Shake Down the Stars

by Renee Swindle

  I find a seat on the train and close my eyes. I expect to feel a sense of relief for getting away from the Neanderthal, but honestly? All I feel is deep and abiding shame. I think of the guy in the church parking lot. I think about what a lousy teacher I’ve been to my students. I think of Mom slapping me and the disgusted look in her eyes.

  I can’t go on like this. What would Hailey think of my behavior? I feel tears coming. Except for a few people, the car is practically empty, so I don’t bother trying to hold them back. It’s as if my heart has become too weak, too drained from trying to keep things together.

  No, I absolutely cannot continue like this. What’s more, I know I need help. I feel the Neanderthal’s hands on me and bring my feet up on the seat. I hear myself say through my tears, “I need help.” A man three rows up turns and scowls. I’m sure I must look mentally ill or like a drug addict. I don’t care, though. “I need help,” I whimper. “Somebody, please. I need help.” I curl up into a ball on my seat and let the tears come. I cry through several stops and through the tunnel leading back to Oakland. I cry and cry and cry.

  ten

  I crawl into bed once I’m home and stay there well into the next morning. I spend most of the day throwing up, sleeping, and crying. When I finally get the strength to get out of bed, I go straight to the bottles of scotch in my kitchen cabinet and start pouring them out. As I watch the liquor run down the drain, I admit that I have a problem. I’ve been trying to trick myself into believing that because I have a respectable job and a fair number of smarts, I can handle my liquor, but I can’t. What’s more, I need to stop using Hailey’s death as an excuse to drink. What happened with the Neanderthal scared the shit out of me. I have to quit. I have to.

  After emptying four bottles, I take down an as-yet-unopened lovely fifteen-year-old Glenlivet, an oak-based scotch with a hint of citrus. It’s a sad sad thing to see the golden liquid pouring into the drain, and it’s not long before the aroma overwhelms me, and somewhere near the base of my cortex, my brain begins its rebellion—Drink! Drink!—sending preliminary signals to my nerves and cells that they must stand together at all cost and break my will—Drink!

  Even as I set the empty bottle next to the others, I know my brain and my body will eventually win. Sure, the kitchen is free of alcohol now, but what happens tomorrow? Hell, what happens tonight? Frustrated, I put all of the empty bottles in a bag, quickly dress, and take them to the recycling bin downstairs. I then start walking up the block with the hope that a tour of the altars will help clear my head.

  I visit Tank’s altar first. The candles and teddy bears are still there; someone has added a bowl of uncooked yams and fresh flowers; the poster boards are still in place, as is Donne’s poem. Just next to the poem someone has written: I miss you, Tank. Your turn to look after me now.

  I walk up to Sixty-fifth and visit Dexter Allen’s altar. Dexter’s altar is on his parents’ front lawn. There are a row of vodka bottles and candy bars spread in front of a small trickling fountain. At the foot of the fountain is a plaque: DEXTER ALLEN, SON, FATHER, BEST FRIEND. IF MY TEARS COULD BUILD A STAIRWAY TO REACH YOU, I’D CRY FOR ETERNITY.

  As I come up to the corner of Fifty-fifth, I notice a ten-speed bicycle chained to a stop sign and painted entirely white. Plastic flowers have been tied all around the bike and candles placed on the sidewalk. The front tire, also painted white, is smashed and juts off at a crooked angle. A large flyer with a photo is taped to the pole: PLEASE DRIVE CAREFULLY AND WITH RESPECT TO EVERYONE AROUND YOU. In the photo a young man is playing outdoors with a girl of eight or nine. Beneath that are the words MICHAEL, WE WILL MISS YOU AND LOVE YOU ALWAYS. I close my eyes and do my best to send supportive thoughts to Michael’s daughter and family. I then think: I have to stop drinking. I have to stop drinking.

  Finally, I make my way to the corner of Fifty-fifth and Market where I light a candle for Lil’ Sonny. Sonny was shot next door to a liquor store. Two balloons are tied to the chain-link fence, separating the store from the house next door. Someone has made a poster that has pictures of Sonny. Sonny dancing. Sonny holding who I guess is his little boy. People have written things like Save a place for me! and I love you, baby, Always and forever. Lil’ C.

  Next to the poster board is a bright yellow flyer.

  Prayer and support for those who have lost beloved family members and friends due to illness, police brutality, gang violence or drugs or any unforeseen circumstance or act of God. Please join us. First Congregational Church AME. 122 43rd. Seven p.m. Second and fourth Sundays. Rec Room. Punch and cookies provided.

  I check my watch. Six forty-five.

  • • •

  The mourners’ group at First AME is the antithesis of Friends of Friends in Mourning. The walls are covered with yellow and pink wallpaper, fading and peeling in spots. A sign that reads NO SMOKING is inexplicably burned crisp at the edges. As promised, there’s a table set up with cookies and punch next to a two-foot-high Christmas tree that droops under the weight of too many ornaments. Two people help themselves; the others, six in total, sit in a circle in the center of the room. I join them, returning polite smiles while promising myself that if I start to feel remotely like I did while at the Reverend’s church two nights ago, I’m outta here.

  A man who looks to be in his early seventies, mustached and bald, introduces himself as Deacon Morris. He then claps his hands and says, “All right, let’s all get started.” He’s slack in body, and the top of his pants reach into his chest. But his muscular arms tell another story, hinting that he was strong back in the day; his booming voice adds to my hunch. “Sister Arlene, will you lead us in prayer?”

  Everyone bows his or her head on cue except for me. Instead, I look around at our ragtag bunch. One guy’s face sags in on itself thanks to his missing teeth. The woman next to him wears a red wig that looks more like a crooked hat. I think briefly that if I leave now, no one will notice, but Arlene begins her prayer, and I can’t get up the courage to sneak out.

  “Dear Lord, we thank you for this meeting and this time to come together to worship you in your glory and to share our pain and losses, and our successes, too.”

  “Amen.”

  “We thank you for your son who had to lose his life in order for us to know life.”

  “Yes, Lord.”

  “Thank ya, Lord.”

  “You yourself, God, know what it’s like to lose a loved one, and we thank you that you understand our grief and heal us in the name of Jesus.”

  I can’t help but think, it’s not the same. God, if you buy into the myth, didn’t lose his son at all. His son rose from the dead. Big difference. Our loved ones aren’t rising from anything.

  I start to reach for my bag so I can leave. I want to kick myself for thinking that a mourners’ group in a church rec room would be of any help, but just as I grab my bag, the prayer ends, and Deacon Morris asks each of us to give our names. When we’re finished he says, “Now, we are assembled here to share our grief and our pain, but we are also here to share love, as our loved ones would want us to do. Who would like to start?”

  A young man in his twenties, who introduced himself as Marcus, raises his hand. He sits hunched down in his chair; his jacket sports the name of a hip-hop artist. “I lost my cousin Greg last March. His name was Greg, but everybody called him G-love. He wasn’t even doing anything except going to the store to buy a soda and some Cheetos, and he got robbed and beat up so bad he went into a coma and died. Died over, like, five dollars he had left in his pocket. They don’t even know who did it. But if I ever find out whoever beat him like that, because I swear I think it was Cornelius, they is going to pay.” He bounces his leg rapidly as he looks around the room. “Oh, you best believe that.” He nods firmly. “I will find whoever it is and show them what’s what.”

  Deacon Morris says, “Careful now, son. Eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. Why don’t you tel
l us what you liked about your cousin. What made you all close?”

  Marcus looks at him as though it’s a trick question, but then he thinks to himself and chuckles. “G-love—G-love was called G-love for a reason. That dog had all the ladies, round the way and then some. But he was a gentleman—don’t misunderstand. G-love was a real gentleman, like, all old-school about it. He knew how to treat a lady well, and that’s why they all loved him. Everybody loved G-love. He never had nothin’ negative to say about nobody, and ain’t nobody had nothin’ negative to say about G-love. We all just loved him.” He takes his hat from his knee and hides his face.

  The man next to him reaches over and gives his shoulder a firm squeeze. “No shame in showin’ your grief, son.”

  Deacon Morris says, “G-love, in his own way, has reminded us all here tonight about the importance of kindness and love and of being a gentleman. We all thank him for that. We thank Marcus for sharing. You are welcome here tonight, son.”

  Several in the group say, “Amen.”

  The woman to my right, Coco, begins rocking back and forth. She wears a pink T-shirt with plastic rhinestones made into the shape of a cross. She’s a large, heavyset woman with short braids that frame her round face. She holds her purse in her lap as though waiting at a bus stop. “Yes, Jesus.” She rocks. “Yes, Lord.” She rocks and calls out Jesus’s name a few more times, then takes a breath. “I just wanna thank you all for having me here tonight. Yes, Jesus. I needed to come here and be with you all. I really did.” She takes a handkerchief from her purse and dabs at her eyes. She then pulls her skirt past her knees and crosses her weighty calves at the ankles. “Brothers and sisters in Christ, I lost my son Reginald Michael Jeffries due to gang-related violence. Yes, Jesus,” she whispers. “Help me through it, Lord.”

  The woman next to her pats her back as she rocks. We all wait.

  “Yesterday,” she continues, “my son would have turned eighteen. He would’ve been eighteen years old. How long had I been waiting to see my boy turn eighteen?” She looks at each of us as if we know the answer.

  “Long time,” a man to my left says. “You were waiting to see your boy become a man.”

  “That’s right.” She nods. “That’s exactly right. A woman raises her boy so she can see him into adulthood. Ain’t natural to have it go any other way. He was turning into a good man, too. He was just graduating from high school.” She digs in her purse and takes out a pocket-sized photo and hands it to the woman next to her. We all take turns looking at the picture. I fear that I might recognize him from MacDowell, but I don’t. He’s skinny and all teeth, and he’s obviously proud of the trophy he’s holding. I pass the picture on.

  Coco looks at us all. “So tell me this: Why they have to go and kill my son? What did he do to anybody?” Her rocking starts again. “I feel like if I could understand why, I could feel better; but I’m just as lost, y’all, I really am.” The picture is returned, and she stares down at it as if she’s never seen it before. Then, without any warning whatsoever, she bursts into tears.

  Like a trained professional caregiver, the woman next to her rises from her seat and begins using her hands to make small comforting circles on her back. Coco cries without any inhibition, and she is soon wailing loudly like a dying animal. It’s so heartbreaking, I lower my head and begin to cry softly.

  Eventually a woman goes over and hugs her, then another. Deacon Morris begins praying, while Coco rocks and cries until her body is nothing more than a trembling mass.

  Deacon Morris says, “That’s right, can’t nothing you do but sit with that pain and let it carry you over. Just be with it.”

  I feel as though he’s talking to me. Coco has calmed down by now, but I’m crying harder. “I want my baby,” I hear myself say. “I want my baby back.” I begin choking on my tears and hiccupping wildly. I try to tell them: “I can’t live without her. I need her back!” I let out my own wail and cry with everything I have. I cry for Marcus. I cry for Coco. I cry for everyone in the room. I cry for every parent who’s lost a child and every child who’s lost a parent. Our loss is too much to bear, and I cry because it is too much to bear.

  I hear Deacon Morris. “Go ahead and cry, young lady. Let it all out!”

  I cry all the harder.

  “Let it out!” he shouts.

  I realize he’s standing right next to me, pressing his hand into my back as if loosening a cancer lodged deep inside my body. A new level of grief that not even I, dowser of grief, knew existed slowly begins to seep out of my body. I cry and moan as my voice rises and falls, and my body shakes and convulses like a fish caught on a line, flinging itself to and fro.

  “Let it out!” Deacon Morris shouts. I wail and moan all the louder. I’m not sure if I’ll ever stop. I cry because of my horrible fight with Mom. I cry because I’ve lost Spencer. I cry because I can’t forgive him for having another child. I cry because I can’t forgive myself for driving so fast that day.

  “That’s right. Brothers and sisters, you can take that pain and you can turn it into a source of love. Let it soften you, weaken you, humble you. That is how you can turn it into good!”

  I hear someone cry out, “Amen.” Soon someone else is touching my shoulder, while another holds my hand. My convulsing has turned to rhythmic rocking, much like Coco’s rocking earlier. I don’t fight my body or my tears, nor do I fight the words that come back: “Please help me. I can’t do this anymore. I need help.”

  I hear Deacon Morris say, “Your loved one is here saying you can go on. Let that pain take over you. It’s a wave that’ll crash you down, but you’ll be standing tall in the end. You are strong enough to hold on to it. You are a beautiful child of God. He’s letting you know you can go on.” He sounds jubilant. People clap and sing out.

  When I feel someone taking my hands in theirs, I open my eyes and stare directly into Coco’s tear-streaked face. I feel as though I’ve never seen a kinder, more compassionate face. She doesn’t say a word as we gaze into each other’s eyes, one mourning mother to another. Everyone, I see now, is standing around me, touching me in one way or another. Someone from behind smiles and says, “That’s real good. You doin’ real good.”

  I feel myself coming back to my body. My breath slows. Coco takes me in her arms, and we hug tightly. I inhale the smell of baby oil deep in the crevices of her neck, the perfume dabbed behind her ear. I feel her arms hold me close, and I hold her. We don’t dare separate.

  “Angels all around,” I hear Deacon Morris say. “Our pain, our great pain gives us the capacity to have compassion for others. That’s a blessing.” He touches my arm, and Coco and I slowly separate.

  “We know what it’s like for that woman in the Motherland who lost her children to AIDS. We feel the pain of that sister who’s lost her friend to drugs.”

  Someone says, “Amen.”

  “We don’t have to keep our walls up. We don’t have to become bitter. We’re strong enough. We’re strong enough to get through. These two grieving women have so much to offer. We can all take our pain and turn it to good. I say, we can all take our pain and turn it to good!”

  “Amen!”

  “Yes, Lord!”

  “Teach, Deacon Morris.”

  “Our pain has crushed our walls, and we go out with open hearts. Love is here with us tonight and every day of our lives just as surely as our loss and our grief. Let us let love make us strong. Let us allow love to make us formidable opponents to hatred and self-loathing. Let us let love carry us.”

  Coco takes my hand and gives it a firm squeeze. I squeeze back.

  Deacon Morris says, “Can I hear an amen?”

  We all say amen together.

  eleven

  By the next morning, my once-beloved relationship with scotch has been replaced by a codependent relationship with my toilet, whereby anytime I want to stand and leave, I’m back on my knees heavi
ng into its porcelain belly whatever contents I’m trying to keep down. My skin is cold and clammy, and the grim reaper has been going at my head with his scythe much like a Russian serf harvesting a field of wheat.

  My only saving grace is that I don’t have to go to work for two whole weeks and have time to hold out in my apartment, rid my body of alcohol, and get clean and sober once and for all. Margot has been calling and texting since yesterday:

  What happened?! What did you do?!

  Call Mom!

  Call me!

  Are you okay?

  I texted her to leave me alone, I’m fine, but by early afternoon, I’m curled up on the bathroom floor, exhausted, with my head resting against the cool tile. What’s funny, or not so funny, I’m already thinking about the scotch I tossed and how it would ease the pain in my joints and what feels like a swelling of my skull. I close my eyes and think of all the alcohol I’m going to have to give up if I quit, not only scotch, but all alcohol: merlots and chardonnays; pinots and Rieslings; margaritas on a hot summer’s day. I’ll have to say good-bye to a group of old reliable friends, and I’m not sure I want to.

  I roll onto my back and hold my stomach as it surges and swells. I ride a wave of nausea and cramps as they fight out which will torture me more.

  • • •

  An hour later I’m in the bathroom again, my head suspended above the toilet as I wait to puke. Dry heaves come a few times, and I tear up as my stomach clenches again. I still haven’t had a single drink, but hours spent at the toilet, and the feeling that I surely must have swine flu or some other exotic disease, have finally taught me there’s no way I’m going to beat this alone.