Mercy at Midnight

by Sylvia Bambola

  “Don’t make it a big deal. We’re friends, remember?” Stubby guessed that’s what it boiled down to. Turtle was his friend. That’s why he’d help. That’s why he’d stick his neck out if it came to that. “You go on, now,” he said, heading for the crumbling steps of the hotel.

  A large sign with bleached-out lettering and the Angus trademark—a giant A pierced by two lightning bolts suggesting both power and something fearful—sagged over the entrance. The soft breeze carried the smell of urine, along with the dust of the tired, antediluvian neighborhood, and the suffocating sense that here, as though sentenced by an unknown judge, walked life’s banished.

  “You stayin’ the night?” Turtle asked, continuing to follow Stubby.

  Stubby nodded without turning. He didn’t want to look into his friend’s pleading eyes that were sure to ask if he could share the room. “Paid this mornin’, then I’m out, maybe go to Fourth Street.”

  “Stubby . . . .”

  “Get some rest. I’m gonna use the day to think. I need that—time to get my mind around things. Maybe come up with a plan.”

  “Okay . . . sure . . . I guess that would be best. Me and Manny, we always liked it when you thought things through . . . for all of us. You’ll come up with somethin’. You always do. The Idea Man, that’s what Manny used to call you. The Idea Man. We could always count on you.”

  “Well, don’t expect much! You really got yourself in a jam this time!” He didn’t mean for his voice to snap like that, to lay it on so heavy—drive the point home like his father used to do with a snap of his belt. But he didn’t like being the Idea Man, either. That felt too heavy for his shoulders.

  As Stubby reached the door, Turtle doubled over in a coughing fit. Maybe he should let Turtle spend the night. The way Turtle was feeling, he’d be grateful for a spot on the floor. But when Stubby thought of the danger, he changed his mind.

  “You go take care of that cough,” he said in a low voice. “It ain’t never gonna go away if you don’t take care of it. I’ll get in touch when I think it’s safe.” Turtle nodded, and Stubby thought it was to Turtle’s credit that he took it like a man and just clomped across the street and down an alley without another word.

  But he felt guilty. And that made him mad. What was he supposed to do? Ask Turtle to stay? With Snake’s goons everywhere? He had to keep his distance. Just for awhile. Give himself time to think, time to work this out. Assuming it could be worked out. This was bad business. Turtle and Manny’s stunt could end up getting then all killed. A person could get hurt just for butting into the wrong business. How many times had his father’s fists fallen on Stubby for coming to the defense of his mother and brothers?

  And with never a thanks from any of ‘em. So who could blame a body for lookin’ out for number one? And you couldn’t make too many mistakes, neither, and live to tell about ‘em.

  He’d do what he could for Turtle. Try to come up with a plan. And stick his neck out only if he had to. He balled his hands into fists, wincing from the pain in his swollen joints. No question about it, pain would have its way, would own bits and pieces of them all ‘til it became master. And when it did? What then?

  A helpless old man on the street didn’t last long.

  Jonathan Holmes barely stirred when the old grandfather clock chimed. But it did bring him earthbound enough to smell the musty Parthia wool rug, feel his head soaked with perspiration, feel a tingle in his right hand where his head had been resting.

  My soul pants for you, Lord, just as the deer pants for water.

  He tried to continue praying, tried to rise heavenward again, but couldn’t, so he just remained sprawled on the floor. You know I want to do Your will. He rolled onto his left side and began exercising his hand. But I don’t understand, Lord. Why change things now? When Your Spirit is beginning to stir the congregation?

  When the numbness in his hand turned to pins and needles, Jonathan pulled himself to his knees, then lingered a moment in hope of hearing an answer.

  There was none.

  “‘Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding; in all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy path,’” he whispered the familiar verse, a verse he had felt the Lord tattoo on his heart more than once.

  “Pastor Holmes? You in there?”

  The voice and the impatient knocking brought Jonathan to his feet. He unlocked his office door without bothering to put on his shoes, which were taken off in anticipation of being on “holy ground”.

  “My . . . if you aren’t the prayingest pastor I’ve ever known! ‘Course I haven’t known that many. After all, Pastor Sorensen was here twenty-five years. But if I tried, I could come up with a few names, and none of them, as far as I can remember, ever spent as much time in prayer as you.”

  Jonathan grinned at the church secretary and noticed that her gray, steel-wool-like hair smelled freshly permed. “Nice hairdo, Gertie.”

  Gertie’s mouth curled into a rare smile. “I thought you should know—the new choir robes aren’t in. They were supposed to be in our hands by Tuesday and here it is Thursday, and you know that we’ve already bundled up all the old robes, just like you asked, and shipped them off to that church in South Oberon. I know you were trying to be a good Christian, giving to the less fortunate and all, but seems you jumped the gun. A lot of people aren’t going to take that lightly. They’re still used to the way Pastor Sorensen ran things, and he never jumped the gun. ‘Course, he had a lot more years to learn the ropes.”

  Jonathan sighed and wondered if he’d ever get used to all the minutiae that made him feel, so often, like he was running a business instead of tending a flock. And that feeling didn’t sit well. He couldn’t imagine Smith Wigglesworth, “the apostle of faith” or Jack Coe, “the man of reckless faith” ever bogged down with such details; not that he compared himself to them, but he did, with all his heart, want to be used of God like they had been. And he desperately wanted to see revival come to Christ Church. Other pastors, with more experience, had confided in him that bothersome details and endless busyness could shrivel one’s spiritual life, suck the fervor and passion right out of it; faster than you could recite the one-hundred and seventeenth Psalm. But he supposed there was a lesson in all of it—all the minutiae, the nagging details. Such things could be used of God like pruning shears, trimming, as it were, the tendrils of impatience and perhaps a budding branch of spiritual pride. “So, when will the garments of praise be here?”

  Gertie Eldridge wrinkled her nose. “I called the trucking company and the entire shipment is lost. Vanished into thin air! They’re trying to track it down. But nothing will happen by Sunday, that’s for sure. The choir’s meeting tonight for practice. What am I supposed to tell them? I’ll have to leave a note, explain this whole thing and . . . .”

  “Why don’t I break the news?”

  Gertie Eldridge relaxed her nose. “You plan on being here tonight? Don’t you ever go home?”

  “I am home.” Jonathan felt the words stick in his throat.

  “Well, it would help if you addressed the choir. Maybe you could explain everything, tell them you miscalculated. They’ll take it better if it comes from you.”

  Jonathan nodded, trying to ignore the sorrow that pressed heavily on his chest. “When all is said and done, they’re not the garments of praise that matter, Gertie.”

  “I’ll have you know the choir takes their robes seriously.”

  “Of course they do. But the thing is they’ll manage to sing just fine without them. At least for one more week.”

  The church secretary worked her eyebrows into a knot. “Maybe . . . except I can tell you it’s going to be hard for the congregation to concentrate on the singing if their choir looks like a bunch of wildflowers, dressed every which way, instead of in their smart matching robes. It’s unsettling. I can’t remember it ever happening here. Not once.”

  Jonathan walked over to the huge mahogany desk and place
d his hand on the leather executive’s chair. A Greek lexicon lay open on the desktop and his eyes rested on the word “pepoithesis”—reliance, confidence, trust. He just couldn’t get away from that word. “Trust in the Lord, Gertie. It’ll all work out.” But he was saying that as much to himself as to his secretary. “He has a plan. He always has a plan.”

  “Well . . . I suppose. But people are going to be disappointed. They were looking forward to the new robes. Took a long time to decide about the double strip around the collar and wrists. It’s the extra touches, you know, that make a church stand out, sort of gives it a signature. And that’s important for a church like ours. After all, Christ Church is a landmark. One of the first built here in North Oberon. It goes way back, and so do most of the families. But you wouldn’t know about that. Being an outsider and all. Although I suppose with your Aunt Adel heading the Ladies Auxiliary for the past twenty-five years, you’re not a real outsider. And I did hear that you once lived in the area, awhile ago, so that counts for something. I suppose. Still, you don’t act like one of us. But come to think of it, your Aunt Adel’s a bit strange, too.”

  Jonathan pulled out the chair that squeaked on its rollers, and sat down. “Revival, Gertie. That’s what Christ Church needs. Choir robes are fine, but they can’t replace the fire of God.”

  “Sometimes I worry about you, Pastor.” The small, spry woman picked at her hair as she backpedaled toward the door. “You work too hard. Here from sunrise to sunset and beyond. Pastor Sorensen, God rest his soul, never kept such hours. It’s not healthy. And come to think of it, he never talked about the fire of God, either.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Cynthia Wells took a swig of her cold double espresso, then placed the tall paper cup next to a bulky ceramic mug inscribed with the words, Stakeout Queen—a Christmas gift from Bernie. Fatigue slid down some inner tunnel of her body along with the mouthful of espresso. She was grateful it was already noon. It seemed wrong to wish for the hours to gallop by as if they were horses in a race. That implied a wasteful mentality which didn’t ring true. She well understood that each passing hour represented a withdrawal from some invisible account—the kind where no deposits could ever be made.

  Still, she found it hard to rouse herself, and sat cradling her face with one hand and drawing stick figures with the other. Only one word was scrawled on her entire page.

  Manny.

  Even the noise and high energy of the newsroom failed to revive or inspire. It just annoyed. Phones rang and people shouted over each other. In one corner, two reporters argued over politics or sports, Cynthia couldn’t tell which. In another corner, three more reporters clustered near a nineteen-inch wall-mounted Toshiba watching CNN.

  She was glad to be in this predominately male club, still amazed she had been invited and still amazed how little women’s lib had penetrated the inner sanctum of the Oberon Tribune. But her “invitation” had been a mixed blessing, necessitating that she work harder than the other reporters and accepting the fact that Bernie always expected more from her than say Bob, or Howard or Ray.

  Cynthia scrunched lower in her chair trying to tune it all out, and wished Bernie would make good on his promise to provide those five-foot-high sound-proof partitions around each desk instead of leaving it like a haphazard warehouse of men, women, desks, computers, phones, and various other tools of the trade. She squinted at her stickmen. Drawing them helped her think. She started a second row, avoiding eye contact with the small plaque on her desk framing Benjamin Franklin’s words: Time lost is never found again.

  “Is this what I pay my number one door-knocker to do? You want to learn art, go to night school.”

  Cynthia’s long, slender fingers continued marching an army of stick figures across the page. She didn’t glance up at the rotund city editor. She already knew, without looking, that he had a smile on his face, that his shirt was only partially tucked in, that under close scrutiny, traces of powdered sugar would be found dusting his bottom lip from this morning’s Krispy Kreme orgy.

  She bent lower over her well-appointed metal desk, causing a patch of shiny, blonde hair to fall across her forehead, obscuring the frown on her face, a frown she’d been wearing since leaving Starbucks this morning. “I’m thinking,” she finally said.

  “Good for you, Wells. But how about translating it into some work? You haven’t given me anything worth a nickel this week. It looks like all you’ve attended to are your nails.”

  Cynthia glanced at her French manicure and tried not to show her irritation as Bernie Hobbs pushed aside her neat stack of manila folders—folders that had taken two hours to organize—and settled his plump posterior on her desk.

  “Just wanted you to know your little ditty on waste at the state capitol doesn’t have teeth.”

  “You printing it?”

  “Not on your tintype. Not even as an off-lead, unless you go for the jugular. I want to see blood. You know it’s got to bleed for it to lead. You’ve collected good, solid facts, but your piece doesn’t deliver.”

  Bernie bent closer as though about to impart what he considered a worthy punch line. His face was knotted and serious, but funny, too, with that powdered sugar outlining his bottom lip. Cynthia’s high opinion of him forced her to stifle a giggle. But she almost came unglued when he rose up on his haunches and squared back his shoulders as though preparing to recite a key passage from Macbeth. Sheer will power enabled her to keep a straight face.

  “You didn’t deliver,” Bernie repeated. “You failed to tie the facts into a firm rope-bridge over which your readers can navigate to the correct conclusion. Instead, you gave me tip-toe-through-the-tulips, and the prize is what? A little wading pond? Hardly substantial enough to wash the stench of this scandal away. And hardly Wells-quality.”

  Cynthia colored the “a” in Manny with blue ink. Dear sweet Bernie. She tried not to react when he thumped her page of stickmen with his index finger. Dear sweet irritating Bernie.

  “There’s your problem. These are the only men in your life. Everyone needs a little fun, Wells, a little romance. Otherwise, burnout. That’s what’s happening here. Too much nose-to-the-grindstone and not enough time to recharge your battery. Rewrite that piece, then find yourself a man. And that’s an order! And not that clod, Steve, either. The two of you have no future and you know it!”

  Cynthia twirled her Papermate between her fingers and gazed at her boss—a generous man of excesses whose body confessed his sins to the world while her own sins remained hidden. How could such a man understand someone like her? She had always aspired to become a Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein—uncovering Watergate-like scandals— but ever since the nightmares, she’d been feeling more like a Mary Shelley—obsessed with bringing back the dead. “Okay, I’ll give you blood. I’ll bleed the state dry, if that’s what you want, but forget the man part. I’m not interested just now.”

  “Oh, no? Then who’s this Manny?”

  “A dead guy.”

  Bernie let out an exasperated hiss. “What is it with you and dead people? You have a fixation or something? Should I start worrying?”

  Dear sweet Bernie. Ever willing to charge to her rescue like a big brother, extending his hand of friendship—and she only able to brush his fingertips. She wanted to tell Bernie about her dreams. She wanted to tell him about the nightmares that made her wake up in a cold sweat, made her hear giggles and screams. It would be nice to tell someone, to get it out in the open. Maybe it would even make them stop. But habit was a bully that kept one from straying into unfamiliar territory. And that’s where she’d be, in unfamiliar territory. Because after years of keeping things to herself, locking them up in the cupboard of her heart, she found it hard to share with others.

  Even someone as dear as Bernie.

  “No need to worry. I’m okay. Not like this guy.” Cynthia circled Manny’s name, then tapped it with one of her manicured nails hoping Bernie would allow her to change the subject. “Steve tells me they found this
guy three days ago in a dumpster—a homeless drug addict. Now who would want to murder some poor homeless guy? Nobody’s claimed the body. Or made inquiries. Can you imagine? Not one person. It’s sad.”

  She removed the pen from Manny’s name, brought it back to her row of stickmen and began drawing. “Ever wonder what it would be like to die and have nobody care?”

  “No. Once you’re dead what difference does it make? But you’re wondering, aren’t you? I swear, Wells, you’re getting more morbid by the day. I’m warning you, you start dressing in black and you’ll find a pink slip on your desk faster than you can say, ‘Chernobyl’. What’s going on with you, anyway? Maybe you should see a shrink.” Bernie pushed himself off the desk. “You’ve got me worried. There, I said it, okay? You’ve become disconnected. You don’t date. You don’t even go out with your friends anymore. It’s just you and your job. You’ve got no way of blowing off steam. It’s killing your edge. And if you don’t stop it, you’ll wake up one morning and find that all you can write are a few lines for Hallmark.”

  Cynthia tossed her pen in what she hoped was a cavalier manner for Bernie’s sake. No point in letting him see how deeply this issue disturbed her. But she’d have to toss more than a pen, she’d have to toss a bone, too. Give him something so he didn’t worry, something that was true without really getting to the heart of it. “When a person’s occupation is to always dig for dirt, it makes that person . . . well, not like other people very much, you know? It sort of turns that person off to the human race.”

  “Well, get turned back on!”

  Cynthia eyed her pudgy boss as he walked away. Bernie had been in the newspaper business a long time and knew a scam when he heard one, or at least a partial scam. But he was letting her get away with it. At least, for now.

  “Find a man, Wells. Have a little fling. Get your edge back,” he said over his shoulder.