The Presence

by T. Davis Bunn

  “Biology undergrad, then a master’s in nursing and public health.”

  They stopped at Connecticut Avenue to wait for the light. Jeremy glanced her way. At close inspection the dark skin was lit with a healthy luster. She was a big girl, standing almost as tall as he and holding herself proudly erect. Her hair was cropped short, shorter than he’d ever recalled seeing on a woman. Jeremy decided he liked it on her. He guessed her age at mid-twenties. The strength he felt radiating from her would have better suited a person twice her age.

  He asked her, “Where’d you get that earring?”

  She fingered the large silver object that dangled from one ear. “It was a gift from a Nigerian woman I know. She lives in the area we’re walking toward.”

  “It looks good on you,” he said, and meant it.

  She thanked him politely, still holding back. Jeremy decided the reserve was not just pretense. She was a calm, intelligent woman who had a strong grip on who she was and where she was going. Jeremy decided he liked her, thought there could not be two people more different than Anna and her aunt.

  The light changed, they crossed and continued down beside the Hilton on Florida Avenue. Jeremy followed her lead and enjoyed being able to gawk without worrying over where he was or how he’d find his way back.

  “What did you mean back there,” she asked him, “about maybe being led around by the hand?”

  “I dunno,” he said, jamming his hands into his pockets and lowering his head. “I know I’m needed up here right now. TJ’s gotta have somebody else besides his wife who he can trust with this work of his.”

  “What business is he in?”

  Jeremy hesitated, decided on, “The power and light business.”

  “Didn’t I hear he was doing something with the government?”

  “That too,” he agreed, and hurried on. “The problem is, I just don’t have enough to keep me occupied. Back home, I was pretty much on fourteen-hour days, six days a week. Now that Catherine’s here, my housecleaning’s gonna be about as welcome as a third batch of kitties. The lady’s nice as she can be, but she wants a home to run. I just keep feelin’ like there oughta be somethin’ else I’m supposed to be doin’.”

  Within the space of four blocks, the world was transformed. The crisp winter air still sparkled, but the buildings became increasingly tired, the stores decrepit, the people tattered. Two blocks later they passed an abandoned storefront where four middle-aged blacks sat huddled together against the cold. They shared a filthy blanket laid across their legs; ragged scarfs were wrapped around their ears. A Styrofoam cup sat forlornly on the sidewalk before them. The men’s eyes did not even bother to lift to the people passing by, as though they had long since accepted their plight as hopeless. Jeremy bent and slipped a bill into the cup, met the one pair of eyes that raised to meet his, saw that his gesture was truly meaningless.

  He straightened and walked to where Anna stood waiting. He searched her face, could find nothing evident behind the stone mask and blank eyes.

  Knowing he was going to sound extremely ignorant, he asked, “Are those crack victims?”

  She shook her head, said, “Victims, but not of crack. Lack of hope, yes. Jobless, homeless, hopeless.”

  They walked on, respecting the other’s silence, and with every step Jeremy watched the city deteriorate around him. Liquor stores multiplied rapidly, as did ruined structures with bricked-up windows and signs forbidding entry. The sidewalk was a jumbled mass of crumbling stone, the street little better. Eyes that looked his way scarcely seemed to see him. They were too clouded with ancient rage.

  Anna pointed across the street, said in a voice that seemed to mirror his own dull sadness, “There’s your crack victim.”

  Jeremy’s first thought was, he looks like those pictures of concentration camp victims. The man was so thin it hurt Jeremy to look at him. He walked down the street on feet that seemed to search gingerly for a foothold, as though afraid if they were set down too hard the body they carried would shatter.

  He wore a shiny black suit and a dirty T-shirt, and seemed totally unaware of the cold. Numb to the cold, blind to the stares, oblivious to everything but some screaming inner drive.

  It was hard to believe that anyone could be that thin and still live. The skin was stretched taut over his skull, and the clothes draped shabbily on his scrawny frame did nothing to hide the lack of flesh on his bones. His hands were skeletal, his limbs without strength, his eyes blank holes in his face. He seemed to float on the breeze, lacking the power or the interest to chart a course for himself.

  Jeremy watched him drift around the corner, realized he’d been holding his breath. He said shakily, “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen Death that close up before.”

  “The legion of the lost,” Anna said quietly.

  They moved on slowly, Jeremy praying for the young-old man, saying the words in his mind, his heart knowing nothing but pain. Anna led him down another block, turned right, and stopped.

  “There’s something in here I’d like to show you,” she said.

  Jeremy inspected the building, saw nothing to distinguish it from its poverty-stricken neighbors save a tiny sign that read, “Community of Hope.” Anna took his silence for agreement, and led him up the walk.

  As they approached the front door, an ancient black woman walked out and broke into a delighted smile when she recognized Anna. “How you doin’, chile?”

  “Just fine, Mrs. Timmons,” Anna said, as cultivated as ever, as warm as she could be. “How’s your back?”

  “Oh, them new pills is just what I needed.” The old lady was clearly eager to hold her there. “I don’t hardly feel a thing once I’ve made it outta bed.”

  “That’s fine,” Anna said, “but don’t you forget to use that heating pad at night.”

  Rheumy eyes sparkled as a wrinkled hand reached out to grasp Anna’s. The woman turned to Jeremy, said, “Ain’t she just a little angel?”

  “She is indeed,” Jeremy replied solemnly.

  “Mr. Hughes, this is Mrs. Timmons. She injured her back a few weeks ago, but she’s much better now, aren’t you?”

  “Thanks to my little angel here,” she said, giving the hand another squeeze. “Y’all goin’ up to see Tom?”

  “Is he there?”

  “I believe I saw him up there.” The old lady cackled. “Gettin’ so I can hardly remember my own name, but I still get around okay.”

  “You take care, now,” Anna told her. “And be sure to let me know if you need anything.” The smiles they exchanged warmed the winter air.

  Jeremy and Anna went inside and passed a receptionist crammed against one side of the narrow hall. The black lady looked up from her wheelchair, smiled at Anna as she continued to talk on the telephone, nodded to Jeremy, motioned them through. A woman even older than Mrs. Timmons sat in front of the desk leaning on her cane as she watched the receptionist ask someone for money. She did not glance up as Jeremy and Anna passed.

  The hall smelled of age and industrial-strength cleaner. Strips of worn linoleum plastered to the floor alternated with freshly sawed planks. Light came from old frosted globes high overhead. The walls were plain and gray, save for a brightly colored collection of children’s drawings.

  Anna led Jeremy to narrow stairs leading to the floors above. Jeremy heard voices murmur and laugh as he mounted steps that alternated between ancient warped wood and new boards. He looked over the banister, spotted the remains of what had once been a mosaic-tile design set in the ground-floor landing. He wondered how old this building really was.

  The secretary occupying the second-floor landing lit up at the sight of Anna. “Girl, what you doin’ here on your day off?”

  Anna smiled, said, “Guess I must be hooked.”

  The black lady laughed, a rich sound. “Hooked or crazy, take your pick.” Her gaze, open and very friendly, rested on Jeremy. “How you doin’?”

  Jeremy basked in the lady’s warmth, said, “Just fin
e, ma’am, thank you.”

  She lifted her eyes to Anna. “A real gentleman. Ain’t that nice.”

  Anna laughed, asked, “Is Tom around?”

  “Partly.” The woman appeared to Jeremy to be smiling even when her face was serious. “His body’s in his office. His mind’s flittin’ in and out like a hummingbird. You want me to tell him you’re here?”

  “Please.” Anna said to Jeremy, “Come on in here, I want to show you something.” She led him into a small, crowded hallway now occupied by a desk, two sorry-looking filing cabinets and a secretary.

  The secretary’s scruffy desk was piled high with what clearly were government forms. She said to Anna, “There’s about three hundred calls for you. I gave them to Tom.”

  “This is Jeremy Hughes,” Anna said. “Rachel is the glue that holds this shaky house together.”

  The woman laughed from the heart, said, “Honey, you better look for something stronger than me, if you want to come back tomorrow and find it still standing.”

  Anna led them through ancient double doors into what had once been a formal dining room and which now held a large conference table. Around all four walls was a collapsible metal stand holding perhaps fifty black and white photographs.

  “This was our first building,” Anna explained. “We started here, at least Tom Nees did, with a homeless shelter about five years ago. Tom used to be pastor to a big white church down near the Capitol. He gave it up, spent a year just walking the streets down here, then started this.”

  A graceful hand pointed out beyond the room’s front wall. “The shelter’s been moved across the street. The downstairs rooms have been made into a medical treatment center. I run that with a doctor and two other part-time nurses. This floor and the one above are administration.”

  Jeremy listened, but his eyes were snagged by one picture after another. He moved over to give the photographs a closer inspection.

  “The next project Tom took on was a condemned building over next to where the shelter is now. He raised seventy-five thousand dollars and organized a group from his old church to come down and rebuild the interior. It took over a year, but now it’s a housing co-op with thirty-seven apartments. First time any of the tenants have ever owned their own home. You wouldn’t believe the difference it makes in their lives.”

  Each of the photographs was a silent cry, a voiceless appeal for compassion. Jeremy stared at a young black child running with such unleashed excitement that he seemed ready to take flight. He was wearing his father’s ragged T-shirt and a pair of tennis shoes without laces, and he was springing up from a mound of rubble surrounded by sooty tenement blocks. Yet the expression on the child’s face was one of untrammeled joy.

  “We’re working on a couple of things right now,” Anna went on from behind him. “The shelter needs to be expanded into a place where homeless families can come and live for anywhere from six to eighteen months. A family that’s lost everything usually’s not in any shape to set up house for themselves, even if public housing were available. We’ve got to start getting them out of those awful old hotels and into places that help them find their feet again.”

  Jeremy turned to the next picture, saw a white mother and four children sitting on a mattress and box springs set upon a sidewalk, surrounded by all their possessions. The mother had the dull look of utter, hopeless defeat. The children ranged from an infant in diapers to a boy of perhaps eleven, and all mirrored the same look of terrible emotional pain. The eldest boy, his face scarred and twisted by inner turmoil, had eyes set back in their sockets like a man of eighty.

  “One big problem is all the government assistance programs have offices that are split up and spread all over town. A single parent dragging four or five kids from place to place by bus hasn’t got time to cook, to take care of a sick child, or even to look for work. And if she has problems with reading and writing, there’s just no telling how many times she’s got to go down and work over their forms.”

  The faces pulled at him, tugged at something deep in his gut. The poverty and the hardships described in the photographs were nothing but frames for the faces. The children made him want to weep.

  Anna’s voice remained hidden behind that cool reserve. “We need to set up an assistance program inside the shelter that will take over all this paper work for them, give them the chance to look for jobs and take care of their families.”

  Jeremy moved to a placard set among the photographs and read, “I don’t accept poverty and despair as part of God’s plan. Instead, I believe they result from greed and injustice. I believe God has a special concern for the poor and dispossessed.” Underneath was written, “Jim Hubbard, Photographer.”

  Footsteps heralded the arrival of another. Anna said, “Jeremy Hughes, I’d like you to meet Reverend Tom Nees.”

  Jeremy turned and shook the hand of a white man whose lined face shone with a calm inner strength. Jeremy looked toward Anna, said quietly, “I believe I’ve found what I was looking for.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  When they arrived home Wednesday evening, TJ kissed his wife, took Nak’s coat, said, “Catherine, Jeremy, I’d like you to meet John, er, Nak Nakamishi.”

  “How nice to meet you—Nak, is it? You’re our first dinner guest.”

  “I hope I’m not too much of a bother, Mrs. Case. I understand you just arrived yesterday.”

  “No bother at all. We’re all going to have dinner anyway. Would you like a glass of tea? I’ve just made some fresh.”

  “Thank you, that would be great.”

  Jeremy extended a work-worn hand, said straight-faced, “And no knock-knock jokes, right?”

  “If it’s not too much trouble,” Nak replied seriously.

  “Jeremy Hughes,” Catherine said sharply. “You’re ‘bout this close to wearing my skillet upside your head.”

  “Is that what I think it is?” TJ sniffed the air, smiled at Nak, said, “I do believe Catherine’s cooked us up a mess of fried chicken.”

  “May smell like fried chicken to you,” Jeremy said. “But to an old country boy like me that smells like Sunday afternoon.”

  Catherine came back with two glasses of iced tea. “Young man, I hope you like chicken.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I love it.”

  After the blessing, while the meal was being passed around, TJ told them he was going to be interviewed by a network show.

  “On television?” Catherine’s expression was a mixture of pride and concern.

  “He’s already been on television here in the city,” Nak answered for him. “This is for Good Morning America.”

  Catherine’s eyes squinted. “I don’t recall you telling me about being on TV.”

  “I thought it was best to give you a chance to get adjusted,” TJ replied mildly. “I didn’t see it, but Nak said it was on television the day before yesterday.”

  “What was?”

  “An interview they did while Jeremy went down to fetch you.”

  “He was great,” Nak confirmed.

  “What happened?” Jeremy asked.

  TJ looked a plea toward Nak, who proceeded to give them an almost verbatim report of what was said, all in that calm, quiet voice of his. When he was finished, nothing broke the silence except the tinkle of silverware on plates.

  “This is delicious, Mrs. Case.”

  “Call me Catherine. I’m glad you like it.” And to TJ, “I can’t get over it. I missed my man being on Washington television.”

  “It wasn’t all that much,” TJ said.

  “Yes, it was,” Nak said.

  “I guess it’s started, then,” Jeremy said.

  Catherine looked at him sharply. “What has?”

  Jeremy shrugged. “Whatever the Lord brought him up here to do.”

  “I think so too,” Nak agreed. “I mean, I don’t know exactly what brought you up here, Mr. Case—”

  “Call me TJ, please.”

  “Well, sir,” Nak hesitated. “Out of the off
ice maybe. I don’t know what brought you up here, but after what happened yesterday I know there’s a higher purpose behind all this. I just know it.”

  “Tell us about it, son,” Jeremy said.

  With a nod from TJ, Nak proceeded to sketch for them their discussion after the prayer meeting, the telephone call, and the prayer. “So I went back and did just what TJ told me to do,” Nak went on. “This Mr. Roberts from the network first says they’ll cancel it because they don’t accept restrictions being put on them by the people being interviewed. Then so help me if five seconds later he doesn’t turn around and say, okay, everything’s fine. And their affiliate stations are all going to run segments of the Washington interview as a lead-in to next week’s show.” Nak looked at TJ, ended with, “Just like you said would happen.”

  TJ watched Catherine’s face throughout. It was a lot to be hitting her with, so soon after arriving. When Nak had finished she reached across the table, took one of TJ’s hands in hers, and said, “If it’s His will, then let it be done.”

  “Amen,” Jeremy agreed.

  “I can’t tell you how happy I am to have you up here with me,” TJ said, not caring who heard him.

  “Everything’s gonna be just fine,” Catherine replied, patting his hand with her other one. “You’ll see.”

  “Before we have us a prayer,” Jeremy said, “I think it’s time this young man hears what brought you to Washington.”

  TJ looked a question at his wife, who nodded. “If he’s gonna be with us on this, honey, he has a right to know,” she said.

  So he nodded his head in return, took a breath, turned and told Nak what had happened on the boat that dawn. It pleased him to see the young man register surprise for the very first time.

  ****

  Congressman John Silverwood turned from the work that cluttered his desk that Thursday afternoon, and watched the snow fall outside his window. He could hardly believe his own good fortune.

  He had met a beautiful woman who truly loved him. It baffled him sometimes to think that Sally had chosen him above all others, but it was so. She appreciated him. She admired him for who he was and what he did. She shared his love of politics and looked up to him for making it to the top in a truly tough profession. Well, fairly near the top. And it seemed as though he would be reaching up even higher very soon. John Silverwood watched the heavy flakes drifting earthward, and saw Sally as she had been when he had left her that morning.