by Lisa Samson
“I love it!” I cried from a place deep within.
There is no fear in love.
Father Charlie raised his fine, winged brows. “See, I told you, didn’t I?”
We rehearsed for the next ten minutes. Very straightforward chords, softly played for Marsha’s verses, royally rendered for the chorus. Those goose bumps returned.
Every single time.
God gave Marsha that kind of voice. Imagine if ice felt as warm as it looked clear.
Yep, Father Charlie nailed this one, all right. Definitely worth leaving home for. It was why I played here at all. I mean, Mother and Daddy baptized me a Methodist, for heaven’s sake. But something pulls me back week after week to St. Dominic’s. Catholic churches cloister within them an attractive mysteriousness to Protestant types like me. After all these years here, I still am no exception. But praising God at St. Dominic’s, accompanying Marsha and the parishioners, well, I know God desires me to use my gift right here. And sometimes I feel more at home here than anywhere else.
Maybe it’s the scent of the candles.
Maybe it’s the altar.
Maybe it’s watching people kneel, watching people humble themselves in a way Protestant churches fail to expect, that humbles my heart.
Maybe it’s because Father Charlie reassures me at my loneliest moments that one can get along fine in life without a member of the opposite sex confusing things. “You’d make a great nun, Lark,” he keeps saying. But becoming a nun? No. The whole Mary thing unsettles me.
You’d make a great nun, Lark.
Oh my word.
“How about coming down to the kitchen for a milkshake?” Father Charlie asked when we finished.
Marsha, who happens to be my best friend, tightened her porous, bleached-blond ponytail, dividing it in two and pulling the sections apart in a painful-looking manner toward her purple zebra-print scrunchy. “Great. What flavor did you get this week, Father?”
“Butter pecan. How about it, Lark? You look like you could use some ice cream.”
“I’ll pass. I’ve got to get home.”
“Oh, come on. Your answering machine will pick up the calls, and you can call them back.”
I swung my feet around to the side of the bench. “No, really. I’ve got to go.”
The ants go marching one by one.
There is no fear in love.
Marsha shoved her music into a satchel. “She’s on a no-sugar kick now anyway, Father.”
He turned to me with surprise. “You don’t say? How come?”
Marsha jumped right in, thank you very much. “She saw a special on one of those health news spots on WJZ that sugar is actually a poison.”
I shook my head. “Marsha, come on.”
“It’s true, Lark.”
I almost said something about cellulite so profound it actually displays its topographical contours through purple Lycra leggings—hint, hint, Marsha—but Father Charlie just laid a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “It’s okay, honey.”
“Thanks, Father.” Thank heavens he interrupted before I voiced my thoughts. “I’d better go.”
“See you tomorrow for five o’clock mass.”
“I’ll be here.”
“I know you will.”
I scurried down the main aisle, the real live church mouse.
“I’ll call you!” Marsha hollered.
“I’m sure you will, sister!” I pushed on the front door and found myself in the night street, right there on Harford Road, streetlights ineffective in the fight against crime. Somebody once called Baltimore’s streets “the mean streets.” Pretty apt.
Just breathe, Lark. Just breathe.
Remember, you’re in Hamilton, not Patterson Park.
Right foot. Left foot.
Forget about the guys that held up your father all those years ago.
Just like that.
What about that stickup in the Hutzler’s parking lot down on York Road when you were thirteen?
Perfect love casts out all fear.
They only got five bucks from Aunt Joy.
There.
And a pamphlet on the laetrile miracle cure from Uncle Bill.
See.
You can do it.
See?
Only gone an hour, I thought about my answering machine and the many voices now trapped on its tape. People tend to call after ten. And from eleven to midnight one call rings right after another. I know from experience that eleven to twelve is the loneliest hour of the day.
“Is this 1-777-IPRAY4U? I saw your ad in this magazine … and well, I feel a little silly now. Should I just leave my request? Should I call back later? Well …”
Or, “Hi, Prayer Lady, it’s just me, Gene. I was calling to let you know what happened today at work. You won’t believe …”
Or, “Help me. Is this for real? I need prayer real bad …”
And they all did. Everyone that dials my toll-free line needs prayer. And I pray with them. Right there over the phone. It’s the least anybody can do, right?
A fire truck blared its horn.
No fear. No fear.
I jumped back to the doorway of St. Dominic’s with a small scream.
Father Charlie slammed through the door. “Lark! You okay?”
“The fire truck.”
“It’s okay, child.”
I just love Father Charlie. And we watched together as it barreled over the hill.
“I’ve always hated fire trucks.” I laughed that tin-can laugh that grates on even my own nerves.
“Go on home and don’t fear, Lark.”
Fear not. Fear not.
“There is no fear in love, Father Charlie.”
“John the Beloved couldn’t have been wrong, child.”
“Perfect love casts out all fear.”
“You remember that, Lark.”
He squeezed my shoulder with an oven mitt–sized hand.
Good thing the roster of shepherds on Christmas morning didn’t include me is all I can say, because those angels might have been a little miffed at me, Lark Summerville, sitting there with all the sheep, frozen with fright and unable to even hear the most wonderful announcement ever made.
I stepped back out onto the sidewalk, passed Mo the Friendly Drunk, the most honest drunk alive.
“Hi, I’m Mo the Friendly Drunk, and I need some money for a drink. Now, I’ll be honest with you. That’s what I want the money for.” He smiles politely and nods, his eyes diminished by the quarter-pound lenses in his wire glasses.
I shouldn’t have handed him the fifty cents in my pocket, but I did.
Mo the Friendly Drunk and Lark the Recluse.
There but for the grace of God, they say.
I headed down the street. The 3 B’s Restaurant, sealed up and ready for the morning, displayed a chrome-lined counter, coffee cups facedown in their saucers. I’m talking some great chili in there. And the crab soup? Wonderful. Except I always worry a little bit when I spoon the flesh of bottom-feeding scavengers into my mouth. Babe Babachakos, the waitress and owner’s wife, worries over a grand-nephew down at Hopkins in the pediatric oncology ward. She calls the prayer line but never reveals her name. I find it impossible to mistake the voice that scrapes over tobacco-stained vocal cords that way. I don’t let on that I know.
The door from one of the dark Irish bars on Harford Road opened up, spilling the stink of stale beer and men’s hairy underarms and two drunk guys wearing yellow CAT hats onto the sidewalk. Peering inside for the instant the door spread-eagled onto the sidewalk, I tried to fuse my backbone with the light pole, willing my heart to calm itself.
What is it with men anyway?
There they all sat in a row, talking, watching television, their big behinds spreading like melted cheese on barstools miniaturized by their overabundant flab. There they sat, drinking their booze, watching their sports, yuk-yukking at the inane, while most probably a wife at home who made dinner, did the dishes, bathed their four chil
dren, put them to bed, then threw in a load of laundry and made lunches for the next day, fell with exhaustion into an empty bed at 10:30.
And then beer boy in there will stagger home, expect a little hanky-panky, and wonder why she doesn’t feel like it, will sulk, be a typical, selfish male, maybe even smack her around if he’s the abusive type, and then fall asleep and snore so loudly in his drunkenness she won’t even be able to get a wink of sleep.
Men.
Men. Men. Men.
If they could just be more like Jesus the world would be a better place, and that’s the utter truth. Why do the best men always take a vow of celibacy?
Shoot. Forgot the milk.
I crossed Harford Road and skittered back to the twenty-four-hour CVS. We needed a loaf of bread for toast in the morning, and some extra milk wouldn’t hurt a bit. Two percent. Can’t forget the arteries while looking out for osteoporosis.
Behind the counter, in front of all those cigarettes I still craved twenty-three years after I gave them up, stood Rots DiMatti. How a man ever comes by a nickname like Rots is beyond me. At first I imagined all sorts of devilish escapades. Soap on windows. Eggs on shutters. Flaming bags of dog doo on doorsteps. But Babe at the 3 B’s told me he was called Rotten Tomaters as a kid back in the thirties.
Huh?
“DiMatti-Tomaters, DiMatti-Tomaters. Get it?”
I set my purchases on Rots’s counter.
“Hi, Mr. DiMatti.”
“Hey, Doll.”
I love that. Doll.
“How’s Mrs. DiMatti?”
“In Florida! I says, ‘Sweetie Pie, now’s not the time to pick up and go to Florida! It’s hot there now.’ And she says, ‘Rots, I’ll go to Florida when I please.’ ” He waved a bony, polka-dotted hand. “So off she went.”
“How long you batching it?”
“A month.”
“Lucky you.”
He winked and handed me the change. “And stop giving your money to that bum, Doll.”
“I don’t give him much, Mr. DiMatti.”
“Would you buy him a drink?”
“Well, no.” I apologized. “And I know, I know it’s the same thing.”
“You’re too nice.”
Oh my word. How wrong could somebody be?
“ ’Night, Doll.”
It looked so dark outside those doors.
“ ’Night.”
Go on out, Lark. Go ahead, you can do it, sister.
The three-block walk seemed like a mile with two gallons of milk hanging in blue plastic bags about to cut my forearm in two. Not to mention the two-liter bottle of Coke for Flannery, my sweet daughter, or the bag of Nutter Butters. I figured I’d show Marsha.
I can eat Nutter Butters with the best of them. And I would.
Maybe tomorrow.
But now the early summer dew settled sweet and soft, and the streets of Baltimore hummed their tune above the silent strains of a dormant energy building up for tomorrow’s city life. The scent of life waiting patiently in the wings coated my nostrils. Still. Sweet. Large.
I absolutely couldn’t wait to get home.
I pictured my bed with that frequently laundered old quilt my Grandma Summerville stitched for my wedding all those years ago, a wedding with a hailstorm, a power failure, a leaning cake, two fainting bridesmaids, a ring bearer that pooped in his pants during the vows, and a flying urn of Béarnaise that burned my left hand—a wedding, had I known it, that was nothing more than a sinister harbinger.
My chuck roast of homes may not look fancy, but it tastes good. I grew up in a filet mignon, so I know the difference. Home isn’t much, honestly, but it’s warm. I love my little yellow house in Hamilton. Maybe one day I’ll paint my bedroom pink and green and save up enough for that canopy bed I saw in the Domestications catalog. But all those paint fumes? Who knows how many cancer cells someone builds up per coat of paint?
Yes, home is good. It belongs to me.
Better than anything Bradley and I ever lived in all those years ago, that’s for sure. Oh, Brad. If I hadn’t yelled like that, maybe you wouldn’t have gone speeding off on that motorcycle like you did. The loud reverberations of that Harley engine stab me over and over to this day. Who did I think I was back then? What right did I have to make the demands I did?
Life is better this way, right? Easier.
And poor Flannery. She deserves none of this.
Eleven P.M. Timex time.
I turned off Harford Road by the Jiffy Lube right onto Bayonne Avenue, where I live. I pictured my daughter, Flannery, who had just graduated from college and moved back in a few days ago, at home waiting for me. She planned on renting an old movie to play on the television set she brought back with her from Chicago, and I said, “Don’t forget about popcorn.” And she won’t forget the popcorn. Not Flannery.
I really am blessed, when it all comes down to it.
One day I’m going to have to tell Flannery the truth about her father, and then even this blessing may wither in the heat of the outcome. I wonder at least five times a day how much longer I can put it off. I wonder how someone who walks with Jesus can perpetuate a lie like this?
Oh, Jesus, Jesus, my Jesus.
Another fire truck breezed around the corner.
The peculiar smell of fire prickled my scalp then, and though I couldn’t see it, I just knew—just like I just knew at eighteen I was pregnant—I just knew the problem belonged to me and most likely me alone. And so I ran toward the smoky sky, the smell, the destruction. There it blazed, the fire, a living thing, hot and hungry. I dropped my bags and I lurched toward the flames, hoping my eyes deceived me.
“Flannery!”
Fear not, fear not. Fear not.
Leslie
MY GRANDDAUGHTER FLANNERY CALLED from her car phone an hour ago. “The house is on fire, Grandy!” she shouted above the cacophony of sirens and firemen yelling back and forth.
“Your mother, Sweet Pea?” I shouted too, even though my house lay still in the quiet of early morning. “Is Larkspur all right?”
“She’s at a late practice at church,” she hollered, and I pictured her there with her fine black hair sticking out all over her head in copious, curious little ponytails, her pale skin gilded by the flames consuming the forlorn little Dutch Colonial. “Don’t rush down here, Grandy.”
“But—”
“I’m telling you, Grandy! It’s a zoo.”
Naturally. It was Hamilton, mind you.
“But your mother.”
“I’ll take care of her when she gets here. You know I’m good at that.”
“Come back here when you finish up. I’ll have Prisma make up your rooms.”
“We got no place else to go, Grandy. I gotta run.”
And we hung up after our good-byes.
Dear Lord. Poor Larkspur. I can’t begin to think what I can say that will make her feel better. But then, I never could.
Flannery
I SEE THE LOOK ON MOM’S FACE as she runs up and sees the house on fire, and I wish I could die. Her eyes are sort of darting around, and I see her staring through the crowd gathering in the street. I used to love those scary-type teen movies, and I thought the looks of terror on the actors’ and actresses’ faces were real. Believe me—believe me—terror is never so big or so bold as that. It’s pale and kinda thin. Purplish gray if I had to paint it.
I’ve never come face to face with terror before. But then again, I’ve never seen anyone’s entire world being licked clean by flames. Piranhas. They remind me of piranhas.
Mom stands there so helpless, her hands out at her sides as if singing a broad, aching note, and all 110 pounds of her melts into further insignificance in the face of what stands before her.
“Flannery!” she screams. “Flannery!” And she gulps air and mutters, “Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God, oh, God. Oh, Jesus, help me. Oh, God. Flannery! Where are you!”
I am on Mrs. Dickerson’s porch drinking a Coke and talking with her son
Tommy about the fire—how I managed to get out so easily—when she runs up. I jump right over the edge yelling, “Mom!” as soon as what’s happening computes.
I trip over the pink azalea, but I’m A-Okay.
Now, let me tell you that true relief is a lot bigger and bolder than in the movies. Mom throws herself at me, and we tumble down onto the grass in between the sidewalk and the street, her black slippers flying like bats against the smoky sky, and she heaves sobs so big she ends up throwing up all over Mr. Cahey’s new Reeboks.
“I saw your car, and I didn’t see you. Oh, God. Oh, thank God.”
“I’m here,” I say, and I am glad I am more for her sake than mine. ’Cause I could be sitting around at Kim’s Ceramics or something, oblivious to the fact that everything we own is caught in a fiery furnace with no miracle to save it. She’s always been a really good mom, and I’m not going to make up some bogus complaints because those stupid talk shows tell me that it’s cool to be dysfunctional and that 98 percent of the homes across America are dysfunctional.
So she’s a loner. But it’s always been her and me together. And to be honest, I think God used me to keep her sane after Daddy died.
From over her head I watch the house burn. “It’s all gone, Mom.” I don’t know why I say it. You can see that by just looking at it.
She pulls away from me and sits up in the grass, wiping off Mr. Cahey’s shoes with a tattered Kleenex I hand her. He told her to stop, but she just can’t seem to listen to him. “How did it start?”
“They won’t know until it’s been put out and the fire inspectors do their job.”
But they sort of do know it started somewhere in the basement. Not that I would say that out loud! Not that my silence makes a difference because, bingo, she guesses it.
“I knew I should have had all that wiring replaced! I’ve just been waiting for the tax refund. And you might have been still inside, and I would have killed you because I kept putting it off! Oh, Jesus.”
That tax refund is nowhere in sight. Mom filed two extensions already. Organists don’t make much money, let me tell you, and the donations to IPRAY4U are only enough to keep the actual phone number going and pay for the heat in the house. I tell her I saved her Bible, her shoebox of photographs, and her answering machine, and she cries some more and throws up again. “What about your stuff? All your artwork … when I think about those canvases in the basement …” And she heaves once more.
