Part 2
“I know I’m supposed to care for these people, Pastor Nick, it’s just…I just don’t.” The calloused hands spread before the pastor in supplication. “I mean, why is it my fault if they have kids they can’t afford? Why is it my fault if they make stupid decisions and life kicks ‘em in the a—uh, rear? Sorry.”
Pastor Nick nodded, attempting to mask a serenity he saw in a painting of the Buddha. He found himself more and more frequently heading to that place of quiet meditation, recalling how the painting surprised him, hung in a far corner of a conference room. Quiet. Calm. Pastor Nick wondered how many meetings it had presided over from its perch next to the coat closet, its expressionless eyes, down-turned but awake and alert, its passive countenance following each individual around the room. Watching. Aware. Nonjudgmental. One hand held up as if to stop someone from speaking while the other encouraged a more thoughtful, engaging interaction.
Right now Pastor Nick was desperately trying to be the Buddha, letting long silences fill the room like so much cotton candy, sweet and ethereal, waiting for the long journey of the soul across from him to finally come to an end.
His companion continued. “I know the Bible says “I’m your brother’s keeper and all”, but wasn’t that God saying that? I mean, I have my own bills to pay. We don’t have a lot of money, either. We just plan and save and why the heck should I take it in the shorts just because of someone else’s stupidity? Look, I’m not saying to cancel this…soup kitchen thing or whatever it is. All I’m saying is to move it up an hour, so I can have a nice event with my family in the church hall. I’ve been a member here my entire life, and this is our 30th wedding anniversary, and I don’t think that this is too much to ask.”
Pastor Nick breathed in deeply, smelling the raw, burnt sugar smell he always associated with these uncomfortable pauses, opening his mouth to taste the heavy, candied air that he swore filled the room in the midst of someone baring their soul to him.
The man broke the silence. “And I don’t care about these people. I’m sorry, but that’s they way it is. I don’t see why I should feel sorry for them – they’re screw ups, plain and simple.” He pointed his finger in the air, missing Pastor Nick’s chest by six inches. Pastor Nick paused a second, channeling the Buddha, feeling the calmness descend from the top of his head down his spine, making his feet heavy on the worn, coffee-stained carpet.
“Bob, are you a sinner?” Pastor Nick let the words lie still on the worn, oak desk separating himself from the large, older man with the wispy, grey hair whose tirade he had just absorbed.
“What?” Bob asked absentmindedly, not ready for a question but a lecture.
“Are you a sinner?” Pastor Nick looked up at the man this time, meeting his eyes with a compassionate stare.
“Well, yeah. I mean, we’re all sinners, right?” Bob’s voice fumbled, attempting to recall a Sunday school lesson he had learned a generation ago.
“What’s a sin?” Pastor Nick asked, his voice modulated with a careful evenness.
“Well…it’s…I mean, you do something bad.” Pastor Nick saw Bob’s cheeks flush slightly, and he leaned back, attempting to alleviate the man’s embarrassment for being put on the spot.
“Lying’s a sin, right?” Pastor Nick offered, using a tried-and-true analogy Lutheran pastors had used since the time of Martin Luther himself. Bob picked up on it right away.
“Oh, yeah, I know, and lying is supposed to be the same thing as killing someone, right? And so somehow that means that I’m just as bad as those people are and that’ll just shut me up? But Pastor Nick, I’m not a bad man, I’m not a killer, and these folks…they just need to deal with the consequences of their actions is all I’m saying.” Bob’s hands started to tremble slightly, his voice a quivering roar as Pastor Nick glanced a touching blow at the exposed nerve of his soul.
“I think everyone feels the consequences of their actions.” Pastor Nick offered and then immediately wished he could take it back.
“Oh, no, not these folks.” Bob’s agitation was palpable. “No, not when they have welfare, and, and, food stamps, and Medicaid. They’re living in hog heaven off of my tax dollars. It isn’t fair!” Bob bellowed as his hand struck the desk, making an unexpected slapping noise.
For a few moments, the men just looked at each other, both equally surprised by the outburst of emotion that clung to the corners of the room.
“What’s really going on, Bob?” Pastor Nick leaned forward, intently studying the man’s face.
“Nothin.” Bob muttered.
“Why are you here?” Pastor Nick probed.
“I…I don’t know.” Bob gave up, his body slowing deflating.
“Whatever you’re going through, you know you can tell me about it.” Pastor Nick attempted to make eye contact with Bob, who just looked down, his body encased in his own embarrassment.
“I should go.” Bob stood up, turning toward the door. Pastor Nick stood up with him.
“Nothing about this life is easy.” Pastor Nick said, walking Bob toward the door. “Sometimes I think God makes it that way, and honestly, sometimes that really pisses me off.” Bob swung his head around, looking at Pastor Nick’s mischievous grin. They both chuckled slightly, relieved.
Bob turned around before leaving and shook Pastor Nick’s hand. “You’re a good man, pastor.” Nick put his hand on Bob’s shoulder. “You’re a good man, too.” He said.
It wasn’t until he closed the door behind Bob that Pastor Nick felt the throbbing in his temples. He made his way over to the desk, hands clasped to both sides of his head, fingertips feeling the soft, short blonde hair covering the dense pounding inside his skull. Sliding into his worn, fabric-covered office chair, he pulled his cell phone out of his jacket pocket and absentmindedly scanned his address book. The rhythm of the mechanical blips as he pressed the arrow keys soothed his nerves. He passed by a name, thought about it, and scrolled back. He stared at the entry for longer than he realized. Finally, getting his nerve up, an unfamiliar panic tightening his stomach muscles, he pressed the send key.
“Hi, Jeff? It’s Nicholas. Yeah, Pastor Nick. Yep. Yeah, no, just a regular day.” He tried to keep up the friendly banter, his mouth becoming slightly dry the longer he talked. “So, what’s up with you? ‘Cuz I was wondering, if you’re not busy, maybe…maybe we could see a movie or something?”
…to be continued.
Showing posts with label mortgates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mortgates. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Friday, August 17, 2007
The Ownership Society-Part 1-New Fictional Series
Part 1
It was supposed to be their dream home.
Lost between ominous red-striped envelopes bearing overdue notices mass-printed on cheap paper, buried under stacks of cynically bright colored pre-approved credit card letters, humming under the buzz of brash female voices yelling at the home’s occupants through a small, grey answering machine, hid the dream of the people living inside the house. The dream manifested itself in different physical forms: a nursery, lovingly painted in the tones of the sun and the sky on a clear, summer day; a rosebush, clipped and freshly watered, the musty smell of fresh cedar mulch mixing with the scent from the pink flowers as they opened to the visitors approaching the front door; family photos hung in carefully playful groupings inside the foyer, each face smiling lovingly on the guest as they climbed the stairs to the fireplace-adorned living room with the vaulted ceiling.
Deborah and Charles bought this home right after getting married. They were newlyweds moving into a newly built subdivision holding each other tightly together as they looked forward to seeing the trees in the backyard grow up with their yet-to-be-born children. They talked of where to put the yet-to-be-bought swing set, and purchased books from Home Depot on how to build a yet-to-be-constructed sandbox. Deborah had her first attempts at interior decorating in this home, painting the walls in the upstairs bathroom an icy-cold blue in the thought that this might refresh her and Charles after a long day under the hot, Georgia sun.
They didn’t have a buyers’ agent when they purchased this house. They simply walked into the newly built model, over plastic-covered carpet and through crisp, white walls into the living room where the builder’s agent fed them chocolate cookies and sweet tea and started showing them floor plans. Before they knew it, they were sitting at their closing signing page after page of legal documents. The lawyer, who was playing beat-the-clock, looked slightly annoyed when Deborah started reading some of the pages for herself. Fatigue won in the end, and by seven o’clock Charles was walking toward their car, his left arm holding onto Deborah’s waist, clutching a freshly-pressed set of house keys in his right hand. He kissed Deborah, squeezing her close to his chest before opening the passenger side door for her.
That was just a few years ago, before Charles got laid off from his entry-level job at a local computer company. This was before Deborah, four months pregnant, seated across the table from the manger of the small non-profit organization she worked at, was told that they just couldn’t afford to keep her around any longer. But they had been in the house a few years, and had paid off enough principal to qualify for a small home equity loan, to help pay for the pregnancy and the rest of the things they would need for the baby. Charles was working three jobs now: stocking vending machines by day; working the cash register at a local gas station at night and during the weekends; and he was trying to start his own home pressure-washing business, inspired by the pressure-washer they had received as a wedding gift.
And Deborah? She was home, full-time, with the baby. With both of their families living out of state, and with the cost of daycare at two-hundred and fifty dollars a week, even trying to look for a job was out of the question as whatever she would take home would just be eaten up by the daycare bills and commuting expenses. She was trying to do what she could to budget. Deborah was the one who found out that they qualified for the WIC program. Deborah planned all the meals, clipped coupons, and used the food processor (another wedding gift) to make her own baby food. She was a careful garage sale shopper, traveling to wealthier neighborhoods early Saturday mornings after dropping Charles off at the gas station, and talking rich, white women down from $1.00 to $0.50 for a pair of BabyGap shorts.
They had stretched, and stretched, and stretched the household budget. Charles barely got eight hours to sleep a night. And still…it wasn’t enough.
It started with the credit card bill. They had expensed a lot of the baby’s items on it – and their honeymoon – and when money was good they had always tried to pay more than the minimum. They had still been able to make the minimum payment, barely, when Deborah received a call from the credit card company stating that they could either close the account or pay thirty percent interest. When Deborah protested, explaining to them that they hadn’t been late in over a year, the aggressive, booming male voice on the other end of the line stated simply that because they had gone down to one salary as a household they expected them to be bankrupt within the year, and they wanted their money first before they defaulted on their other creditors.
Deborah closed the account. The interest rate was frozen at nineteen percent. They were now down to one credit card with three hundred dollars left in available funds.
Then the baby got sick. Deborah tried everything she could – over-the-counter children’s medication, cool baths, watered-down apple juice – but nothing helped. Finally, desperate, she took the baby to the emergency room. After more medication and more visits to the doctor the baby’s health improved. The rest of the home equity money was used paying the medical bills.
Soon, the interest rates on the credit card and the home equity loan were eating up any disposable cash their struggling, young family had for daily necessities. They weren’t the only ones in their neighborhood going through this – driving down the entrance of the subdivision, instead of seeing playing children and folks out mowing their lawns, she started to see foreclosure sign after foreclosure sign. “CASH FOR YOUR HOUSE” signs started appearing at the front of the subdivision. Charles, swearing under his breath, would try to remove the signs as fast as they sprouted up, but they were like a many-headed hydra: remove one sign and two sprung back in its place. Eventually, he gave up.
It was right in the dead heat of August that the utility bill came. After the baby’s illness, Deborah didn’t take any chances with the air conditioning: it was left on, all day, at seventy-nine degrees. Telling herself it would be cheaper to pay for the utility bills than go through another round of doctors bills for the baby, Deborah cocooned into a self-made psychosis of safety. When the bill came, that cocoon shattered, leaving her in a distraught, rumpled panic.
It was three hundred seventy-five dollars. And, with two hundred ten dollars already overdue, and no extra sources of income to draw from, she felt naked and vulnerable to the indifferent world outside. Hearing the baby cry, Deborah tried to make a bottle of formula, only to have her unsteady hands drop it on the vinyl kitchen floor, the pale, milky liquid pouring over the black-and-white faux tile motif.
And then the doorbell rang.
Wiping her eyes, gently lifting up the crying child, Deborah walked to the door and peered out the keyhole. A pudgy, hardened looking face looked back at her through the tiny, distorted glass. But, she knew who this was: Malcolm, her next-door neighbor’s nephew.
Cautiously, Deborah opened the door.
“’Sup?” Malcolm smiled broadly, a wild, insincere effort.
“Hey, Malcolm. How’s your aunt?” Deborah replied, her arms unconsciously wrapping the baby closer to her.
“She’s alright. Hey, I gotta favor to ask you.” Malcolm leaned slightly against the house. “I gotta – you know – take care of some business in Forsythe. I was wonderin’ – my aunt said you all are looking to make a few bucks – and I’d be real appreciative…” Deborah nodded, filling the empty pause with an approval for Malcolm to continue.
“So. Like I said, I got this thing I gotta do and the rental car company don’t rent to folks without a credit card or somethin’ ridiculous, like five hundred dollars in cash or somethin’. And, so I was wonderin’ if possibly you might be able to rent a car for me.” Malcolm pulled a wad of bills out of his pocket, rolled tightly and held together by a dirty, red rubber band. “I mean, I got money but I don’t got rental car company money, you know what I’m sayin’? And I only need the car for three days. So, if you could rent the car for me I could give ya three hundred bucks right now.” Malcolm snapped the rubber band off the bills, absently counting the twenties as Deborah’s mind looked for an excuse to over-ride the nagging doubts in the back of her mind. Three hundred dollars. Air conditioning.
Baby.
Her eyes drifted toward the innocent face of the child she held in her arms, and for a moment it was as if time stood still. She could feel his warm breath on her cheek, smell that wonderful smell of detergent and milk and joy that all babies exude.
“Let me get my keys.” She told Malcolm, her mind made up.
Keys in hand, she closed the door.
To be continued...
It was supposed to be their dream home.
Lost between ominous red-striped envelopes bearing overdue notices mass-printed on cheap paper, buried under stacks of cynically bright colored pre-approved credit card letters, humming under the buzz of brash female voices yelling at the home’s occupants through a small, grey answering machine, hid the dream of the people living inside the house. The dream manifested itself in different physical forms: a nursery, lovingly painted in the tones of the sun and the sky on a clear, summer day; a rosebush, clipped and freshly watered, the musty smell of fresh cedar mulch mixing with the scent from the pink flowers as they opened to the visitors approaching the front door; family photos hung in carefully playful groupings inside the foyer, each face smiling lovingly on the guest as they climbed the stairs to the fireplace-adorned living room with the vaulted ceiling.
Deborah and Charles bought this home right after getting married. They were newlyweds moving into a newly built subdivision holding each other tightly together as they looked forward to seeing the trees in the backyard grow up with their yet-to-be-born children. They talked of where to put the yet-to-be-bought swing set, and purchased books from Home Depot on how to build a yet-to-be-constructed sandbox. Deborah had her first attempts at interior decorating in this home, painting the walls in the upstairs bathroom an icy-cold blue in the thought that this might refresh her and Charles after a long day under the hot, Georgia sun.
They didn’t have a buyers’ agent when they purchased this house. They simply walked into the newly built model, over plastic-covered carpet and through crisp, white walls into the living room where the builder’s agent fed them chocolate cookies and sweet tea and started showing them floor plans. Before they knew it, they were sitting at their closing signing page after page of legal documents. The lawyer, who was playing beat-the-clock, looked slightly annoyed when Deborah started reading some of the pages for herself. Fatigue won in the end, and by seven o’clock Charles was walking toward their car, his left arm holding onto Deborah’s waist, clutching a freshly-pressed set of house keys in his right hand. He kissed Deborah, squeezing her close to his chest before opening the passenger side door for her.
That was just a few years ago, before Charles got laid off from his entry-level job at a local computer company. This was before Deborah, four months pregnant, seated across the table from the manger of the small non-profit organization she worked at, was told that they just couldn’t afford to keep her around any longer. But they had been in the house a few years, and had paid off enough principal to qualify for a small home equity loan, to help pay for the pregnancy and the rest of the things they would need for the baby. Charles was working three jobs now: stocking vending machines by day; working the cash register at a local gas station at night and during the weekends; and he was trying to start his own home pressure-washing business, inspired by the pressure-washer they had received as a wedding gift.
And Deborah? She was home, full-time, with the baby. With both of their families living out of state, and with the cost of daycare at two-hundred and fifty dollars a week, even trying to look for a job was out of the question as whatever she would take home would just be eaten up by the daycare bills and commuting expenses. She was trying to do what she could to budget. Deborah was the one who found out that they qualified for the WIC program. Deborah planned all the meals, clipped coupons, and used the food processor (another wedding gift) to make her own baby food. She was a careful garage sale shopper, traveling to wealthier neighborhoods early Saturday mornings after dropping Charles off at the gas station, and talking rich, white women down from $1.00 to $0.50 for a pair of BabyGap shorts.
They had stretched, and stretched, and stretched the household budget. Charles barely got eight hours to sleep a night. And still…it wasn’t enough.
It started with the credit card bill. They had expensed a lot of the baby’s items on it – and their honeymoon – and when money was good they had always tried to pay more than the minimum. They had still been able to make the minimum payment, barely, when Deborah received a call from the credit card company stating that they could either close the account or pay thirty percent interest. When Deborah protested, explaining to them that they hadn’t been late in over a year, the aggressive, booming male voice on the other end of the line stated simply that because they had gone down to one salary as a household they expected them to be bankrupt within the year, and they wanted their money first before they defaulted on their other creditors.
Deborah closed the account. The interest rate was frozen at nineteen percent. They were now down to one credit card with three hundred dollars left in available funds.
Then the baby got sick. Deborah tried everything she could – over-the-counter children’s medication, cool baths, watered-down apple juice – but nothing helped. Finally, desperate, she took the baby to the emergency room. After more medication and more visits to the doctor the baby’s health improved. The rest of the home equity money was used paying the medical bills.
Soon, the interest rates on the credit card and the home equity loan were eating up any disposable cash their struggling, young family had for daily necessities. They weren’t the only ones in their neighborhood going through this – driving down the entrance of the subdivision, instead of seeing playing children and folks out mowing their lawns, she started to see foreclosure sign after foreclosure sign. “CASH FOR YOUR HOUSE” signs started appearing at the front of the subdivision. Charles, swearing under his breath, would try to remove the signs as fast as they sprouted up, but they were like a many-headed hydra: remove one sign and two sprung back in its place. Eventually, he gave up.
It was right in the dead heat of August that the utility bill came. After the baby’s illness, Deborah didn’t take any chances with the air conditioning: it was left on, all day, at seventy-nine degrees. Telling herself it would be cheaper to pay for the utility bills than go through another round of doctors bills for the baby, Deborah cocooned into a self-made psychosis of safety. When the bill came, that cocoon shattered, leaving her in a distraught, rumpled panic.
It was three hundred seventy-five dollars. And, with two hundred ten dollars already overdue, and no extra sources of income to draw from, she felt naked and vulnerable to the indifferent world outside. Hearing the baby cry, Deborah tried to make a bottle of formula, only to have her unsteady hands drop it on the vinyl kitchen floor, the pale, milky liquid pouring over the black-and-white faux tile motif.
And then the doorbell rang.
Wiping her eyes, gently lifting up the crying child, Deborah walked to the door and peered out the keyhole. A pudgy, hardened looking face looked back at her through the tiny, distorted glass. But, she knew who this was: Malcolm, her next-door neighbor’s nephew.
Cautiously, Deborah opened the door.
“’Sup?” Malcolm smiled broadly, a wild, insincere effort.
“Hey, Malcolm. How’s your aunt?” Deborah replied, her arms unconsciously wrapping the baby closer to her.
“She’s alright. Hey, I gotta favor to ask you.” Malcolm leaned slightly against the house. “I gotta – you know – take care of some business in Forsythe. I was wonderin’ – my aunt said you all are looking to make a few bucks – and I’d be real appreciative…” Deborah nodded, filling the empty pause with an approval for Malcolm to continue.
“So. Like I said, I got this thing I gotta do and the rental car company don’t rent to folks without a credit card or somethin’ ridiculous, like five hundred dollars in cash or somethin’. And, so I was wonderin’ if possibly you might be able to rent a car for me.” Malcolm pulled a wad of bills out of his pocket, rolled tightly and held together by a dirty, red rubber band. “I mean, I got money but I don’t got rental car company money, you know what I’m sayin’? And I only need the car for three days. So, if you could rent the car for me I could give ya three hundred bucks right now.” Malcolm snapped the rubber band off the bills, absently counting the twenties as Deborah’s mind looked for an excuse to over-ride the nagging doubts in the back of her mind. Three hundred dollars. Air conditioning.
Baby.
Her eyes drifted toward the innocent face of the child she held in her arms, and for a moment it was as if time stood still. She could feel his warm breath on her cheek, smell that wonderful smell of detergent and milk and joy that all babies exude.
“Let me get my keys.” She told Malcolm, her mind made up.
Keys in hand, she closed the door.
To be continued...
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