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Ernetta never even thought to ask about Rose Merriman. Maybe if she'd shown the photograph of herself in Tops to the red–bearded, deep–voiced editor on the fifteenth floor of the Pierce–Wright building, he'd have put two and two together and dialed Rose's number.

"Greetings, Merriman. This is Tom McLeesh. Remember that photo we ran with Jimmy's review of your book? Well, she's sitting out in my lobby at the moment. The woman in the photograph. Yeah, I want you to get rid of her."

Rose would have dropped what she was doing (a free–lance assignment at the Smithsonian), skipped dinner with her mother, and rushed over to rescue Ernetta before nightfall. Probably she'd have put new sheets on her guestroom bed; at the very least she'd have set Ernetta up in a good hotel for the night. Rose was a kind–hearted woman, frequently showing mercy to the unwanted and the irritating (her downfall when it came to men). She might have spared everyone a lot of trouble, at least in the short run.

But Ernetta didn't mention Rose to Tom McLeesh. When she reached the Pierce–Wright building, late on the same day her truck had broken down, she found the building already locked. Locked! Ernetta had not reckoned on that. What she'd imagined, based on having seen Mr. Smith Goes to Washington eight times, was a rambling, domed structure with a statue of Abraham Lincoln on the steps out front; inside, a high–ceilinged auditorium (not unlike the Senate chambers) open to the public both day and night, where she could wait in a leather chair until such time as Stan E. Colfax agreed to see her. She hadn't reckoned on this windowless blade of a skyscraper, thrusting upward with its sharp edge toward the road and its point holding up the sky.

And now she was dizzy and thirsty, and she couldn't lock onto a welcoming sight anywhere. Not a restaurant or even a Starvin' Marvin—nothing but office buildings and cars sweeping back and forth on the black road, between rows of lime–green baby trees. She looked down and the sidewalk appeared to bend up towards the clouds; the sky drooped near her shoulders, grey and hot. Blisters burned like fire on the balls of her feet and the sides of her pinky toes. She had no idea what to do next.

A short flight of steps led up to the glass doors of the Pierce–Wright building. Ernetta lowered herself to the bottom of the steps and sat there huddled up with her purse on her knees. To passersby she looked like a homeless woman: ankles swollen, face leathered and caved–in, short hair matted down with sweat. She could have been anybody, any age, with any story to tell. A young black fellow walked by and gave her a kindly look. "Hidey," she said, and he nodded. He reminded her of her pharmacist back home. She watched him cross the street and turn at the next corner. Other folks came by: a tall white woman in high heels and a red suit, a scattered group of black teenagers, a couple of businessmen. Nobody looked her way at all.

Then an elderly woman rushed past with three small tow–headed boys. Ernetta couldn't help herself. "They's good–looking children," she said loudly, and the smallest one turned to wave at her. But the old woman hissed and gave him a hard push. The boy tripped over his own feet. He caught himself with his hands on the sidewalk, then burst into tears and took off running. The woman frowned at Ernetta and Ernetta frowned back. "Plain ugly way of behaving," she said to herself, shaking her head.

A half hour passed without much change. Then suddenly the sky turned dark, though it was still early evening. The traffic light on the corner glowed fire–red against a patch of blue cloud between buildings. Ernetta put her tongue out to lick the air. It tasted like rain, like heavy rain that would fall for a long time. She had already made up her mind that she'd have to sleep here all night, hungry and thirsty. Now she looked around for an awning or an archway—any place to hide so her clothes wouldn't be soaked next morning when the folks upstairs came back and opened their building up. She moved to the top step and curled up under the small overhang, with her hands around her legs and her head tucked between her knees.

She'd been thinking a lot lately about the "incident." Used to be she'd only remember it when she felt unhappy or scared—not too often, really, but when she did feel unhappy, then something let it fly, something inside her freed the memory like an arrow leaving a string to go way high, to rise above all else and then fall again. Nowadays she thought of it even in normal times, sometimes up to two or three times a day, for as long as ten minutes at a go (she kept track). She thought of Arvin's careful, bony hands tying ropes around her ankles, around her wrists. She remembered the days and endless days of lying on her side, curled up under a grey bedspread in his room with the grey lace curtains made by his recently dead mother. How she had stared over the edge of the bed at the patterns in the red shag carpet. Sometimes the cat with blue eyes had come to stare, or roll up and fall asleep against her back.

She hadn't tried very hard to get away. She had been curious maybe, and even glad for the attention from Arvin. Aside from tying her up, Arvin was always gentle with her—so gentle and sweet when he wanted to be that, well without belaboring a point, that's how'd she ended up in the mess to begin with—but when Arvin believed something, it was like there was no in between to anything: no words but no or yes, no place but stay or go, no way to be but alive or dead.

She always figured he'd die for his cause—or even let her die—in a second, in an instant, even if he did love her like he said he did. Love didn't count for too much with him. At the most it was just fuel for the fire that kept burning in him, raging and exploding in new places. Maybe in the end Arvin really had died for his cause like the police said and the government said, but Ernetta couldn't think so, not while the battle still continued and the odds still tilted to the other side.

Arvin had talked about himself as John Brown. He had called himself John Brown's spirit—"all rose up again to free the oppressed and the weak." He had used those words a lot, even as he spooned food in her mouth or helped her use the toilet, looking away respectfully and apologizing for the ropes. She had listened, feeling deep down in love with him because there was something about Arvin's fire and Arvin's craziness all for the sake of righteousness that made her desire him, and yet she knew, too, all while she was lying on her side and tied up and prisoner, that on her own for half an hour she'd go and spoil his cause, give victory to the other side. That's why it was good that he'd tied her up. She considered him strong and herself weak, and so she submitted to Arvin's bonds and Arvin's cause, and through him she found herself able to do what she believed in; through him she really could deny the other side the victory.

But that was long, long ago. Much was changed, now. The cause was Ernetta's own and she was her own kind of soldier, no longer a captive, and Arvin was out there and he did need to be found and crushed and defeated before more innocent people came to harm. And yet he must be crushed in the right way, and by somebody who loved him. Not by one of his victims, but by one of the saved, one of the rescued and the innocent who owed him everything and knew nothing about him.

A police car swished down the street and pulled up near the steps. Ernetta watched curiously. The officer got out and walked over to her. He was a wiry black man with a wide, frowning mouth. "Don't expect to take up residence here," he said.

She lifted her head. "No, sir. My truck broke down. I got an appointment inside but the building's locked."

His face changed. "Can't you call somebody to let you in?"

"I guess I might could."

He pointed to a telephone across the street, next to a bank.

She smiled down at her feet. "I'm shamed to say it, but I don't got no change left."

He nodded and reached in his pocket for a couple of coins. His fingers felt warm when they touched hers. "Hurry up, now. Don't stay around here after dark. It's dangerous, for one thing."

"Thank you, sir. I sure do appreciate it."

He left and she rose up with difficulty, feeling the coming rain in her knees. She limped a few yards down to the corner, waited for the light to change, then crossed the street and limped a few more yards to the payphone. It took her a long minute to think of unrolling the limp magazine in her purse and dialing the number printed right on the second page next to a picture of Boone's Farm. Once she did, a recording told her to press "4" for help after–hours.

"Subscription services," said a cool female voice. "May I have your name, please, and the address you're calling from?"

She was shaking so hard she could barely keep the phone to her ear. "Is this Tops Magazine?"

"This is subscription services. May I have your name, please?"

"I am needing to talk to Stan E. Colfax. He's one of your important writers."

"Ma'am, I can't do that for you. You'd have to call the Washington office—"

"I am in Washington. I'm right outside the building. Could you transfer me to Tops magazine?"

"In Washington?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Well, all right—"

Ernetta heard a buzz on the line, and then another voice said, "This is the answering service for Tops magazine, Tops, Jr., Tops Clothing, and Tops, Inc. Our regular business hours are Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. However, if you know your party's extension and would like to leave a message … "

She waited for the end of the recorded speech, the little bit where the voice said, "Please remain on the line and an operator will be with you shortly."

"Hello?" she said.

"Answering service."

"I am needing to talk to Stan E. Colfax. He's one of your important writers."

"The staff doesn't take calls after regular office hours, Ma'am. You'll have to call back tomorrow morning."

"Well, it's just a little bit of an emergency." Ernetta was thinking about the policeman. He'd been so nice, but he might not like her sleeping over there on the steps of the building.

"You can leave a message on your party's voice mail."

"No, Ma'am, I need to leave a personal message for Stan E. Colfax."

"You can leave it for whoever you want, but it's up to them if they want to answer it."

Ernetta frowned at the phone. "Give me whatever you can give me. I'll take it."

A moment later she was connected to another recording, a male voice that sounded just a little familiar. "Yo. This is me. Your message. Here. Now." She didn't know the appropriate response to that so she just said loudly, "This is … well, I'd really like to talk to Stan E. Colfax. I'm his relative. I'm Ernetta Duckworth. I'm his real close relative. And it is a little bit of an emergency. I been through so much today. I done walked a long way from Alabama and I don't got no money left. I reckon I'll just stay here at this phone down here on this street and wait to hear from you. I'm about fifteen feet from the front door of your building. Could you give me a call at the number I'm about to read?"

She feared, now, to cross the street and sit back on the steps. She stood in front of the telephone, instead, holding the receiver near her ear but keeping down the hang–up button. A minute passed. Five minutes. Ernetta waited with her elbow propped on her stomach, shaking almost uncontrollably with hunger and fatigue. A few brown spots appeared on the pavement: the first raindrops. Maybe the dark clouds would just pass and nothing come of it all.

And then like a miracle, like lightning straight from God, a bolt of electricity surged down from the Pierce–Wright Building and shot right up into the metal box. The phone rang out so loudly that Ernetta jumped. Her feet left the ground, all but the very tips of her blistered toes. She cupped both hands around the mouthpiece of the receiver.

"Hello? Hello?" The voice on the other end sounded like firecrackers popping, long ways off. "I just caught your voice on the machine when I was walking through Stannie's office. You say you're a relative of his?"

"Yes," she said. "I am a close relative. I need to see him."

There was a pause and a cough. "Where are you?"

"Across the street. At the payphone."

"Yeah, I think I see you down there. I'll tell them to let you in downstairs. Come on up to the office—it's on the fifteenth floor."

Ernetta put the phone down and looked up across the street , half expecting to see people staring down from open windows somewhere above her head. She couldn't make out anything on the sheer glass face of the building—not even where one floor started and another stopped. She tried not to limp, crossing back over. Hateful to think somebody might be laughing at her up there. When she reached the steps of the Pierce–Wright, again, a guard in a uniform unlocked the large doors and let her in. He pointed her to an elevator down a purple–carpeted hall.

"Ain't there no stairs?" she said.

He shook his head.

"There's got to be stairs. Emergency stairs."

He shook his head.

"Well that's just not right," she mumbled.

She hated elevators, but she got on. Probably couldn't have walked all those steps anyway with these sore feet and the limp. She felt slightly sick going up; rising into the knife's blade of that building. Something was about to happen: an arrow would leave a string and she would be upon it. She wasn't Catholic but she crossed herself the way she'd seen Arvin do as she felt the settling of the floor and heard the creak of the cable. Then the doors opened and she stepped out onto blue carpet with a paisley pattern.

Across the hall, between two small trees in gold planters, was a huge glass door with the word Tops printed on it in golden letters. Ernetta caught a vision of people walking back and forth soundlessly behind the door, like actors in a silent movie. But her eyes were drawn quickly back to the hall, to the red–haired man standing a few feet away from her, holding his keys. He had a pointed beard and thin oval glasses.

"I'm Tom McLeesh," he said.

"Oh!" she said quietly.

"You Mrs. Duck—?"

"Yes I am. You're the fellow I talked to, ain't you?"

"It's noisy in there. Let's go around to my private office."

"Yes, sir."

He turned to the right, walking fast, and she followed him as well as she could down a long, quiet hall and around several corners. He finally stopped and unlocked a glass door, letting her into a spacious waiting room. She glanced around nervously, then sat down on a white bench and took a tissue from a box on a little white table. She mopped her forehead with it. He leaned against a bare–topped desk by a large window.

"That the window you looked out and saw me?" she asked.

He nodded. "I'm sorry, what's your name?"

"I'm Ernetta Duckworth," she said.

He nodded slowly, turning down the corners of his mouth. "Oh, that's right. Duckworth. And you're related to Stannie?"

"I'm his mother."

The man's eyes opened wide. His mouth twitched. Ernetta saw plainly that he was struggling not to laugh and she knew that she must look like a crazy woman, like the old woman at the grocery store back in LeCrane who never paid in anything but nickles and pennies. Everybody hated to see that woman coming.

"I thought Stannie's family all lived in Florida," she said.

She was interested to hear this. "They's his adopted family, I reckon. I'm his real mom. You call him 'Stannie?' do you?"

"Yes. What do you call him?"

"I don't call him nothing. I ain't met him yet. I come all the way from South Alabama to find him because I need him to do me a favor. I ain't got nobody else I can trust but him."

"Oh, this is rich," he mumbled, and then he cleared his throat. "Listen," he said, "Stannie won't be back in the office for a few days. But I have an idea how we might arrange a meeting. Do you have someplace you could stay for the night in Washington?"

She shook her head.

"No place," he said. "Hmmm. I do know these people in town who have a place. They'd probably come pick you up. Let me give them a call—"

Tom went around the corner and Ernetta waited. She couldn't hear him talking to the YMCA behind the wall, or the ringing telephones next door, or even the rain beginning to pour outside. All noise, even her own breathing, was muffled in the thick, soft carpet and textured wallpaper. The room felt cool and dark to her, like a closed coffin. Her head began to nod. For a little while before Tom came back, she fell asleep, slumping down on the little bench. And then suddenly she woke up, stiff in the joints, and sat up to find him standing over her, smiling in the grimmest way—looking exactly like the devil.

Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture Magazine.
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