Looking up Luke

Looking up Luke

There was a sheet of paper stuck between the knob and the frame of my front door. It was damp and yellowish. I hesitated before taking it, and wanted to crumple and drop it in the waste bin without reading it.

Was it a message or a threat? I had no reason to expect threats or messages from anybody. Unless it was from the kids yesterday afternoon who ran their bicycles over the front lawn. I yelled at them, and they turned their heads and flipped me the finger.

I didn’t want to unfold the sheet, and find a ‘fuck you’ note written on it.

Inside the kitchen, I looked for the trash can, but curiosity got the best of me and I unfolded it to take a look. The signature at the bottom caught my eye first. It was signed by Deborah. The text read:

“I’m desperate. Had major surgery. You said the last time we talked that if I ever was in serious trouble to call you. I have no money to pay the rent, and nowhere to go. Please call me at this number”

I didn’t want to call Deborah, even if I had told her to call on me in an emergency. How long had it been since we last met? I did not remember. I felt embarrassed just to think about her. In spite of that, I called her number later that evening.

“Who’s this?” said a shaky woman’s voice I didn’t recognize at first.

“It’s Jorge. What did you want, Deborah?

“Oh, my god, Ghorgheh. I need to talk to you!”

“Well. Go ahead and talk”

“I’ve got to see you in person. Otherwise you won’t believe me”

“I don’t want to see you”

“What kind of Christian man are you? Didn’t you use to say you admired Jesus?

“Maybe I admired Jesus, but that don’t mean I’m a Christian.”

“Anyway, you’ve got to see the state I’m in"

“What’s wrong?

“Like I said in my note, I had surgery. I was in the hospital four months.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

‘Don’t be mean. We went through a lot together back when we were young. I need your help.”

We did go through a lot. We used to say ‘I love you’ to each other all day long, and we had a couple of abortions. The first time, we both chose to do so. The second time happened on its own, probably because we both drank too much and smoked too much weed. We didn’t think at all about prenatal care. But that’s not what hurts me most to remember. She was so young and pretty, and had a sweet, innocent air about her despite her faults. As for myself, I really only cared to fuck her day in and day out. But she used to love it. We both did.

We wanted at some point to go straight, hold on to a job, buy a home, and raise a happy family. But that was not meant to be. Instead, we called it quits after having one too many fights.

We agreed to meet at the park in my old neighborhood that evening. That’s where I returned to live after my mother died. She left me her little old house that’s now falling apart. I lived there as a teenager when I first met Deborah. We both dropped out of High School. We were troubled young people, that’s what the school counselors said. We just wanted to have fun before growing too old to enjoy life.

I never could hook up for very long afterward with any other woman. Somebody suggested that maybe I was gay, and I punched him out. I was in prison several months for assault and homophobia. While in the slammer I learned that maybe being gay was a fair option for some, but not for me. I always stuck to women, but sometimes wondered if instead I should've been looking for a husband.

I was really born to be a loner, but it took me a long time to figure it out.

Deborah was sitting on a park bench, and was talking on her cell phone. There was a silver walker standing in front of her, like the ones used by disabled people. How old was she now? Same like me, early fifties. She looked bad. Her legs were skinny as matchsticks. Her once long, flowing blondish hair was grey and tangled up. There was a bottle of cheap wine on the ground by her feet. She was smoking and talking. When she saw me, she ended her phone conversation, saying,

“Ok honey. I’ll talk to you later. Got to go” and she said to me,

“Ghorgheh, I can’t work, and can hardly walk. I’m in too much pain. They cut me up and removed a tumor from my spine. Can you afford a couple of hundred bucks? I need it to pay the rent, or they’ll kick me out.”

I had thought as much. I’d withdrawn two hundred dollars before I came. I was to hand it over to her in exchange for one promise: that she’d never get in touch with me again. I knew that she’d agree to anything I’d asked her if I gave her money, but then she’d keep coming back for more. The only other option I had was to move out of the neighborhood, which was undergoing gentrification, and it was the right time to sell. I’d go where she could never find me again.

“Debbie” I said, calling her the way friends and family used to call her back then. She snapped,

“I’m no fucking Debbie anymore. Just call me Deborah”

“Deborah. I always like that old biblical name” I said this, ignoring her outburst.

“You’re damned right. It’s in the bible” she said.

An old friend who knew her from the early days had told me she hanged around big truck stops, and that she lived in cheap motels. She’d done time in prison on drug charges and prostitution. Sometimes she went to live with men who’d supported her for a while, until they got fed up with her drinking and bad temper. Her family tried to help her do rehab, but gave up on her.

I didn’t really feel sorry for Deborah. That was the life she chose. I didn’t feel sorry for myself either, even though my life didn’t amount to much of anything. I drove a big delivery truck in town. That was the only job with a more or less decent pay I could find. The only drawback was I had to stop smoking weed, which wasn’t easy. The bastards only hire drug free drivers. I don’t even know if they found out about the time I did in prison for assault, or the two years I did for possession. But that happened way back when I was still in my twenties.

“Deborah, you can have the two hundred dollars, but I never want to see you again”

“Don’t worry. You won’t” she said, looking away.

“Did you ever read the bible?” I asked her for no real reason.

“Maybe I have. What does that have to do with anything?”

“I wonder who Deborah was. Do you know? I asked her.

I didn’t know it myself, and had never read more than a few lines of the bible.

“Sure, she’s in Luke, chapter four, verse two. Didn’t you read it?” she lied.

“No, I never did.” I answered, and gave her the money.

“I’ll look up Luke” I said.

“You fucking look” she said,

“Good luck” I said.

We both wanted to smile, but smiling was a luxury we couldn’t afford anymore. I walked away, and left her sitting there.