief that he was gone, vindication for disrupting class and wasting the professors’ valuable time, but most of all, confirmation that he was simply not right for the priesthood. Still there was something about that boy; one smile or a smirk rather, or just even a roll of the eyes lit up a room and opened the door to possibilities. In so doing Pepe gave himself away as being an advocate for the other side, a threat, an adversary.  Why did he ever have to do something… something so stupid and irresponsible that he got himself kicked out of the seminary?  For good.
He was young; that was true.  And Stanley was right, with such an offense you could never return to the Church.   There were rules; there were laws.  The two were young, but couldn’t follow the basics.   And while Pepe and Quico hadn’t left more than a few days ago, he could already tell that students were already feeling the effects of two missing comrades.
“It’s a shame,” whispered Juan.
“I know,” responded Carlos quietly.
“Do you miss him?”
“Not so much yet.  Maybe when we come back…he was my partner for that project in Fr. Sanchez’s class.” Carlos turned to Juan.
“Did you talk to him?”
“To who? Pepe?”
“No, Fr. Sanchez.”
“Not yet.  I’ll email him when I get home.”
Stanley drove with his left hand on the wheel and right hand on the computer, while trying to listen to both the radio and the conversation in the backseat.  He heard the name Pepe and frowned.  “That boy deserved to be thrown out; he doesn’t deserve to be in the seminary,” Stanley said in his loud, quick, cold tone used to show disagreement and judgement, stepping on the gas and almost hitting the car in front of him.
Stopping the car abruptly, Stanley swore loudly and absentmindedly.  He shook his head, said a quiet ‘oops’ to himself, and turned off the car radio.  He then moved the cursor on his computer with his right index finger until the screen saver vanished.  He found the application where he stored his music and clicked on it.  He chose an appropriately religious song in Spanish and turned up the volume.
The fog started to lift, but it brought the first drops of rain drizzling on the rooftops of buildings and the windshields of cars.  Stanley let out a sigh, took his right hand off the steering wheel to pick up his travel coffee mug, the one he got for free from the seminary the day he arrived, and took a swig.  Carlos and Juan exchanged resigned looks and turned their heads to the windows, watching the very beginnings of very difficult rain shower.

————————————————————————————–
It rained all morning, past the small communities in of older houses and trailer parks, past gas stations and large dairy farms, past vast acres of grass and hills.  The rain sequestered cows under trees for shelter and turned the sky a muddy gray.  Stanley drove silently with only the constant hum of talk radio to break the quiet of the car.   He turned off his music over a hundred miles ago and turned on the radio again to his favorite AM news channel in order to listen to a message that he agreed with and to give his passengers something to do, other than talk about his least favorite seminarian.
Stanley imagined driving alone in his car, listening to Christ on fuzzy starkness of AM radio.  The voice of the son of God sounded like every other on AM, no nonsense and old-fashioned, like he was a throwback from the 1940s. The voice spoke loudly, not really shouting, but more of a salesman’s voice, encouraging Stanley to buy the idea.
“Stanley…” commanded the imaginary radio Christ.
Stanley stayed silent.
“Stanley… this is Jesus…I have something to tell you,” continued radio Christ, “Have you been listening to the two in the back, discussing, whispering?  They feel bad for those two sinners, the ones who were kicked out this week.  Remember them, Stanley?  It’s important for you to pay attention, Stanley, because you are one of the very few who listen to me.  I know you do.  You hear me, and you follow.  I know you do because you are obedient, Stanley.  I know you are.  You are obedient and follow what I say.  I have seen you behave obediently.  I know you’ll betray all others for me.
“Stanley, don’t let them talk behind your back.  You know they are wrong.  I will severely punish that choose to go against nature.   I will punish every one.  You know what I mean, Stanley?  You get it?
“Stanley, you are my right-hand man.   You are my obedient servant.  I need you to argue in favor of my laws.  In favor of the Truth.  You must uphold the Truth, defend it like it was your own child, like it was Me.  Your job is to defend my Truth, to defend me, in every way you can…do you hear me, Stanley?”
Juan continued to read his book on pope John Paul, on how he forgave his attacker.  What was it about John Paul that helped him forgive?  Was it his manner, his obedience to Christ, to the Church?  Juan wasn’t sure.  There were so many words…so many difficult and unknown English words to describe something so complicated.  Juan looked at the chapter title: On Christ’s Suffering and God’s Sacrifice.  God’s sacrifice…God sacrifices his son to free souls… God’s grace establishes our freedom.   ‘Freedom…,’ thought Juan, ‘freedom from pain, suffering, fear…’ he glanced ahead of him to Stanley’s shaved head,” freedom from this car…’  If forgiveness was so essential, where was the forgiveness in Stanley’s final pronouncement ‘he doesn’t deserve to be in the seminary.’  How will Stanley reflect God’s forgiveness when he becomes a priest?
Carlos could no longer wait for his drink.  He had waited and waited.  He waited past the rush hour traffic and a thick fog.  He waited past the start of the rain and past farm animals and green grass, past lonely gas stations under unknown and outdated franchises, past greasy spoons filled with old men suffering boredom and exhaustion of thinking about what had never been and what will never be, past abandoned dirt roads forgotten long ago.  He could no longer wait any more.
So he finally touched the cap, all plastic and dry, curved in just the right areas.  He considered waiting for a second longer but could not.  Then he pulled the bottle from its resting area and gazed at it for a moment.  The red paper on the clear plastic reminded him of blood, how it saturated the paper like an open cut, how it wrapped around all sides of the bottle.  The letters, in cursive, lazily turning around each other, they flowed.  How they flowed around each other, like the red around the letters, like the soda in the bottle, flowing around each other.   It was like cold liquid desire with too much sugar; it was caffeinated bliss floating around itself, desiring to be desired, wishing it could be wished for.
He cracked open the bottle, splitting open the white cap’s hold of the bottle, like breaking and entering; like unraveling a mystery.   At the top the soda gas swirled around itself, foaming a little at the top, but still staying inside.  Within a split second, Carlos removed the cap entirely, put the opening to his mouth and took a big gulp.  After, he moved the cap to his left side, the bottle to his right, extended himself while sinking in a little in the seat, and let out a little belch.
The aftermath of the sip made him feel a little embarrassed, a little weak.  So Carlos stared blankly out the window, mentally examining himself to see what would make him feel better.  Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at Juan, reading his book.  Maybe he could read.  He put the cap back on the soda, turned it tight and unzipped his backpack.  Sticking his left hand, then arm, in the bag, he pulled out a book written by a priest about the priesthood.  He opened the book to the first page (he had not begun to truly read the book) and looked at the cover: an unknown priest.  A friend had lent it to him some time ago and although the book looked interesting, the typeset was too small, the words were too complicated, the topic was too… too dry, maybe.  Too something.
After staring at it for a moment, he shut the book.  Maybe what he needed was to eat, to feel full enough to sit and forget the need to need in order to read  such a cold and slippery fish like his book.
“Stanley,” announced Carlos feeling an empty lump in his stomach, “it’s getting to be lunchtime; can we stop for lunch?  Uh, Stanley?”
Stanley didn’t answer at first; he was still in his imaginary world, listening to the finger-pointing verbal stabs of radio Christ.  And Carlos didn’t want to upset Stanley by calling him out into reality; it’s happened that more than once that Carlos would wake Stanley from his little world, requiring him to interact with others.  This did not usually go over well.
“Uh, Stanley,” Carlos leaned over to the front seat in front of him, and then leaned a little more to tap him on the shoulder.  “Uh, Stanley,”
Stanley breathed in fast; being taken out of his dream world into reality felt to him more like plopping a grape into one’s mouth than being dragged by one’s hair kicking and screaming, which was the feeling he used to have.
More stunned than angry, Stanley looked around quickly to be sure that he was still driving, still at the steering wheel.  Juan cautiously looked from the back of Stanley’s seat and peeked around to see how Stanley would react.
“Huh… oh yeah… what do you want?”
“Uh, we’re a little hungry; can we stop and have lunch?” asked Carlos meekly.
Stanley glanced at the car clock which blinked 11:38am and then at the green lodgings/food/gas sign.  He saw symbols for McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Subway, and IHop, which he hadn’t seen before but would never admit.  Not wanting to chance it with the dubious nature of an unknown restaurant, he decided to choose something more established.
“There’s a Subway up ahead,” responded Stanley quietly, trying to sound like he was speaking from experience, “It’s the best choice.”
The Tercel slid over to the far right lane, slowing down some on the exit ramp, then stopping for the red light, and then following the Subway arrow left to the little plaza that housed Nancy’s Fabrics and a Kim’s Karate Studio, in addition to the Subway.
Stanley found a parking spot right in front of the restaurant and slowly pulled in. He turned the ignition off, put his laptop in his backpack and zipped it up.  Then he pulled it from the floor of the car and opened the door.  Carlos also brought his backpack; Juan unzipped the front portion of the bag, retrieved his wallet and keys, unzipped the bag.  The two then exited the car.
Rain still fell from the sky but in smaller drops that the three barely felt as they entered the restaurant.  The smell of bread and deli meats wafted through the dining area as a round woman in a uniform pulled trays of bread from the top of a storage box to the bottom.   She was the only one in the restaurant, and country music played in the background.
Stanley ordered first.  He walked up to the counter and looked at all the choices: the turkey, ham, bacon, roasted chicken breasts, roast beef, cold cuts in various colors of pink and red.  And the different colors and shapes of cheese, orange American, cheddar, white swiss, round provolone.  “I’ll have…” he started, squinting his eyes and rubbing his forehead a little, not really sure of what he wanted.
“What kind of bread, sir?” asked the woman.
“Uh… I’ll have a ham and swiss,” stated Stanley.  Loudly.
“What kind of bread, sir?” asked the woman again.
“Ham and swiss,” responded Stanley.
“No, the bread?”
“What?”
“The bread.  What kind of bread do you want?”
“Oh.  Uh, I don’t know.
“We have wheat, Italian, honey wheat…”
“Uh wheat,”
“And the meat?”
“Uh…”
Stanley thought a moment, forgetting his original choice of ham and swiss.  “I’ll take the turkey and uh… cheese,”
“What kind of cheese, sir?”
“Cheese.”
“You have to choose the kind of cheese you want,” Carlos explained, pointing out the cheese choices to Stanley.
“I’ll take that yellow one over there,” Stanley pointed to the yellow stack of cheese in the far left corner and stared hard at Carlos a moment.  Meanwhile Carlos looked down at the floor, waiting his turn.
After they finished ordering, the three found a booth and sat down.  Each opened his bag, which contained a sandwich, chips and a napkin.   “Hey Stanley, what town is this?  This isn’t Syracuse yet, is it?” asked Carlos.
“No.  We’re…” Stanley thought a moment.  From his many trips back home, he remembered Syracuse to be a bigger city where they’d transfer from one highway to another; from the 81 to the 90.  The place where they were was more desolate, remote.  No cities, no transfers.
“No, we’re not in Syracuse yet.  We have another hour or so before we get there,” explained Stanley, wondering to himself how long it would take to get to Syracuse and change highways.
So he stopped eating a minute, unzipped his backpack to retrieve his laptop and opened the top so that he could see where they were and the route ahead.
Carlos, feeling particularly chatty and inquisitive turned his head to the woman working behind the counter, “Hey, can you tell us the name of your town?”
The woman, bending over to pick up a tray at the bottom of a rack, “Yeah, we’re in Nedrow,” and she turned to put the tray away.
Stanley gave him another hard stare, and Carlos, so enjoying his sandwich, didn’t notice.  His sandwich, the cold cut special with American cheese and ‘the works’, which meant he ordered all of the vegetables the restaurant offered, except no banana peppers.   Each time Carlos bit into the sandwich, the tangy liquid of the vinegarette, the leafy texture of the lettuce and spinach, the soft blandness of the cheese and the heavy coldness of the salami, with spongy bread on both sides of the equation pleased him.  He chewed, taking some enjoyment in the tastes, flavors and textures all mixing together but did not allow them to linger.  He chewed and swallowed like a cow, like a mongrel, consuming in delightful anticipation of the result.  Even though he enjoyed the process, he looked to his real goal, the joyous feeling of a satisfied fullness at the end.
Juan watched Stanley play with his laptop, ignoring his sandwich at first.  Although Stanley felt some embarrassment at knowing the name of the town, he was silently grateful for the question and the answer so that he could see where they were on the map.  Juan, meanwhile, still thought about Pepe, at the coldness of Stanley’s final words.  Seeing that Stanley was still occupied with his laptop, Juan whispered to Carlos, “Do you have Pepe’s cell number?   I think I want to call him when we get home.”
Stanley looked up when he heard Juan speak and heard something about Pepe.  “Why are you two still talking about that idiot Pepe?  He’s gone.  He’s not coming back.”
“Yeah, but he was a big part of the seminary.  He was a friend to a lot of the guys,” responded Carlos.
“He was a sinner.  He sinned.  He did the unthinkable against Jesus himself.  And that is not a friend that anyone in the seminary needs.”
“Stanley, come on, he was a friend.”
“He was no friend to Christ.  He was evil.  He was the very nature of evil: unbridled and against God’s laws,” Stanley took an angry bite.
“But he provided friendship, and he was funny.  And he helped a lot of the guys.  He helped me with Fr. Lopez’s course last semester.”
“That’s because he took the class in Mexico last year.  And failed it.”
“And he passed it with an A last semester.”
“He’s evil.”
“He’s young.”
“Do not confuse youth with an evil nature.  He is evil.  Look at the way he talked with professors, with superiors.  He wasn’t afraid, wasn’t respectful.  He argued with every one of them.  He had no respect for authority.  He had no respect for God and His authority.”
“He questioned laws in order to understand them better.”
“Yes, and doubted the authority of our superiors.  You don’t do that in the seminary.  You are a soldier of Christ; you must learn to be obedient.  He was not, cannot.  He doubted every professor, every priest.  He did not obey.  That makes him a sinner.  And such a sin, it is simply not forgivable.  His behavior was un-catholic, unchristian, and therefore evil.”
Juan looked down at his sandwich, frowning.  Stanley stared at him a minute, guessing his thoughts.  Then Stanley spoke.
“And you, Juan,” Stanley turned a judging index finger to Juan, speaking louder and quicker, “you didn’t really know him, but I know you liked him just the same.  I saw how you looked at him, like he was some sort of famous actor, like a rock star.  I saw how your face would change when Pepe came to visit.  I know you, Juan.  Liked to see him come in, visit, laugh with this one,” pointing a thumb to Carlos, “You liked him.  You never talked to him, but you liked him just the same.  So you better watch it, Juan, or you’ll be next.”
Stanley finished the last of his sentence, his sandwich and his water.  Then he shut the top of the laptop loudly and walked over to the restroom.  “I have to go, too,” whispered Carlos to Juan, and he began to walk in the direction of the bathroom.
“Can you give me Pepe’s number?” whispered Juan desperately.
“Yeah, in the car,” and Carlos walked off to the restroom.
Juan started to tremble a little.  Confrontations shook him a little; he never liked them.  When he was little, he tried to act as arbitrator until his father left him and the family.  By then, Juan could not stand watching people argue, his sisters, his mother and grandmother, parishoners and the priests.  So he played the delegate of peace, the bridge.  Or at least he tried.
But standing there, alone, he started to feel anger, or was it fear?  No, he felt angry at what Stanley said about Pepe, and about how he argued with Carlos.  What kind of right does Stanley have in judging Pepe, or even him?  He can’t read Juan’s mind.  How would he even begin to know how he feels about anyone?  Stanley… that self righteous, fat, bald, idiot.  What did he know?  For all Juan knew, Stanley was in love with Pepe, just like everyone else.
Juan put his soda and chips in his bag for later; then he zipped up the bag.  He didn’t feel hungry after Stanley’s accusation.  Just then Stanley came out of the bathroom, rubbing his hands.  He looked at the clock above the door of the restaurant.  It read 1:15.
“We gotta’ go.  It’s already after one,” Stanley put his food in the trash and zipped up his bag. Then he started walking towards the door, while Carlos came out of the restroom.
Juan looked at the table and saw the items that the Carlos and Stanley left on the table: an unopened bag of chips, half a soda, and Stanley’s laptop.  Juan thought of how angry that stupid laptop made him feel.  He hated how Stanley takes it everywhere he went, how he brings it out every day in class to take notes, how he uses it in the cafeteria every day and writes only God-knows-what.  ‘He can’t even write,’ thought Juan.  He thought how much Stanley loved that laptop, probably more than God himself.  ‘He doesn’t deserve that computer,’ thought Juan.
As Carlos walked to the table, Juan picked up his chips and soda in a split second decision, “Stanley says it’s late.  We gotta’ go now.”
“Oh,” Carlos, taken off guard, picked up his bag to leave, not noticing the laptop on the table.
“Don’t forget these,” Juan gave Carlos his food as the two left the restaurant in a hurry.  As he held the door open for Carlos to pass through, Juan glanced quickly at the table, then turned his gaze down and walked out the door.
The three shut the car doors hastily.  Stanley started the car without hesitation and speedily backed out.  Juan looked at the restaurant, wearing a trembling frown as the car tried to make up time by speeding to the highway.

———————————————————————————————————–

Stanley kept both hands firmly on the wheel and paid no attention to the speed limit.  His eyes anxiously darted from left to right and occasionally glanced nervously at the blinking clock on the dashboard.  It wasn’t too far ahead that he found the first sign to route 90, a toll thruway that cut across the wide midsection of the state.  He smiled a little at the sign, a sign indeed that he was driving in the right direction and that a change was up ahead.  Ten miles, it said on the sign.  Ten miles to 90.  He turned on the radio to his AM station to hear radio fuzz and a familiar voice.  He hoped it would be Christ again.
Once the car slowed a little (as soon as Stanley saw the sign to 90), Carlos let himself enjoy the comforting feeling of lunch just a minute longer.  During these moments of post mealtime bliss, he liked to sink down in his seat as far as he could go, letting the weight literally drag him down.  His backbone arched a little, he held his head back and closed his eyes.   It was work to carry himself upright, to stand erect, to keep his head above water.  The time after meals was his time, his time to let himself go and recharge for the requirements up ahead.
But once again, he considered the book in his backpack.  The text he had yet to read still sat in solitary in the bag.  Guilt pushed him to take the book out.  Guilt, for not having read such a pious book reminded him of the book and so he did take the book out.  Disinterest pulled him back from opening the cover at once, so he just looked at the cover.  The man in black with the white collar on the cover reminded him of guilt again, and so he opened to the first page.  Disinterest again pulled him back and guided his eyes to the window and he watched the rain turn into drizzle, and then into nothing.  Boredom then invited him to glance again at the book.  Boredom showed him the table of contents, the names of titles, and helped Carlos connect the topics with areas of his life.  Boredom turned in to a sudden interest, and then brought a friend: determination.  It was determination who suggested he check the number of pages.  There were 215 pages, and he started on page five, which meant that there were really 210 pages.  The subtraction gave him relief, and relief held his hand while he started the book.
Juan sank lower in his anger.  How could Stanley act as sole judge of anyone.  Anyone?   We aren’t here on this earth to judge each other, especially other seminarians.  Juan shifted a little in his seat.  “How could he say those things to us,” whispered Juan quietly to Carlos.
“Huh?” responded Carlos, in his staccato voice.
“Stanley.  He said some pretty awful things to us.  About Pepe,” whispered Juan.
“Oh,” recognizing what Juan really was trying to say.  Carlos whispered, while bending down for a piece of paper and pencil, “Look, don’t take it so personally.  That’s Stanley.  That’s what he’s like.”
“It’s horrible what he said about Pepe.  He shouldn’t judge.”
“I know.  But remember what Fr. Sanchez said.  We have to learn from others’ mistakes.  We can’t let it get to us; turn it into a lesson instead.  Learn from his mistakes,” Carlos thought for a second and then continued to speak in a whisper, “Just try not to judge him like he judges others.  Just try not to hurt him.  I mean, we have to try and see Christ in everyone, right?”  Carlos slowly ripped a small corner from a piece of paper in his notebook and wrote down Pepe’s phone number.  Then he gave it to Juan, who looked at the number not knowing what it was.  Suddenly he remembered; it was Pepe’s number.  He put it in his front, right hand pocket.
Carlos turned to his book and continued reading.  The truth was, he wasn’t much of a reader.  He liked movies, television, the Internet.  He liked to be entertained, and books didn’t fall into the category of entertainment.  They had all those words that made you work for the message. But with the blissful sensation of a full stomach and the boredom of the road, the book would do in a pinch.   The chapters had interesting titles like, Joyful Suffering, Christ Our Best Friend and somehow appealed to Carlos.  And so he was reading, but he did not begin with Chapter One.  He liked the notion of having a best friend, but currently could not pinpoint one from the seminary for himself.   Perhaps a particularly sarcastic observer watching Carlos would rudely note that food was his best friend, but the remark would not be taken like a dose of good-natured, light-hearted humor.  It would not be taken well because at the end, underneath the blissful feeling of fullness, the true enjoyment of meals, Carlos knew that food was more of a best friend for him than it should be.
So Chapter Four: Christ Our Best Friend really resonated with Carlos.  He wanted to somehow become a closer chum with Christ and see if he could forget his beloved meals.  As he read the line, “we must see Christ in others to become a better friend to Jesus…” Juan started talking to him.  And unbeknownst to Carlos, he started retelling the chapter to Juan.
Juan sat with the idea of not hurting others.  He didn’t hurt others, not his friends, not his family, not even the others, like Stanley.  ‘Stanley,’ thought Juan, ‘Doesn’t even realize that his best friend, his laptop, is gone…’ Juan looked out of the window.   He considered the laptop as Stanley’s friend, his best friend.  He now lost his friend, maybe his only friend.  It was true that Stanley preferred the company of no one.  He never went to visit other seminarians during downtimes like after Sunday Mass, or Saturday mornings.  He never studied with others, never ate with others, except when the other priests were watching.  Stanley spent all that time by himself, sometimes in his room, other times in the classroom.  He spent as much time as he could alone with his best friend, the computer.
Juan breathed in fast as the idea first occurred to him.  He couldn’t believe it; this was the last thing Juan had wanted to do.  He usually kept his mouth shut when Stanley was around because of it.  Such behavior was unacceptable, simply wrong for seminarians, not to mention the rest of the world.  But Juan had done it, done it to another person.  He had tried to hurt Stanley by getting rid of his best friend.
Juan panicked now, knowing that the longer he waited to tell Stanley, the worse the situation would get.   He had failed to see Christ in Stanley, and as a consequence he caused him pain.  Juan had to fix it, had to get the laptop back.  He had to tell Stanley to go back to the restaurant.
The problem was how to tell Stanley to go back and get the thing back.  Juan didn’t want to tell Stanley outright; it was totally possible that he would get so angry that he’d kick out Juan and possibly even Carlos of the car.  They’d have to find another ride home.  And who knows what else Stanley would do to Juan; he’d probably tell Fr. Martinez and then he’d have to explain why he didn’t tell Stanley about the computer until 40 minutes or so after they left the restaurant.  Juan could easily get himself kicked out of the seminary for something like this.
And he couldn’t tell Carlos; then Carlos would also be at fault.  No, he had to keep it to himself.
Just then, Juan saw the sign on the road that indicated they were very close to the ramp from 81 to 90.  He had an idea.  “Stanley,” started Juan, “Do you know how far we are from Holley, I mean, will we arrive on time, around seven?”
“Of course we’ll arrive by seven.  You two shouldn’t have spent so much time talking at the restaurant; if we do arrive late, it’s because of you two…” Stanley instinctively looked to the seat next to him where the suitcase was, but the laptop wasn’t on the top.
It wasn’t a big deal to Stanley that the laptop wasn’t on top of the suitcase; it must have been in the backpack.  So, with his left hand on the wheel, Stanley leaned to his lower right hand side to unzip the backpack where he kept the computer and felt around lightly in the bag for it.  The inside of the bag was empty, except for a pencil and a small notepad.  His eyes opened wide in a panic and hit his hand on all sides of the bag inside.  It wasn’t there.  Stanley turned his head from the traffic to his bag.  He looked inside.  It wasn’t there.  As he turned his head toward the bag, his left hand turned the steering wheel of the car also turned to the right and swerved hard to the right lane.  The two in the back sat up erect, with eyes darting every which way and hands stiffly grabbing the seat as best they could.
“Stanley, the road!” cried Carlos.
Stanley turned his head back to the traffic and swerved back to the middle lane.  He gripped the wheel with both hands.  He did not have his laptop.
He thought for a minute.  Didn’t he put it in his bag?  Didn’t he throw it in there before he left.  What did he do?  He retraced his steps.  He ate, the two idiots talked about the sinner, he corrected them, finished his sandwich, went to the bathroom, and left.  Maybe one of the other two has the laptop.
“Which one of you has my laptop?” asked Stanley loudly.
“Your laptop?” asked Carlos incredulously.
“Yeah, my laptop.  One of you has it.  Which one?”
“Stanley, I don’t have your laptop.”
“Do you have it?” whispered Carlos to Juan.
Juan shook his head nervously.
“One of you has it.   We need to check,” Stanley searched for an easy exit.
There was one last exit before the change to route 90.  He swerved again to the right hand lane and exited on the ramp.  He looked a minute for a place to stop and then took another right and pulled into a bank parking lot.  He eased his car into one of the parking spaces and stopped.  He turned off the engine.
“Both of you, check your bags.  Be sure you don’t have my computer,” ordered Stanley.
“Stanley, I don’t have your computer,” explained Carlos.
“I don’t have it either, Stanley,” responded Juan.
“Let me see that,” Stanley grabbed Carlos’ bag first with his right hand.  He unzipped it, and raked his fat hand through the bigger storage area, and then the smaller one.   All he found was an extra pair of socks, a notebook and folder for Carlos’ English class, and a small phone.
Stanley shoved Carlos’ bag back on the floor and Juan gave Stanley his bag.  He fished around the bag but again found no laptop.  Next, he picked up his own bag and stuck his head in the computer compartment.   Again, no laptop.
“Where do you think it is, Stanley?  Do you think it’s back at the restaurant?” asked Carlos.
“I thought I put it in my bag.  I thought I remember putting it in my bag,” claimed Stanley.
“Maybe we should go back to get it; I mean…if you think it’s there,” suggested Juan.
Stanley gave a good, long, hard stare at Juan.  He studied Stanley’s face: beady eyes, big nose, short hair (or at least what’s left of it), pudgy cheeks, round chin.  All of it judging Juan.  Did he know?  Could Stanley tell that he had deliberately let Stanley leave his computer at the restaurant?  Just by that comment?  Juan decided to keep his mouth shut, and he drew his gaze downwards to the floor so that he would not meet Stanley’s cold stare.
Stanley turned around and started the engine.  “We have to go back.  I have a paper on that thing.”
“Good idea, Stanley.  I’m sure it’s there,” Juan said absentmindedly.
Shut up, Juan told himself, and he looked again at the floor.
Stanley turned his head to Juan again and narrowed his eyes.  Then Stanley turned his attention to the road; as Juan and Carlos exchanged frowns, Stanley turned left on to 81 South, speeding back to the restaurant.
They made good time racing back to Subway mostly because there was no traffic.  Once they made it back to the restaurant, Stanley found a parking spot he sloppily drove the car in.  Then he stopped the car, turned off the engine and threw the car door open and jumped out.  He didn’t bother to shut the door; he didn’t bother to even take the car keys out of the ignition.
Tearing open the restaurant door, Stanley ran right in, past the end of the line of customers to the very front and talked over the woman ordering a meatball sub.
“Have you seen my laptop?”
“Uh sir?” responded the server.
“Remember me?  I was sitting over there with two other guys,” he pointed to the table where he ate lunch, “and I had a laptop.  I left it here by accident.”
The woman thought a moment, then she walked to the back room.  When she came out, she was holding the computer under her arm.  “Is this it?” she asked in monotone.
“Yeah,” Stanley’s eyes grew bigger and he held out his arms to retrieve his friend.
Without even a thank you, Stanley took the laptop from the server, turned around and flew out of the restaurant like a bat out of hell.  He threw himself back in the car, shut the door and started the engine.  Once again, they speedily turned on to 81 North with a screech from the tires in the hopes of arriving home before nightfall.
They made good time from Subway to 90 West, and then had to slow down to 55 since the police were known to patrol up and down 90.  Once they reached 90 Stanley relaxed a little, lifted the cover of the laptop and saw that it was almost out of battery power.  So, he took out his power adaptor for the car and plugged in the laptop to the cigarette lighter.  Then he turned on the radio to a different AM station and waited for radio Christ.  Once they passed Seneca Lake, He appeared again on the radio.
“Stanley, I’m glad you found your laptop.  I was worried that you lost it,” said radio Christ to Stanley in his typical, sales voice.
So was I, thought Stanley.
“You did a good job defending My Truth, Stanley.  My Truth.  You are an obedient and true Christian.  Because you are obedient, you are one of my soldiers; you are one of mine,” stated radio Christ.
Carlos kept his mouth shut for the trip back to the restaurant and then toward home.  He hated having to go back to the restaurant, but secretly reveled in watching Stanley worry.   It kept Stanley’s mouth shut, the radio quiet, and gave Stanley something to think about besides someone else’s sins.  Stanley enjoyed watching Stanley suffer, but he didn’t want to see the situation that way, so in his mind he called it entertainment.  Once the show was over and Stanley had calmed down, Carlos returned to his book, and jumped to the chapter entitled, “Joyful Suffering”.
Juan sat on pins and needles all the way back to the restaurant.  He couldn’t read, he couldn’t whisper to Carlos.  He looked out the window the whole time, praying to God, Jesus and all of the saints that the laptop still would be there by the time they arrived.  He probably wanted to see that laptop more than Stanley himself.  Once they arrived, Juan considered jumping out of the car with Stanley to witness him finding the computer once more.  This way he would be able to see God’s forgiveness with his own two eyes.  This way Juan could see that God would forgive him.  This way Juan could forgive himself.
And so when he saw Stanley run out of the Subway with his computer and jump back in the car, Juan’s heart jumped back into his body and the bliss of putting things right made him feel better about himself.  He thanked God silently, prayed that Jesus would forgive him, and went back to reading his book on forgiveness.   Once they drove past Seneca Lake, he took a little nap.
They drove past the requisite stops, only once pausing to get gas, and then once Stanley saw the sign for Rochester he swerved into the right lane and drove down the exit ramp.  Because this was the first time he drove Carlos home, Carlos gave him directions to Fr. De Sales’ residence.  So, Carlos’ suggestion, they took the 490 to Brighton, and then transferred to the 590 to Irondequoit.  As they saw the big church and the residence beside it, Stanley slowed down and turned left to the church driveway and took right to the residence.  Once they were in front of the house, Stanley stopped.  The sun was going down quickly now, and Stanley wanted to arrive home before nightfall.  Immediately Fr. De Sales and two other seminarians came out of the rectory and waved, welcoming Carlos.  He got out with his bag, and Stanley popped open the trunk so Carlos could retrieve his suitcase.  One of the seminarians gave Carlos a hug and Fr. De Sales put his hand on Carlos’ shoulder, “You’re a little late, did everything go okay?”
“Yeah, only Stanley left his laptop at Subway and we had to go back to get it,” explained Carlos.
“Did he get it?” asked Fr. De Sales.
“Oh yeah.”
“Good,” responded Fr, who walked over to Stanley’s side, “Thanks for driving Carlos home.  Are you hungry?  Would you like to eat dinner with us?”
“No, thanks, Fr.  We’re late as it is and I have to get Juan and myself home.  Thanks, though.”
“Okay.  Call Carlos to let him know when you plan to pick him up to go back.  Are you sure you aren’t hungry?  We have roast chicken and potatoes in the oven…”
“No Fr. Thanks anyway.”
“Okay then.”
Stanley peeled out of the driveway like a maniac and used his laptop to find Route 531.  He took it the rest of the way, from Rochester to Holley.  And by the time they arrived in Holley the sun had completely dark and the night began to rise.  Before he arrived at the rectory of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, Stanley took a left and drove into a large community of older one and two story homes.  They were mostly either brick or had white siding with detatched garages and old fashioned telephone or television wires coming out each one.  A tiny, older woman wearing a housecoat under a winter jacket and knitted cap sat on the steps of a small, cape cod house with white siding and a screen door.  As Juan saw her he smiled, put his book away and zipped the bag closed.
Stanley stopped the car on the road, in front of Juan’s house.  He popped the trunk open and Juan took out his suitcase.  The tiny woman ran up to the car and hugged Juan, who felt a sense of comfort and relief.  “I…” Juan started to say.
“I missed you so much, Juan,” and the woman hugged Juan again.
Juan hugged her back, and in so doing no longer felt the conflict of the road, forgot about the laptop, about what Stanley said.  He felt the polyester softness of his mother’s coat, the goose feathers inside the fabric, the warm, gloved hands around him.  He instantly felt lucky, a part of something; and he felt love.  It was in the arms of his mother that he felt at peace; he felt forgiven.  “I love you, mom,” he responded.
“Come on, your sister and the kids are inside.  They’re just finishing dinner.  We left you a plate,” she walked to the driver’s side, “Thank you so much for driving Juan home.”
Stanley smiled sheepishly.
“It’s getting late, would you like to stay for dinner?  We have plenty to share…” invited Juan’s mother.
“Uh, no thanks.  I have to get to the rectory; Fr. Martinez is waiting,” explained Stanley.
“Oh okay.  Tell Fr. I say hello.  And that you did a great job bringing home Juan.  Thank you again.”
Stanley, tired and a little embarrassed, drove off slowly and turned around in a vacant driveway.  He then drove silently to the rectory and parked the car carefully.  He noticed that Fr. Martinez’s car was not in the parking lot as usual, so he was sure to get out his keys.  Stanley put his laptop in the bag, and took out the bag and suitcase.  Finally, he locked the car and then walked to the front door.  He opened the door with a jingling of keys he hoped would let anyone know in the house that he arrived.  The inside of the rectory was silent and dark and cold.  He rolled his suitcase to his room, a modestly sized bedroom with a twin bed, dresser, desk and a crucifix above the door.  Stanley then walked into the kitchen; the only lights on were above the stove and outside from the streetlamp.  There was a note left on the counter; Stanley picked it up and read it silently.  It read,
Stanley,
I had to go to the hospital; Mrs. O’Connor had a heart attack at 4pm.  I should be back by 8.  There is a frozen dinner in the freezer.
Fr. Martinez.

As Stanley looked at the note, he felt small, like an afterthought.  He glanced at the clock on the stove.  It read 9:30.  He sighed a little, hearing only his breath leave his nose.  Then he opened the freezer and took out a HungryMan dinner: pot roast.  He took off the cover on all of the different parts of the meal, minus the dessert, put it on a plate and placed it in the microwave.  He looked at the clock again. 9:31.  Waiting for his food to cook, he looked around the kitchen and saw a pile of mail, clean dishes on the rack, a flower in a pot.  He walked over to the pile of mail and looked at each piece.  A water bill, an advertisement, a letter to Fr. Martinez.  He looked out the window above the sink.  No cars on the road, no one in the parking lot, except for his car, of course.  It was late and he was hungry so he looked back at the clock.    It was 9:32.  He went to his room to retrieve his laptop.  As he zipped his bag shut, the microwave rang its bell and he took out the food; he stirred it a little with a fork and then brought the food to the table.  At the table he placed his laptop on his right side and lifted the cover.  He turned it on, and in silence he began to eat.

The Visitation

Mary, daughter of Anne and cousin of Elizabeth, sat silently in the front of her cousin’s Dodge pick-up for a good long while before she said anything; making her final decision.  Her small body felt heavy with worry; she carried a burden in her gut and now she had to choose.
“Come on Mary,” Liz huffed impatiently, “Are you going or not?  Johnny’s gonna’ wake up from his nap soon; I gotta’ go home.  We don’t have all day.”
Mary looked in the small back seat and saw the baby sleeping and the diaper bag below him.  His seat barely fit in the back; Liz spent too much time putting that seat together.  The other part of the seat was mostly torn up on account of Liz’s pit bull they have tied up behind their trailer.  They had to take it to the vet about eight months ago and had to stop at the grocery store.  Liz came back from buying ground chuck and day old bread and found the dog tearing up the seat.  She wanted to get rid of the dog but her husband wanted to keep him as a guard dog.
“You might as well go.  You gotta’ appointment and I’m gonna’ look after the others today.  You say you got the money.  If I was you I’d a gone a long time ago…”
Liz squirmed a bit in the car seat, “Look at your momma, killin’ herself just to put food on the table, look at me and Zeek, barely makin’ ends meet.  Whose gonna’ feed your baby when he need milk, what about diapers?  Gabe was right, you git this takin’ care of now ‘fore you can’t no more…”
First looking at the child again, and the seat, Mary then turned around and took in a big breath. She looked outside the window to the intersection where the light turned from green to yellow, and then to red.  She unbuckled her seatbelt, opened the door and exited the truck.  Before closing it she pulled the front seat down to retrieve her purse.
“Give me a call when you’re done,” yelled Liz outside the open window.  I’ll have Zeek pick you up.”  And she backed out of the parking space and drove off with dust trailing behind.
The place looked nondescript.  It was a one-story cream-colored building with windows and wheelchair access.  There was a small extension to the roof that gave shade to those waiting near the door.  The sign read Gallilee County Women’s Health Clinic Obstetrics/Gynocology in big letters.  No one was on the road, except for a protester across the street.  He stood with his sign and chanted something she couldn’t quite understand.  She could barely hear or recognize him, but still, Mary walked close to the building to blend in with the shade it provided.  She didn’t want anyone to see her at the office.
Wearing a blue and white sundress and grubby old sandals that finally completely dried (they took days to get dry since she wore them in the lake that one time to retrieve her little brother’s boat that had almost floated away), she carried a small purse, which had a book, some gum, keys, and just enough money to pay the clinic and then a little extra in case she needed a cab since Liz was usually not reliable.  The money came from the bank account of her brother, Gabe, dead from the war.   Before he had died, he had managed to save quite a bit of money as a soldier.  He’s a scrimper, the family used to say.  He’d never go out after training or practice.  He’d stay and read or hang out with a few friends on post.   So he had quite a good savings account. Mary, the only one in the family he could trust, was the only one who had access to the account.    It was roughly about 45,000, made up mostly of his sign-up bonus and paycheck every few weeks.  The original plan was that Gabe would go to college and get a good job.  Then he’d pay for Mary’s schooling.  When he found out from a friend of a friend that she was pregnant, he called her up and told her to use the money, get it taken care of.  He even offered to come home if he could to help her out.  And then he died two days later.
Mary walked right to the reception desk and grabbed the sign-in sheet with the pen attached with a small string to the clipboard, as if the pen were to simply walk away.  She wrote her name and time of her appointment, left the address and phone number blank.  Her writing was just a little hard to read since the pen was old and was didn’t have much ink left.  In the last box, entitled ‘insurance’ at the top, she wrote ‘none’, but since the pen was old, it looked like she wrote ‘no’.  She put the pen and clipboard back on the desk, and then started to walk away.
“It’s not like that pen’s goin’ anywhere,” Mary turned her head to tell the receptionist.
“Whadya say, dear,” responded the nurse.
“The pen.  Seems kinda’ funny tying a pen to a clipboard.  I doubt it would grow legs and run away,” clarified Mary.
“They tend to disappear if you leave them be.”
”Well, that one’s almost outta’ ink,” said Mary quietly said to herself with her head turned away from the nurse.   Then she sat down.
In the waiting area there were magazines scattered about on a large, old coffee table that had seen better days.  They were mostly older ones about children, decorating and politics. Mary cared for none of those topics, so she sat down in a small arm chair made mostly of dark wood and light blue upholstery with padding underneath on the seat and arm rests.  Then she took out her book from her red, otherwise non-descript purse and opened to a page saved by a bookmark with a picture of a golden retriever and some generic message about hope a teacher had given to her some years ago.  Ms. Easton, her English teacher, gave her the bookmark as a prize after she had read most books out of everyone in the class.   It was a stupid reward for a stupid challenge she had thought when she got it, but she kept it anyway.
Mary tried to read but it was too hot. Two big fans were quietly blowing warm, sweaty air around the room but did not provide relief.   A few of the cover pages of the magazines waved about from the fans.  There were only a few other women waiting quietly.  One was heavy, probably pregnant fanning herself with a magazine subscription postcard that had fallen out of one of the magazines from the table.  Her long hair stayed neatly in a ponytail but the few stray hairs close to her face blew around.   She played with her cell phone that made random beeps at odd intervals.  Her big duffle bag of a purse sat on her lap like a sack of potatoes, just like the owner.  The other woman, somewhat older and fatter with short hair, was also pregnant and had an entourage of children around her: two sweaty boys in faded t-shirts, brown shorts and sandals were fighting over a toy action figure, a younger girl in a pink and purple sundress with fraying seams and big white flowers with white sandals, her hair in pigtails, was brushing the mane of a purple and yellow horse and the youngest child in a yellow and green stained shirt with a lion on the front, sweatpants and no shoes, not yet two years old, eating crackers in a stroller. The mother occasionally told the boys to stop arguing, but mostly preferred to read her decorating magazine.  The toddler with a headful of black hair mostly just ate the crackers and kicked its feet up and down.
Without anything else to do, Mary looked past the first woman sitting underneath the window and tried to look outside.  Then she studied the public service poster on the adjacent wall.  A happy mother sat with her happy daughter and a female doctor gave the girl a lollypop.  They were all smiles, interested and staring at the audience.  The mother and child were pleasantly plump; the doctor wore a white lab coat, glasses, and ponytail.  The little girl wore glasses too, maybe to point out that the mother was doing her job of taking care of the child’s needs.  The caption read ‘Healthy Children Make Happy Families – Annual Check-ups Make Sense For Everyone’.  The picture looked faded and outdated’; the white around the edges looked like it was beginning to yellow.
A door to the examination rooms opened.  One of the nurses popped out and called, ‘Dolores Sanchez?’.  The woman with the cell phone and giant purse stood up, belly protruding as she slid down the cover of the phone and slowly walked to the door.  The two went inside.
Mary looked at her watch and and heard a noise at the front door.  She turned her head to see a man, wearing khaki cutoffs, a gray t-shirt with holes, workboots and a trucker’s hat that read “Kiss My Ass” with a picture of a donkey ready to smooch ran in a panic through the front door.  Then he stopped, scratched his cheek, took off his hat to reveal a receding hairline and looked around.  “Uh sir, can I help you?” said the receptionist to get the man’s attention.
“Yeah,” he walked bowlegged to the reception desk and said in a low voice, “My girlfriend, Britney, had an accident at the Burger King where she works.  She was brought here, I think,” he wiped the sweat from his forehead with his hat, “Can I see her?”
“Sure, right this way,” the reception nurse opened the door and left the reception area to the waiting area, and took the man behind the door to the examination rooms.
The door opened again, “Mrs. Gonzalez,” called another nurse.  The woman with four other children and one on the way got up from her chair and smacked the older boy’s hand as he tried to pull his brother’s hair, “Don’t do that,” she ordered.  Then she waddled to the door, pushing the stroller with a trail of the two boys following close behind.  “Jenny, let’s go,” she barked to her daughter who stayed behind to continue and brush the horse’s mane.  The girl ran off with her mother and they all disappeared behind the door.
The only one left in the waiting room, Mary sat looking at the clock, the poster, the window, the front door and thought about her brother.  After he suddenly died in the explosion, they brought his body home in a wooden box along with those of the others riding in the vehicle that day.  He wasn’t much of a soldier; but he needed the chance to earn money for studies.  It was a shame that he had died, but at least the money would be put to use.
Mary looked at her book again.  She opened the book to the last page she had finished and started again; with fewer people in the room the temperature cooled down a little and she was able to concentrate on what she was reading.  The fan gently hummed while the receptionist typed up charts in her computer in the office, the quick taps from the keys taking her attention away from the book only at a few intervals.
Mary heard her name called and closed the book up again, carefully putting the bookmark in the place where she stopped reading.  Then she put the book back in her purse.  Standing up with her purse on her shoulders, she walked over to the door.  The door shut behind them.
The long, narrow corridor seemed to go on forever, and it was just as hot in the hallway as it was in the waiting room.   Wooden doors on either side blended together, with only a random, black number stuck on each to provide identification of who was in what room.  At the left side of the entrance was a cubby area to measure weight and height.  A fan near the one window in the hall blew air from the outside in, but it was still hot.  Mary stepped on the scale and the nurse measured her weight and height.   “Sorry about this heat, it’s really brutal in the hall,” said the nurse as she wrote the numbers on the clipboard, and the directed Mary to the third door on the right.
The nurse opened the door, and Mary walked in and sat on the one small metal chair next to the sink.  She placed her purse on her lap and looked around to take inventory. It had been only a few weeks since she was in an examination room.  The window, covered with closed blinds had an old, clunky air conditioner sticking out of the wall, which gently hummed.   The nurse, plump and older, sat herself on the rolling stool and put her clipboard on her lap to easily take notes.  She looked at her chart and clicked the pen to use the ink to get started, “Mary, you were here two weeks ago, right?”
”Yeah.”
“And nothing in your medical history has changed?”
“No.”
“Address the same?”
She nodded.
“And telephone?”
She nodded again.
“We’re gonna’ take a quick blood sample and then get started.  We’ll do a quick ultrasound too, “ explained the nurse, “Oh, and we’ll need you to sign these papers here making sure you’re over 18.”
She handed the clipboard, the pages and the pen over to Mary.  She took the pen and barely glancing at and the information said, “I sign on this line here?”
The nurse looked at the spot where Mary pointed, “Uh, yeah, right there.”
Mary signed the form, and then the other two below that paper.   Handing the clipboard and pen back to the nurse, who then said, “I need to see your id again.”
Mary took out her wallet from her purse and took out her fake id she got from Bonnie, this girl who was planning to graduate in May.  A friend suggested that she get the id a few days before Mary went to the first check-up.  Mary had been reluctant, but knew she had to because she was not yet 18.  Bonnie lived in a trailer with her father and two younger brothers, one of who sold pot out of his trunk in the back of the only Cineplex in town.  People would buy their ticket, look for Brendon Star (that was his name on his nametag), and then they would go out back with him to buy a bag.  The older boy just got out of prison and found work as at an auto repair shop over in the next town.    He was lucky, most ex-cons don’t find work right after they get out.
Bonnie Star knew Mary from school, and she knew that she was definitely not 18.   But she had the money for an id, and she could use it to buy her cousin’s car.  So she took Mary’s photo and was able to make a fake id that showed that Mary was 19 years old, even though she didn’t look a day over 14.
The nurse looked at the id, then Mary, and returned the card back to her.  Mary asked, “How long does this take?”
The nurse smiled, “Oh I reckon it’ll take about an hour total, plus you’ll a little extra for the recovery.  You can get undressed completely.  And put that gown on,” she pointed to the pile of fabric on the examination area, “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Once the nurse shut the door, the room kept quiet. The other women must have been in rooms on the other side of the corridor because she couldn’t hear noise from anywhere else.  The last time she was there she could hear children crying, and patients laughing or discussing their issues with the nurse.  It was odd to be so alone.  Even at home Mary was rarely completely by herself.  She had four other brothers and sisters, not counting her dead older brother.  She shared a bedroom with two of them, both younger girls.  Becky was nine and Alexandra was five.  And if Mary was at home, she was always the one to baby-sit while Mom was a work. Mary had to make dinner, clean the kitchen, give her sister and brother baths and help them with homework when the children were home, which was always.  No, she was never alone.
Mary put her purse on the floor and walked to the neatly placed hospital gown and white sheet.  She stood for a moment and then started to unfold the gown, but she wasn’t sure how to put it on, so she placed it back on the table, and then took off her shirt, bra, pants and underwear.  She folded them neatly and left them on her chair.  And then, guessing that the back would be the covered area she put on the gown with the open part in the front.
Time passed slowly, giving Mary a enough of a chance to examine where she was and how she felt.  She climbed up on the examination table and then looked around. .   The first thing she noticed was that she was shivering, either from nerves or the cold, stale air of the air conditioning.  So she brought her knees to her chest in order to stop shivering and decided to look around the room.  The sink was clean but water was dripping, making a tiny splash each time it hit the sink bottom.  The countertop looked old and chipped and the cabinets had no doors; the wallpaper on them to make them look like wood was peeling.  The ceiling had dark water stains above the window and yet it looked somewhat nicer than her home.  A stack of magazines sat next to the sink but Mary didn’t touch them.
There was a knock on the door.   Then the knob turned and the nurse came back.  “I’m back to get a blood sample,” she said.
She wheeled in a cart with an empty vial and syringe.  Quickly the nurse took Mary’s arm, found an easy vein to stab, “Looks like your arm is easy for me,” she said.  She then collected the blood, and then put some cotton and a band-aid on the spot.  “We’ll be right back to the ultrasound,” and she disappeared behind the door again.
Mary kept her arm still while she waited, but continued to look around.  She wondered how many other girls sat on this table, waiting for someone to help them.  How many others sat right where she sat at that very moment?
A woman carefully knocked on the door and then slowly turned the knob.  She opened the door and came in the room carrying another clipboard and wheeling in a mobile ultrasound unit with squeaky wheels.  “Hello Mary, I’m Ms. Kathy.  I’m gonna’ make sure you’re ready for the procedure,” she came over to shake Mary’s hand.  Mary offered her hand reluctantly, weakly and she could see Ms. Kathy’s upper arm jiggled back and forth.
“Why don’t you lie back and we’ll see what we can see on this here contraption,” as Ms. Kathy spoke, she turned her head away from Mary and coughed a little.
Just then another woman knocked, and then entered.  It was the nurse who first brought Mary into the examination room.  “Hello Ms. Mary, I’m gonna’ assist.”
First, Ms. Kathy put the ultrasound in the corner, plugged it in.  The machine started with a beep.  The nurse lifted Mary’s gown at her abdomen and squirted clear jelly and speared it around a little.  She then turned the lights low. Ms. Kathy sat on the stool, the sides of her hips fell over the padding of the stool.  She took the sensor from the ultrasound in her large, man-sized hands and started rolling the sensor on Mary’s belly.  “Everything looks just fine,” she noted.
The nurse flipped on the light again and then turned the machine off.  She unplugged it and then wheeled it out.  “We’ll begin the procedure in another few minutes.  We need to get a few thing ready first,” explained Ms. Kathy.
They both left Mary lying on the examining table, troubled and alone, so the quiet hum of the old window air conditioner sounded warm and comforting.
Once again there was a knock and Ms. Kathy and her assistant came back into the room, wheeling a tray of several items, including a speculum, injection, a few tubes of some sort of medication, a small tube, and a few other devices Mary couldn’t recognize.  Once her legs were in stirrups, and several requests that she ‘scoot up some’ so that her bottom was practically at the end of the table, Mary put her head down and stopped watching.  She closed her eyes and felt her arms tremble at first.  Then her shoulders followed.  “Dear, we’re gonna’ give you some medication first, to help you relax and ease the pain,” the assistant took an antiseptic wipe and cleaned a part of Mary’s arm to prepare it for the sedative.
“Pain?” Mary opened her eyes and looked up.
“Well, this process will cause some cramping.  We don’t want you to have to feel any unnecessary pain,” started the nurse.
“Oh,” started Mary.  She considered the idea of feeling the cramps; maybe she wanted to feel them, as if she could somehow find solace in pain.  Such pain might be justified, she thought, if goes through the procedure.  Mary opened her eyes, and sat up, and was just about to open her mouth to forego the sedation when the nurse took the syringe and gave her the painkiller.  Within seconds, the medication started to take effect.  “We were not made to suffer,” whispered the nurse to herself.
Mary laid back again, closed her eyes and forgot about the pain.  She chose not to see the rest, even though she was still awake.  With the medication, she quickly started to feel light, ethereal, as if she could fly.  She imagined herself on a cloud, and then in a light, feathery bed.  It was still obvious that she was in an examination room, in a relatively uncomfortable position, but with her eyes closed and the sedative coursing through her body, Mary felt much more at ease.  The humming of the air conditioner blended with the conversation between the two women, asking for the speculum or checking to see that there was adequate light, to make a sort of harmonic soundtrack to an otherwise frightful and painful procedure.
Once, Mary opened her eyes a little, to remind herself of where she was and what was happening.  She could see both women peering up the girl’s gown with a special light; Ms. Kathy had a small device in her hand, prepping it for the next activity.  Mary said nothing and closed her eyes tightly again as she started to feel pressure down below.
The suction device sounded like a light motor hum, and blended in with the other sounds and sounded like a quiet engine of a car.  In her sedation she started to imagine she was a car, maybe like a pick-up, or better, a ’65 Mustang convertible, the kind her Uncle Jimmy used to have when she was much younger, smaller.  It was a beautiful car, rangoon red, black top and interior, 260″ with 2 barrel carb, straight transmission.  And then her uncle got drunk one night at that old bar down the street from the ol’ Piggly Wiggly and tried to drive it home, but wrapped it around a tree.  She remembered that at the time her brother Gabe said it looked like a bowtie for that tree.  And at the time Mary thought it weird, even funny that a tree should have a bowtie.
So her Uncle Jimmy, who loved that car, took it to his friend Benny’s auto shop and tried to have it restored. She never had a chance to see the car wrapped around the tree, but she remembers that the car had to have all sorts of things replaced like the front bumper, tires, lots of the transmission…Anyway, it was a big job.  And expensive too.  They tried to charge Uncle Jimmy about 40 percent more than they should’ve according to her other Uncle Bobby, but Uncle Jimmy wasn’t gonna’ let Benny get away with that so they fought until in the end Benny agreed to lower the price and Uncle Jimmy gave him his old beat-up Chevy; the engine was kaput but some of the other parts on it were still good like the steering wheel and the leather seats.  The whole thing was worth it in the end because when they were finished the Mustang looked as good as new.  No, it was better than new because before the accident the passenger seat was busted and you couldn’t move it forward or back.  It was better than new.
It occurred to Mary that maybe she was like that car, like the Mustang that came into the shop in pieces.  Maybe she was in pieces, and these women would put her back together, brand new.  Better than new.  Mary held on to that idea like an old, worn security blanket that was soft as it was comforting.
For a moment, Mary had forgotten her misgivings and slowly opened her eyes and lifted her head.  She looked at the assistant who was somewhat difficult to see since she was at the end of the table and Mary’s legs were blocking her vision.  The assistant looked up a minute to check on Mary and smiled at her, “We’re almost done, dear.  We’ll send you to the recovery room when we’re through.”
She put her head back down and closed her eyes.  And then she heard Ms. Kathy’s voice, “Oh no, looks like there…”  Or did she say ‘look at that there…”
Mary could feel herself falling, falling like an angel from heaven, or maybe a bird from a tree.  She fell further and further and dropped on a cloud.  She sat up, looked around and saw cherub-like young children flying from cloud to cloud, laughing and playing.  The cloud she sat on was long; it seemed to go on forever.  A child started running to her; it was a boy, perhaps seven or eight.  He was tall, wearing a faded t-shirt, brown shorts and sandals.   He was saying something as he ran.  “Mommy, mommy…” he yelled as he ran as fast as he could down the cloud.
Mary instinctively held her arms out to grab a hold of the boy, and he threw himself at her when he finally arrived.  “Mommy, you’re here!” he squealed.
“Who are you?” asked Mary confused.
“It’s me; I’m your son,” replied the boy, “I can’t stay long.  I have to go soon.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s not my time.  You’re not ready yet,” the boy wiggled on Mary’s lap.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll come back, I promise, and we’ll have so much fun.  But not now, not yet.”
“But why?”
The boy jumped off her lap, “’Cause you’re too young,” he kissed Mary on the cheek, and ran off yelling a ‘Bye’ almost as an afterthought.
Mary watched the boy run, run almost as if he were on fire, as if he were going to heaven itself.  Once the boy disappeared, she continued to watch the other children fly around, play and laugh.  His words hit her like a ton of bricks.  No, she thought, she didn’t want this.  She didn’t want him to leave.  She wanted another one to hold, to care for, one of her very own to love her.  And her lap felt very empty as her life suddenly felt.  She felt empty.  Her body felt as light as a feather, as if it weighed almost nothing, as if it could disappear no one would notice.
She woke up crying, feeling both heartbreak and loss but not knowing why at first.   She couldn’t remember her dream, but she could still feel the loss at her fingertips.  At the tip of her nose, she smelled something strong, pungent, and clearly unpleasant.  Mary turned her nose and her head away from the smell, “She’s back,” cried the nurse, “We thought we had lost you there for a second.”
At the end of the procedure, Mary still kept her eyes closed.  “Ms. Mary, we’re done now.  I’m gonna’ get a wheel chair and and then move you to the recovery area.   I’ll be right back,” and the assistant left the room.
Mary opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling.  Ms. Kathy finished up the clean up, took off her surgical gloves and stood up.  “It was an easy procedure.  It didn’t take hardly any time.  But I think you had a bit too much of the good stuff, if you know what I mean.”
Mary didn’t know what she meant.  “The drugs,” whispered Ms. Kathy, “and don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone,” she giggled a little at her own, unfunny joke.
“Between you and me, I sometimes wish more girls would opt for this, ‘cause otherwise it’s a lifetime of climbing back on your hands and knees to where you started in the first place.”
Mary sat up, her head spinning a little from the sedation, and looked around.  The assistant returned and asked, “How ‘ya feelin?”
“A little dizzy,” responded Mary.
“Oh, well, you’ll be feeling much better in an hour or so.  Then you can go home.  We’ll need to make another appointment for you for a few weeks from now,” replied the assistant.
Mary sunk in the chair as the assistant wheeled her to the recovery room, past the wooden doors again, in the damp heat, to a wooden door like the rest.   The assistant opened the door and wheeled Mary in a medium-sized room, with five beds, mix-matched furniture and a window covered with yellowing blinds open just enough to let light through.  The curtains were brown and orange and an older air conditioner hummed as it cooled the air inside.  Most of the beds were empty except for one, where a young woman with dirty blond hair sloppily put in a ponytail and smeared eye shadow sat up and watched a daytime talk show on the TV hanging at the top of the corner.
“I’ll put you next to Britney so you two can talk if you want,” the assistant wheeled Mary to the bed next to the other woman and helped her climb on the bed.  Mary stretched her feet to the end of the bed and pulled the sheet on top of her.  Then she put her head on the pillow, and the spinning and dizziness slowly continued.  Mary turned to her side so she could see the TV better, still lying horizontally with her head on the pillow.
“Nadine, I need a smoke, when can I leave?” asked Britney.
“While I don’t approve of no smokin’, sounds to me like you’re almost ready to go.  We just need you to have a ride home,” responded the assistant.
“Where’s Rufus?” asked Britney.
“He said he had to go out for a few minutes.  He said he’ll return right after,” responded the assistant.
“He’s probably getting’ Jenny from daycare.  When he gets back can I go home then?”
“Sure, as long as you feel okay,” the assistant picked up a glass on Britney’s table.  And then she left.
Mary and Britney watched a talk show with two women sitting on opposite sides of a young man.  Both were giving each other dirty looks and scowling at each other, and the host sat next to the smaller of the two women.   This is not to say that either woman was small; they were both heavy-set.   Britney looked at the TV, not saying anything at first.  Mary still lay on her side still so that the room would spin less and less, which it did.  As it was slightly cold, she pulled the cover over her on the bed while she watched.
“This TV’s busted; it only gets one channel and you can’t hear it that good,” explained Britney, bending to the side to retrieve her bag, “We get, like 150 channels at home.
Mary turned her head to Britney.  She was still a little sedated, but the drug was slowly wearing off.  Because of this she started to feel a little more herself.  She swallowed hard; she didn’t feel like a new car like the one she imagined earlier.  Staring into the TV, Mary started feeling the cramps only a little at first.  She closed her eyes and started to cry, quietly at first, and then she sniffed enough that Britney heard.
“Are you cryin?  Whatcha’ here for, a D and C?” asked Britney.
Mary looked up at Britney.  She didn’t answer.
“This was gonna’ be my second, but it couldn’t live no more so it came out today.  Dead.  This is the third time it’s happened; I don’t know how come; I didn’t do nothin’, just work the take out window, takin’ orders.  And then earlier today I started feelin’ bad, real bad, and Sierra, my friend at work goes ‘you better get to the doctor’ but I still had to finish my shift.  And then I started to bleed, and cramp.  I knew what was coming. I been through this before, but it’s been like a shock every time.”
Britney looked around instinctively and then said, “If I had the choice I wouldn’t ‘a gotten pregnant again.  I’ve been pregnant six times in the past four years.   And each time wasn’t no picnic, either.  You gain weight, have to buy more clothes, you can’t go to no bars no more…  It’s rough.  And then you gotta’ take time off from work and scrape money together to go to the doctor.   An’ my little girl Jenny’s great an’ all, but I gotta’ say if I could do it all again I wouldn’t.  I’d a finished high school instead. “
The women on TV started to fight, hitting each other in the face and pulling each other’s hair.  “How old are ya’, anyway?  You look real young, like when I first got knocked up,” asked Britney.
Mary didn’t answer right away.  She looked at the sheet covering her, wondering whether to answer Britney’s question.  Just then the assistant opened the door carrying Mary’s clothing and bringing in the same man who burst in the lobby earlier in the day.  He was carryin a little girl with messy blond hair and a very dirty doll in her hands.
“Alright Britney, you feelin’ up to leavin’?  asked the assistant.
“Yeah, I think I can go.”
“Don’t forget, a check-up next week.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“And would you take this,” the assistant gave Britney a brown paper bag, ”please use protection.”
Britney put in her purse quickly.   She slid in the wheel chair and put her purse on her lap.  Then, as the nurse wheeled her away, she said, “Rufus, you get my car from work?  I’m gonna get in trouble if I leave it there overnight again…”
Her boyfriend and child followed very close behind.
Mary continued to lie under the covers, silently crying a little, watching the two women on TV fight each other.  She sniffed again, loudly.  The sedation continued to wear off and Mary continued to feel the cramps but she also felt more like herself.  The assistant came back to Mary’s recovery room, this time bringing some pills and a cup of water.
“In about 40 minutes or so you’ll be ready to go home.  Here are your clothes,” the assistant pointed to her dress, shoes and purse on the next bed, “Before I forget, take this bag, “she put it next to Mary’s clothes on the bed, “and use them.”
The assistant gave her the two pills and the cup, “You take these pills; they’ll help with the crampin’.”
Mary took them and drank the water in the cup.  The assistant turned around as she was walking out of the door and Mary sniffed again.  The assistant looked back at Mary who was clearly crying, rubbing her eyes on her sleeve.  To console the girl, the assistant walked back to her and sat on her bed, pushing the hair out of her face, “You’re gonna’ be just fine, now.  Just a little bump in the road.  You take care of yourself and finish school.”
The thought of school reminded Mary of the book and her vision.  “I know, I’m too young for a baby now.  I gotta’ finish school,” she said aloud to herself, nodding in agreement to the assistant’s comment.
The nurse brought her the Kleenex box and gave a tissue to Mary, who promptly wiped her eyes with it and blew her nose.    She had forgotten about school.  She had to miss school on that day, and wished she hadn’t because they were going to start a new unit in her science class.  Suddenly she wanted to read.  One more sniff and Mary said, “Can I have my purse please?”
“Of course,” the assistant walked around the bed and gave Mary her purse.
She sat up then, unzipped her bag and took out her book.  “Whatcha’ readin?” asked the assistant.
Mary turned the cover so the assistant could see.  It had a woman sitting on a slope, looking up and the title read “Contact”.  “Oh,” said the assistant, coming in a little closer, “I’ve never read that before,” she turned her head, “is it good?”
“If you like space.”
“Do you?”
Mary nodded.  “I like math, actually.  My brother gave me the book.  He said if I liked math I’d like this.”
“Well I’ll be,” commented the assistant and looked at Mary inquisitively, but didn’t bother to ask her questions.  “I’ll let you get some rest and come back when you’re ready.”
Although she continued to feel cramps, she took the book and opened the pages.  She put the bookmark on her lap and began to read, being able to concentrate on the words, images and pictures from the text.  She could finally be transported to where she needed to be.  The women on the TV continued to pull each other’s hair out, but this time Mary didn’t notice.
After the time passed, the assistant came back, helped Mary put on her dress and sandals, and helped her call for a cab.  Mary’s appearance looked the same as when she arrived at the clinic, except for a tiny red spot at the bottom of her dress, so small that she didn’t even see it. Standing made Mary feel a little woozy, so she chose to sit in the waiting room, a little cooler now as it was now in the evening and no one was waiting to be seen.  The fans blew her refreshing air, humming a strange, harmonic tune and just before the cab arrived, Mary finished the chapter she had not been able to complete.
The cab arrived and honked, calling for Mary to come out.  She exited the building, mostly in shadows, watched only by the protesters across the street, now numbering more than ten and chanting in harmonic bliss, like angels at praise and worship to their favorite goddess. Mary could hear them cry, ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women.’  The chant grew quieter as Mary traveled in the cab, away from the building; she just went speeding by now like the wind, along with the world.

The Scavenger

Joseph laid comatose, face first, on the hard, cement floor, with drool trickling down the side of his mouth to a small pool under his face.  He hadn’t stirred since the sun rose.  All of the garbage around him sat still.  The empty bottle, with its smell of homemade whiskey still dripping, now sat on its side, dry from being cast aside. The candy wrappers, paper towels, Styrofoam containers, glass bottles, some broken, others at the ready to hold a vast array of liquids and chemicals, old pieces of wood, metal also stayed still.  The few pieces of makeshift furniture in the warehouse collected dust: a table, a chair with the cushion torn off.  They waited.
He made the faintest of movements with his shoulder, flickering quickly, almost nudging himself awake.   Next, he moved his head slowly, into a more uncomfortable position and then back to its original spot.  After, his eyelids began to open very slowly.  His eyes at half-cast, Joseph stared the trash surrounding him and the bottle he dropped on the dirty rags on the floor. He closed his eyes.  He had come back from the dead again.
Joseph groaned.  He was sore from the uncomfortable position he fell into as he lost consciousness the night before.  The weight of his body sat on his left arm and shoulder, which numbed the arm until he tried to get up.  Then, a bolt of pain shot though his arm upon rising so that he had to roll over right into the pool of drool, instead of lifting himself with his elbows and hands.   On his back, he felt the dull ache of his body, his muscles that needed nourishment and proper rest. He eventually sat up and rubbed his eyes, wishing he were still asleep.
The bright warehouse windows drew in light from the outside, although already the sun was going down.  Outside, the last of the delivery trucks was in the process of leaving the station with its cargo.   Men of various sizes hauled in boxes, stacked them on top of each other and strapped them in.  They pulled down doors, locked everything shut so that any storage inside was safe from thieves, and the drivers left with their products on the way to areas all across the City.  By the time all of the workers left for the day, Joseph felt ready to stand and look outside.
As he walked around the warehouse floor, Joseph scratched his ass and smacked his lips at the dryness of his mouth.  He didn’t really care about the paper, cardboard or rough fabric.  The walls all around the warehouse were all covered with large, heavy windows from floor to ceiling which were all closed.  Only the southwest corner of the building, which housed the small office areas with disconnected phones and unplugged, empty vending machines, had solid walls without windows to the outside.   Once, when Joseph first arrived to the warehouse, he connected the telephone to the phone line and the computer to the modem to have access outside.  But fear got the best of him when he thought about officials on the lookout for anti-socials like him using up electricity in abandoned warehouses.   Yep, he thought, this shit’s too dangerous.  He unplugged all of the electronics he could find and never touched them again.
The flickering lights from the street started to glow by the time Joseph ventured to the window to check that everyone had gone home for the evening.    After making sure there wasn’t any car in the lot or any one wandering around outside, he slinked down the stairs, feeling his way down since the late afternoon sun did not illuminate the stairwell.  After opening the heavy door with a creak and a click, and leaving it ajar, he walked to the other side of the building to get a better view of the large dumpster, the only one in the entire area.
He walked quickly with back arched forward and hands in pockets.  With eyes darting back and forth, Joseph took the shortest way to the dumpster, hidden behind the buildings, away from the main road.   Even though his boots had the potential to click and clack with each step, Joseph took the precaution of walking fast but quietly to the dumpster to collect dinner and hopefully more liquor.
It was dark, and all he could really see were shadows that could only hint of what the items really were.   After making a thorough check around the dumpster on all four sides, Joseph grabbed one of the sides with his two hands and pulled himself up into it, while also using his feet to climb.  Once he scrambled to the top, he threw himself in, feet first, into the garbage to see what he might find of use.
Bits of cans, box tops, unwanted paper, and packing peanuts sat on the top, and were most likely the pieces of packing that were no longer needed.   To find the better things like food Joseph had to really dig below the surface and hunt until a half-eaten sandwich or a few chips appeared.   And so that’s what he did, overturning boxes, packing paper, sometimes larger or heavier items like table legs or parts of computers.  He tossed the lighter things behind his shoulder and pushed the heavier things to the side.  Soon he hit a lower, more promising layer.  Tin foil, candy wrappers.  Plastic cups, straws with dots of cola or Styrofoam cups with a few drops of coffee.  These were the signs he was on the right track.   Joseph sniffed the chocolate aroma that still clung to the candy wrappers, licked the inside of the cups, sucked the last dots of soda that remained on chewed up straws.  After having such promises, he saw the shadow of something wrinkled, wavy; it was a bit of lettuce.
The small tail of lettuce sat outside a Styrofoam container that had a hinge in the back and two sides that closed with a flap that attached itself to another flap.  It was presumably put sloppily back in and quickly closed so that whoever was eating it could resume work.  Tossed aside and forgotten.  Joseph snatched the salad container and shoved it inside his coat.
He felt around for other things; quickly he found another container with that sounded promising as he shook it to his ear, a Styrofoam cup of something with a plastic lid, and a plastic cup with another lid.   He felt around the bottom until he found a glass… glass container with paper glued to it.  A screwed on cap kept the liquid in the bottle as Joseph shook it to hear what it might contain.  He sniffed the outside of the cap and the heavy aroma of strong liquor confirmed what he already thought it would have.  He found what he needed.
Joseph put the second Styrofoam box and the plastic container on the other side of his coat, held on to the cup with his teeth, wrapped his index finger around the tight cap of the glass bottle and put his hands on either side of the dumpster in order to hoist himself up and jump out.  He gave himself a second first, as a chance to take a breath and quickly listen for anything strange.  Typically that was the moment of a necessary auditory check around the vicinity since it was too dark to trust his eyes.  He moved his head slightly to hear anything particular.  Nothing… …silence.  It was safe to exit the dumpster.
Just as he jumped up to start his exit he heard a small crunch of wrappers and boxes on the other side of the dumpster.  Joseph crouched down, hiding the bottle between his coat and the side of the dumpster.  He looked around.  He saw nothing; he smelled nothing peculiar.  He was still and waited for another crunch.  Perhaps it was just the rest of the garbage settling after he had gone through it all, or maybe he inadvertently made the sound himself.  He sat still another second or two, and then attempted another leap out of the garbage and hid behind the outside of the can, waiting to hear other sounds.  He heard nothing, but the sound had scared  Joseph enough so that he stayed low and walked fast while carrying his stash back to the warehouse.
His heart continued to seemingly beat out of his chest once he arrived on his floor, among the papers, boxes, and other trash that lined the ground.  There were five floors that made up the entire warehouse; the first two floors had no windows and mostly contained large machines used to work with heavy textiles and wood.  It would have been almost impossible to drag those machines to any of the higher floors since only the first were connected by both freight elevators and heavy, reinforced ramps that facilitated movement between the two areas.  Floors three, four and five also had elevators, but they were mostly for people and smaller objects such as office furniture and files.  There was also a stairway in the back to the building that connected all floors to one another and to an exit. This was the safest entrance into and exit out of the building.
It was clear that the office personnel had worked on the higher floors, and the key officials had worked on the top floor.  The bathrooms were nicer, and the staff lounge had more comfortable sofas.  When Joseph first arrived to the warehouse, it took him a while to find the executive floor, and when he did, he spent several days hiding in the lounge, eating rotten candy and drinking expired soda.   He hadn’t had such plush accomodations in a while, hadn’t eaten candy in weeks, and he couldn’t really remember the last time he had used an actual toilet.
Once the candy and soda ran out, he had to find an alternative food source.  Even before he had to, he considered rummaging around the sole dumpster outside two of the warehouses still being used.  One of the two stored office supplies, big ones like file cabinets, desks, copiers, that sort of thing. The other appeared to be a storage facility for liquor, wine and beer.    Both places packaged their stuff up good so that it wasn’t completely obvious to the random passers-by what they were loading on the trucks each day.  However, once Joseph noticed that not all of the warehouses were empty, he decided to observe the comings and goings of the places, the names of the items in the boxes, and the names on the sides of the trucks that hauled the things out every day.  He also saw that the workers at these centers ate lunch outside, near the dumpster, and they didn’t always finish their lunch.  Often they’d throw out half-eaten sandwiches, big handfuls of coleslaw or potato salad, and soda cans, still with some soda.  A few workers would also bring liquor and store it at the bottom of the dumpster.
Joseph sat on the ground near the door and caught his breath.  He put everything else on the floor and breathed in a sigh and then let it out.  He unscrewed the cap and drank a little from the bottle.  The food could wait.  The drink couldn’t .
Once he felt a little tipsy, he picked up the small, plastic container that still had a little macaroni salad in it and walked over to the window.  Everything was generally pretty dark, except for the streetlights at the sidewalk entrance of the warehouse complex.  And the stoplight hanging at the intersection always flashed red since only trucks drove down that road.  Under the red glow it was always quiet at night, no cars to bother.  Joseph looked down at the dumpster and thought about the crunch and squeak.  It was probably nothing, maybe his imagination; he often would hear or sense things that did not really exist.  Or maybe he made the sound himself.  He finished the salad and went back to the bottle.  And by the time the first rays of the sun appeared and the last drops of the bottle disappeared, Joseph started to stare at the garbage, seeing instead a thousand angels on soft feather beds inviting him to fall in and float off to dreamland.  That’s exactly what he did, and he started snoring among the papers and garbage.
A high-pitched beep-beep from a truck backing up woke Joseph from his coma.  It was raining silently, and again Joseph slept in an uncomfortable position on a light layer of garbage on the concrete floor.  Ever since he moved from the top floor to the fourth, he’s been sleeping on the concrete and waking up in pain.  ‘I gotta’ remember to go back upstairs to get me a good night’s sleep,’ he thought to himself as he rolled over and looked up at the ceiling.  There were several long hvac ducts that stretched from one side until the other, in a maze of patterns over Joseph’s head.  He imagined them to be a network of little people in colorful uniforms, busily working on products made in the warehouse.  They would travel though the ducts with messages for their co-workers.  Or they would be taking products from one part of the warehouse to the other.  They gabbed back and forth to each other in high-pitched voices that stressed need and urgency.  He blinked, sighed, breathed in a long breath, and started to cough, a smoker’s cough.  The hacking forced him to sit up unexpectedly, forget his daydream.  He started to get a spinning feeling.  He held his head to stop the spinning, while violently coughing to calm his lungs.  Why the coughing, he thought, I don’t remember ever having smoked.
Once the coughing disappeared, Joseph stumbled over to the window.  Several men stood around one of the loading dock doors of one of the warehouses, specifically the liquor warehouse.  They stood around, laughing.  Some stood at the wall, others brought empty boxes back in the warehouse.   One of the men, pot-bellied and bald, walked out with a talk bottle of something, unscrewed the cap and took a swig.  Another man, smaller and shorter, came out with another bottle and walked around the corner.  Soon he came back, but without the bottle.  Where was the bottle, thought Joseph.  Did he pocket it in his coat?  Leave it behind the corner?  This was something he noted for later.
The men took their time, taking turns with the bottle that the bald, fat man brought out.  Once the men were a little drunk, they got into their prospective cars and left the area.  The second bottle didn’t appear to have left the vicinity with the others.  Joseph sat on the concrete, studied the garbage surrounding him, and waited for the sun to set.   Perhaps it was the lack of food, or the consistent hangover he suffered, but the garbage looked colorful and inviting to him; the Styrofoam white that consumed his floor provided the canvas, the colorful leftover wrappers from past candy gave way to images, and the strips of concrete that the garbage didn’t hide defined the shapes.
The colors faded and the images disappeared as the sun started to go down.  Joseph broke out of his hypnosis and looked out of the windows to evaluate the status of the parking lot.  The cars had disappeared as did the people.   Darkness had crept up again, providing a natural cover to renegade behavior.  Joseph stared at the empty space, planning his next moves.  Although he felt the strong pangs of hunger, he craved that liquor bottle.  The little one went around the corner with it and came back without it.  It must still be there.  He didn’t have it with him when he returned; it wasn’t stuffed in his jacket or pants.  It must have been hidden.  Where?  Around the corner?   Under a wall or through a door?  And why?  Was he going to return at dark and take it?   And if so, when?  Could he find it undisturbed and bring it back?  Joseph had no answers for his questions, but he didn’t care.  He wanted that bottle.  He was willing to risk capture and subsequent torture if found.  After all, it barely dark; they wouldn’t come back so early.  That little guy must have been hiding it from the others (although he took the bottle in plain sight; Joseph saw him).  Maybe he’d come back later.  To find the bottle gone?  What the hell, Joseph thought.  He didn’t exist anyway. After scratching his unkept beard and rubbing his nostrils, he turned away from the window, and followed his usual to the door, down the stairs, en route to the warehouse lot.
As usual, Joseph tried to hide behind the shadows and made little sound to keep himself at worst a ghost and at best nonexistent.  And as hungry as he was, he still made his first stop, past the dumpster, climbing on the dock, around the corner and as risky as it was, in plain view of the main road. Since it was dark, he couldn’t really see, so using his hands became the primary way to investigate.  He felt around and checked all of the hiding places he could imagine: tucked away in a corner, underneath an unhinged floorboard, behind an unlocked door.   Tired and out of breath, he looked up, saw an orange reflection of a street light on an opaque surface, underneath the roof.  First, he thought it might have been some sort of creature with wings, orange and floating.  Being a tall drifter, he was able to touch it with his index finger, and the liquid inside gently swished back and forth.  On his tip-toes he was able to grab it with his thumb and fingers, carefully pulling it out from the top of the roof, instinctually placing it inside his jacket and hunching over and silently running around the corner, away from the main road illuminated with street lights and car headlights.
For good measure, Joseph hid in a particularly darkened corner and breathed a sigh of relief.  Once ready, he crept to the dumpster, hoisted himself up and then down to retrieve whatever leftovers had been tossed out during lunch.  He didn’t find much in the way of food, but admittedly, he didn’t really care.  His main prey was found, carefully caught and lovingly kept in his jacket.  He scattered the garbage in all directions, with a half-hearted attempt to find some sort of food.  Easily Zooks found a half-eaten sandwich, an unopened bag of chips, and some sort of bag with candy.  It was enough for the night.  Just as he turned to exit the dumpster, he heard crunch and a squeak, the same as he heard the night before.
He turned and hid under the garbage around him.   Not surprisingly, he saw nothing.  There were no lights in the parking lot, so shadows were few.  Excess light from the lampposts fell on a few things if you faced the road, but generally there was still nothing to see.  Joseph still looked around, using the garbage to camouflage himself.  The crunching became louder, more patterned, like footsteps on Styrofoam.  Joseph sunk himself deeper in the trash and held his breath.
Pieces of garbage on his head, parts of boxes, paper, and cups carefully were taken apart, and placed in another place.  Little by little, the cups and paper no longer hid Joseph, and, in his only defense, he closed his eyes as the last cardboard box lid was lifted from his face.   A few squeaks kept Joseph still; he waited still and with eyes closed.  Suddenly he felt tiny hands on his face, on his hair, on his nose.  On his ears, on his cheeks.  Joseph carefully opened one eye, fearful of what he might see.  He couldn’t see clearly; the darkness hid the figure completely, except for the brightness from the light posts, which shown on the figure’s fur, acting as an outline
for the creature.  Fur?  Creature?  Joseph opened the other eye, skeptical of what it might be.
Joseph looked at the creature; he could only see its shadow.  It was an animal of some sort; it appeared to stand on its hind legs, with its front paws hanging on its arms.  Then it fell on all fours and sat, looking back at Joseph, not speaking.  They both stayed perfectly still for a moment, not sure what to make of each other, Joseph head sticking out of the garbage and the creature sitting on all fours.  But Joseph didn’t want to stay in that position long, especially since he was out of the warehouse, and couldn’t drink from his bottle.  So, from under the first layer of garbage, he jerked his right arm up, and papers, box parts and other garbage flew up fast, creating a diversion for the animal to see.  As it moved its head to see what was happening, taking its gaze away from Joseph, he hoisted himself up quickly, dropping the half-eaten sandwich and bag of chips, and he scurried away as fast as he could, not caring how loud his feet sounded or who might have been watching him.
He ripped open the door, and flew up one flight of stairs after another until he arrived at his floor, ran through the door, and shut the door.   Once in, he went in, he walked straight to the window overlooking the dumpster to check on the creature.  He saw nothing.
Joseph was under the window, legs spread out and pushing the garbage on the floor away.  He took out his bottle and looked at it.  Only a little light from the lamp posts streamed in his floor of the warehouse, but it was enough to see the color and the amount of liquid was in the bottle.  He turned the cap and began to drink.  Once Joseph had something to drink, he realized that he had dropped his food in the dumpster.  So he began looking around for any scraps he had left before.  Just then, he heard a tiny creak from the door.
Sounds never came from the door.   He heard conversations between workers outside his windows, trucks rumble by, honks, beeps and toots from a variety of vehicles, but never anything from the door.  He hadn’t shut it completely when he came back, and so he mistakenly left it ajar, as the downstairs door had been left as well.   Joseph, already inebriated, only scrambled up off his knees (he had been searching for random food on the floor) but ended up sitting.  Eyes transfixed at the door, he sat pathetically with his bottle and slowly swayed to and fro, waiting for the door to open.
It creaked open slowly, timidly.  Although still dark, the scant light hitting the door highlighted a small, furry figure, on its hind legs with a half-eaten sandwich wrapped up in paper in front of it and a small plastic bowl with a lid in its paw.  It held the bowl tight against its little, furry chest, and then put it gently on the floor to continue to push the rest of the door open.  After having opened the door, it squeaked and clicked as it put the bowl down and then fumbled around the bowl, trying to open the lid.
“Hey,” cried Joseph, “Get away from there,”.
He immediately, but clumsily, stood up and waved his arms around to scare the animal, and it stood on all fours and walked slowly backwards in response to the flailing arms.  “Get out,” Joseph continued to cry, “That’s my food.  I found it, I plan to eat it.”
Loud stomps with his boots and arms stretched up adequately scared the creature enough for him to retreat back into the hallway as Joseph grabbed the sandwich and bowl.   At once he unwrapped the half-eaten sandwich and took a bite.  Swallowing each bite, he turned his back on the door to be more comfortable, plopped down on the concrete and continued to eat hungrily.  Meanwhile, the animal, perhaps curious or hungry as well, slowly came back out from the darkened corner of the hallway and walked up to the covered bowl.  It walked right up to Joseph, still somewhat drunk and paying no attention, and opened the lid to the bowl.  It then walked back to the hallway, belly rocking to and fro, in order to retrieve something and returned.  It brought back with him the potato chip bag Joseph left behind in the dumpster.  Then the animal sat the bag in front of Joseph, who finally noticed it.  “That’s mine too,” he said with a mouthful of food, “Get out.”
Again, he flailed his arms and clapped his hands to scare it, but instead of running back into the hallway, it ran further into the warehouse.  Joseph turned to stand up, but once the animal stood in front of the window, he had a better view of the kind of creature it was.  Pointy ears, tiny fingers and hands, fluffy tail with stripes around it, dark fur around the eyes in the shape of a bandit mask…What the hell kind of animal is this, he rubbed his eyes and thought.  He had no memories of seeing animals in his own life, no flying, crawling, running animals, aside from the random human working at the warehouse during the afternoon hours, and prior.  Of course, his memories weren’t really reliable.  They only went back a few weeks.  His first memories begin when he hid in the trees; he saw nothing like these animals.  In the forest, he never came upon such a creature.  He couldn’t remember anything before he escaped and ran.
“I know…I’ll call you ‘thief’ ‘cause you steal my shit,” Joseph finished off the last of his sandwich.
The lampposts helped him see the animal a little better.  It slowly crept around, examining the garbage by picking it up, touching it and holding it to its eyes, and then its nose.  Meanwhile Joseph looked around, he was still hungry too.  He saw the potato chip bag on the floor and quickly grabbed it, opened it and pulled one out.  Chewing it, Joseph once again watched his new pet Thief wander around the warehouse floor, picking up garbage and sniffing it.  In a sudden desire to share his food, Joseph called out while holding out a chip, “Hey, Thief, you wanna’ chip?”
The animal dropped the paper he had in its hand and waddled on all fours to the chip in Joseph’s hand.  It tried to look at it for a moment, then put the chip in its mouth and slowly walked on all fours to the bowl and dunked it in.  Its tiny paws gave it a nice bath in the liquid, and then Thief took the chip in one of its paws and took a bite.  He chewed, and took another bite.  “What the hell are ‘ya doin, ya crazy bastard?”  Joseph ate another chip and walked over to the animal.
He gave Thief another chip, and it again dunked the chip into the liquid.   After a moment, it was eaten.  “Ya know, Thief,” stated Joseph, giving his new pet another chip and then taking a bite of one himself, “It’s been a while since I’ve eaten with anyone.  In fact, I can’t remember the last time that I shared food with anyone.”
Joseph walked over to his bottle, unscrewed the cap and started drinking.  “Yep,” he took another swig, “I can’t remember.”
Joseph spent much of the night watching the animal eat the rest of the potato chip bag, and then after he drank about half of the large bottle of alcohol, he clumsily put the cap on and fell on to the garbage, as if it were a bed of roses, and fell happily asleep.
It was Friday, late in the afternoon, before Joseph woke up from his coma, this time a loud fight woke him up.  The screaming, angry voices were just loud enough to disturb his sleep and keep him from falling back in.  Once he sat up, he crawled to the window to see what exactly was happening.   The two men from the night before were angrily pushing each other around, hands shoving each other, aggressive fingers pointing in each other’s face, and shouting offenses.  A third man tried to calm the other two down but couldn’t.   No punches were thrown, but the smaller man, who hid the bottle the night before, left inside the building and the second, taller and fatter man left in his car.  Soon after he left, the smaller man came out with another bottle, walked around the corner like he had the night before, and soon after came back without the bottle.  Joseph planned that at dusk he would go out again and retrieve it, just like he did the previous night.
As always, the sky grew dark as the cars slowly disappeared from the parking lot and the sky turned a mix of purple and pink with streaks of yellow and orange.  The sun goes down bleeding, Joseph thought, as he stared out his window, waiting for the last little bit of light to fade out, and then proceeded to exit.  He gave a quick thought to the animal he had spent the night with the day before, and wondered where it went to.   Joseph didn’t bother to look for it in the warehouse; if it was hungry again, it would come out again.
He snuck over to the same hiding spot as the night before to find the bottle, again hidden directly under the roof, and then left without having been seen.  As he turned the corner and slowly crept back to his place, Joseph thought he heard a rustle in the bushes growing between the warehouses and the street, so he stopped and waited.  Nothing happened.  No other sounds, steps, or squeaks.  Perhaps it was the animal from the night before.  Perhaps it was the wind.  Maybe it was nothing.
Satisfied, Joseph continued his return to the warehouse.  A few times he thought he heard someone behind him following him.  He stopped again each time.   Hearing nothing, and satisfied with the quiet, he continued on his way, eventually returning to the warehouse, opening the door, entering, and shutting the door.  He climbed up the stairs, opened and walked through the door, and then shut it again.  He was free to drink.
Because he had not finished half the bottle the night before, he decided to his put his new bottle aside and pick up the other container.  As he opened the container and began to drink, out of the corner of his eye he saw the door slowly glide open.  Peering out from the opening was Thief again.  It looked at Joseph a moment and then went back into the darkened stairwell.  Coming back out again, it dragged a long 2X4, and then another, and then a bag.  “Whadya’ bring me this time, ya’ little bastard?” Joseph laughed to himself.
Thief unzipped his bag and brought out a hammer, nails, and small wooden parts.  It took the long 2X4s, put them perpendicular, and nailed them together.  Then it added a small stand so that it could be propelled to stand upright.  At the end, the animal stood on its hind legs and used its front paws to present the new gift.
Joseph spent a few minutes looking at what Thief had made.  Was it possible that such an animal could make anything like this?  He took a swig.  Then he looked around the room.  As always, colorful wrappers, old Styrofoam cups and boxes with only crumbs left inside covered the floor; Some cardboard boxes also sat dormant in the corner from before he arrived.  He walked over, and in the darkness, he instinctively chose a larger box, ripped it apart until he had one of the large flaps free, and brought one of the flaps over to the standing perpendicular wood pieces.  He placed the flap on the horizontal 2X4 and stood back, took a swig.  “You made an easel,” remarked Joseph, “but I don’t have paints.”
Thief walked around the warehouse, grabbed different colored wrappers, papers, and other garbage on the floor.  When finished, it left the gathered trash at Joseph’s feet.  He looked at the papers, puzzled.  And then, without really thinking, he walked into the old office and rifled through the desks until he found tape, glue and a stapler.  Once he returned, he gazed at the trash and continued to drink until he thought of something to make.
To Joseph’s recollection, he couldn’t remember ever making anything on a canvas.  He wasn’t even sure how he would know what a canvas was or that what Thief made was in fact a canvas.  Still, he considered the garbage the animal gave him.  He unwrapped the crumpled the aluminum foil, plastic wrap, and other materials, getting a feel for them and how they would work together.  His eyes darted back from the cardboard to the garbage, and then back again, until what he wanted to make occurred to him.  He folded up the papers, again, and again, and again until he could get an interesting series of colors and shapes.  He chose to use glue to keep the papers in the shape he wanted, and then waited until he had a series of oddly designed pieces that would fit together in both color family and in position so that he could put them on the cardboard together, as a team.
Joseph worked this way all night; he ignored his growling stomach and the fact that there was no real workable light.  Thief sat with him also, chewing on odd pieces of old pasta, slurping old salad dressing, licking his own paws for the last savory bits.  It continued to dunk food in its water bowl as necessary, but would occasionally forget an item or two.
By the time the sun started to rise, he was well into his design.  Once he was able to see his project in proper light he was surprised to find himself awake in the morning.  He stopped and took inventory.   First, he was hungry.  All this work kept him from eating something.  And he felt reasonably sober and lucid but tired.  He decided to go find something to eat.
It wasn’t normal for him to come out in the light of day.  Normally, he stayed in his warehouse except for the few moments at night when he really needed to eat.  Rummaging through the dumpster was really only a night activity so that he wouldn’t be caught.  However, this day happened to be Saturday, and so there were no cars in the parking lot.  And while the food would be somewhat more spoiled, Joseph, assuming he was alone in the warehouse area, couldn’t resist the temptation to dig into the dumpster to see what was available to eat.  He took another look at his project; the cardboard was about a third of the way covered with folded candy wrappers, Styrofoam pieces and other pieces of trash that seemed to match the image of the animal Thief as Joseph saw him to be.  The light shown behind his fur, the darker papers used to describe his shadowy eyes, the lighter fur inside his ears, all of it made more sense in the light of day.  The picture was slowly coming together.  Then Joseph caught a glimpse of Thief in the corner sleeping soundly, mostly hiding under a small pile of cardboard box pieces (it burrowed under it just before the sun came up), with only its nose and some fur from his face sticking out.   The animal was mostly invisible, but Joseph called out to him, “I’m gettin’ us breakfast.  I’ll be back.”
His dark clothing that would normally keep him invisible at night stuck out like a sore thumb in the light of day.  Hunched over and hands in pockets didn’t adequately cover him; worse still, there were no barriers to hide behind, no dark corners or buildings.  It was a straight shot from the front door of his warehouse to the dumpster and he had to come out in broad daylight to find something to eat.
Joseph was tired but hungry, so he quickly made it to the dumpster and dove right in.   He quickly swam around to find something to eat.  A small box was at the top, in the corner, filled with noodles coming out like tentacles feeling the way around.  He grabbed it, didn’t bother to look in, and jumped out as quickly as he could.  Once he was on pavement again he crouched down and looked around.  Go, he said to himself, running with the box to the door of his building, jumped in and shut it.  He skipped every other step in order to make it to his floor, and he shut the door.
The animal still slept under the cardboard.  “I got food, ya little bastard,” Joseph yelled out with a noodle already in his mouth, forgetting again to be cautious.  He slurped the food down quickly, hungrily. Then he drank a couple of swigs of liquor from his veteran bottle.   Once done, he sat under one of the windows of the warehouse and stared at the garbage on the floor.  Again his imagination rearranged it into a field of poppies and lavender, colorful waves of purple and lilac and white, with green stems and fluffy bright green leaves that floated one over the other.  He imagined them then spinning, singing softly as he imagined everything converting into soft pillows, deep enough to sink in, warm enough to keep him safe.  And asleep.
Joseph awoke suddenly, hearing mufflers reverberating from old cars and their engines.  He couldn’t tell the time, of course, but once he was able to drag himself from the floor and stared up at the sky, the sun appeared to go down as always.  Looking at the corner, Joseph again found his friend asleep.  He decided not to wake him, and took a long drink from the bottle he opened the night before.
Joseph looked out the window and felt he recognized the men coming out of the cars.  Two cars, three men.  One brought out a rope, another a bat, from one of the trunks.  One locked the car; another took the rope and bat.  All three walked towards the warehouse where Joseph was staying.  He took the last drink from the bottle.
He could hear the downstairs door open with a loud thud, possibly hitting the back wall.  And then footsteps.  It occurred to Joseph that he should probably hide, but where?  In the past, he had imagined hiding from police on one of the first two floors with all the machinery.  It would have been easy to hide then.  This floor had very little furniture to hide behind.  Garbage on the floor, an office with a desk and…he ran to the office and shut the door.
The couch was against the wall, so clearly he couldn’t hide behind it.  And the closet was locked; it had been since he arrived.   When he first arrived he had imagined finding a screwdriver to take off the handles and then open the door, but now it was too late.  The only hiding place was under the desk, in the middle, with the chair with wheels in front of it.  The light was off as always, but the window was uncovered.
It had never occurred to Joseph to lock the doors; big, heavy doors would lock by themselves, he guessed.  And anyway, there was no latch, no chain to connect, no knob to turn.   Outside the shadowy office he heard footsteps up the stairs, and then a forced push and a loud thud again, the door wide open.  And so there they were, in his home, rifling around in his trash.
Joseph assumed that they were looking for him.  But he didn’t know why.  He kept quiet and waited for them to open the office door with another loud thud.  He would have to stay still, not breathe even.  Just hold your breath and wait.  A shout that came across as a quiet order came from one of them, “I’ll check around the corner, you check in there.”
Underneath the desk Joesph kept as still as he could.  He was a rather large man in spite of his malnourishment, and his belly was more a sign of bloated weight gain from the alcohol more than from eating too much food.  So because of his size he had to roll himself up in a ball, knees bent with his head on top of them, arms hugging them.  In this position he could hear footsteps and he could see shadows of them behind the bottom of the chair.
Whoever it was, the person walked in slowly, probably looked around, and then turned to go.  That was when Joseph’s leg slipped, and his hands broke the chain around them.  His hand, now loose, hit the chair by mistake, causing it to move ever so slightly but squeaking as it moved.  The steps stopped, paused, and the visitor’s foot seemed to turn in the direction of the moving chair.  Joseph held his breath.  The footsteps came closer.  He knew he was out of time.
One of the visitors pushed the chair away violently and roughly grabbed Joseph’s arm to drag him from the hiding spot.  “I found him,” the visitor yelled, and he dragged Joseph out of the darkened office into the light of the main area of the warehouse.
The other men gathered with Joseph and his captor.  One had the rope and the other had a bat.  “You’ve been stealing my shit, friend,” said the small man with the bat.  It occurred to Joseph that he was the short man who hid the liquor bottles on the other side of the liquor warehouse.
“Maybe you can tell me where you hid it,” he continued.
He took the bat and hit Joseph square in the stomach.  And while much of it was fat, it still hurt.   Joseph doubled over in pain.  The other two held his arms on either side of him so he would not fight back.  Joseph, however, didn’t want to fight.  He wanted to leave, to run away.   Another blow to the stomach.  And another.  He went around to Joseph’s back and smacked him with the bat.  “Where’d you put ‘em?”
Joseph couldn’t think, let alone remember.  Things in the past were either a blur to him or simply did not exist in his memory.  “Maybe this will help you remember,” and the little guy hit him again in the head.
Joseph’s lip and eyebrow started to bleed and he looked away,  his eyes fixed in the direction of the empty bottles sitting under the warehouse window.  The little guy followed his gaze, “Ah, here they are,” he dropped the bat, and walked to the bottles.
“But these bottles are empty, friend,” he picked up the bottles and turned them upside down to show that they were indeed empty.  “Do you know where the whiskey went?  Cause it’s not in either of these,” and he threw them as hard as he could to the other side of the room.  They smashed against the walls of the other side of the warehouse, right above where Thief was sleeping.  It awoke and ran under a table.
“No!  Don’t!” cried Joseph.  He didn’t want Thief to get hit.
The man who threw the bottles narrowed his eyes and walked back to the bat, “You don’t like glass breaking?” He then took the bat and started smashing windows.   Once he got to the window above the table with Thief underneath Joseph cried out again.  The man with the bat stopped hitting the windows and instead walked to Joseph.  He looked at him closely for a moment and then smacked him again in the face with the bat.  After, the man with the bat looked at other two, still holding on to Joseph’s arms on either side and said, “Why don’t you two tie him up on that easel, maybe then he’ll shut the hell up.”
The two bigger men dragged Joseph to his new easel, used the rope to tie his wrists, neck and ankles to the 2X4s, and since it was too weak to keep him propped up, they let if fall to the ground hard, with a large crash while Joseph still tied to the wooden poles.  Surprising, the easel didn’t break.  But the project Joseph begun fell to the floor.  The smaller man then went back to the window above Thief and smashed it to pieces.  Joseph gave another yell.
Joseph saw Thief run to another hiding spot under the trash and under another window.  The small man hit that window, Joseph screamed louder, for longer this time, and Thief ran to another hiding spot.  Another man turned the table upside down and tore away two of the legs from the surface so that the other two would have weapons.  Then all three went from window to window, shattering each and Thief running scared in all directions.  Joseph, screamed all the more.  Finally, just as the three men finished breaking anything they could find, Joseph, tied to the easel while still a little drunk and unable to help his only friend from being hurt, started to cry.  Tears streamed down his face like a child torn away from his favorite toy.  “Don’t hurt him,” he cried, “he’s just an animal.”
“Too late,” responded the small man with the bat, and hit him hard in the head, this time knocking him unconscious and putting him out of his misery.
About an hour later the three men opened the door to leave the floor, taking their time to descend the stairs, one by one.  With a few empty liquor bottles in the hands of the smallest, they slithered away around the parking lot, threw themselves in the vehicles and drove off.  Thief stayed behind, unnoticed, with his unconscious follower.  The creature collected a bit of water on its paws from a few tiny puddles and placed it on Joseph’s head.  Thief then stayed with the unconscious body for a time, hoping he would awaken, although not really sure it would ever happen.  And when Joseph did not awake, Thief then left, taking with him the few last crumbs of potato chips in his mouth and the memory of the creature who gave them to him.

That said, I’ve been considering the difficult choice to keep contact with them; that is, to continue the dialogue. This is not easy for me but it sounds intriguing. Contacting people whom I find difficult, complicated, and abusive, for what purpose? And what does this mean if I should reconnect with family? Should I communicate with abusive family members in my past? I don’t know.

One thing I do know is that the dialogue must continue. Even with negligent parents, grandparents filled with anger, jealous step parents, and defensive in-laws, I really shouldn’t put them in a box under my bed and forget about them. It’s true, I don’t really trust them. But I guess with minor steps (maybe a call for mothers’ day) I can start. Only God knows how it will end.

This week has been particularly stressful for me; perhaps for you too.  Family stress from preparing to move, finishing the semester at work, and worrying about health issues have caused me to lose sleep and feel pretty bad about myself.  And the reaction of others about my leaving at work has also affected me negatively.  I feel that I don’t have a good handle on how all of these things will result, and I am worried about future for others.

Ultimately I’m suffering from the same issues that many people are facing these days: confronting the unknown.   I don’t know whether you agree or not, but I like to see the plan, the map, the schedule.  I like checklists.  Sometimes I even read the end of a story before the beginning, just to get a good picture of where I’ll end up.  Even though I like to pride myself in being inductive, the truth is I am sometimes more deductive.  I want the rules and then expect everything to follow those rules.  Silly Leslie, you can’t control life with those silly rules!

The thing is, I wish life were superpredicable;  it’s not.  We work and expect a paycheck.  We take vitamins and expect to be healthy.  We study and expect a top grade.  But more times than we care to admit, the paycheck bounces, the vitamins give us a stomachache and the teacher is a jerk.

I strive to freefall, to jump out of the plane and glide like a flying squirrel, not tumble clumsily like a pebble.   Maybe instead of thinking of the impact, we should immerse ourselves in the fall.  Remember to feel the rush of the wind on our faces and the marvel in the speed at which we fly.  God always provides a soft landing.  Find peace in the act of falling and in the beauty of change.  It’s like watching the trees turn orange in autumn, or a comet zoom past us in the sky.  Don’t obsess about where it will end.  Enjoy the moment while it’s here.  Its impact will come soon enough.

LRider

leslie rider.