Mercy House

by Alena Dillon

  “Can’t complain,” Esther said.

  “Who says?” Evelyn asked. She swiped the steel of a butcher knife across her pant leg and positioned a carrot on her cutting board.

  She chopped onions, garlic, carrots, and celery; rinsed dried navy beans and picked through them for stones; measured water for broth; and shook in thyme, paprika, rosemary, and salt. All the while, at her back, Maria circled the transformed kitchen table. She cupped Esther’s ears, pressed her thumbs into her forehead, lay her hands on her stomach, clasped her hips, and squeezed her feet. When she was done with physical contact, she stepped back, raised both palms as if to beseech the immobile Esther to stop, and concentrated on casting positive energy in her direction. Finally, Maria approached the table once again and gestured over Esther in grand sweeping motions, cleansing her aura.

  When they first launched Mercy House decades earlier, Evelyn wasn’t just skeptical of Maria’s Reiki practice—she disdained it. Maria might be gullible enough to buy into all that Japanese energy and aura bull cocky, but that didn’t mean Evelyn had to. And why should hours of that nonsense excuse Maria from household chores? But the residents did seem to sit up from her table calmed, reassured, and more at peace. After months of begging (Please, Evie. Rei means “God’s wisdom.” Let me share with you what little of God’s wisdom I have to offer. It’s my ministry, dammit!), Evelyn relented and allowed Maria to perform her practice on her. And while Evelyn didn’t think she gained anything from the energy-beaming or aura-cleansing portion of the routine, if nothing else, she did find great comfort in being touched. Without a lover, or even any close family members, when else in her life did she experience such prolonged human contact? The warmth of Maria’s hands resting so assuredly on her breastbone stilled her pulsing anxiety. It caused Evelyn to recall a moment back at the convent when she was training to be a nun. Her friend Eloise had sensed Evelyn’s loneliness, her distress, and had placed her hand on Evelyn’s. It made all the difference. Physical communication had been a powerful thing when words were forbidden.

  The residents of Mercy House, who had suffered so much violent interaction, deserved to feel a healing, nourishing, loving hand on their skin. Who was Evelyn to deny them that, and who knew—maybe there was something to the energy and aura bull cocky too.

  “Morning,” a small voice said from behind Evelyn.

  Evelyn turned to find Lucia in the doorway, leaning against the wall as if hoping it might camouflage her. “Lucia. Good morning. How’d you sleep?”

  “Okay, thanks,” she said. Evelyn smiled, nodded curtly, and then focused her attention back to the counter. She placed the lid on the slow cooker, turned the switch to low, and began to replace the seasonings into their rack when Lucia said, “It was all right for a night.”

  Gripping the rosemary, Evelyn’s hand stilled in midair, and she rotated slowly. She caught a deliberate look from Maria, a warning to be gentle, to be less Evelyn-like. She nodded, inhaled through her nostrils, and faced Lucia. “Dear, this isn’t a Super 8. Women don’t normally stay here for only one night.”

  Lucia shifted in her stance. “Why the hell not?”

  Maria coughed to tell Evelyn she wasn’t being sweet enough, sensitive enough. Evelyn had to forcibly control her eye roll and put on a more nurturing voice than came naturally to her. No matter how long she did this, she struggled with patience, and with guiding girls into making their own decisions rather than telling them directly what was best. “Because healing takes time. And more often than not, violence comes from the home. It isn’t usually easy to find a new home so quickly.”

  Lucia’s jaw jutted to the side and she said, even more quietly, “Who said I wanted a new home? Who said I wanted a new anything?”

  Evelyn placed the rosemary shaker back onto the counter. A voice in her head screamed, He hurt you. He hurt you over and over again. You deserve to love and to be loved. But instead of saying any of that, she gripped her hands at her waist and dug a thumbnail into the skin of her index finger. “Might you be able to stay here at least one more night, just so you can think things through? That way we have the chance to talk about your options.”

  Lucia stared down at the floor and gently kicked her foot against the kitchen tile. “I guess.”

  Evelyn clapped her hands together. “‘I guess’ is good enough for me,” she said, although it certainly wasn’t. “Well, I have to run, but if you need anything, place your order with Sister Maria here.” She set a few of Maria’s bran muffins aside, tipped the tin so that the remaining ones tumbled into a basket, and then hooked her wrist beneath the basket’s handle. After a nod to Maria, which she hoped communicated Are you happy? she walked past Lucia and down the hallway, toward the front door. But at the coatrack, a thought occurred to her, and she paused to lift her Mets cap off its hook. “Don’t wait up,” she said.

  The homes on Chauncey Street were as diverse as the women who arrived at Mercy House. One side was lined with eggshell-brick, four-story tenements dulled by years of dirt and dust. Some fronts were ornamented by fire escapes, like conspicuous facial piercings. Some had decorative red-and-green moulding like bold makeup. Some walkways were gated to add an extra layer of security, or at least the illusion of security, since many gates weren’t locked. Some exteriors were made inviting with potted plants while others had bars installed over their windows.

  Opposite the apartments, on Mercy House’s side of Chauncey Street, were redbrick row houses. Mercy House shared one wall with the Sahas, a quiet Indian family of eight, including parents, grandparents, and four children under the age of ten. Naveen, the father, was an anesthesiologist back in his home country, but was currently working in a restaurant on Atlantic Avenue while he took the United States Medical Licensing Examination. Evelyn felt sorry for him—how unfair to be told you might not be qualified for the very job to which you’ve dedicated your life—but she did appreciate the periodic containers of tomato-coconut soup he left on their front step. Mercy House shared its other wall with a group of recent college graduates of the New School. She didn’t know much about them except that they liked to blast indie rock music after midnight and, based on the withered skeleton of a pine tossed on their sidewalk that morning, they were late throwing out their Christmas tree.

  Evelyn liked the look and feel of the connected dwellings on Chauncey Street. It was almost like they were all holding hands down the block, from Ralph to Howard Avenue. A community forced by architecture. Although there was a lot of turnover, especially as the culture of the neighborhood evolved, there were also some longtime residents. People who were there that terrible morning a few years earlier when Evelyn woke to find the word “whores” spray-painted across the outside of their home in thick black letters. Maybe the hateful artist would have preferred the scarlet ink of Hester Prynne, but it would have blended too well with his redbrick canvas. Several of Chauncey Street’s habitants came outside that day, toting buckets of soapy water and sponges. Evelyn had to buy graffiti remover and rent a pressure washer to erase that ugly word, but the offers of help were still appreciated.

  Evelyn had recently enjoyed her favorite part about the block. During the holiday season, she distributed battery-operated candles equipped with a timer to each home and, every night at 5 P.M., all the windows lit at once. It was important that the women of Mercy House could look out the window, see all the flames glowing around them, and be comforted. Especially at Christmastime, when they were away from everything they knew. And Evelyn wanted potential residents of Mercy House to turn onto Chauncey and know it was a place for shelter, a sanctuary street.

  “How you doin’ this morning, Sister?”

  Evelyn gripped the icy iron railing with her free hand and steadied her feet on the steps before she looked up. Across the street, Joylette, a single mother of three teenage boys, was hanging laundry on her second-floor fire escape. Evelyn risked releasing her hold in order to wave. “Just fine, thanks. You finally have a day off?”

&nbs
p; “Has hell frozen over?”

  “Not that I’ve been told.”

  “Then I guess my shift starts in twenty-five minutes.”

  “Do those handsome boys of yours appreciate how hard you work for them?”

  “Has hell frozen over?”

  Evelyn laughed and ventured another step. “Maybe it should.”

  She allowed herself one more glimpse up at Joylette; she wished she could offer to help—no, insist on it—to relieve that woman who took it upon herself to run her family’s world so she could have the time, the luxury, to stop for a coffee and sit before work. But Evelyn had her own world to run.

  “The Mets suck,” Nigel barked as Evelyn approached. He sat against the steel grate of a closed storefront on Ralph Avenue, around the corner from Mercy House. A navy knit cap was pulled over straggly straw-colored hair, and a bushy gray beard tickled his chest. He was dressed in appropriate layers for the cold, and Evelyn was pleased to see he was still wearing the bubble coat and work boots she’d given to him for Christmas the previous month—that he hadn’t pawned them for something less noble.

  “I like an underdog,” she said.

  “Underdog. Now there’s TV worth watching.” He lifted his chin to snoop the contents of her basket. “Blueberry?” he asked, hopeful.

  “Not so fast,” she said and pulled the basket back against her body. “What do you have for me?”

  Nigel settled back into his spot. “A girl came by in the middle of the night. Maybe two or three o’clock.”

  “That much I know. I opened the door for her, as you may have noticed.”

  He glared up at Evelyn and sighed. “Was I finished? Not sure of her people. Spics, probably.”

  Evelyn swallowed her urge to address his hateful language. Curses were one thing. Prejudice was another. But she had more pressing matters. “Was she followed?”

  “No, she was by herself. Pretty little thing in the dark all alone. Not too bright.”

  “Did you recognize her?” she asked. Nigel sucked his bottom lip into his mouth until his top teeth scraped the hairs of his beard. She raised her eyebrows. “Well?”

  “Four muffins.”

  “You aren’t my only stop, you know,” she said. He shrugged and turned his head away to show his indifference. This was their dance. “Three muffins.”

  Nigel faced her again. “She hangs around with Juan or Jorge or whatever his fucking name is. The thug with the cross on his face.”

  “Shit,” Evelyn said. She knew just who he was describing. Angel Perez had a Gothic cross tattooed on his cheek. The tip was a dagger, and it dripped inky blood down his neck. He was also a ranking member of Los Soldados, one of the most violent gangs in Brooklyn. To be initiated, you had to murder a stranger. “Shit.”

  “Yeah, shit. It hits the fan. The world goes to it. You can sprinkle glitter on it but it still stinks. Hey, you may not like the info, but that don’t mean it’s free.” He extended his hands, and she plucked three muffins from the basket and deposited them into his open palms. He smiled smugly, as if he were getting away with something, and then took a bite. Evelyn walked past him toward her next destination. “This ain’t blueberry!” Nigel cried after her. “It’s bullshit. That’s what it is, Sister. Bullshit.”

  Before Evelyn panicked, she wanted to determine the exact gravity of the situation. She needed more information.

  As she walked north on Ralph Avenue, a sharp wind cut through the fabric of her coat and chilled her skin. This is what you get for buying winter wear at a flea market. Wool, my ass, she thought, and pinched her collar closed with a bare hand. She cursed herself for remembering her Mets cap but forgetting gloves. But the cap was an icebreaker. Gloves weren’t nearly as valuable.

  The clouds were heavy with snow, and their slate was a dull contrast to the three-story brickface buildings on either side of the avenue. The store awnings were in desperate need of repair: the yellow of the halal shop was streaked with dirt and the green of the African market was faded and torn across the first letter, making it appear to read “frican Grocery Store.”

  Lights were beginning to flash on in the adjacent retailers: Goodwill, Family Dollar, and Bargain Hunters. A McDonald’s bag skittered across the sidewalk; Evelyn stepped forward as if to pick it up, but then she spotted a crushed Styrofoam coffee cup just beyond it. It would be impossible to clean the entire street, so what was the point in disposing of a single bag?

  “Morning, Sister,” a childish voice said from outside her peripheral vision. Evelyn rotated stiffly to find Alfred, a ten-year-old boy from her parish, zipping around the corner on Heelys, sneakers whose back end housed a wheel. Alfred’s mother didn’t get off from work until noon on Sunday, after all the English services, so they were one of the few African American families who attended the Spanish Mass.

  “Morning, Alfred. Don’t break your neck,” Evelyn said and hurried onward.

  St. Joseph of Mercy Church took up the entire next corner, sharing the intersection with a Popeyes, a Western Union, and a deli grocer run largely on food stamps. The church’s Gothic Revival architecture included a main house and a tower capped by four spindly pinnacles. A rose window at the center and three white marble arcades at the entrance accented the facade. It was a beautiful piece of history made even more stunning in contrast: the church was sandwiched between rundown row houses to the east, and Hong Kong City Chinese Restaurant to the north. This wasn’t an unusual sight in Bedford-Stuyvesant, where over eight thousand buildings were constructed in the nineteenth century.

  Miss Linda sat hunched on the bus stop bench in front of the church. The hem of her pink leopard-print skirt fell at her shins, revealing bare, ashy ankles. Her once-white sneakers were now sooty with filth and peeling at the toes.

  “Miss Linda, please, go sit inside,” Evelyn said, gesturing to the church. Her words came out more impatient than she intended.

  “I don’t want to bother no one.”

  “Who is there to bother? We can hardly get people there on Sunday, never mind at eight o’clock on a Tuesday morning. The place is empty.”

  Miss Linda’s gaze drifted up to Evelyn’s and lingered for a moment before dropping back to the sidewalk. Her jaw shifted from side to side. “I abuse your generosity. I shouldn’t make a habit of that.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “I’m fine just where I am.”

  “Oh for cripes’ sake. I have things to do, Miss Linda. But you know I can’t leave you sitting out here in the cold. Please just go inside so I can be on my way. If you insist on being a knucklehead, you can come back out as soon as you defrost.”

  She nodded slowly. “Maybe just for a minute.”

  “Good. And take a couple of these.” She handed Miss Linda three muffins, one at a time, which the woman slipped into the black plastic bags at her side.

  Miss Linda placed her hands on the bench and heaved herself to her feet. “I hope you accept as much kindness as you give, Sister. It ain’t right to be the one always dishing it out. It just ain’t right,” she said, and ambled toward the church entrance.

  Evelyn continued north on Ralph Avenue for another quarter mile, pausing once more to provide a homeless man a bit of breakfast. Then she turned right onto Gates Avenue.

  Bedford-Stuyvesant, or, as the natives called it, Bed-Stuy, was undergoing a transformation. Like many other Brooklyn neighborhoods, it was once so dangerous Evelyn hesitated to stop at red lights, but now, for better or worse, it was gentrifying. Starbucks was creeping onto the borders near Park Slope and Clinton Hill. Fringe bakeries began to peddle overpriced donuts or cupcakes or whatever the hell was the current trend. Mothers pushed baby strollers down the sidewalks on their way to vegan smoothie shops. Joggers appeared as if from nowhere. Rents skyrocketed. There was even a Whole Foods. Where once a drunken stranger had groped Evelyn without any passerby intervening, it was now becoming an area you could walk around with complete confidence. At least during daylight hours.


  North of Gates Avenue trailed a bit behind the rest of Bed-Stuy’s evolution cycle and, at night, crime trickled down from that zone. Evelyn still wasn’t surprised to read about local robberies, stabbings, or shootings in the morning paper.

  Several housing projects also happened to be located north of Gates Avenue; in fact, some Mercy House residents came from the Sumner Houses or the Tompkins Projects. The latter was also home to several known gang members—including Angel Perez.

  Evelyn found James in an empty parking lot, leaning against a brick wall painted with a mural of Bed-Stuy born and bred rap artists: Fabolous, Mos Def, Biggie Smalls, and Lil’ Kim. The previous graffiti on that wall had been phallic and uninspired; Evelyn thought it was a shame this muralist wasn’t paid for his or her contribution to the community.

  “Morning, James,” Evelyn called from a distance to afford him enough time to tuck away his liquor.

  “Mister Sister,” James said, returning her greeting with a nickname he invented after watching her fend off a mugger; he’d never met a nun with such a set of balls.

  “I need some information.” Evelyn was out of breath from the mile-long walk, and her knees and ankles ached beneath the weight of her body. Moisture pooled beneath her breasts, which had rounded to a size that would have made her younger self envious, but had, in the last couple decades, fallen to rest on her belly, as if they were defeated by the knowledge of their ultimate futility. She leaned her rump against the hood of a rusted sedan.

  “It’s yours if I got it.” A woolen hat embroidered with a single snowflake peeked out from beneath a gray sweatshirt hood. Evelyn found the design incredibly endearing.

  “How much do you know about Angel Perez?” She rooted around in her basket. Four muffins remained. She handed one to James and took a bite from another.

  “I know he’s a mean-ass son of a bitch.” James lifted the muffin as if to toast Evelyn and then took a bite.

  “How often do you see him around here?”

  “Often enough.”