Sitting on the step,
sipping my morning coffee,
my head in the clouds–-Soezi
I could sit and watch the river forever. It’s peaceful to watch the river do what a river does, flow to the sea, never questioning what might happen when it gets there, never seeking something more. Never mind that, bareheaded here on my stair landing, I’m cold. Only my hands, wrapped around a cup of tea, are warm. Tea, not coffee, although my forehead already booms with a caffeine-deprivation headache.
Caffeine isn’t the only drug I’ve had to kick. I’ve withdrawn from heroin, the hard way, cold turkey, with nothing to support me but my Zen practice.
Ironically, a lifetime’s cigarette habit is harder to quit. The unquenched craving for a smoke tugs constantly. Like background music in a movie, it’s not the main theme. Still, it does lend a certain tone to the action. It will, I expect, for the rest of my life, a life I’m ready to live.
I have some decisions to make. That I have been more alive when facing death than I was when running from it hasn’t escaped my notice.
But I can’t sit here forever. Those who preyed on Hector Waltann are dead or in custody but there’s still work to do. Paperwork, mostly, but work nonetheless. Before that, though, I have one last task to complete, one that will take me back to Miracle Mile.
*****
I can’t bathe and dress without noticing the lotus tattoo, can’t notice the tattoo without reliving the moment I shot Lix Gemini at a range beyond close—intimate. I can feel his lips against my ear, hear his scream echo in my skull. His body spasms against me as the bullet, my bullet, penetrates. The recollection makes me shudder so I try not to think about it. More than ever, I want to learn to banish discursive thoughts.
I could have the tattoo lasered off but I won’t. Lix was right; it is the perfect symbol for me, a reminder not only of my commitment to transcending the enslavement of desire but also of my weakness and fallibility. Besides, it’s beautiful. For all else that he was, Lix was also an artist.
Northbound on Miracle Mile, I drive past the liquor store, a thrift store, the massage parlor, the adult bookstore, reach the Metro on the corner and stop, taken aback. Somehow I traveled the entire block and drove right past Sister Clyde’s Mercy Mission. How could I have missed it? It was between the liquor store and the massage parlor. Going too fast, I guess. With a shrug I hang a left onto Putnam, make a U-turn, turn back onto Miracle Mile, and go south for another pass, slower this time. Metro, adult bookstore, massage parlor, thrift store, liquor store. At the corner of Main and Miracle I stop, baffled. Missed it again! How did I do that? I glance back over my shoulder, try to figure out what I’m doing wrong. An impatient honk behind me prods me onward. I pull another U-ey and head up the Mile once more. This time I stop in front of the liquor store, park Old Paint, and take to the sidewalk.
Yes, here is the liquor store, right where I left it. Next to it is a thrift store and next to that, the massage parlor. This thrift store, I don’t understand. It’s right where the Mission was, should be.
I go inside. It’s dimly lit and close with the must of old clothes, cardboard, and rust. On rolling racks like the one Nikki had in her dressing room, limp dresses in faded florals, coats missing buttons, and slacks shiny in the seat dangle from bent wire hangers. Pitted percolators, toasters with frayed fabric cords, and incomplete sets of chipped dinnerware fill the dusty shelves that line the room.
At the room’s center, a glass showcase is sparsely filled with costume jewelry and watches. An old man in a plaid golf cap stands beside a mechanical cash register. I introduce myself, show the man my ID.
“Sister Clyde here?” I ask. Maybe the Mission went belly-up since I was there last and the sister has gone into the thrift-shop side of the good works business.
“Here? You mean, like work here?” the man asks. “No one work here but me.” His dark brown eyes regard me candidly.
“Maybe she’s a contributor. Brings you stuff from her church?”
“If she do, I don’t know her. And I know all the auxiliary ladies. Brotherhood men, too. Elks, Moose, I know all them all. Good people. But a Sister Clyde? Nope, don’t know no Sister Clyde,” the man says with certainty.
I describe her to him, but he shakes his head.
“There a problem with this Sister, Officer?” he asks.
“No, no problem at all. I—I have something to tell her, that’s all.” At a loss even for what to ask next, I look around the room as though something of the surroundings will inspire me. “New business here, sir?”
“Nossir. Not new at all. Been here fifteen years.”
“Fifteen years? At this location?”
“Yessir. There a problem with the store?”
“No, really. No problem. I just ... you’re sure?”
The look he gives me seems to say he’s beginning to doubt my sanity, but he politely replies, “I’m sure.”
“Well, uh ...” I don’t know what to say. This is the right place, I’m positive. The right street, the right address. Just days ago there was a Mission here. “Mind if I look around?”
With a wave of his arm, the man says, “Be my guest. You have a question about anything, see something you like, I’m here to serve.”
I amble around the room, pick up a tarnished silver picture frame here, a radio with a dull Bakelite case there. My survey only leads to the conclusion that this is nothing but a thrift shop, and one that could have been here for fifty years as easily as fifteen. There’s got to be an explanation but I can’t even begin to come up with one. My brain is stultified by dust and mold. Finally I can only turn to go.
“Well, uh, thank you, sir.”
The man taps the bill of his cap. “Sorry I couldn’t help.”
So am I. Feet attached to a body that suddenly feels like a stranger’s drift toward a door that I fully expect to open onto a rabbit hole to Wonderland. My eyes skim over cardboard boxes of loose buttons, tube socks, yellowed linen hankies with torn lace—and stop. From a box near the door I pick up an object, turn, and hold it up.
“What can you tell me about this?” I ask the man in a voice I can barely keep steady. “Do you know where you got it?”
He squints at the object, then leaves his post by the cash register to take it from my hand.
“Where I got it? Couldn’t say. Once stuff’s here, I’m more concerned with gettin’ it gone than where it come from. It’s a collar, sir. Like from a coat.” He rubs the brown fur between his thumb and forefinger. “Fox, I think.”
Fox. A small quick animal who was with me at my lowest moments—binging on Nearvana, shirking Sister Clyde’s challenge, running from Overshort, from death. Fox. A character in ghost stories Zen masters tell of dead disciples reincarnated in foxes’ bodies, penance for their faintheartedness. Fox. A fur collar on the coat of a nun assigned hard duty for lack of conviction. A sage old woman who was here, and now isn’t.
I don’t want to alarm the old man, so I wait until I get outside and close the door behind me. Then, I laugh.