help it if I appeal to him whenever he can get out of his wife’s sight? The Lord give me my smooth brown body, girl, and I ain’t one to let it go to waste. Excuse me, I’m gonna comb my hair and go downstairs and put these numbers in. A small hit’s better than none. But I sure hate to be so poor! Maybe that Chinese that winked at me from behind the lunch counter will feel in a lending mood this morning.”
“A Christian woman taking up with a heathen,” said Essie.
“On a blue Monday morning I would take up with a dog,” said Laura, “if the dog said, ‘Baby, how about a drink?’ Soon as this coffee dies down, I’m gonna need something a little stronger.”
Laura’s carpet slippers heel-flapped their way down the hall. All the nearby kitchenettes were quiet. Everybody on that floorexcept these two women had gone to work. Essie sat down to think, and sat a long while, which was what she liked to do—just sit. Ten o’clock, eleven o’clock, noon. But today, she kept seeing in her mind’s eye herself singing to more and more people on a corner, then in a gospel tent, then in a church, and people weeping and shouting and fainting and coming to Jesus because of her songs, and a railroad ticket, yellow and very long, that she was folding and putting into a letter and sending to her daughter in Richmond writing, “Honey, baby, daughter, child, come to your mother,” and she was signing the letter with her own name,
Essie
. And suddenly she was shouting all alone by herself, “Thank you, God! Thank God! Thank God!”
Then she got up and started sweeping the floor, and imagined it was the living room of a nice apartment, and she was getting ready for Marietta to arrive. She looked out her rear window three stories down into a courtyard full of beer cans and sacks of garbage and saw, instead, a pretty view of a park—because where she lived now with her daughter was way up on the hill and there were trees outside the apartment windows. “It’s all because of You, Lord,” she said, “and because I am walking with God. Yes!” And she began to sing:
“Just a closer walk with Thee,
Grant it, Jesus, if you please.
Daily walking close to Thee—
Let it be! Let it be! Let it be!”
Broom in hand, she stopped. “I wonder if that wine-head of a Laura has sure enough converted me? Thank God, I see some kind of light right now!
“I am weak, but Thou art strong.
Jesus, keep me from all wrong!
I’ll be satisfied as long
As I walk close to Thee!”
“Sing it, girl,” cried Laura, breezing past in the hall to find the Chinese counterman in the Japanese restaurant, her numbers writer, and somebody on the corner to buy her a bottle of wine.
Essie sat down again in her chair, filling it amply, and again her mind was sort of empty as it usually was. But the sun came in bright at the window, brighter than the sun had been for many months. It was spring. Vaguely Essie thought, I’ll raise the window in a minute. But she sat a long, long time before she did raise the window. Essie’s life had been full of long, long, very long pauses.
3
VISIONS OF A ROCK
“W ell, it did not hit,” said Laura, “no parts of it. The number was 413—so I did not catch the lead, I did not catch the second, and I had no change to put on the third. That Chinese man did not feel so well today. What did you do all afternoon?”
Essie had a report to make. “I priced a Bible.”
“Have I done dreamed up something that you are really taking serious,” said Laura, “about this church?”
“Been passing the store for months and just never noticed,” said Essie, “that stuck back up there in the window of that furniture household shop, midst stoves, hassocks, floor lamps, and overstuffed chairs, is a great big Bible leaning up against a sign that says: G OLD-EDGED B IBLE ON I NSTALLMENT P LAN —
Two
Dollars Down, Two Dollars a Month
. That Bible costs eighteen-fifty.”
“Where’s it at?” asked
“A Christian woman taking up with a heathen,” said Essie.
“On a blue Monday morning I would take up with a dog,” said Laura, “if the dog said, ‘Baby, how about a drink?’ Soon as this coffee dies down, I’m gonna need something a little stronger.”
Laura’s carpet slippers heel-flapped their way down the hall. All the nearby kitchenettes were quiet. Everybody on that floorexcept these two women had gone to work. Essie sat down to think, and sat a long while, which was what she liked to do—just sit. Ten o’clock, eleven o’clock, noon. But today, she kept seeing in her mind’s eye herself singing to more and more people on a corner, then in a gospel tent, then in a church, and people weeping and shouting and fainting and coming to Jesus because of her songs, and a railroad ticket, yellow and very long, that she was folding and putting into a letter and sending to her daughter in Richmond writing, “Honey, baby, daughter, child, come to your mother,” and she was signing the letter with her own name,
Essie
. And suddenly she was shouting all alone by herself, “Thank you, God! Thank God! Thank God!”
Then she got up and started sweeping the floor, and imagined it was the living room of a nice apartment, and she was getting ready for Marietta to arrive. She looked out her rear window three stories down into a courtyard full of beer cans and sacks of garbage and saw, instead, a pretty view of a park—because where she lived now with her daughter was way up on the hill and there were trees outside the apartment windows. “It’s all because of You, Lord,” she said, “and because I am walking with God. Yes!” And she began to sing:
“Just a closer walk with Thee,
Grant it, Jesus, if you please.
Daily walking close to Thee—
Let it be! Let it be! Let it be!”
Broom in hand, she stopped. “I wonder if that wine-head of a Laura has sure enough converted me? Thank God, I see some kind of light right now!
“I am weak, but Thou art strong.
Jesus, keep me from all wrong!
I’ll be satisfied as long
As I walk close to Thee!”
“Sing it, girl,” cried Laura, breezing past in the hall to find the Chinese counterman in the Japanese restaurant, her numbers writer, and somebody on the corner to buy her a bottle of wine.
Essie sat down again in her chair, filling it amply, and again her mind was sort of empty as it usually was. But the sun came in bright at the window, brighter than the sun had been for many months. It was spring. Vaguely Essie thought, I’ll raise the window in a minute. But she sat a long, long time before she did raise the window. Essie’s life had been full of long, long, very long pauses.
3
VISIONS OF A ROCK
“W ell, it did not hit,” said Laura, “no parts of it. The number was 413—so I did not catch the lead, I did not catch the second, and I had no change to put on the third. That Chinese man did not feel so well today. What did you do all afternoon?”
Essie had a report to make. “I priced a Bible.”
“Have I done dreamed up something that you are really taking serious,” said Laura, “about this church?”
“Been passing the store for months and just never noticed,” said Essie, “that stuck back up there in the window of that furniture household shop, midst stoves, hassocks, floor lamps, and overstuffed chairs, is a great big Bible leaning up against a sign that says: G OLD-EDGED B IBLE ON I NSTALLMENT P LAN —
Two
Dollars Down, Two Dollars a Month
. That Bible costs eighteen-fifty.”
“Where’s it at?” asked
Similar Books
Traitor to the Crown The Patriot Witch
C.C. Finlay
June Bride: Now and Forever Romance
Regina Duke
Arcadia
Tom Stoppard
Gamma Nine (Book One)
Christi Smit
Changing Focus
Marilu Mann
Die Twice
Simon Kernick
Hard Rain
Janwillem van de Wetering
Down and Dirty: SEAL EXtreme Team Short Story
Kimberley Troutte