God's Basement

I leaned my head lower and lower into the bowl, slowly slurping the soup into my mouth. I don’t know why I held any decorum about it. I was starving, everyone knew I was starving. Why else would I be here if I wasn’t? But I continued to measuredly time the spoonful I raised to my mouth, keeping my eyes low. Purposefully avoiding the other bleary, lifeless eyes around me. 

It didn’t bring me much pride to admit that I recognized some of the downtrodden faces around me. I knew Sally came here every Wednesday because that was when the street cleaning crew always told her to leave. I had seen Albie enough times here in the basement of the church, God’s basement if you will, to know when his eyes were just quite off. On those days, he was five minutes from yelling and screaming and inevitably seizing across the floor knocking the flimsy folding chairs around while volunteers scrambled to pretend like they knew how to help. There were some faces unfamiliar tonight to me in God’s Basement, but I paid them no mind. 

Not that anyone was paying any particular attention to me. The only blessing I ever got when I was here. The thing about the people who came here was that even though they adorned hair nets, were positioned on the other side of the table, and slopped sad food onto our lopsided plastic plates, they were in fact, just as weary as we were. Somehow, even in their warm houses, and permanent addresses, they seemed to be just as lost as we were. Just without the pity of others. These lost souls all started the same. They came here with hopes of a better world, they came shiny-eyed and hopeful. But the church basement became our mutual hellscape. Everyone here, for whatever their reasons, had lost their way. And we came here to reflect, on all that we had lost. Some had lost their homes, some their families. Many had lost their minds.

“There is no greater sorrow than to recall our times of joy in wretchedness.” I reminisced about a time when I read and proudly recited quotes I found profound. Now those same thought-provoking lines incensed me. Taunted me, while I sat quietly in God’s Basement.

I wrapped my hands around the Styrofoam cup, taking a long whiff of lukewarm instant coffee. Grimacing ever so slightly, I slurped down the meek coffee. I would need to stay awake tonight. Choosing to come here, meant I would get a warm meal, but it gave up my one shot at a bed at the women’s shelter. To eat or be safe, that is the question. 

There was a low murmur of voices and grumbling of gratitude swirling around the basement. Not the typical hymnal this place was known for reverberating. I remembered when I was a parishioner. An upstairs kind of guest in the place of worship. One of those people who kneeled with the group, recited with the group, then one day, when I looked up, I had lost the group. 

I don’t recall where everything went so wrong. I thought I was following the right gospel, on the right page, and doing the right things. But then a recession here, a layoff there, and then my life was nothing like the life it used to be. I mean, sure, if I had wanted to spend another birthday in the hospital with a series of bruised ribs and another broken jaw, I could have maybe stayed at my home. With my loving husband. But I hated lime Jell-O and I ended up spending too much time away from home anyway. Plus, God's basement was remarkably more comfortable than the judgmental eyes of the hospital. And on good days, they had chocolate pudding.

“You need more coffee, ma’am?” A volunteer huffed. I didn’t bother looking. The eye contact would probably make us both uncomfortable. They would feel guilty about my plight, and I would be annoyed that I had soothed them. 

“No thanks,” I murmured keeping my eyes fixed on the murky liquid in my cup. I noticed the tenor of my voice was much rougher than I remembered. I had become accustomed to the usual disregard people had towards me, and could hardly remember when I last spoke. The good thing about people was the symmetry of behavior. They ignored me and ignored them right back. I was so comfortable with being ignored I was growing accustomed to being invisible, and here was this interloper. Trying to take away my superpower.  

“I’m Joshua,” a voice more confident than most announced. The man hovering over me was no less than 6’3. His large arms were laced with a myriad of faded tattoos and burgeoning veins. Joshua, I noticed, held himself menacingly and unapologetically. And he made no attempts to lighten his brusque tenor. Slowly moving my gaze to his face, I noted that there was no hint of a smile around his eyes, but he lingered there all the same. He was a volunteer, not a home poor guest of God’s Basement. 

“Hello,” I answered. I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to need to be here. As irrational and baseless as it was, I had begun to convince myself that no one could see me. And that the choices of my life, and the path I had stumbled upon, were unnoticeable to anyone but me. But Joshua continued to hover, so it began to sync in. People could see me if they wanted to, they just chose not to. I slowly lifted my cup towards the kettle and he poured.

“This seat taken?” I shrugged. Maybe it was or maybe it wasn’t. No one in here had any fight left in them to call him on it. 

“My kids, they used to come to the catholic school here.” His voice was distant, stuck in a memory. I didn’t know if he was speaking to me or hoped that God could hear him down here. He couldn’t, but I didn’t see any point in correcting him. One look around the room and he would know that. “Real surprised they let me—you know, do this here. I guess I don’t know. I’m here but they aren’t. Not anymore. But I’m here.”

“This isn’t where I thought I’d be,” I grumbled to myself. 

“Me neither,” he noted. I had seen him a few times before, always gruff, always short. He was always accompanied by Rooney and Jeff, both ex-cons turned ministers or something else equally condescending. I snorted. “What about court ordered makes you think anything about this is a choice?”

“I suppose you didn’t have to commit crimes,” I suggested.

“Yeah, and you didn’t have to lose your house,” he quipped back. A small and honest snort from me slipped through my nose. 

“No Joshua, I did not.” For the first time in a very long time, I smiled. Not because someone had reluctantly dropped some cash into my tethered McDonald’s cup. But because someone was finally willing to not take all the hardships of life so damn seriously. With that small retort, he began talking. He talked about his illustrious criminal career, about how boosting cars had been the thrill of his life. The money was great, sure, but it was the high he loved. He fashioned himself an addict, but he was addicted to the thrill of getting away. Of slipping into the night. Would have been the highest high, had he not lost his kids in the rush of it all. Despite it all, he had found his way back on his feet. Unable to give up his love for cars, he had a modest car wash that employed six people while running community programs that employed people like him. He needed a second chance. He also told me that due to shotty investigative work and a bit of clever accounting, somewhere in the world, off some tropical coast, there was a safely tucked away rainy day fund. In case he ever got the itch to get up to no good again. 

He continued to talk, while I just nodded into my dinner. I couldn’t help but notice his contentment. The people in God’s Basement did not gab, and yet here he was. Chatting away, while I sat there in my muted silence, once again trying to understand how I had gotten here. How my life had landed me across the folding table from Joshua? The car thief.

“Do you think you will get your kids back?” I murmured, trying to slip away from my reverie to the present.

“Of course not. Their mother is a lot of things, but stupid ain’t one of them. She has too much good sense to let me anywhere near those kids. And if I had half the sense she got, I wouldn’t even be trying. Then again, if I had her sense, I probably wouldn’t have been in jail, or stealing cars, or half the shit they caught me for. Nah, I’ll never know those kids. And that’s the best they can get out of me.”

“Kids need a father.”

“You’re probably right. They just don’t need the one they got.” He looked around the room for a safe place to hold his vulnerable gaze. “How about you? You going to keep coming back here.”

“I ran out of places to go a long time ago, Joshua.” I had been on couches and cold garages. But after stealing one too many things, like a watch here, a night in a friend’s husband’s bed there, the places for me to go started to run dry. 

“I think you should come work for me. Job isn’t glamorous. Washing cars ain’t a beauty pageant or nothing, but it pays better than it should. Thanks to big brother. And Marlene, bless her soul, keeps good books for us. Plus, we got a spare room since Eddie got his own place. You gotta run the night shift, but the place really runs itself past nine. Putting air into tires ain’t a two-man job.” 

“Why would you want me to come work for you?”

“Why the hell not?”

“Maybe I like it here?” He smirked at my excuse for an answer. “Maybe this is where I am meant to be. What I deserve. Plus, if people like me stopped showing up, then what would you do to get your hours?”

“Don’t you now go worrying about my community service hours, darling. Consider my community served. This ain’t charity. You just seem like you’ve earned another shot.”

“Why?”

“Because life ain’t this cruel to bad people. You’re a little down on your luck today. I won’t lie to you, darling. But you don’t have to stay there. Not forever.” He looked me up and down. “Whatever you are kicking yourself for, whatever you’re punishing yourself for, is done. It don’t have to mean anything to you anymore. I just—” he trailed off for a minute. 

“I’m not a nice girl,” I interrupted. “I haven’t earned a second chance.”

“Just because you ain’t done everything proper and right, every single time don’t mean you can’t be nice. Mistakes don’t make you not nice. They just meant you were wrong. But being wrong a few times does not mean you won’t ever be right.”

“Joshua—”

“I’m not here to put your life back together. Lord knows how the hell you would end up if so. All I’m saying is, the straight and narrow path those other people are on, ain’t for us. Not anymore. We lost our way, more than a few times. But ain’t nothing wrong with being lost. Life is too long, to know where you’re going all the time.

“What I do know, is this. My shop is over on 22nd street. And I think you should stop by. Because if you keep kicking yourself down, you’ll never get back up. You’re already down, darling. Time to get back up.”

“You think working at a carwash will do that? You think it will pick me back up? Get me onto some sort of straight and narrow path to my destiny?” The skepticism was dripping from my mouth. I felt it bubbling up, but I noticed in the back of my mind, there was something else there too. It was small, but there was a flicker of something. Not something as grandiose as hope, and I was long past wishful thinking. But just there, in God’s basement, I felt there was a flicker. 

Joshua stood up and left his card. Slowly his fingers pushed it towards me hesitantly. 

“Well darling, I can’t imagine it will hurt.”