Jesus can heal, Maria thinks. Jesus can heal. Jesus can heal. Jesus can heal.
“Use the left lane to turn left on Captain Cook Street,” says the Uber app on the car speaker.
Maria is not used to taking app-based rideshares. But she didn’t have many choices because no bus she knows of goes all the way to the 7-Eleven gas station on the highway. Ms. McCarthy did mention that the shop offers tempting discounts, but one would need to own a car to take advantage of them. Uber is not cheap, but one who is on a mission of God shall not complain about the difficulties on the way.
“Aargh!” the Uber driver says. While waiting for the car in front to make the left turn, he mumbles something to himself. He must be saying a prayer.
Money is one issue when using app-based rideshares, safety is another. It was just last week when the news broke out everywhere that a Latino Uber driver drugged and raped a female Black passenger. A few weeks before, a video of an Uber driver went viral when he was caught on camera shooting a father of three to death over a dispute about opening the car window. From the stories Ms. McCarthy tells, most of the road rage incidents are caused by either Uber drivers or immigrants.
The Uber driver growls. Thank the Lord, he looks nothing like an immigrant. He is a large, white guy with such a cute, big belly that makes one wonder how he managed to get into the car in the first place. He reminds Maria of Mr. Johnston, the jolly, friendly guy at her church, who would begin and end every sentence with laughter. “The light’s green,” the driver barks and then yells, “Just make the damn turn you fucking moron.” In a savage outburst of implacable wrath, the fifth deadly sin, he snarls and honks the horn for four continuous seconds until the car ahead of them begins the left turn. On second thought, the big belly is not cute at all. It is a testimony of his gluttony and probably sloth too. He might not be an immigrant, but he does look like one who exercises the second amendment to its fullest, probably carrying a loaded gun in his car’s glove box.
With her heart racing, Maria closes her eyes and touches the rusty cross necklace resting on her gray dress. She reminds herself that the Lord is with her at every step of her mission, and with that her heartbeat gradually slows down.
“Bing,” says the Uber app on the car speaker. “You have arrived at your destination.”
“Alright, there we are,” the Uber driver says to Maria, his voice still carrying the agitation he had during the left turn. “You have a good day, alright?” His deep voice joins his big body to make him sound scarier. His wish for a good day sounds more like an order to leave the car, reinforced by the glares that he shoots at Maria through his rear-view mirror.
Maria wants to get out, but no matter how much she looks around, she sees no 7-Eleven nor any gas station in the area. It is a vast, almost-empty parking lot with a big warehouse behind it that is either a self-storage facility or a prison. Three weird-looking immigrants who were lying back against the warehouse’s wall saunter toward the car.
“You have a good day, alright?” the driver repeats, his voice harshened with frustration.
Maria gulps, her heart racing again. She is quite close to making herself the subject of the wrath of a man three times her size. Her hand is impulsively reaching the door handle when she sees the three immigrants approach. She lets go of the handle again.
“Where is that you wanted to go?” the driver asks finally, slightly turning back to her.
“7-Eleven.”
“By the gas station?” The driver hisses by inhaling through his clenched teeth. “Fuck. That’s all the way on the other side.” Turning away from Maria, he fiddles with his butt chin, probably thinking how to use the loaded gun in his glove box and yet make it look like self-defense.
With her eyes darting between the driver’s chubby right hand and his glove box, Maria’s hand reaches the door handle to get out before the driver goes psycho on her. The fear of what those three immigrants will do to her overtakes her mind and then her body. Her shivering hand is incapable of opening the door to the menace that awaits her outside the car.
“You know what?” The driver breaks the suspenseful silence. “You sit tight, ma’am. I’ll take you there,” he says and drives away, saving Maria from the imminent danger of the three immigrants.
Maria, taken by the pleasant surprise, reviews the words she just heard; perhaps she has misheard them. The kind gesture she just witnessed is a stranger in this town. This is not the kind of reaction you would expect from the notorious Uber drivers—or any other citizen for that matter. Ms. McCarthy would never believe her when Maria tells the story. “Didn’t mean to trouble you, son,” Maria says, a few seconds after she has believed her ears.
“No problema,” the driver says while doing a U-turn on the highway. “But ma’am, you know what you should do next time? You should choose Uber Pool. Then it would drop you off right at your destination.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know which is which. I just chose the cheapest.”
“Of course, you did,” the driver chuckles, “but the cheapest one is Uber Express. It’s cheaper, but then you gotta walk for a few minutes, which is not always what you want.” He stops before the parking lot next to a gas station. “This is the one, right?”
“Yes,” Maria says with excitement, “that 7-Eleven.”
“Alrighty. Let me actually take you to the front door,” he says while turning into the parking lot. “Then, you’d have to walk less. Isn’t that nice?” he asks and laughs, his cute belly shaking.
Maria is overtaken by the unexpected kindness she receives from the random Uber driver that she does not even know nor will she ever meet again.
What does it take to implant and cultivate such virtue into a man? What does it take to domesticate a savage beast?
Maria wants to show gratitude but cannot find the right words; the words that the people in this town use less and less often, if ever. She’d need time to dig deep into the attic of her mind; in the box labeled, ‘Extinct Words.’ In the meanwhile, using all the few handy words, she says, “Thank you very very much, son.”
“Of course. There we are.” He parks the car. “Don’t mention it. You have a good day, alright?”
“Thank you very much,” she says and closes the door, wishing she could have thought of an adverb stronger than ‘very much.’ She should say more. She would say, ‘That was very Christian of you,’ but she is not sure if the driver is one. What is another word for that? Act of faith? Faith-based act? Nah. She knows there are very simple words to describe what the driver did but, strangely enough, she cannot remember them now! Still feeling obliged to say more, she leans in on the open window of the front passenger seat and says, “God bless you, son. That was very kind of you.”
“Of course. My pleasure. That would be my good deed today,” he says and drives away.
Good deed! Good…deed!
Her senses sharpen as if someone is knocking on the door to her heart. If she is not mistaken, this is the third or fourth time she hears that phrase in the past two weeks. The last few times, she let them pass by unnoticed, but this time, touched by the kindness of a stranger, her heart is ready to receive guests. The two simple yet estranged words ‘good deeds’ wake up some dusty receptors in her brain and create a domino effect that quickly spreads all over her mind. She knows the words very well already—after all, they are in the Bible—and yet somehow the notion has been alienated and buried away over the years. Father Kelly has given hundreds of masses on faith but none on good deeds—not recently, anyway.
When the car turns and disappears into the highway, Maria also turns and walks toward the 7-Eleven store. After all, she has a mission to accomplish.
She stops halfway. The threshold in front of the entrance is artlessly half-painted red. If this is supposed to be art, it must be cubism, avant-garde, or one of those ridiculous modern styles that one needs to be from uptown to get. She could easily replicate that by simply pouring a bucket of red paint on the threshold.
Where did the Uber driver hear that expression? Good deeds. Apparently, the domino effect is not done shaking her mind, flicking awake all the primal doubts that were drugged and put to sleep. As long as they are awake, no one can sleep, nor can her conscience. The doubts create an uncomfortable state of uncertainty, which leads to confusion and—God forbids—disbelief. She is now hesitant whether or not to continue to the shop. A muffled voice from her heart says what she will do inside that shop would not constitute a good deed.
Perhaps, this is not meant to be, she thinks and turns away from the 7-Eleven shop.
She has barely taken the first step when she stops again, imagining the disappointed look on Father Kelly’s face. She can almost hear his unforgiving voice that says, “Maria, you failed God.”
Lord, show me a sign, she prays, feeling torn apart between fulfilling the mission that the Lord has assigned to her and following her heart. Having her right hand on her chest, her fingers touch the rusty cross necklace. That is the sign I was waiting for, she thinks, holding the cross up in her palm. When her gaze falls on the cross, she immediately gains the confidence to do the right thing. The voice of Father Kelly echoes through her mind, “Have faith, my child. True faith will lead to nothing but good deeds.” What she must do now is be a faithful servant to the Lord. What she earlier felt coming from her heart is perhaps nothing but Lucifer’s temptation. It is indeed hard to tell which is which.
Reassured by the cross, she turns back to the convenience store to accomplish the mission of God. It begins when she steps over the bricks painted blood-red.
“I like your hat,” Sally says to the handsome customer on the other side of the counter.
With the classy mustache and the stylish straw hat, he looks more like a hot movie star in disguise. He wears his black, titanium ring on the index finger, which means he is available.
So is Sally. It is great not to be attached. With so many hot guys flowing around, who in their right mind would want to be stuck with one?
Following up on her flirtatious comment, the customer detaches his gaze from his wallet and looks up at Sally standing behind the counter.
The moment their gazes meet, Sally wiggles her eyebrows and flashes an inviting smile, two flirting techniques that she has mastered thanks to the many hours of practice before her bathroom mirror.
“Yeah, thanks,” the hot guy responds, his tone dismissive and his face blank. Dropping his head, he gets back to looking into his wallet, going back and forth between a gold and a red credit card.
Sally knows well what this is. This is called snubbing when a guy pretends he is not interested in a girl in order to seduce her. Dating 101. A lot of guys have attempted to pull off this trick on her, recently more than before. Alright, good looking, Sally thinks and sneers. You wanna play? Let’s play. I too know the game.
“Is that made of straw?” Sally asks, gently touching his hand and flashing a smile of hers that has been known to be irresistible.
Pulling his hand back, he says, “Yeah, how much was it again?” not bothering to even look up at Sally.
Like a campfire extinguished by a bucket of cold water, in a matter of a second Sally loses all the heat that was keeping her alive. What an arrogant douchebag! I hate men. I hate them. I hate them. I hate them. Here we go again. Yet another rejection from someone she doesn’t even like. I hate men. It must be because she is just a cashier. It sucks to be a cashier. She hates her job. And she hates men.
As she slowly retracts her hand back to her space, Sally looks at her reflection on the glass pad covering the cashier’s desk. Or, could it be because of my face? she wonders, her confidence sinking to a new low. She hates her face. Although she has barely completed 36 years, she looks more like 45 or even 46. The light that reflects off her cheek gives away how much face cream she has put on. She would have aged better if this freaking life had taken it easier on her. She hates her life.
Sally comes back to attention when the guy snaps his fingers near her face. “How much?” he asks again.
A gorgeous Asian girl cuts into the line, throws a box of BareSkin condoms on the counter—as if Her Majesty owns the place—and stands awfully close to the hot guy, almost pushing him aside. The saucy girl looks only 20 years old, or more, or less. Sally could never guess the age of Asian people, especially their women. Those sons-of-bitches, they never age.
As the cashier, it is Sally’s judicial duty to put that bitch in her place, and Sally will take joy in doing that. “Ma’am,” she says as if she addresses an elderly woman, “please go back—”
“Look what we almost forgot?” the Asian girl tells the hot guy, obviously cutting Sally off on purpose.
“Thank God, you were here, babe,” the hot guy says, puckers his lips, leans in, and gives his…girlfriend—apparently—a noisy kiss on the lips. Without looking at his wallet, he brings out a credit card, which turns out to be the gold one, and waves it before Sally’s face. “Excu-u-use me-e-e,” he says, almost singing as if he is still drunk from the kiss.
Feeling dizzy, Sally blinks. The image of the credit card waving before her face gets blurry. She blinks a couple of more times and opens her eyes wide to get them focused again.
The pretty Asian girl slightly wrinkles her nose, giving Sally a condescending look. The bitch must’ve overheard Sally’s comment about her boyfriend’s hat. There is no coming back from that.
“The box too,” the boyfriend orders Sally while tapping the condom box with his credit card, and then he holds it up again.
Sally would spit on his face and yell, ‘I’m not your servant!’ if she were not too goddamn tired of everything. Everything. Every…thing. There is no fight left in her, nor any light for that matter. She looks away from the happy couple, picks up the BareSkin condom box, which feels as heavy as 100 pounds, and scans its barcode. “Forty-six dollars and three cents,” she says without looking up at any of them.
How did this happen to me? Sally asks herself. How did I end up here in this shithole, pathetic and desperate? I don’t deserve this. Or do I? No, I don’t. What happened to me? What went wrong? Maybe if that asshole didn’t crap into my heart like I am a piece of… How could he do that to me? I hate him. I hate him. I hate him. Where are the pills? I need my pills.
Frantically opening the drawer, Sally snatches the bottle of Valium, unscrews the lid, and pops one of the large capsules into her mouth. It hurts to swallow it without water, but that is not comparable to the resurfaced pain that is crawling into every neuron of her brain. Closing her eyes, she takes a couple of deep breaths. Wouldn’t it be nice if she did not have to open her eyes to this damned world ever again?
What if that asshole storms in through the door now? What if he sprints toward Sally, gets down to his knees, and apologizes for all he has done to her? And then he would beg Sally to take him back. What would Sally do? Sally would smirk and spit in his dirty face. She doesn’t need an asshole in her life. But, then he would cry his eyes out, tightly hug Sally’s hips, and admit he is nothing without her. Then, and only then, Sally might forgive him and absolve him of his sins.
“Excuse me,” says the voice of an old lady.
Let’s get this shitty day over with, Sally thinks. Taking a deep breath, she opens her eyes with so much difficulty though if her eyelids are glued together.
The hot guy and his young-looking bitch are already gone. They did not even wait for the receipt. In their place, is an old Black woman who has given up fighting the expansion of gray hairs. She looks even more screwed-up than Sally.
Sally crumbles the receipt and squeezes it hard into nothing. “How can I help you today?” she asks reluctantly, throwing the receipt into the garbage can, where it belongs—along with the memory of her latest rejection
“You can help me get my son back,” Maria says with tearful eyes.
“Oh, Ms. Freeman!” Sally recognizes her ex’s mother. It’s been about 10 years now since the last time they met on Thanksgiving. Maria, who has always been a source of inspiration, brings color to Sally’s despairing day, quickly replacing that initial surprise with the feeling of excitement and—knock on wood—optimism.
“I can’t,” Sally tells Maria and takes another drag on her cigarette. The threshold she is standing on is still partly covered with red paint from last week’s incident. Leaning against the wall, she pretends to watch the cars on the highway to avoid awkward eye contact with Maria while turning her down. “Sorry, but not sorry.”
“Why?” Maria asks, her voice trembling. Facing Sally, she leans in so that their gazes meet.
“I just can’t. It’s been too long, OK? It’s over between us—”
“Not for him,” Maria snaps and then lowers her voice. “He’s…ah…he’s not over it yet.” She gulps.
“With all due respect,” Sally sneers and takes another drag, “how would you know?”
Maria turns her confused gaze from the cigarette back to Sally. She stands before Sally, her eyes squinted. Biting her lips, she touches the cross necklace on her chest and takes a deep breath. And then another. “He told me so,” she says in one breath.
“Jesus told you that?!”
“Yeah,” Maria responds, squeezing the cross necklace in her fist.
“When?”
“When?”
“Yeah, when?”
“Ah…y-y—yesterday. Yeah, yesterday. He called me. First, he apologized, of course, for…ah…for…ah”—Maria’s gaze darts between Sally and her cigarette—“since when do you smoke, my dear?”
Sally watches the motherly look in Maria’s eyes. It has been a long time since anybody worried about her. She likes the feeling. Tears prick in the corner of her eyes. “It’s good for me,” she says and breaks the gaze. “It calms my nerves—” Sally interrupts herself with multiple coughs. The last cough is barely settled when she puts the butt back into her mouth and takes another drag on the cigarette.
“Sally.”
“Yeah.”
“Look at me, my dear,” Maria says, her voice trembling, and touches Sally on the arm.
The cigarette is reaching her lips for another drag when Sally glances at Maria, who is staring at her with tearful eyes. Touched by Maria’s pain, Sally impulsively drops the I-don’t-care act. Lowering her hand, she skips the next drag and turns all the way to Maria. She gulps to swallow the tears that clog her throat.
“This is a mother begging you,” Maria says while a single tear escapes her eye. “Jesus was a good boy. He’s getting worse and worse ever since he lost you.” When her eyes are no longer able to contain the tears, she bursts out crying. “If only he can see you again, that’s all it takes.”
Touched by the sincerity of the moment, Sally drops the cigarette and pulls Maria into a hug before bursting into a sob herself.
“He can heal,” Maria says through tears. “I know it. Jesus can heal. Jesus can heal.”