“Grab those candles; replace those on the altar that are in the candlesticks up there.”
From a box on the front pew I remove two large, crème colored candles and hand them to a small Hispanic woman with hair as silver as a candelabra. From the number of people milling about, slowly exiting the church; it is evident they have just had a morning service. There is a young man with dark brown skin still sitting at the organ, toying with soft, dulcet chords that float through the air like winged seraphim. Sister Margaret though, is a flurry of activity, directing several volunteers who are dusting and sweeping the mammoth area that is St. Dominic’s Catholic Church.
“We’ve got less than three hours until a wedding,” Sister Margaret says to no one in particular. She is busying herself with deadheading a vase of roses left by a parishioner. She plucks the faded blooms and tosses them into a large plastic trash container at her side that one of the volunteers has just dragged to her side.
I have come to this place and I don’t know why. I am not a religious person by any stretch, certainly not Catholic, and yet. Sister Margaret seems to be the only person that I am able to talk to without fear of judgment or recrimination.
As I pull faded gladiolas and wilting lilies from a huge glass vase, my chest is squeezed by strangled emotions. What have I hoped to find within these neo-Gothic stone walls? The high altar looms, castle-like, enormous and beautiful; its carved crucified Christ with bowed head seemingly endorsing my presence here. The stained glass windows, twenty plus feet high above the altar evoke a sense of transporting one’s soul back into history itself. How can I not find comfort here?
We prep and preen vase upon vase of blooms until my head nearly aches from the sweetness of the blossoms. Sister Margaret dusts off her hands and then instructs one of the male volunteers to remove the plastic garbage can to the parking lot to be dumped in the trash bin. She stumps her hands on her hips and regards me a moment.
“Come on,” she says, “follow me.”
The nun is on the move again. We amble to the right, between columns to an open area. At its center is a gold box and beside it, several lit candles. There is a small grouping of pews and except for one older Vietnamese man at the very back, the area is unoccupied. At the front, above the candles is a large white statue of a woman holding a baby. Mary and Baby Jesus. Sister Margaret makes her way to the front pew, pulls down the kneeler and then lowers herself to her knees and crosses herself.
I am unsure what to do, and so stand there dumbly. Those vivid gray eyes smile at me in a friendly, mocking sort of way and she motions for me to sit down next to her. After a brief moment, she lifts herself off the kneeler and sits next to me. From the shadows of her habit, she removes a long circular string of crystal beads interspersed with gold plated roses. At the very bottom is a crucifix. It looks like a necklace. She hands it to me.
“This is a rosary,” she says. Then from the same hidden pocket she pulls out a small booklet titled, “ How To Pray The Rosary ”. “Here, put this in your purse. You can read it later.”
She stuffs the little booklet into an open pocket of my purse.
“Do what I do,” she says. She takes hold of the crucifix with her right hand and crosses herself again. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” she says. I clasp the crucifix in my right hand and cross myself in the same way. It feels strange and intimate at the same time. She prays words I’ve never heard before, but that somehow sound familiar. She moves her fingers along the beads with each prayer, demonstrating for me to do the same. I recognize the Our Father, but am not sure if I should pray with her or remain silent. As she leads me through a series of Hail Mary’s, I begin to feel the constriction in my body loosen. A sensation, ephemeral yet immutable at the same time falls over me as the recitation of words becomes a sort of meditation of grace. After the first set of beads, Sister Margaret stops and crosses herself again. She sits back in the pew.
“That was one decade,” she says. “But you’ll read all about it in that little pamphlet I gave you.”
“But I’m not Catholic,” I say.
“Hey,” she says, winking and ribbing me with her elbow. “Nobody’s perfect!” She lets out a quiet cackle.
“Listen, Sister Margaret, this was very nice, but it doesn’t really solve anything. My husband is still a drunk and he is still gone.”
“Are you going to find him and drag him into a hospital?” she asks.
I let out a flustered giggle. “No,” I answer.
“Well then, there you go!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You pray, dear. Pray to know God’s will.”
“I’m not so sure about this whole ‘God’s will’ thing; I mean there’s so much evil in the world. So many people who do bad things. Sometimes it seems to me that God doesn’t care.” I say this in a whisper because I suddenly feel ashamed of my own doubt.
Sister Margaret looks up at the statue of the Madonna.
“If you take all of the evil in the whole world, throughout time; all the Hitlers, and killers, murderers, every bad thing you can possibly think of and lump all of that together, all of it combined wouldn’t be equal to a single drop in the ocean compared to God’s love for us.”
“But then why is there evil in the world? How can God allow all of that?” I ask. I’m aware that I must sound like a petulant child, but she brought up the subject.
“The more important question to ask is, ‘why do we allow it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean how can a middle class, average person walk down the street, say, walking to their daily job, and pass by someone who is obviously homeless, hasn’t eaten for a week and is dying of AIDS, and do absolutely nothing? Or how can a businessman, on his way to a lunch meeting at a fancy restaurant, step over a drunken bum in the parking lot and do absolutely nothing? Is this God’s fault? Or is it ours? We can hardly blame God for allowing the suffering that we ourselves let our brothers and sisters endure every single day.”
I had never thought about these kinds of issues this way. I remain silent, and stare at the rosary in my hand.
“In the world there is a disconnection. There is an ‘us’ and then there is a ‘them’. When we evolve to a point where the ‘us’ realizes that we’re exactly the same as the ‘them’, we could end to world hunger, and homelessness just like that,” she says, snapping her fingers. “Once we see that the homeless vet isn’t just some man, but he’s our brother, our father, our uncle, we will truly be able to say we are Christ-like. Until that time, we reach for that ideal.”
“We can’t all be Mother Teresa,” I say. I do not mean to sound so ill-tempered. The words are out of my mouth before I even think.
“ Saint Paul says we are all different parts of the same body. You can’t have a complete body if all the parts are just eyeballs. How could you eat if you didn’t have a mouth? In the same way we are each called to accomplish different things. I was called to be a nun. You were called to be a wife and mother.”
“I guess,” I say, thinking of Rob probably drunk is some bar. “At least the mother part.”
“If what you say is true and your husband Rob is an alcoholic, he has a disease. The same as if he had cancer or diabetes. Now, would you just abandon him if he had cancer?”
“Of course not,” I respond.
“Okay then.” She stops as if those two words explained everything.
“But I don’t know what to do!” I say.
She laughs, shaking her head. “I told you, dear. Pray.” She smiles at me. “When you have forgiveness in your heart, all things are possible.” She inhales a deep breath and then raises and drops her shoulders. “Alright then. Come on. I want to show you something else.”
I do not think I want any more revelation in my world today, but I say nothing and follow Sister Margaret to the very back of the church and into a small room containing empty vases, candles holders and the like. From a cabinet, the nun extracts a plain white box.
“I thought Chevy might like this,” she says, opening the box.
Inside is a pale rose colored print blouse. The pintuck design at the shoulders is completed by flutter sleeves and long ties at the neck done into a pretty bow.
“Wow,” I say, unable to imagine Chevy in such an article of clothing.
“Think she’ll like it?”
“It’s beautiful,” I reply.
The nun carefully folds the blouse back into the confines of the box and replaces the lid. “Do you have the time?”
“Time?”
“To come with me and give this to her,” she says, producing her keys from the shadowy pocket of her habit. I open my mouth to fabricate some sort of excuse, but those bright gray eyes will brook no refusal. She thrusts the box into my hands.
“Come on.”
She takes me to a large building nestled between other large apartment style buildings. The name on the window of the front door reads SafeHouse.
“Safehouse is for women eighteen and older who are trying to get out of prostitution. It was co-founded by my order, The Sisters of the Presentation and a woman by the name of Glenda Hope. The founder of my order, Nano Nagle, dreamt of establishing safe havens for prostitutes nearly two hundred years ago. This place is the fulfillment of that dream. It’s a place to start over,” Sister Margaret says as we walk through its main corridor. “I got special permission to house Chevy here while she recovers from her injuries.”
“How long can she stay?” I ask.
“As long as she wants to.” She leans closer to me and whispers, “and I’m hoping this might even get her off the streets permanently.”
We turn a corner, to another hallway. The halls smell of fresh paint. Inside Chevy’s room, the décor is simple but inviting. A strawberry colored swag over the window lets in soft rays of the morning sun. There is a small vase of fresh flowers on a simple pine dresser opposite the bed. The bed itself doesn’t have a headboard, but the quilt on top matches the window swag and looks homey and warm.
Chevy is in the bed, asleep. Sister Margaret raps softly on the opened door of the room and the young girl opens her eyes. Even from this distance I can see that the wounds on her face are nearly healed. The large gash that was so prominent on her forehead looks now to be a distant memory covered by three Steri-strips, and her left eye that was blackened and swollen shut looks nearly back to normal, the dark eggplant color is now much lighter and edged in yellow.
“Knock, knock,” the nun says.
Chevy opens her eyes and seeing us both, smiles.
“Hey,” she says, her voice cracks.
“Thought you could use some company,” Sister Margaret says.
Chevy balls her fists in a muted stretch and then sits up in bed.
“Sure,” she replies. “Kinda boring around here.”
Sister Margaret stuffs the boxed blouse into my hands and says sotto voce, “I think I hear my cell phone,” and ducks out of the room. I heard nothing and am suddenly alone with this little girl, standing awkwardly holding the gift.
Chevy smiles again. She eyes the box.
“Oh,” I say foolishly, “this is for you.”
I walk to the bed and hand her the present. Chevy opens the box and pulls out the blouse, holding it up to her shoulders.
“It’s beautiful.”
“It is,” I agree.
“I should try it on,” she says, undoing the bow. She slips the blouse on over her pajama top and gets the buttons done, but struggles in retying the bow. Her finished effort produces a twisted jumbled mess that looks more like a restraint than a bow.
“Here,” I say, “like this.”
I sit on the bed next to her and retie the tie ends into a neat bow.
“There,” I say. I look around and spy a handheld mirror on top of the dresser and retrieve it, letting Chevy take a look at herself in the pretty blouse.
She blushes and grins.
“I look like a real lady,” she says.
“You do,” I agree.
We talk, haltingly about a variety of subjects. Chevy recounts to me her physical therapy and how she feels almost back to normal. I tell her of Robyn’s rescue but leave out my marital issues. Chevy is silent for a moment.
“Robyn is very lucky,” she says. “Havin’ a mom like you.” She draws a hand to her mouth and begins biting a fingernail.
I smile but say nothing. My heart is suddenly riven with emotion thinking of my last encounter with my daughter. Watching her ferocious struggle against deliverance from a world so depraved as to have no redeeming value. A world that only wants to use her up until nothing is left. I grind my jaw against the sting of tears as Chevy talks, and I manage to force a weak smile onto my face.
“I remember trying to talk to my mom about these things,” she says.
She brings a hand to her mouth again and begins work on another nail. I push a wisp of hair out of her eyes.
“I told her, like, we could do better, you know? But she wasn’t interested. The next day I found her. She’d OD’d.” She looks down and purses her lips.
“That must have been very difficult for you,” I say.
The longer I stare at her, the more my vision begins to blur. I see Robyn’s face instead of Chevy’s. I have to blink to restore my vision.
She shrugs in response to my comment and begins chewing on her nails again.
“I guess,” she says finally.
“Have you ever thought about finishing school?” I ask.
“Sometimes. But you gotta, you know, like be organized.”
She begins her teenage catalogue of excuses about why she never finished school and my mind is again wrenched back to life with Robyn. The struggles with learning, the unfinished homework and the endless succession of parent teacher meetings.
“What’s it like?” she asks.
“What’s what like?”
“Working in an office? Isn’t it boring?”
“Not at all,” I respond. “Bookkeeping is very rewarding because you create order from confusion.”
Chevy gives me a wistful look and then says, “sometimes I wish my life was, like, you know, different.”
And that’s when it hits me. The disjointedness of life. Chevy, who has had absolutely no breaks in life, no chances, no nothing and Robyn, who has had a good family, has had everything a child could want or need; they both end up working the streets. The impossibility and hopelessness of it all.
Chevy is rattling on about what she imagines life as a grownup will be like; her little hopes and dreams. As she talks my eyes well with tears.
“Why do you do it?” I ask, interrupting her stream of consciousness.
“What?” she asks, looking puzzled.
“How on earth can you prostitute yourself?” The question itself makes me want to retch.
Chevy sits up, wipes away my tears.
“There’s lots of reasons,” she says. “For me, it started out as a way to get money just to eat and stuff.”
“Robyn always had food on the table,” I say in protest.
“For Robyn it was different.”
“Different? Different how?”
“At first it seems glamorous. You know, thinking about guys wanting you; the money and the clothes and the nightlife. It seems like the life of a movie star or something. But, like that’s not how it really is and you don’t find out until it’s too late.”
“Oh God,” I cover my face with my hands.
“Hey,” Chevy says. “It’s okay. Don’t cry.” She is stroking my hair and murmuring words of encouragement. Her kindness plucks me from my despair.
I mop my face brusquely with the back of my hand.
“Well this is something,” I say, reigning in my emotions. “The patient comforting the visitor.”
“It ain’t no big thang,” she says with her teenage inflection, laughing.
I reach over and give her a hug, being careful not to squeeze her too tightly, mindful of her healing ribs.
“Everything’s gonna be okay,” she whispers into my ear.
October 7, 2002
It’s just after seven when I cross the threshold from work. The house is hot, as usual; the weatherman warning against a “protracted heat wave the likes of which we’ve never seen before.” I close my eyes to the heat and think about the sweet relief of a cool shower washing the heat of the day from my body.
I drop my purse to the floor and close the door behind me. The little pamphlet that Sister Margaret gave me the other day about praying the Rosary falls to the floor. I pick it up and fan through the pages. Inside are various pictures with titles like, “Second Sorrowful Mystery”, and “Fourth Glorious Mystery”. Though reading through the entire pamphlet seems daunting, I open to a single page of Christ holding bread out to his disciples gathered round him at the table. The title at the top of the page is “Fifth Luminous Mystery”. I begin reading the meditation below the picture when I am interrupted by the telephone. I stuff the booklet back into the folds of my purse and sprint to answer the phone.
“Hello?”
“Mrs. Skinner?” a male voice asks.
“Yes?”
“John Simpson here. From Peaceful Acres.”
His voice is taut with an unnerving disquiet. My heart flips in my chest.
“Yes?”
“I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
“What’s wrong?” Needles of fear prick my spine.
“Robyn was doing really well; we felt she was ready for a field trip to an NA meeting with the main group of young adults.”
“And?”
“It was all a ruse. She snuck out of the meeting, gave our administrator the slip, I’m afraid.”
My body is suddenly gelatin weak. “How can this have happened?” My voice has risen in volume and timber.
“Look, I’m very sorry, but like I said. We thought your daughter was really getting the program when it turns out all she really wanted to do was gain access to the outside world so she could escape. There’s no way we can foresee that kind of deception.”
I realize that any continued conversation will just turn into a pissing contest and so thank Mr. Simpson for his time and hang up the phone. Helplessness splatters through my body like spilled red wine on white carpet. I glance at my watch while simultaneously dialing Bart Strong’s number. I have no hope that he will pick up at this hour, but it doesn’t matter. He owes me a phone call anyway.
To my shock and satisfaction he picks up on the first ring.
“Bart Strong,” the familiar husky voice answers.
I explain what happened.
“BLU BOY must have found out where she was, and convinced her to leave the treatment center. He was probably waiting for her when she ran off.”
“Maybe,” he says. “Or maybe she just ran away on her own.”
“I’m going back to San Francisco tonight,” I say.
“Hold up a minute. You don’t even know if that’s where she is.”
“Right now it’s the only thing I have to go on. Maybe I can get someone in the Tenderloin to talk to me.”
“I wouldn’t count on it. Look, sit tight for a few minutes. I’m going make a couple of phone calls.”
I huff out an impatient breath and give my watch yet another glance: seven twenty.
“I’m leaving at eight,” I warn.
Hanging up the phone I immediately begin mobilizing various articles that I surmise might be useful for my foray into the dark San Francisco night. I stuff a flashlight, a pair of binoculars I picked up a month ago at an Army surplus store, my ubiquitous bottle of water, a sweater, and my Rolaids, just in case, into a small canvas bag.
I pace the living room, one eye on the portable phone on the coffee table, one eye on my watch, willing the minute hand to hasten its glacial sweep towards the twelve. With five minutes to go, I am suddenly startled to hear a knock on the front door.
I flip on the porch light and peer through the peephole. I twist the lock back and open the door.
“Freddie? What are you doing here?”
The man who helped Bart and I rescue Robyn stands before me; again, dressed all in black, his black moustache the most prominent thing about him.
“Got a call from Bart,” he explains.
The dark blue van is parked in front of the house.
“Let’s go,” he says.
He opens the passenger side door to the van and I get in, tossing my canvas bag onto the floor in front of me. He closes the door for me and heads for the driver’s side, but not before our eyes meet.
As he hops into the van, I peer out my window to see Mrs. Cotillo staring at us. This time she makes no effort to hide the fact that she is watching my movements. I want to smile, but I don’t. I turn my face away as Freddie pulls from the curb.
“So, what kind of work do you do?” he asks.
“I’m an accountant,” I say; “actually just a bookkeeper,” I amend, though technically not even that is true. “But I’m going to be going back to school to get my degree.”
Freddie nods but doesn’t say anything.
“What about you? What do you do?”
“Actually, I’m a dentist,” he says.
“Really?” I say, surprised.
“I have a practice in Antioch.”
We fall silent a moment.
“Got any other kids?” he asks.
“No. You?”
He shakes his head. “Amanda was an only child too.”
I purse my lips together, my eyes dart from the blur of the East Bay rushing by my window to Freddie’s austere profile. Curiosity about what happened to his daughter Amanda pushes me to ask intrusive questions.
“You mentioned before that Amanda hooked on drugs?”
“Yeah. She had it bad. Started experimenting when she was a freshman in high school, hanging out with the wrong crowd. The usual story.”
I wait for him to give me more information, but his eyes travel to the speedometer and then back to Highway 24. The sky in front of us is a dusky violet crisscrossed by nectarine colored skeins of fragile clouds.
“And that’s how you met Bart?”
Freddie nods.
“I was desperate. Amanda kept running away. Bart was the only one who seemed to care.”
“But things didn’t turn out okay,” I ask, but it comes out sounding more like a statement than a question.
“Things went south. We tried to do an extraction. In Stockton. A boy, a local gangbanger was killed; Bart got arrested for manslaughter but the DA couldn’t make it stick.”
Freddie is silent and I can’t think of a thing to say. He clears his throat.
“Amanda OD’d anyway about a month after that. Whole thing left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.”
“And that’s why you do what you do? Help parents try to save their kids?”
“Something like that.”
“Dentist by day, superhero by night,” I say with a smile.
Freddie smiles but says nothing.
The City is cold as usual. Freddie again displays his driving prowess, piloting the large blue van as if it were a sleek race car, up and down the streets of San Francisco until we are in the heart of the Tenderloin District. Once we hit Turk, Freddie slows to a crawl; both of us scanning the streets; two sparrow hawks searching for the little mouse.
As we approach Larkin, Freddie’s eyes zero in on someone. I follow the direction of his gaze to a small bundle of people strolling down the street, but can’t tell who he has actually spotted.
“What?” I say.
“Someone I know,” he says easing the van into a parking place. He switches off the van but leaves the keys in the ignition. “A guy that used to hang out with Amanda’s friends. He might know something. Stay put. I’ll be back in five minutes.”
Within minutes the group has both moved from view and I sit and look around at the bright and glaring lights of the city. Somewhere in the distance I hear a siren intone its mournful tenor. My eyes never stop scanning every person I see in the dim hopes that I might find Robyn, but of course I never do.
Five minutes turns into fifteen and then twenty-five. I reach down at my feet for my canvas bag and my bottle of water, but I evidently didn’t screw the cap on securely enough because the bottle is empty and the bottom of my canvas bag is soaking wet.
“Damn it,” I say to the air.
I suddenly feel parched and look around the inside of the van but apparently Freddie isn’t in the habit of carrying liquid refreshments. I stare out the window at my surroundings. Behind me, across the street and down the block in the shadows is a liquor store. I peer in the direction that Freddie disappeared but see nothing. I pull a five dollar bill from my wallet, and then stuff my purse beneath the van’s seat and yank the keys from the ignition.
Outside the night air is charged with competing odors: Chinese food, bus exhaust, and a noxious thread of stale body odor. Cars jet by, in a single direction, everyone seemingly in a hurry. I wait for a lull and then dive across the street in the direction of Fox Liquor and Grocery. As I make my way down the sidewalk a chilly breeze whips into my skin, but my sweater was another casualty of my water bottle and so I clench my teeth against the cold as I skirt a handful of orange and white construction barriers approaching the liquor store. A few feet away from the entrance of the store is a Muni bus stop. A handful of sad looking people are loitering near the graffiti-laden bench. A large, articulated Muni bus rumbles to the stop just as I approach. Everyone at the stop traipses up the short staircase and into the bus and in another second the bus itself trudges away, as it belches out a pall of heavy exhaust. I purse my lips and hold my nose against the stench.
I realize suddenly, that I am alone. The darkness feels threatening somehow. I shoot a glance over my shoulder and quicken my pace and am only a few feet from the entrance to the liquor store when I am abruptly yanked backward by the hair. I let out a squawk of surprise and instinctively reach back with both hands to fend off my attacker. But within a fraction of a second, both of my hands have been twisted behind my back, rendering me helpless.
“Help!” I shout to the cars rushing by. “Help!”
I feel something hard jab against my spine. And a voice, the voice of evil whispers in my ear.
“Jou are very slow learner.”
It is BLU BOY, Antonio Peña.
“Jou feel dis?” He thrusts the object deeper into my back. He is walking me backwards as he talks. “Jou don scream, or I shoot.” My feet struggle to find purchase, as he wrenches me backwards faster than I can maneuver. I imagine that from a distance it must look like some kind of macabre dance. I make a move with my head trying to see where he is taking me. Instantly, the business end of a silver barreled gun is shoved against my cheek, almost into my eye.
“Walk,” he commands, jerking me backwards by the hair.
I search frantically for sight of Freddie returning to the van but he is nowhere. If BLU BOY gets me into his car I am dead. He could take me anywhere, put a bullet into my head and dump my body. My mind races as we move further and further from the safety of the lighted liquor store. I silently vow that no matter what, I will not get into his car. No matter what. But that is not what BLU BOY has in store for me.
The alley behind the liquor store is rank with the stench of rotting garbage and urine. Shadows seem to tremble in doorways and behind filthy garbage bins. Behind us, movement. Suddenly two silhouettes have me pinned against the bricked wall of the liquor store. Both are wearing dark, hooded jackets, their faces shrouded like specters. BLU BOY stands in front of me inches away. He has shoved the gun into the front waistband of his jeans. Behind him, cars stream by on Larkin Street, their lights creating a strobe of light and shadow that fire and then collapse against us.
With the precision and speed of a bullet, BLU BOY’s fist launches into my solar plexus, first his left and then his right. Instantly, all the air in the world is crushed from my body. My eyes well with tears as I strain to draw in a breath. BLU BOY’s hand snaps closed around my face, his fingers mashing my cheeks so hard that my left eye is nearly obscured by my own flesh. I think of Chevy lying in that hospital bed, bruised and broken. My bowels churn in terror.
“ This world is mine,” he menaces softly. With his free hand, he points to the ground beneath him.
His breath is fetid.
“These girls are mine,” he whispers, pointing towards shadows down the alley.
I struggle to see if Robyn is there, but BLU BOY slams my head back against the brick. A sharp spike of pain shoots into the back of my skull.
I tug against his grip, trying to wrestle myself free to call out Robyn’s name, but he is too strong.
“Jou interfere again, I kill jour daughter.”
He releases my face as his right hand pulls the gun from his pants. He points the barrel between my eyes. The ferrous odor of steel and gun oil drifts into my nostrils. He caresses my face with the back of his hand, and I am surprised to discover his skin is as smooth as stainless steel.
“Jou come back to my world again, I kill jour daughter.”
He presses the barrel of the gun to my forehead.
“Jou go to the cops, I kill jour daughter. Sabe?”
My legs feel butter soft, and weak. My entire body shakes with fear and my voice, when I find it, vibrates with a luminous dread. I grunt out in a brave whisper:
“You hurt Robyn, and I swear to God, I will kill you.”
BLU BOY laughs heartily. And then without warning he draws the gun up and then backhands me against the face. Bright stars of shock fill my eyes as the barrel of the gun bludgeons my cheek. I howl out in pain just before everything goes completely black.