Grace to Begin

 Let me tell you right off, this story isn't finished. I got it partially written and then realized it I had a big hole in my plot... still I like the idea and perhaps someday I'll revamp it. I would appreciate any ideas of additions I should make.

Grace To Begin

I stepped out of the big passenger jet and gripped my carry on bag more tightly. In my extensive reading I remembered people having dramatic adventures with crazy escapes. Despite enjoying the stories my practical brain told me they rarely happened. Now, as I began walking off the runway and into the airport to retrieve my baggage, I knew I was about ready to begin my own, practical, adventure; the one I had been waiting nineteen years to start.  I was a fresh, freelance writer for the Bon~Ague Chronicle in search of a woman with a story.

“1494, South Donaldson.” I opened the back of a yellow taxi cab, tossed my laptop bag on the seat and climbed in next to it.

The driver looked back at me.

“Are you sure M’am?” the Georgian drawl sounded full and rich in his voice.

I pulled out my iphone and opened the note app, “Yes, that’s what I wrote down.”

 “Well M’am, I’ll take you there if you really want me to but that ain’t a very nice part of town. If I were you I would change my clothes and leave my laptop behind. Or better yet, don’t go there at all.” His hand still hovered over the key waiting for my response.

“That bad huh?” I had been warned before I left but was too headstrong to take the advice. Especially after just arriving here and wasn’t going to consider turning around. “Well, I guess then take me to my hotel. You know where the Carmella is?”

He turned the key in the ignition. “Sure, which one?”

After changing from my black slacks and trim black flats into the more comfortable and less dressy jeans and t-shirt I went to the bathroom and got my hair wet. Even though I thought curly hair was pretty there were times I was thankful that mine was naturally straight. Just a little bit of water, a change of clothes and I was dressed down to an average young lady.

The taxi driver said to leave my laptop behind so I rummaged through my book bag and found a notebook and pen. It was time to do things the old fashioned way, including leaving my phone behind. Grabbing up my jacket to protect me from the chill autumn wind I stepped back out and flagged down another taxi. 

“Do you want me to wait for you?” the driver asked as I stepped out in front of a one story, plastered up brick house. The windows were missing in many cases and boards were vainly trying to take their place. The guttering hung half off next to the door and the first thing that popped into my head when the smell caught me was yeast. I knew better though, it was something a world different, beer.

I handed the man his money, “Uh, yeah. Just for a minute. If I wave to you then it’s all right and you can leave.”

My black and turquoise tennis shoes crunched on broken glass as I began to pick my way up the cracked sidewalk and up to the pealing white door.

“Wait,” I turned toward the driver again. “How often to taxi’s come by here do you think?”

He shook his head. “I don’t reckon they really do M’am. Most people around here simply walk from one dope house to the next. It’s generally only a few blocks.”

“Well, if I wave for you to leave can you come back for me in an hour?”

He glanced at the clock on his dashboard. “Sure.”

“Thanks.” I turned and finished the distance between me and the door.

A little girl in a stained pink and yellow flowered shirt answered.

“Yeah, Gran’s home. C’mon.” she examined me through lazy eyes.

I waved to the taxi man and followed the girl into a dark hallway.  The walls seemed greasy and my mind went back to the time I had helped my brother remodel a previous meth house. Cringing I gripped my note book more tightly and kept my spare hand in my pocket.

 

My conductress took me up stairs and then throwing open the second door on my left called loudly, “She’s here Gran!”

The old lady who looked at me from her broken down recliner seemed to rather blend in with the rest of her faded and messy room. The one window in the close room was covered over with a heavy blanket making the air nearly unbearably stale. I had to admit to myself, this was not exactly what I had had in mind when I arranged for this job. I myself kept my own little apartment clean and sometimes so neat it could be called bare.

“You are Mrs. Shmul, M’am?” I asked politely and looked around for a place clean enough to sit down.

“Here, just sit here.” The little girl swept a spot on the sagging bed clean of old papers, dirty clothing and other things I didn’t care to identify.

“Mmmm. And you are that reporter kid Jem said was going to visit me?”

“Yes M’am. I often go by Miss Parkes.”

“Mmmm.”

“It was very nice of your son to hook me up with this interview.”

“Mmmm.”

I curled my toes inside my shoes and began twisting my fingers tightly together. Could this lady say anything other than, “Mmmm” ?

She finally broke the nervous silence.

“Mmmm, yeah so you want to here my story, mmm?”

“It would be my pleasure M’am.” I opened my notebook and took the cap of the black gel pen.

“Mmmm, hand me that pack would you? I talk better if I have something in my mouth.”  

I glanced at my immediate surroundings and saw, peaking out from beneath a dusty alarm clock hours behind and years out of date, a yellow box just the size of a pack of cigarettes.

“These?” I pointed to the box.

“Mmmm. Just toss it over here. Mmmm, that’s right. Mmmm, that’s better now.”  She leaned forward a bit and I had a chance to study her face as the flare from the lighter sprang up.

She looked more worn than old. The wrinkled face was framed by thin black hair streaked with silver. The hands that held the lighter shook and the eyes that watched with satisfaction as her cigarette end began to glow were a little clouded. Strange that she could be related to James.

“Mmmm, well now, I ain’t much on making stories sound nice and flowery having not heard many myself but I’ll tell it best I can.”

“That’s the way I want it Mrs. Shmul. It’s not your story unless it’s told how you like.”

She rolled the cigarette to one side of her mouth where it fitted nicely into a gap between two teeth. Then she lay back, folded her hands and closed her eyes comfortably. She stayed that way for so long that I almost thought she had gone to sleep but just as  I was considering calling her name she broke out,

“Is my son Jem a good boy, kid?”

I jumped.

“Yes Mrs. Shmul. He’s engaged to a good friend of mine and she says he’s very good to her. I have the highest opinion of him.”

She opened one bleary eye and looked at me very hard.

“Mmmm, well, his mother ain’t been good. Hadasha, you still here? Leave. This ain’t a story for little ears.”

I turned, surprised, remembering my little escort. She was standing in the door way studying me carefully.

“What you plan on do’in with that  paper?” She ignored her grandma.

I glanced at the old lady to see if she was going to allow this defiance. The cigar end glowed and her eyes opened but only to look at me as if waiting for me to answer the question.

“I was planning on taking notes about your grandmother’s story.”

“Y’cn write?” I could see her eyes widen even in the darkness.

“Yes.” And then I added without thinking, “And you probably will someday too.”

“Mmmm, naw. Not unless she goes and lives with her uncle. He’s the only one come from these parts that can read or write.” The cigarette came out long enough to have the ashes tapped off onto the floor and then it was replaced.

My hands embarrassedly twisted my pen cap. Of course they were illiterate; James had mentioned that once when he was telling me his story, but I had been forgotten. It seemed like such a distant unreality to innocent little me.

“Mmmm, leave now Hun.” After one more gape Hadasha vanished and I heard little feet pattering down the hall.

The smoke rhythmically slipped out Mrs. Shmul’s mouth several times and then with a great sigh she began.

“1942;” a great cloud filtered through her teeth with a sigh. “My mother was Irish and my father unknown. It seems to me that humanities’ driving desire is a wish to rise up from the mundane, mmm?  My mother tried but men and drink pulled her back. I saw her struggles and learned from them, but not enough.” Here she paused and seemed to contemplate the inside of her eyelids for a bit.

I needed some clarification and cut in, “You were born in 1942, M’am?”

“Mmmm. Anyway, I tried to catch a holt of the world by getting a job. A real job, one that wasn’t selling myself or run’n grub.”

I scribbled down her exact words and then scratched off to the side “(“Running grub=Dealing drugs?)”. She didn’t pause long enough for me to ask.

“So, I began to go to better neighborhoods and stand on the street playing my mother’s fiddle. One day a lady stopped and watched me through two songs and then, laying her hand on my shoulder she said, ‘why are you doing this?’ I told her I wanted to get a better life than everyone around me had but I didn’t know any other way than to get money and move away. She handed me twenty dollars and then quietly looked me up and down. ‘Do you feel alright?’ I was startled and found myself suddenly breaking down. ‘No, I’m pregnant. How did you know?” “I am a nurse. It is my job.” She put her arm quietly around my shoulders and said, “Do you want a better life for this baby?” I nodded and found myself choking out, “But I don’t know how I will ever be able to get it! I can hardly make enough for me to live on and now I have this addition coming.”

“She gave me the name of a birthing center where poor girls could get free care while they were delivering the baby. She offered to write it down for me but I told her I couldn’t read so she just repeated it several times."