Twenty-Two

Mitchell couldn’t believe that his life had come full circle. But as he lay in his bed and thought of how he’d once again lost the person closest to him, lost his job, and was now looking at a full bottle of vodka, contemplating whether it would help him make it through the agony, he realized that it had.

He’d finally gotten some relief from his physical pain. Monday morning, Mitchell had managed to drive from the office to his home after his altercation with Chris, but it had taken him an hour just to climb from his car and walk from the garage into his house. The pain seemed to worsen with every step. Once inside the house, he collapsed on the living room sofa, unable to go any farther. For hours he lay there aching from his head to his toes and feeling like he was slowly dying. Not even able to get up and go to the restroom, Mitchell endured the humiliation of relieving himself on the fibers of his couch. He kept telling himself that the pain would ease with time, but it never did. To Mitchell, it felt as if his ribs had been shattered and the broken pieces of bones were lodged throughout his body, piercing his insides every time he dared to try and become mobile.

Around nine o’clock he heard his doorbell ring. Lying still and pretending he wasn’t home wasn’t a problem. In fact, at the time, it didn’t even seem optional. Mitchell wasn’t expecting any company, and he knew that there was no chance that he could get up from the sofa to let them in anyway. He thought that if he said nothing, the person would soon leave. Instead, the visitor went from ringing the doorbell to an insistent knocking.

“Go away. Please go away,” Mitchell remembered whispering over and over again.

“Mitch? Are you in there?” It was Barbara. “I see your car in the garage, and I just wanted to stop by and check on you. If you’re in there, please let me in. I’m alone, and Chris doesn’t know I’m here. I promise.”

Mitchell almost became tearful. He couldn’t believe Barbara had come to check on him. He’d figured that Chris had filled her in on all the details, and by now she would be just as angry with him as his friend had been.

“Mitch?” she called again.

“I can’t open the door, Barbara,” he said as loudly as his pain would allow him. Mitchell was glad that he’d decided to lie on the couch that was nearest the door.

“You can’t open the door?” Barbara repeated. “Why?”

“I can’t get up,” he admitted. “I can’t move. I’m hurt.”

“You stay right there,” she said, sounding almost as panicky as she had when he’d first entered the office that morning. “Don’t you move at all, Mitch. You hear me? I’m gonna get you some help.”

All Mitchell could think about was the fact that his slacks were still wet with urine. “No, Barbara. I’ll be all right.”

“No, you won’t,” she called back. “You stay right there.”

It had been an embarrassing episode, but Mitchell had survived it. An ambulance, a fire truck, and a police car all arrived at his home in no time. With lights flashing and sirens blaring, they had brought half the neighborhood out to watch them pry the door open and load Mitchell onto a stretcher to transport him to the hospital. Barbara had followed in her car and stayed with him until he was admitted.

Mitchell had refused to give the policeman any details surrounding his injuries. He only told him that he’d suffered a fall. It wasn’t the whole truth, but it wasn’t a lie either. X-rays showed that there were no broken bones, but Chris’s blow and the slams against the wall had left him quite bruised. The doctor told him that a little more force would have resulted in a fracture to his ribs. The damage from the blow to his head near his eye was more severe than the small bruise made it appear. It was the root of the throbbing headache that wouldn’t go away. The force behind Chris’s fist had been enough to damage Mitchell’s iris. The doctor called it iritis and prescribed steroids and anti-inflammatory drops that Mitchell would have to administer daily until his follow-up visit. For precautionary measures, the doctor also advised him not to wear his contact lenses, so Mitchell was forced to wear his eyeglasses for the next few days. The medical staff had bandaged him up, given him some medicine to ease the pain, and then kept him overnight for observation. Barbara had been kind enough to use her lunch hour yesterday to pick him up from the hospital and transport him back home.

During those few hours away, while he was confined to a hospital bed, the stench from his earlier accident had built up in his home. He had thanked Barbara for removing the cushions from his couch and placing them outside on his deck so that they could air out until he was able to get them cleaned. While there, she had sprinkled a carpet-freshening agent throughout his house and then vacuumed before leaving to go back to work. Not once did she ask him whether he was guilty of what Chris had accused him of. On one hand, Mitchell had hoped for an opportunity to explain the truth of the matter to Barbara, but on the other, he didn’t care anymore.

When he awakened this morning, Mitchell found that he was able to move with much less pain. He moped around the house for a while and then became depressed when he picked up his daily paper from his front door and flipped to the classified ads. The thought of losing the job he loved and having to find a replacement was too much for him to deal with. It was then that he dressed himself, climbed into his car, and drove to the nearest package store. The medicine had helped the physical pain diminish, but now Mitchell needed something for his mental anguish.

From his bed, Mitchell could hear his doorbell ringing. He could make it to the door today if he wanted to, but he didn’t. So he continued to lie flat on his back, allowing his eyes to scan his surroundings. On a normal day, his room was kept neat, just like he’d kept his office space at Jackson, Jackson & Andrews. But today, clothes were piled in a heap at the foot of the unoccupied side of his bed, and the blue drapes that he normally kept pulled back to allow the sunshine to enter his home were closed shut, making his room dark and dreary, like the feeling he had inside. He didn’t want to be bothered. Mitchell had seen the way the neighbors across the street had eyed him when he’d pulled out of his driveway earlier today. They all knew something was wrong, but he wasn’t about to give any details. They’d never visited him before, and he didn’t want them to start now. To his contentment, the ringing stopped.

As he sat up on his mattress and stared at the bottle that lay on the bed beside him, it was as though Pearl was reminding him of how much she’d helped him before. The bottle was clear, and so was the liquid inside. She looked beautiful and harmless, but they needed no introductions. Mitchell had lived with her for years. Pearl had cost him everything. She’d cost him his wife. The thought of the price he had paid for the temporary fix infuriated him.

“Nooooooo!”

He’d heard his own voice resonate around him before hearing the bottle shatter into smithereens as it came in contact with the ivory-painted wall in his hallway. Mitchell had picked up the still-unopened bottle of expensive liquor and hurled it with all of his might through his bedroom’s open door. Tears broke from his eyes, and Mitchell buried his face between his knees, weeping in a way that he hadn’t in years. Several moments passed before he raised his head again, but when he did, his eyes focused on his pastor.

Thinking that he was imagining the figure in front of him, Mitchell grabbed his glasses from the nightstand beside him and put them on, being careful not to disturb the bruise on the side of his eye. “Rev. Inman?” he said, using his sleeves to wipe the moisture from his face.

“That’s a pretty good arm you’ve got there,” Rev. Inman spoke. “I’m glad I was just a few steps behind.”

“I didn’t drink any,” Mitchell said, like a little boy who had been caught in the act. “I didn’t. See?” he added as he grabbed the dry glass from his nightstand and held it up for his pastor to see.

“I believe you, Mitch,” Rev. Inman said through a faint smile before taking the liberty to sit on the side of the bed. “That’s a pretty nice bruise. Did Chris do that?”

Mitchell looked at his pastor and nodded in silence. He should have known that Chris would make the battle between the two of them public knowledge. Before long, everybody would turn against him, just like his family had done once his uncle had broadcasted Mitchell’s blame for the death of his grandparents.

“My final session with him and Lisa was yesterday,” Rev. Inman explained. “He told me everything. He was quite angry.”

Mitchell shook his head in frustration and fought the onset of more tears. He was tired of defending himself . . . tired of being called a batterer . . . tired of being called a liar . . . and tired of being labeled by his past.

“I know you didn’t do it, Mitch.”

Quickly raising his head, Mitchell looked at his pastor. Rev. Inman continued.

“I saw the mark on her wrist and I heard the story, but I know you didn’t do it.”

“I didn’t,” Mitchell said with a whisper as he shook his head once more. “He wouldn’t believe me, but I promise, if God was standing right here in front of me, I’d tell the same story. I didn’t try to have sex with her. I didn’t try to make a move of any kind on her. Lisa lied to him, Rev. Inman. She was the one who was coming on to me.”

“I know,” Rev. Inman said.

“I mean, I’m not all innocent,” Mitchell said. “For a minute, I felt like I was melting right into her hands, but I beat it. It wasn’t easy, but I won the battle over the weakness of my flesh. But she kept trying, so I grabbed her wrist as hard as I could to let her know that I meant what I said. I knew I hurt her because she yelped. But I didn’t know my grip was tight enough to leave a bruise. I’m sorry for hurting her, but I didn’t try and take advantage of her.”

“Mitch,” Rev. Inman said, raising his voice slightly. “I said I believe you. You don’t have to convince me.”

Turning his body so that his legs dangled off of the side of the bed like his pastor’s, Mitchell winced. It was nearing time for him to take his second dose of antibiotics for the day.

“Head hurts?” Rev. Inman asked.

“Not as much as this.” Mitchell rolled up his shirt so that the pastor could see the dark spot that Chris’s fist had left behind.

“Ouch,” Rev. Inman whispered.

“You’re telling me,” Mitchell said. “I can’t believe he thinks I’d do something like that.”

“Sometimes love really is a blinding force, Mitch. I think at some time in all of our lives we are misled by one emotion or another. God has a way of bringing us back, but many times we have to learn our lessons the hard way. I’m almost certain that Chris believes you; he just doesn’t want to believe you. He wants to believe that Lisa is telling him the truth, but I saw something in his eyes yesterday that indicated that he might have had his own reservations about her. But I fear he’ll choose to give her the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately for Chris, since he’s unwilling to listen, he’ll probably have to learn of Lisa’s true self after he’s married her.”

“Like her first husband probably did,” Mitchell mumbled.

“That’s my guess as well,” Rev. Inman agreed. “When he told me about the brawl in yesterday’s meeting, I decided to stop by to see you last night, but no one was home.”

Mitchell sat quietly. He didn’t want to tell his pastor that he had been home but just hadn’t answered. Yesterday, he was still dealing with the pain. He’d heard the doorbell but ignored it.

“When I rang the doorbell today,” the preacher revealed, “I didn’t get an answer either, but when I turned the knob, I found that your door was unlocked, so I let myself in.”

“I must have left it unlocked when I came back from picking up my package,” Mitchell said, pointing in the direction of the shattered glass that was now filling his house with the smell of vodka. “I’m right back where I started, Pastor,” he suddenly said, shifting Rev. Inman’s attention away from the broken glass and back to him. “No family, no friends, no job. That’s why I stopped by the store and bought that stuff anyway. It only seemed right. It was all that was missing from the original equation.”

“That’s where you’re wrong on all accounts,” Rev. Inman said. “You’ve not returned to your starting point at all. You may not have a natural family surrounding you, but you have a spiritual one, and you also have friends. Your job situation is temporary. You’re very marketable, and someone else will see that in you.”

Mitchell nodded and tried to look hopeful, but starting over wasn’t something that he looked forward to.

“And let’s not even talk about equations,” his pastor added. “You have Someone in your life now that you never included in the original equation, and He is all powerful. That’s why you were able to throw that bottle out the door. Nothing in any equation is a match for the power of God.”

Before Mitchell could respond, the sound of his doorbell interrupted them.

“Are you expecting anyone?” Rev. Inman asked as he stood.

“No. And I really don’t feel like much company.”

Mitchell was certain that his pastor had heard him, but only seconds after Rev. Inman left the room to answer the door, Mitchell could hear a woman’s voice nearing his bedroom door. It sounded very familiar, but Mitchell struggled to place it. Only wearing a T-shirt and boxer shorts, he pulled his legs back on the bed and covered them with his comforter.

“Is that liquor that I smell?” the woman demanded. “What on earth happened here? Look at all this glass.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Rev. Inman replied. “It happened in a moment of victory. Watch your step.”

In the next instant, Mitchell could see Beverly Oliver standing in his doorway and Rev. Inman towering over her from behind. Beverly took one look at Mitchell lying in the bed and rushed to his side.

“Are you all right?” she asked as she cupped his face in her hands and examined the discoloration on the side of his face.

“I’m fine, Beverly. What are you doing here? Where’s Virtue?”

“Don’t you worry about Virtue. She’s fine. It’s you that had me driving two hundred and forty miles in the middle of the week. I’m here because I heard about what happened.”

“You got the word about this all the way in Houston? How?”

“That scared rabbit that that rascal’s got working for him down at your old job told me,” Beverly said as she set her large tote bag on the side of Mitchell’s bed and began searching it. “At first she didn’t want to tell me what was going on, but that number was the only one I had; so I kept calling, and I told her I wasn’t gonna stop calling until she told me what I needed to know. I had just talked to you a few days ago and heard how much you loved your job, and it just didn’t make sense that you’d just up and leave it. When I called up there yesterday afternoon for the umpteenth time, I told that woman that if she didn’t tell me the truth, I was gonna hunt her down like a mangy dog.”

Mitchell tried to join his pastor in a hearty laugh, but the soreness in his rib cage stopped him.

“You’re hurting there too?” Beverly asked when she saw him cover the area with his hand. “I ought to find that boy who did this and give him the whipping of his life.”

“He’s thirty-two, Beverly,” Mitchell said.

“And?” she challenged as she removed his glasses from his face and nudged at him so that he would lie down flat.

“What’s that?” Mitchell asked as she dipped her hand in a jar of something that looked like Vaseline but smelled like grapefruit and peppermint. He closed his eyes while she carefully smoothed the cream on the bruised area.

“Something my mama taught me to make. Whatever the doctors gave you is fine and good, but most of what we need for the healing of the body, God gave us in nature.”

“Amen,” Rev. Inman agreed. “That’s true.”

Mitchell grasped at his covers when Beverly reached for them and attempted to pull them back.

“Boy, you don’t have nothing under here I haven’t seen before,” she said, prompting another moment of entertainment for Rev. Inman to laugh at.

Mitchell released his grip, and Beverly peeled the comforter back so that it only covered him to his waist. Then, slowly lifting his shirt, she examined the larger, more tender wound. Mitchell flinched when she touched it, and Beverly shook her head in disgust.

“This is a God-in-heaven shame,” she mumbled just before dipping her hand in the jar and pasting the concoction on him.

The salve, whatever it was made of, felt cold to Mitchell’s skin and seemed to relieve some of the discomfort upon contact. He couldn’t recall the last time someone had cared for him with such maternal tenderness. The times when Grandma Kate would massage Vicks VapoRub on his chest was the closest thing to it.

“You came all the way here to take care of me?” he whispered, looking up at the woman who nursed him as if he were her son.

Beverly chuckled. “Had to,” she said. “From what I heard, you were half dead. I didn’t know if you had anybody here to see about you, and when I told that woman that I’d hunt down all of her children if she didn’t give me all the details, she started giving me their addresses.”

This time, Mitchell laughed through the soreness. He imagined Barbara being glad to finally find someone who might be able to scare her children straight.

“Your number is private, so I couldn’t get it from information or the phone book,” Beverly said. “I had to make sure you were okay. I’m glad to know you weren’t all by yourself, though,” she concluded, looking toward Rev. Inman with a look of gratefulness.

The preacher returned her smile and then began approaching Mitchell’s bedside. “I wish I could stay longer, but I have an appointment in my office shortly. Mitch, I think I’m leaving you in good hands,” he said, placing his right hand on Beverly’s shoulder. “But before I go, I’d like to pray with you.”