My mother and grandmother were foreigners, essentially, so they had an alien’s attitude about forgiveness. Mom apologized and expected that all bad feeling was soothed. But, being Americans, my sister and I expected contrition. Saying sorry was fine, but tears were better. This is a country of moral failures, not simple mistakes.
But Mom only said, — I didn’t mean to fight. Forgive me.
That’s it.
Then she and Grandma left to clean the bathroom, mow the yard, keep living.
Leaving my sister and I as mystified as a Baptist with a Buddhist groom.
Our living room was painted red, but in the low register. Nearly crimson. It was a serious little chamber; only more so with my sister in it.
— This family needs church, my sister said.
— Awww. I groaned, ground my teeth, gripped the couch cushion then collapsed.
— Let’s get dressed, Nabisase commanded.
— You should at least ask me.
— Wear a suit, she said.
— I’ve only got one and it’s dirty.
Mom and Grandma weren’t going. — We did our time in that institution, Mom insisted.
When I hid in the boiler room I hoped my dithering would make us miss the preacher’s call, but Nabisase appeared carrying my shoes and black socks. I ducked into Grandma’s closet and my sister brought me a tie. A thirteen-year-old girl haunted me.
This had nothing to do with religion; if this had been Saturday she’d insist we go join a synagogue. On Monday it would be to attend a school board meeting for Community School District 29. A teenager’s natural talent is for blending tedium with enmity.
Unfortunately in Queens it was possible to indulge this impulse for Holy Ghosts or Holy Rollers at any time. I couldn’t delay us out of a sermon. There were seven churches in a one-mile radius from our home; even one that operated from midnight to six A.M.
Storefronts, trailers on the side of the road, established brick venues with gabled rooftops and parking lots. Christ was here. I later discovered that Queens was much like the South. Places where there is one God and he tolls for thee.
There was a church three blocks away. Close enough that Nabisase and I walked even though I didn’t want to.
On the corner of 229th Street and 147th Avenue there was a small brick building that might have been mistaken for a speakeasy rather than a church. It had no windows and only one gray metal door in front. The sign on the gate that surrounded the church read: Apostolic Church of Christ. A Church with Old Time Powers.
— These people actually believe in God, I told her. Do you understand that?
I didn’t want to attend a service just to hear my sister rant to the pastor afterwards. Screaming about how much she hated Mom’s corrupt behavior at the picnic.
Nabisase would do that because she believed the church was here to serve her, not the other way round. If she knew that selfcenteredness was a sin she’d never have gone inside. Airing family distress seemed like the wrong reason to attend anyway and, more to the point, embarrassing. I really wanted to avoid that kind of thing in Rosedale. I thought I came off pretty well at the cookout so I wanted to make more good impressions, not fewer.
As my sister opened the church door I ran away. Slowly. Two blocks to the bus stop.
I went to the subway via a gypsy van to Jamaica then an E train from Parsons Boulevard. Since it was Sunday and I couldn’t look for work, I’d decided to buy a second suit. They were only $100 for everything. Not including shoes and socks. I transferred at Lexington Avenue to the 6. Where I met Lorraine. A little shredded paperback in her hands.
I sat next to her so I could be sure she wasn’t reading a hair pamphlet or a cosmetics catalog or a douche brochure. I don’t know.
Where we sat the train car smelled pleasantly like cinnamon because of two small girls whose hands and cheeks were iced and sticky from pastries. That seemed like a good omen for a fat man. Even better when the cover of her book showed the words, Translated from the Russian by Andrew R. MacAndrew.
— How do you like the story? I asked her.
Lorraine turned her face to me, but not her body.
I don’t want to make too much of her; Lorraine was on her way to being as heavy as me. We had the same shape. Just she was six inches shorter. Her face was nearly lost in these frizzy hairs that dangled from the sides of her head. She lurched forward so much as she sat that her nipples nearly touched her belly button. Lorraine was a shlump and tremendously glamorous. I wanted to cry over her feet because I was so thankful that she’d turned around. More so when she kept listening to me.
She was reading a book of stories by Nikolai Gogol so I told her about his novel, Dead Souls.
That when he’d finished the first third his mind began to twist, instead of just being a good story he was convinced that his book was meant to save the Russian people. When he realized this was nonsense he burned the unpublished pages, most of the second third, then starved himself to death in a religious fervor. The year was 1852.
Lorraine didn’t find the tale very compelling, but she liked the fact that I knew it. Most of the guys she dealt with divided their time between PlayStation games and good weed. I couldn’t tell a woman with that kind of bias that I’d rather be discussing ghost stories. My freshman lit class had taught me enough to approximate erudition.
We spoke on the telephone most evenings. Lorraine was a college student and in class during the day. I was never allowed to ring her because she had a volatile roommate studying to be a veterinarian. A guy. She said she lived in the dorms, but I sure didn’t believe her. Because I didn’t have her phone number I felt powerless. Whenever she chose Lorraine could stop calling, then where would I be?
Every conversation I asked her to spend the night with me. For two weeks she waffled, but why else were we talking.
Two weeks to wear her down.
She suggested this motel with a view of the Cross Bronx Expressway.
Snug between a furniture warehouse and an abandoned furniture warehouse Red Penny Motel looked positively high-toned. Seventy-five rooms, but only two lights were on. Twenty-six cars in the parking lot. The night was so cold that my nose had numbed and I didn’t get to smell this rich city.
I walked into the parking lot. Probably the first person over the age of sixteen who’d ever done such a thing. The bus stop was seven blocks away, and calling a gypsy cab would have been a waste.
The lobby entrance was cramped down by the giant penny slung above the doors. Eight feet across with a large Abe Lincoln whose nose was misshaped long and had a pointed beard, more Devil than the long-interred emancipator. Maybe the crazy black Hebrew Israelites had gone into the hospitality industry after realizing there was no profit in broadswords.
I went into the lobby to get keys for a room then waited on a bench across from a pair of old women. I had never seen such love as theirs. They held hands absently, but firm; one set of fingers like kudzu, the other like dirt. It was the kind of friendship earned after forty years. I doubted they were renting a room; the motel clerk was letting them rest some warmth back into their bodies. If they had shelter I wouldn’t know it; how they made money I can’t surmise.
After ten minutes our quartet had, involuntarily, synchronized our breathing. A tiny gasp around the room and then a silence deeper than the fields of space.
The first woman wore sandals even though it was October 21st. Her toes were exposed. Her heels were calloused into stiff yellowed skin that I wanted to caress between my thumbs.
I missed women very much.
I was wearing a dark green suit that was ugly, but I got good service at the store. It was fitting that I wore it to see Lorraine again since I’d been on my way to buy it when I met her. The Egyptian guy who owned the place in midtown Manhattan even recognized me when I visited. He came from behind the counter screaming, Big Man! I have the jacket for you! You know famous rapper Mr. Notorious B.I.G.? I make you look as good as that.