Mercy at Midnight

by Sylvia Bambola

  “You never get over hunger. Not the kind that makes your stomach lay flat against your spine. I been that way lots of times. Always figured that’s how death would get me, unless the drugs got me first. Some say when you been hungry long enough you ain’t got no appetite no more and just throw up when you try eatin’. Don’t know if that’s true. Never got that bad. I could always find somethin’ in the pail, somethin’ someone else didn’t want. You’d be surprised what a person’s willin’ to eat when he’s hungry.”

  “What happened to you?” Cynthia’s chest tightened. No use putting it off. She couldn’t squander this chance. “I mean . . . how did you get on the streets?”

  Stubby brushed crumbs off his shirt and onto the floor. “Sometimes I write poetry. Did I tell you? Nothin’ good. Just stuff that means somethin’ to me. Stuff that helps me remember I ain’t no cockroach. Maybe I’ll write you a poem one of these days.”

  “Okay, if you don’t want to talk about it, we don’t have to.” She held her breath. Don’t clam up now. Please don’t clam up.

  “You confuse me, Miss Cynthia. You’re suspicious and don’t make friends easy, just like a street person. But you meddle, which is out of character. I still ain’t figured you out.”

  Cynthia snatched a Bartlett pear from the refrigerator and began nibbling on it. Come on, you’re the professional. Get him to talk. But she couldn’t think of one thing to say.

  “And you don’t act like you ever gone hungry, neither,” Stubby continued.

  Great Wells, now he’s interviewing you. “Maybe someday I’ll tell you my life’s story.”

  “Not tonight?”

  Cynthia shook her head. “I’d rather hear yours.”

  “I don’t like talkin’ about myself.” He seemed embarrassed.

  Think, Wells, think. Don’t lose him now. Say something to make him talk. “Don’t I get something for fixing you the sandwich?” She forced a smile. Lame, very lame.

  “Well, you been nice—and I appreciate the sandwich, and I guess it would pass the time. So, okay, let’s see . . . the day I was born was the tenth anniversary of the Hindenburg goin’ up in flames. I guess it shoulda been a warnin’ of what was comin’; of how my life was gonna crash and burn. ‘Course I didn’t know about the Hindenburg until I was in junior high, and by then it was too late. I was heated up and ready to explode. My family—my mom, dad and both brothers—all used drugs. I swore I was never gonna touch the stuff. But I did. It gets holda you, you know?—when you’re hurtin’ or lonely. I joined a gang. They all used. It was cool. It made you a big man. You felt like somebody. Then I started usin’ more and more, until it weren’t just to get through them rough times, or to make me feel like I was somebody. It was everyday. You tell yourself you can quit anytime you want. Then one day, you wake up and know it ain’t true. You know that this thing’s got you by the throat and it ain’t never gonna let go.”

  “Were you ever married?” Cynthia watched Stubby’s eyes glaze over.

  “I had a girl once. Real special, too. But she left me. Long time ago. She couldn’t stand the lyin’ and stealin’, and the drugs. She saw I was never gonna amount to nothin’. It weren’t her fault. I gave her grief. Didn’t treat her right. Drugs do that. They make you crazy. Make you a different person than you wanna be. In a way I guess it was just as well—that she left me, I mean—‘cause I never wanted kids. I told her so, too. Guess that’s what finally cut it between us, ‘cause she did want ‘em. But I told her I didn’t want to bring no kid into the world if he had to grow up like me. On welfare. Watchin’ my parents druggin’. One of my brothers went to prison for sellin’ drugs. The other was killed in a liquor store robbery.”

  “I don’t know what to say except that I’m sorry.” But Cynthia didn’t feel sorry enough to stop pressing. And she knew she’d go the distance—push him right to the wall if she had to. “I guess it’s hard to overcome something like that. I suppose it would be difficult, almost impossible to get into any real profession. Did you . . . ah . . . were you able to get work? Anything steady, I mean? Something that you liked, maybe something in construction, or as a handyman? You seem like you would have made a good handyman.”

  Stubby scratched the top of his bald head and smiled. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you was interviewin’ me.”

  “Am I overstepping?” Her heart pounded. Don’t stop now, Stubby! Not before telling me what I need to know! “I didn’t mean to overstep,” she said, when he remained silent.

  “Just who are you, Miss Cynthia?”

  “I’m . . . I’m somebody who lost her way.”

  “You think you gonna find it here at the mission?”

  When Cynthia tossed the half eaten pear into the garbage she saw the dismay on Stubby’s face over her wastefulness. She turned and picked up a dishtowel and began wiping the spotless counters.

  “You want me to trust you and tell you about myself, but you don’t trust nobody.”

  “I was just trying to be friendly. That’s all. I’m sorry if I offended you.” She dropped the towel on the counter and started to walk out. She blew it! How could she have been so stupid? Why did she have to come off sounding like Barbara Walters on 60 Minutes? Who knew when he’d open up again?

  “Hows about I fix you a real sandwich?”

  That stopped her in her tracks. She studied Stubby’s face and saw kindness and intelligence, and felt guilty as she walked over to him. Should she tell him she was a reporter? Tell him her name? Ask him point blank if he ever installed a casement window on Spring Terrace in North Oberon twenty-five years ago for someone named Wells? She struggled with those questions for a full five minutes, the time it took Stubby to make a turkey and grilled cheese. He handed it to her on a plate as though it was one of the crown jewels. She waited another few minutes for it to cool, then took a bite. She had never tasted anything so delicious. Neither she nor Stubby said a word while she devoured it. When she finished, he handed her a napkin. There was something about sharing a meal that bonded people.

  “Thanks.” She found herself squeezing his hand. She couldn’t go on like this. She had to tell him. And if it turned out badly, if it turned out that Stubby was that Stubby, she’d just have to deal with the fallout. It was better than letting things continue. “You’re right, you know. I am asking you to trust me, without trusting you. So I’d like to tell you who I am and why I’m here.” She groaned when he shook his head. She just couldn’t let it go like that, with a shake of the head, not now when she had gotten up her courage. “I’d really like to tell you, Stubby.”

  Again Stubby shook his head. “It’ll keep for another night. Tonight I’m gonna tell you about me.”

  Then the moment passed. And Cynthia knew she had lost her opportunity and wondered if she’d ever get another as she listened to Stubby tell her about his life growing up in the Projects. Of the poverty and deprivation. Of the countless young lives that were cut short by violence or drugs. Of life as a gang member. Of his own efforts at self destruction. Of his wasted school years. Of how he met and fell in love with his girlfriend, then abused her until she left him. Of the wasted years in and out of rehab and the welfare system. Of his clean years when he had kicked drugs, of his employment as a custodian and his basement apartments where he saved every penny he could until he had enough for a down payment on a used truck, a truck that would launch him in his own handyman business, a truck that would be his passport to a real life, a life where he could be somebody. Then he told her how his business grew. How his reputation for doing a fine job grew until he had more work than he could handle. The first time he had to turn work away was the happiest day of his life because he knew he had beaten the odds, that he wasn’t going to be a loser all his life. He told her how he had even started thinking of buying a little place, nothing fancy but all his. And then he told her how everything came crashing down after that terrible accident and a little girl died. Of his slide back into addiction. Of his life on the streets and
the utter hopelessness of those years.

  And when he was finished Cynthia wanted to cry, wanted to tell him how sorry she was for everything, how sorry she was that he had fallen through society’s cracks, that he had lived his life in waste and want. But most of all, she wanted to tell him how sorry she was that he had not been able to have that normal life he had worked so hard to achieve. And she wanted to tell him it was because of her.

  All because of her.

  She was the one who had stolen his dream, ripped it right out from under him because she was a coward. And then she wanted to ask his forgiveness, wanted to drop to her knees and beg his forgiveness. But she didn’t because the moment had already passed. It had passed long before he shared his story, long before she came to Beacon Mission, and even before the coroner had removed Julia’s body from the patio in the large back yard of a Victoria on Spring Terrace. It had passed right after she first heard metal scrape and scratch against wood, when the fairy-like vapor sailed out into the cold, crisp air with a giggle, then a scream.

  She brought her dish to the sink and scrubbed it. The only thing for her to do now was to get her story about Manny and Turtle and leave as quickly as possible. Leave and forget this man named Stubby White. And as she scrubbed, she wondered how many sleeping pills, how many men like Steve Bradley bringing pizzas and drinking beers and ending up in her bed she’d need to help her forget. “You haven’t mentioned Manny or Turtle. How did you meet them?” Stubby’s sad, beleaguered face made her stomach feel like it was churning cement.

  “They was my friends,” he said, his voice sounding old. “I just wish they had come to Jesus before they died.”

  No mercy, Cynthia. Go for the jugular. It’s too late about the other thing. Get the story. That’s what’s important now. The story. Then get out of here. “What were they like?”

  “What in the world are you two doing?”

  Cynthia turned to see Miss Emily, hair standing straight up like Dracula’s bride, and wrapped in a pink terrycloth robe, her arms folded across her chest. She looked so out of her neat-as-a-pin character that Cynthia almost laughed.

  Almost.

  “Thanks for the sandwich, Miss Cynthia,” Stubby said, in a hushed voice as he bolted out the door.

  “I repeat, what were you two doing in my kitchen?”

  “Getting to know each other.” Cynthia eased past Miss Emily as gingerly as if she were easing past razor wire.

  “And eating me out of house and home, I bet?”

  “We tried.”

  “Well, next time invite me to the party, will you?”

  “Sure thing.” Cynthia laughed a hollow, empty laugh, then disappeared into her room.

  “Aunt Adel, did I wake you?”

  “Of course you did, Jonathan,” returned a sleepy voice. “It’s almost midnight.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve been wrestling with something. It’s about a woman . . . . ”

  “Ooooh! Well, you tell your aunt Adel all about her.”

  Jonathan nearly tripped over his untied sneaker as he paced. “It’s not what you think. I’ve got a burden for one of the women at the mission, and I’d like you and the Ladies Auxiliary to pray for her.”

  “Oh. Of course, Dearest. What’s her name?”

  “Cynthia. I don’t know her last name.”

  “How old is she? Ninety?”

  “No, thirty.”

  “Ooooh! Well, what do you want me to pray about?”

  “She’s homeless—”

  “Oh.”

  “I’d like you to agree with me for her salvation, and deliverance and guidance and . . . .”

  “That’s quite a petition.”

  “And protection. I keep sensing that she needs protection.”

  “Fine. You can count on us. How? I mean, why is she homeless?”

  “I don’t know. She’s hard working, smart . . . seems to have a lot on the ball. It’s a puzzle.”

  “Is she pretty?”

  “Pretty? Well . . . yes . . . very.”

  “Ooooh! And she’s hard working and smart? Well, well. Let’s pray this lady into the kingdom and back onto her feet, and then we’ll see what we shall see.”

  “Aunt Adel, your mind is going in the wrong direction here. I sense this woman is in real trouble. Let’s keep focused on the issues I mentioned.”

  “You pray the way you’re led and I’ll pray the way I’m led.”

  Jonathan stood behind the lectern gazing at the people around him. A good crowd. Some new faces. His eyes rested on Cynthia. He had asked Miss Emily to make certain that Cynthia started coming to the Bible studies. The urgency from last night had not diminished.

  “Luke 11 is a familiar story about a person who, at midnight, goes to his friend’s house to borrow three loaves of bread because an unexpected guest has arrived and he had no bread to give him.” Jonathan tried hard to keep his eyes from roaming back to Cynthia but they went there anyway.

  “The first thing that struck me was that this person went to borrow bread. And since Jesus is the Bread of Life, it’s reasonable to say that he was looking for spiritual food for his unexpected visitor. Now, who would visit someone at midnight? No one, unless . . . you were hurting or in trouble or searching for answers to some pretty important questions. The Bible also tells us this visitor was “in his journey.” We’re all “in our journey” and that journey through life can be bumpy, and sometimes there are collisions and breakdowns and all sorts of road hazards that drive us to a door at midnight. And how sad to get there only to find our friend has no ‘food’ to give us. No answers, no help, no hope because the Bread of Life isn’t there.

  “I believe it’s no accident that you’re all here today. You’ve all come, in a sense, looking for mercy at midnight, and we . . . . ”

  With a pang, Jonathan watched Cynthia get up and leave the room.

  Cynthia slapped mayonnaise on one slice of bread, then another, then another until she had ten slices lined up in front of her. What was the matter with her? Why had she walked out like that before Jonathan finished his study?

  Because he was making you nervous, Wells, that’s why.

  She couldn’t remember the last time she felt so tense around a guy. Grade school? And what a laugh that after all these years, it took a preacher to make her feel that way again. He was just too maddeningly sincere. And she hadn’t seen sincerity in a long time.

  Years.

  Cynthia peeled back the plastic wrap and began dealing out bologna slices, like cards, depositing three on every piece of bread. Then she slapped mayonnaise on more slices of bread. She just couldn’t fit another problem into her life right now. She was still reeling over Stubby. She had tossed and turned most of the night and when she did sleep, she had had her usual nightmare. No surprise there. The best thing for her to do was to get her story and get out of here before this whole Stubby thing broke wide open.

  If he ever found out who she was . . . .

  And now this morning, when she was hoping for a little peace, a little time to collect herself, Miss Emily insisted she go to the Bible study. And instead of just vegging out she actually listened, then she began watching him. Watching the way he swiped at the strands of blond hair that kept falling over his left eye. Watching the way he’d turn a page with his thumb and index finger. Watching the way his broad, muscular shoulders would tilt back whenever he was about to stress a point.

  And he was watching her, too. Though not in the usual way men watched her. His glances suggested religious zeal and . . . sincerity. Back to sincerity again. And her, the mistress of deception. Dear Miss Emily and . . . Stubby. She had deceived them all. What would they think of her when they found out? She hoped she’d be long gone before that happened.

  She paired the bread and found she had made an extra top. She shoved it to the side.

  The thing that puzzled her, that really got her goat, was that Jonathan had been around long enough to see mangled humanity at its wo
rst and still he liked people. It wasn’t natural. In fact, it was downright unnatural.

  She spread mayonnaise on more slices of bread, all the while trying to ignore Miss Emily’s humming. Probably some Gospel tune. Nobody had a right to be that happy. What was wrong with Miss Emily anyway? Singing and humming and doing those little skipping moves with her feet? She glanced over and saw the white-haired woman putting the last minute touches on the chicken soup. The smell was enough to drive anyone crazy. Everything that woman cooked was delicious. Even Miss Emily’s bologna sandwiches tasted better than Cynthia’s. She wondered if those hungry men and women who’d be coming for lunch would notice. Somehow she couldn’t imagine any of them refusing to eat because she had made the sandwiches.

  You never get over real hunger.

  That’s what Stubby had said. Now, why was she thinking about him again? She had to get him out of her mind. Forget him. There was no point in rehashing the past. Somehow she had to find a way to let it go. Still, even now she couldn’t stop thinking about how easy her life had been compared to his. And how much her selfishness, her weakness had cost him. What was a person to do, with a secret like hers? Was there no remedy? No forgiveness? Was she doomed to have nightmares the rest of her life?

  Or was there really mercy at midnight?

  CHAPTER 11

  Jonathan opened the last of the boxes and sighed. No way was he going to get all this stuff in here. Eighty percent of his belongings were already in storage, and these remaining possessions still seemed to overwhelm the available space—the proverbial attempt to stuff a hundred pounds of belongings into a ten pound bag.

  His biggest concern was finding room for all his books: three Bibles—an Amplified, NIV and King James—a concordance, two expository dictionaries, a Greek lexicon, two books on archaeology in the land of the Bible, and one hymnal. All his seminary textbooks were packed away along with his Watchman Nees and Andrew Murrays and books by a dozen other favorite authors. He had brought just the bare essentials.