Street of Angels

by Joe Derkacht

  “You know you’ll have to call Social Services, Stella Jo,” she said, contemplating the children. They paid no attention to her, evidently much more interested in Angel, who sat between them at the table, eating a sandwich.

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” Stella Jo answered.

  “Don’t know?” She responded irritably.

  “You just go on about your own business and don’t worry about these children, Ioletta.”

  “The second I saw you walkin’ to your house, these chil’ren in tow, I jist knowed you had somethin’ in your head about ’em.”

  “When the Lord tells me to do something, Ioletta Brown, I have to do it.”

  “The Lord? Lordamighty! In your condition? How you gonta take care of these children when you cain’t take care of yourself?”

  “Nevertheless--” Stella sighed, knowing it wasn’t much of an answer. Inspired, she added, “You should watch sayin’ those Lordamightys of yours. It’s not reverent at all.”

  “Lorda--Lorda--” Ioletta spluttered. “Well I--”

  “You know it’s not, there’s no use arguing.”

  “Sometimes I think you should have your head examined,” Ioletta retorted. “I don’t think it’s the Lord who woulda tol’ you to watch after no children. You’re just hearin’ things--it’s all them drugs, girl.”

  Smiling brightly, Stella asked, “Would you like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?”

  “No, I don’t want no sandwich,” she said, disgusted, fanning herself with Stella’s letter. “You know you can’t change the subject so easy, offering me somethin’ to eat--leastwise not no more.”

  “There’s milk or tea, if you like, too.”

  “Well--” Ioletta began, rolling her eyes in exasperation. “I’ll have myself a glass of tea, without sugar, mind you, and let you tell me what your letter says, and then I’ll tell you what mine says.”

  “Is it from Duane?”

  “No, it ain’t from no Duane--but this here’s from Lamarr,” she said, clutching her own letter to her breast. She handed over Stella’s letter and reached for a glass from the shelf. While Stella glanced at the return address and tore open the envelope, she poured iced tea for herself.

  “So what does our jailbird friend have to say for herself this time?” Ioletta asked. She waved her hand in front of her nose, for the first time catching a whiff of the children. “Whooiee! These children of yours do have their own fragrance about them, Stella Jo.”

  Chin quivering dangerously, Stella ignored the remark as she laid the letter down on the table. It hardly deserved being called a letter; the handwritten scrawl (which always demanded the strictest of attention and plenty of guesswork to decipher) was only two brief sentences.

  “Why don’t you read us Lamarr’s letter first. I could do with some good news about now.”

  Ioletta frowned, and took a seat. She felt like pinching her nose against the smell in the room but tore open the letter instead. She read to herself to get the gist of the message first.

  “Well?” Stella asked. Ioletta’s jaw was working strangely. Her breath seemed to come with difficulty.

  “I don’t--” she muttered.

  “Ioletta?”

  Biting her lips, she began re-reading the letter from the beginning. Nodding her head and still biting her lips, she rubbed at her eyes and stared at Stella.

  “Is it something terrible?” Stella asked.

  “He’s not comin’ home for his vacation--he’s gone to Hawaii.”

  “Hawaii? That’s nice.”

  “He’s got hisself hitched over there in Vietnam.”

  “Hitched? You mean married? Our Lamarr?”

  “What else? That’s why Hawaii. For their honeymoon.”

  “To a Vietnamese girl?”

  “No, to one of them Korean girls, I guess.”

  “Let me see,” Stella said, holding her hand out for the letter.

  Numbly, Ioletta drank from her glass of tea, as Stella began to read for herself.

  “Looks to me like he was in an awful hurry when he wrote this,” she commented.

  “Gives new meaning to hot to trot,” Ioletta muttered. “Coulda warned his own mother.”

  “It was someone he met in Korea.” Stella slid the letter across the table to Ioletta. “Aren’t you happy for him?”

  Ioletta shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. “Didn’t even get invited to my own son’s wedding--I jist don’t know about these young people today.”

  “Better than a lot of them nowadays.”

  “Yeah, seein’ they got themselves married, I guess.”

  “I would call that good news.”

  Ioletta shook her head, obviously struggling with this new turn of events. “Kyla,” she said. “That don’t sound like no Korean name.”

  “I guess not.”

  Ioletta’s eyes brightened. “It don’t sound like no white girl’s name, neither.”

  Stella nodded.

  “’Course, he couldn’t jist come out and tell me,” Ioletta complained. “What about your letter?”

  Stella’s chin quivered again. She knuckled a tear from her eye. “Mertie’s cancer has returned.”

  Ioletta felt her breath nearly taken away. It was several moments before she could meet Stella’s sorrowful gaze. Shaking her head in resignation, she said, “If it’s one thing you and I both know, we all have to die sometime.”

  Stella stared at the letter and drummed her fingers lightly on the table. “I have to help her somehow.”

  “Help her? You been helpin’ her all along, sendin’ her letters an’ packages, and goin’ to see her when you could.”

  Stella’s eyes went from the letter to the children and back to the letter again.

  “This have somethin’ to do with what the Lord tol’ you?” Ioletta asked.

  “I don’t know. Could be. I’m not sure.”

  “Just what did the Lord tell ya, anyhow?”

  “He told me if I carry Him, He’ll carry me.”

  “Hmmh. Sounds like something He would say,” she admitted. “So did He say if it was permanent like and how we’re to do it?”

  “Oh, Ioletta, you do enough--too much, really. I don’t know what I would do without you. Aren’t you about wore out from helping me and everybody else who needs help around here?”

  “And what if I am?” She said, fanning herself with Lamarr’s letter and glancing over at the children, who had each launched into another sandwich. “I have to do what the Lord says, too, don’t I?”

  At Stella’s nod of agreement, she said, “Don’t you think it’s about time these children done took a bath? You got some old clothin’ they could wear?”

  “I could rustle up some from somewhere, I guess,” Stella answered. “As long as Miss Theron here doesn’t mind wearing boys clothing for a little bit.”

  “That’s sure. I know you don’t want them smellin’ to high heaven, when Child Welfare picks them up.”

  Theron stared, her big blue eyes wandering between Stella and Ioletta, her mouth working the sandwich.

  “’Course, I don’t suppose nobody has to know about them right away,” Ioletta added, her heart melting. “Could be a relative or somebody will show up before then. You any relatives around here, young lady?”

  Mutely, Theron shook her head.

  “Child don’t talk much,” Ioletta muttered. “Should take like white on rice to Angel, I s’pose.”

  In answer, the little girl hung on tightly to Angel’s arm and nuzzled his shoulder. He squinted hard at the face so close to his own, and smiled. On his other arm, the little boy hung on, smiling sunnily at both his sister and Angel.

  Footsteps sounded from the hallway. Hermione appeared with an armload of groceries. She set the bags on the kitchen counter and smiled at the children.

  “Now what miracle do we have here?” She asked cheerily.

  ****

  Chapter 43r />
  Meredith Bogans parked her beige Plymouth Valiant by the gate to the McIlhenny house. From where she sat, she could see Michael McIlhenny, idiot savant (those were the words she had used in her initial reports to describe Angel years ago) working on one of his statues even while the two children in question, Theron and Luke Doe (no one having been able to trace them to any family in all of the state of Alabama), hung about him, playing their childish games, obviously heedless of the danger it was to their personal safety. As heedless as Michael. If he’d known the dangers, he wouldn’t have that eye patch, now would he? Sure, he wore those plastic safety goggles now, but what about before? As blind as he was, how could he help if something happened to the children? And him mute and crippled, besides?

  Where was Stella McIlhenny, their supposed caregiver, their foster mother? Probably in her house, saying her prayers or something of the sort. Religious fanatic were the two words she had used in her report to her superiors. Meredith didn’t have much sympathy for religious folks. Her parents had given her a strict Catholic upbringing, sending her to Catholic school for her education to make sure the only man in her life outside of her father was the parish priest. Running across a nun or priest on the street or in a local store still made her grind her teeth involuntarily.

  As she swung out of her car, leather briefcase in hand, a gray, nondescript car drove slowly past. The figure at the wheel peered at her and gave her a brief, fluttery wave of one hand. The intense, steel-gray eyes sent a shudder of fear down her spine. The man gave her the creeps. It seemed like every time she made a visit to the McIlhennys, Chance Odoms was swooping around like a vulture. If she hadn’t recognized him, she would have reported him to the cops as a suspicious character. Suspicious character would have been a good addition to her report on the neighborhood, but then her immediate supervisor, who always seemed to ask more questions than normal when it came to Flowers Avenue, would have asked for a name to be appended to that description.

  Still, anybody in his right mind could see from her reports that Stella Jo McIlhenny, a widowed leukemia victim unable to work most the time, was completely unfit to act as a foster parent to two orphans. Even if she had been fit, which she most certainly was not, why did she want to raise two colored children? It had to be the money. (Never mind the County Department of Pensions and Security paid out its foster parents only enough to cover a food and clothing allowance for the children.)

  Meredith was grateful she had thought to change into tennis shoes. Newly laid gravel on the pathway to the house had chewed up her black pumps at her last visit. Studiously ignoring Angel and her two foster clients, she strode purposefully up the path to the house. The poor idiot (except for her official reports she never attached the word savant in thinking of or referring to him) hummed a tune as usual, the benighted children mimicking him and giggling. Something obviously needed to be done to rescue them from this household before their lives could be forever warped.

  As she mounted the stairs, fearful that they might cave under her weight, though she was a skinny woman and they would have laughed at her fears (if they could only have told her of the weight they had borne in their lifetime), she mentally noted an oversight in her reports. Dilapidated had probably not been strong enough in her description of the house. Her nerves were taut, as she waited at the door. The porch vibrated (in sympathy?), as someone approached from within the house.

  “Yes?” Ioletta said, opening the door and giving Meredith the once over. Though Meredith didn’t know it, she wasn’t likely to impress Ioletta when she couldn’t seem to afford a crisply-ironed white blouse in which to conduct her business.

  Meredith’s eyebrows rose dramatically. “I’m here to see Mrs. McIlhenny. Is she in, Mrs. Brown?”

  “C’mon in,” Ioletta said, ushering her inside and shutting the door. “Would you like some tea, Miss Bogans?”

  Dutifully, Meredith followed her into the kitchen, noting to herself along the way that the house was neat and tidy. From the exterior one would have expected a shambles. But the interior, in her inspections over the last six months, had always seemed to be in decent order (except for that one incident of the chisels mislaid on the living room coffee table). Chisels could put an eye out. Hadn’t Mrs. McIlhenny learned that from experience? She didn’t want another child injuring itself, did she?

  She sat at the table and waited, while Ioletta poured them two small glasses of iced tea.

  “I could find us some saccharin, if you like,” Ioletta offered.

  “No, this is fine,” Meredith said, taking a sip and wrinkling her nose. While she liked hot tea, she really did not care for the iced variety, especially unsweetened. And saccharin? Ick! But then, she had no intention of staying longer than necessary. She placed the glass on the table, and Ioletta did the same after a sip at her own.

  “Is she napping?” Meredith asked.

  “Napping? Uh, no,” Ioletta said, absent-mindedly pulling at an earlobe.

  “Where is she?” Meredith asked, glancing around the kitchen as though Stella could be hiding in one of its corners.

  “Oh, she’s up at Owaloosa Federal.”

  “Owaloosa? In Georgia?” Meredith said in alarm. “I thought you said she was here. What’s she doing at the prison?”

  “Visitin’ a dyin’ friend.”

  “Then why--” Meredith started, and then clamped her mouth shut. A suspicious, trapped look crossed her face. Was Mrs. Brown’s niece waiting in the wings, ready to pounce again, wanting to know why she couldn’t adopt Theron and Luke? Like the State would allow someone of Hermione Tharpewood’s ilk to adopt children...!

  As the seconds lengthened, she realized she was alone in the house with Ioletta Brown. The niece wouldn’t be jumping out at her anytime soon. Her furtive glances settled into a disagreeable frown. She wanted to ask Ioletta why she’d invited her in when she knew all along that Stella McIlhenny was not at home, but decided differently. There was no use in openly antagonizing the woman, not when the woman was twice her size and they were within easy reach of each other. Didn’t matter the woman had dropped tons of weight since she first met her, she still felt about as big as a pencil beside her. She’d discovered much earlier in her career when it was safe to throw her weight around and when it was unsafe. Now did not seem to be one of those safe moments.

  Reaching for her briefcase, she pulled out a yellow legal pad and pen. The sooner she completed her work and was out of there, the better. She jotted down Stella’s full name. Under it, she wrote absent, placed a long dash after it, and added prison. In her reports, she always typed up the key words in capital letters. She was sure those capitalized words would stick in the mind of her supervisors long after they had read her reports, even if the rest of what she wrote quickly faded. There were so many reports, so many children to be supervised, along with their foster parents, that one had to devise a method to ensure a lasting impression was made.

  Ioletta smiled briefly, watching her begin her work, and excused herself from the table. She knew the routine. The Child Welfare supervisor would check the kitchen and refrigerator to see that sufficient food for the maintenance of the children was in evidence, especially meat, milk, cereal, fruit and vegetables. Then she would check the cleanliness of their rooms and sneak a peek into the bedroom closets, looking to make sure they had clothes to wear. There had to be some form of proper accounting for the state’s expenditures, such as they were.

  Ioletta was on the phone in the living room, as Meredith stood at the open refrigerator, taking notes. It might be against official department policy to hold an inspection without the foster parent or parents being present, but like with most work, there were quotas and deadlines to be made, and one couldn’t always expect every situation to be ideal.

  Ioletta seated herself on the top porch step and waited for the woman to emerge from the house. In the yard, Angel chipped away at a new block of dark stone. Theron
and Lukey chased each other in a game of tag among the statues, their favorite game.

  “How is Mrs. McIlhenny’s health?” Meredith inquired, her Bic ink pen poised over the legal pad. She never used a pencil and eraser in her note taking. Pencils were for people who made mistakes.

  Ioletta glanced behind her in surprise. Either she was losing her hearing or the caseworker was very light on her feet. A truck rumbled by on the street, and she sighed in relief. It had just been traffic noise.

  “Actually, she’s taken another turn for the better, Miss Bogans. God is surely good, isn’t He?”

  Making no allowances for the goodness of God, the Bic pen scratched out a note. Below, on the street, a black-and-white police car rolled to a stop, double-parking next to the beige Valiant. The white woman’s eyes darted up from her work. A policeman was climbing out of his car, ticket pad in hand.

  A surprised bleat escaping her lips, Meredith dropped her legal pad and pen and bolted past Ioletta on the stairs. Smiling to herself, Ioletta picked up the pen and paper, and carefully placed them inside the white woman’s briefcase. On the sidewalk, the caseworker remonstrated with the officer, her shrill voice rising and falling, hands flung out in windmilling motions. Unperturbed, the officer tore the ticket from his pad and handed it to her.

  Ioletta hid a smile behind her hand, as Meredith stomped up the gravel pathway to the house.

  “Another ticket!” She spluttered, throwing her hands up in disgust. “Can you believe that?”

  “What fo’ this time?” Ioletta mildly asked.

  “Parking too far from the curb,” she answered, barely restraining a snarl. “They must go by a quota system on this street!”

  Soberly, Ioletta nodded her head, her expression revealing nothing, as she handed the briefcase to her. “If you were African American, you’d be used to that sort of thang.”

  Meredith opened her mouth, and closed it. Opened it and closed it again. Seemingly struck speechless, she turned and hurried down the stairs. First Lukey waved sweetly, and then Theron, as she unlocked her car and slid inside. She didn’t look or wave back, as she sped away.

  Ioletta allowed herself a wide grin. It was nice to know someone in the police department interested in keeping people like Meredith Bogans off her street. She gave a fluttery wave of one hand, as a familiar gray car drove past, its driver having waved first.