Embrace Me (20 page)

“Glad I can supply the need. Did you forget your scarf on purpose?”

Oh no.
“No. Shoot. Do you think anybody's going to be awake?”

“Nope. We've made sure of that!”

“Well, if you don't mind.”

“Of course I don't, Valentine.”

She turns down Oakly Road, probably one of the most forlorn, forgotten lanes in town. It's only a few blocks from our house, but it seems miles away.

“Shalom is on Oakly?”

“Uh-huh.” She leans toward me while still keeping her eyes on the road, lined on either side with shotgun shacks, crumbling frame houses and one or two heroic little homes with fresh paint that seem to be saying, “We're doing the best we can with what we've been given.”

She gestures up and down the street. “He moved down here with those other people. And one of the homeless guys said to him, ‘You movin' onto Oakly? Dag, but I'd never live there!'”

We laugh.

“He's a unique piece of work,” I say.

“Oh, don't I know it. When I look at him, I see what maybe Jesus might look like if He came back to do it all over again, but in Mount Oak, not Jerusalem.”

“Does he ever get in trouble?”

“All the time.”

“What's he do that's so controversial?”

She leans over again. “He tells people they can't serve God and money.”

I shake my head. “Exact opposite of that guy that used to have that show with you and Harlan. Do you know what happened to him?”

“Nope. Nobody knows. His show did real well for a time, but then his cockiness started to show through.” Her voice turns even more down-home than usual. “If there's one thing I've learned after all these years on the air and on the road, it's that people don't like arrogant. They don't like that at all. It's a shame, though. There was a good man underneath there.”

I just grate out a
hmpf
and then add a little snort for good measure.

“I know, I know, I see the good in everybody. Harlan says it's a good thing I'm not a Calvinist because that whole total depravity thing would be lost on me!” She laughs as she pulls up to the building at the end of the road. Low-slung, it's held in closely by the edges of the narrow lot outlined by a rusty chain-link fence, its surface a pebbly concrete that makes you want to stand there and pick out all the stones.

“What did this building used to be?”

“An old laundromat. You can see in the big front room there's a lot of water damage on the tiles. Where there are tiles.”

She fumbles with her key ring, locates one in particular, then shoves it in the lock of the front door, a glass door with a push bar anchored from side to side.

“I'm a nuisance for making you come out so late, Charmaine. It's a good thing you don't mind that.”

“Are you serious? I'm just thankful you're here at all. Let's just get back through to the kitchen. Don't cut on the lights or somebody might see us!” she whispers. “Oh, isn't this so fun?”

I follow her to the back of the room, past two card tables, then two old couches facing each other with a coffee table in-between. Somebody made the coffee table from four cinder-blocks and two lengths of evenly cut board. On its surface several votive candles sputter amid Bibles, prayer books, and incense cones on brass plates. “What is this? Some eastern religion stuff?”

Charmaine waves her hand. “They pick and choose from church practices throughout the ages. I don't begin to understand it, but it really means a lot to Gus. And it's all Jesus, so no worry there. At least there's that.”

“Like I care.”

“There was incense in the temple, you know,” she says.

“Like I care about that too.”

“Oh, Valentine, you care more than you'd like to admit.”

She ushers me through a doorway into a small kitchen. An old 1970s gas range in that dark gold color with a tea kettle on one of the burners, a porcelain sink, and a worktable, probably an old folding table from the laundromat, seems to be the sum and substance of the food preparation operation. “At least it's a gas stove,” I say.

“The fridge is on the porch.”

“I'll start bringing in bags.”

“No, no. Let me do that while you get cooking.” She points to an old armoire. “Pots and stuff are in there. My lands, you can tell this place is run by unmarrieds. There's just some spoons, a couple of knives, and a few pots, but somehow they make it work.”

“Then we will too. I'm not going to let these monks have anything on us.”

“Good for you, honey.”

Over the stove an icon of Jesus and the twelve disciples blesses the food. “These people sure are strange,” I whisper to the disciples. They look at me like they agree.

A calendar still on August hangs over the sink and time gels into something solid and unbending, something you live inside of, not run away from.

A grating cough exudes from beneath a door off the main room. Sounds like rusty bed springs. Only one other time did I hear a cough like that—when my father was sick. And I swear, I thought he was going to die when he coughed.

I open the cupboard door and pull out two big stockpots. All that's there practically. Two big stockpots and two frying pans.

After setting them on the stove, I turn on the gas burners to heat them up. Charmaine bustles in with three paper bags squeezed between her arms. She sets them on the table.

“Thanks. I'll get the oil heating in the pans.”

“I hope I got the right bags first.”

I peer inside. “Yep. There's the oil. And the onions and garlic.”

“Oh, that's good.” She blows out some relief and heads back out to the car.

No cutting board. I fold an empty grocery sack and lay it on the table. First the onions, then the garlic, and soon the two will sweat together in the olive oil. One pot is destined for a vegetarian white bean chili, the other beef stew.

Charmaine returns with more bags, holding ten loaves of Italian bread, butter, tin foil, more cans, and six boxes of brownie mix which she says she can take care of. Charmaine knows how to do box mixes.

“Charmaine, can you start opening up cans? And will you pour some flour into a bowl?”

“Of course. I'm so glad you're doing this for me.”

“The aroma alone is worth it.”

The bedspring cough returns.

Charmaine freezes above the bag of canned goods. “Was that a cough?”

“Horrible, isn't it?”

“Oh, my lands!” She runs toward the door. “Gus? You in there?”

His reply is so muffled I can't hear what he's saying.

“Is it just you in there?” She looks at me. “Are you decent?”

Poor Augustine. Alone and sick. That doesn't seem right.

She opens the door and disappears inside. I search the bags for the chuck roasts.

“Valentine! Come on in,” she hollers.

I lay down my knife, turn down the burners, and walk into the back room.

Plainly, it was once a storage room, shelves lining one wall. Four military cots bump up against the rest of the walls, each bed empty except for Augustine's. “He's burning up.” Charmaine kneels on the floor.

I feel his forehead. “Wow. Let me get a cool rag.”

“No, I'll do that. You keep cooking.”

Augustine tries to lift his head. Man, he looks old lying there like that. Kinda sun-dried and grizzled. “You cooking for The Psalters?” His already
sotto voce
tones are practically gone. I strain to hear him.

“Yep.”

He lays his head back. “Nice. Thanks, Val.”

“Go on, Valentine. I'll take care of Gus for now.”

Back at the folding table, I cube five pounds of chuck roast, dredge the meat in flour, and brown it in the heated oil. Simply have to brown the beef if you want stew to turn out just right. Browning is the key. That slap into the hot oil, the sizzle, the pop. When I add the beef to the onions and garlic, the smell that rises up makes you know something very, very good is on its way.

Forty-five minutes, a nicked forefinger, and four more cool washcloths later, the white chili and the stew are simmering on low heat.

Augustine tries to smile when I check on him. “Smells great, even to this nauseous person.”

“Quite the compliment.” I turn to Charmaine. “You okay?”

“Sure am. Want me to take you home?”

“Nah. Still needs to cook awhile. Then I'll put it in the fridge. We've got at least another hour to an hour-and-a-half to go. Why don't you go on home? I'll watch over Augustine tonight and walk home really early in the morning.”

Augustine tries to raise his head. “Oh, but Valen—”

“Good idea.” Charmaine gets up and pats the seat of a chair she'd found earlier. “Gus, what can I bring you in the morning?”

“Some kind of cold medicine?”

After kissing his forehead, she flies out of the room, clicking on her high-heeled boots. “I'll get some right away.”

“You gotta love that woman, don't you?” I say.

“Really do.”

I leave to stir the stews, turn down the flames once more. The smell of garlic and onions alone should heal the crazy monk.

That cough scours the air again.

Lord, have mercy.

Maybe the fridge on the porch holds something promising for Augustine. I step out into the cold and throw open the door. There's almost nothing in there.

Back in the bedroom. “How long has it been since you've eaten a decent meal?”

“I've been sick for three days. Had the last can of soup.”

He spasms in a fit of coughing, but it doesn't stop, the cot springs bounce up and down again and again, until finally, he vomits. All over the side of the bed. All over my jeans.

“Oh, no. Oh, man.” Sweat pours off of him. “I'm so sorry.”

“It's okay.”

In the kitchen I dig up some rags.

“Let me clean you up.”

I'm so used to wiping Lella and cleaning her, the smell doesn't bother me at all. It's easy to see he hasn't eaten for a while. It's that kind of vomit.

“Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing, Augustine. It's really okay.” I touch his forehead after throwing the nasty rag into the bathroom sink. “You're absolutely burning up.”

“Got some ibuprofen in the medicine cabinet. Forgot to mention it to Charmaine.”

Talk about head in the clouds.

In the bathroom, I shake a few tablets into the palm of my hand. A water glass rests on the edge of the sink. Lifting it, I hold it against the light. Probably all sorts of sick germs congregating there.

In the kitchen I fill a clean cup with cold water.

“Here.” I sit beside Augustine, lift his head like I've done a thousand times with Lella, and give him the medicine. “Drink the rest of the water. You're probably so dehydrated it isn't funny.”

“I just feel so—”

And he vomits again. This time I jump clear.

I root through the kitchen cupboard for a bowl and return to his side. I clean him up again. “I won't leave you tonight.”

“Thanks, Valentine.”

“Why are you alone?”

“The others . . . in Thailand. Left on the second.”

“I'm here.”

Thirty minutes later, the pots simmering on low, a cup of tea and a piece of dry toast inside of him, Augustine sleeps. I lay down on one of the cots, looking around me in the darkness where only a candle burns on an old table in the corner.

What a crappy old place.

An hour goes by. The stew and chili cooked through, I heft the pots into the fridge on the porch. The disciples above the stove look down on me. “This guy's pretty much a lunatic if he thinks this is bringing people to Jesus,” I tell them.

They don't say anything.

At five a.m. I lead him into the shower. He's only wearing a pair of athletic shorts and a T-shirt that says, “Obey Gravity: It's the Law.”

“Where are the towels?”

“Mine's hanging behind the door.”

“One towel?”

“Do you really need two?” He coughs again.

I grab the thin towel. “If you've got hair like mine you do.”

“Ah.”

“Then again, those dreads must hold a lot of water.”

Faucet now running into the tub, I wave my hand beneath the stream of water. Perfect.

“Okay, call me if you need me. You look awful. But you smell even worse.”

“I still feel pretty bad. But the ibuprofen's helped a little.”

“I'm heading to the IGA for some chicken broth and noodles.”

“But aren't you worried about your face?”

“I think your troubles trump mine.”

The bathroom begins to steam up.

I leave him to take his shower, hoping he won't faint while I'm gone.

I chicken out on the IGA, remembering what somebody did to our holy family. So I get some soup from Blaze's larder. She's already up.