The alarm buzzed a moment before the radio came on with a static filled Jill Scott song. It was 5 am and the third time her alarm had gone off. It was the last time it could go off before she would miss the bus that would get her to work just in time to not be too late. She rose from bed in a groggy state that made her wish that it was a weekend. She could sleep in on weekends.
Beverly Mitchell ran her fingers through her micro-braided hair before hitting the switch to make the alarm stop. She fumbled for her radio remote that was lost in her blanket. She found it and switched from the radio to the CD. She stood as the player lit up with the number of tracks before playing track one.
The music was a heavy Reggae, the kind Beverly liked to clean to, and generally get her going. She knew she should have woken up early to exercise and had placed the CD in the player in order to inspire her. Her late bed time discouraged the ambition and she had instead slept for the extra half hour with the alarm interrupting every ten minutes.
She stumbled into the bathroom to shower and get ready for the day. Above hear she could her neighbor also bumbling around, his feet heavy on the floor which invalidated the managers claim of sound proofing. Beverly hoped her loud Reggae annoyed him as much as his heavy footsteps annoyed her.
It took her 20 minutes to shower and get dressed in her work clothes of black slacks and a white shirt. She never put on the tie until she got to work. She did not think it was appropriate to wear on the bus.
She was out of her door by 5:30 for the 5:45 metro bus that came down on Vine Street to take her to work downtown. She put her headphones in her ear and walked to the stop with her MP3 player drowning out the world around her with more Sean Paul songs.
The bus was a little late, pulling up to her corner at 5:48, but she was not so worried about getting to work late because she was the manager, which meant she had the keys, and nothing could begin without her. The bus had a few of the regular passengers. There was the girl Jarmisha who was getting married this summer and always had wedding magazines in her lap. She usually sat with Roze who had been married 3 times and was twice divorced with her last husband simply picking up and leaving one day to never return. Jarmisha and Roze always chatted loudly about Jarmisha’s coming nuptials and how Roze should have done better for herself by making different choices. Jarmisha, who hadn’t known Roze for more than a month, soaked up all the kernels of wisdom she could from this woman who had obviously lived her life and made some mistakes. Roze’s advice often varied from vapid to common sensical, with occasional glimpses of real truth. Beverly made a point to sit far enough away so that she could be mildly entertained by their chatter without being noticed when she rolled her eyes in disagreement with Roze.
She sat near the back of the bus, sliding quietly into her chair and leaning in close to the window. There was a man across from her in a nice shirt and big jeans. He seemed a little older than her at 32. He was looking at her as she sat and she told herself to not make eye contact for fear that he would attempt to talk to her.
Beverly had never owned a car, mostly because she thought they were too expensive. She had thought about buying one a year ago but also decided that her and her man Gerald were going to get married and get a house together so she figured she should save the money for that instead. So far she had close to 5 grand in the bank. She did not have real goal in mind but she planned to sit down with her uncle, who was an accountant at one time, and discuss what it took to buy a house. She figured with Gerald’s credit, which wasn’t so bad, and his job at the bank in the mortgage department there would not be much to buying a house.
There was a mother at the back of the bus struggling to keep her small child in the seat. The child was merely a toddler and would frequently lean away to look out the window. The mother was texting on her cell phone and would pause only briefly to snatch the child by her jacket and keep her up in the seat. The little girl would look to her mother and wait till the mother was ignoring her before making another attempt at leaning precariously in her seat towards the window.
Another girl got on at the next stop in tight jeans and a puffy jacket with fur collars. She was also on a cell phone and talked into it loudly as she surveyed the bus for a good seat. Beverly shifted in her seat to discourage the girl from choosing to sit with her. There were several other seats in the bus that the girl could have taken. The girl shoes one directly behind Beverly. She never paused in her noisy conversation. Beverly turned her music up to drown out the girl’s empty prattle.
Three stops later an old black man got on the bus in a black coat that was ripped and showing its foam like innards. The man had a grizzled grey beard that looked thick with dirt and grime from not bathing. His eyes were glassy and he weaved as though drunk. He stood next to the driver for a moment before moving his way to the back of the bus. Beverly caught the stench off him as he passed her. The old man laughed without provocation and patted the man that had looked at Beverly. The man smiled politely and did not say a word.
The old man said “girls these days young blood, they’ll get you. In my day you cheat and they just cut you. Now they got lawyers. Take everything ya got.”
The man, dark skinned with somewhat intelligent eyes said, “Yeah they do pops.”
The bus driver started to move the bus through traffic and the older man shuttered and grabbed the bar on the back of the other mans seat. The old man raised his voice and said “Whoa now. You can’t wait till I sit down? You can’t wait a second now.”
The bus driver did not glance back but shook his head. Roze and Jarmisha lowered their voices a minute to see what the old man was going to do. Beverly turned the sound down a little on her mp3 player. Part of her was eager to hear what would happen with the old man for drama’s sake, another part of her just wanted today to be a peaceful bus ride to work.
The old man sat in the seat behind the younger man and struck up a conversation. The old man saying his name was Remus but people called him Jo-boy. He did not explain why. He said he had been in Cincinnati for 40 years, since he came up from down south. “To work with them pigs. You could get a job working with pigs for good money. cutting meat, today it be like 10 dollars an hour, back then you could make 300 a month and it be like you was the f#cking man young blood. You was the man.”
The younger man smiled politely and did not flinch at Remus’s stench. The man instead spoke to Remus as though he were genuinely interested in a conversation. The man said his name was Jeremiah. Beverly tried not to look directly at them but she noticed Jeremiah looking at her a few times when she glanced around. Beverly wished she had brought a book with her today.
Remus said, “My stop is coming up, Man I hate to do this but you got any change on ya? I’m really down on my luck man. I had a good woman and she left me because I was a cheating dog you see. She left and took my house. I started drinking in 93 and didn’t stop, you see young blood. I’m really down on my luck. Anything you do can help me. Any change you got brother.”
Beverly was surprised then Jeremiah began to search his pockets. The old man thanked him profusely as he fished out a few dollars and handed them to him. She smiled a little as Remus stood and pulled the cord to signal the next stop. Remus began to sing loudly as he waited for the bus to come to a stop. “Thank ya young blood for your help. You been so good to me, don’t let these women get yah down, don’t let them take ya to town. Cause theys’ll do it every time, every time.” He skillfully ended his scratchy soul ballad as the bus stopped and he got off. They could hear him singing as he walked away from the bus towards the convenience store on side of the road where they had stopped.
Roze and Jarmisha laughed as he got off. Jarmisha said, “He stank so bad.”
Roze said, “He probably going to buy some wild Irish.”
The girl on the cell phone behind her began to explain Remus to whoever was on the phone. For the first time Beverly wondered who would be awake enough to entertain a conversation with this girl at 6:00 in the morning.
Beverly looked to the man, who caught her eye. He shrugged and said “What he do with it is his business. I just did what god told me to do.”
Beverly thought, “Damn it. Now he is going to talk to me.” She tried to not let it show on her face.
The man said “I told him God loves him. I told him to go by this church I know in Over the Rhine I know that helps homeless people.”
The young lady behind Beverly said “He ain’t need no church, he needed a bath with his stank ass.”
Beverly pulled one of her earphones out of her ear when she noticed he was still looking at her. She asked him to repeat himself.
He changed the question by asking, “Do you have a church? That you go to?”
Beverly nodded yes. She smiled to be polite.
He said “Does your man go with you?”
Beverly was a little put off by the question and it must have shown because the man raised his bible to view. It was a tattered old book with bent corners and a flaky leather jacket. He said “Bible says that a man and a woman should be joined in a church. Too many women get these men that don’t go to church and act like they want to change them into god fearing men. You can’t change no man who don’t want to be changed.”
Beverly wondered if the crazy had rubbed off old Remus onto the gentleman in the next seat. She said “Yeah, we go to church together sometimes.”
Jeremiah said. “That’s good, because men that don’t go to church is more likely to cheat and all that worldly stuff. They pull you out the church and they want to make you into they sex slave or something. They get caught up in sex urges and worldly urges and they take you down with them. The bible says you got to have a good god fearing man that can go to church with you and believes in serving god and rejecting the devil.”
Beverly thought a moment before responding. She squinted and said “There are men in the church that cheat just like the men in the world.”
From the front Roze stopped her conversation to say, “Ain’t that the truth.”
Jeremiah said, “Them ain’t gods children. You can recognize them when you see them. Those are vipers that ain’t fit for the kingdom of heaven. You had vipers in the Garden of Eden, you going to have them in church too. But a good Christian man will not cheat on you. One that loves and fears god.”
Beverly said “My man does not cheat, okay.”
Jeremiah said, “That’s good. How long you been together?”
“5 years, we probably getting married next year.”
“Probably? You sound uncertain my sister.”
Beverly smirked, “We may not have all the money together to do it. Weddings is expensive.”
From the front Jarmisha interjected “You ain’t said nothing.”
Beverly smiled in her direction. She wondered how long this normally 20 minute ride would take today. It already seemed like she had been on the bus for hours.
Jeremiah said, “A god fearing man knows he loves a woman, knows god will provide for them. He ain’t got to worry about no money if he got a good job.”
“My man works at a bank, he do mortgage and auto loan stuff.”
“That’s good sister, really good. And he go to church so you ain’t got too much to worry about.”
Beverly tried to reign in her attitude and not deal with this man who wielded his religion in every conversation. “Yeah, I ain’t worried.”
“But if he didn’t I would say watch out, because then he would be trouble. It is hard for a woman to bring a man in from the world.”
“Because you know what’s good for me right?” Beverly said without thinking.
Jeremiah was a little astonished himself. “He said, well, I know the word of God, and that is best for you.”
Beverly went with it and said, “But do you know me?”
Jeremiah shook his head, “I know the hearts of men and the evil therein,”
“And there ain’t some part of your heart that wouldn’t want to bend me over a bus stop bench if you got the chance?”
The bus seemed to go silent. Beverly realized that she had said what she thought out loud and not in her head. Jeremiah paused for a long moment before flustering. “My sister you got me all wrong…”
“No, you talk so much about cheating like you ain’t cheated yourself. How men in the church is so pure. A man ain’t got to be in no church to be pure, and every man in the church ain’t worth their weight in sh!t. You do all that talking about god, hoping to hook a woman and I am sure it has worked for you, or you wouldn’t keep trying it. I got a good man, a good job, and me and God is doing just fine. So if you would be so kind as to let me ride this bus in peace to my stop and quit trying to convince me that your d!ck is better than anybody else’s, saved or not, because ain’t that really what you’re talking about?”
“My sister, you got me mixed up, I was trying to talk to you about being saved.”
Beverly put her earphones back in her ears as the man continued to try to explain himself. She saw Roze and Jarmisha laughing at the front of the bus. She looked out the window and noticed her stop coming up. She stood and glared at Jeremiah, who was suddenly sheepish and could not meet her gaze.
She said “Next time try to not come so hard on the fire and brimstone, treat a woman like she’s got a brain in her head instead of playing for her faults and you might just get you a good Christian girl.”
Jeremiah tried to speak. She stepped to the door at the back of the bus. She had to throw in one last comment over her shoulder as she got off. She said, “And you might want to know an actual verse in that book before you go trying to school somebody.”
Beverly felt a little better as she disembarked from the bus and stepped through the shelter at Government square. She hoped Jeremiah and Remus did not become regulars because she was against the idea of riding with either of them again. She sighed and turned up her mp3 player/
Beverly walked the few blocks from the downtown stop on Government square to her job at the Café Orisha. She tried to put the bible thumping Jeremiah out of her mind. She thought to call Gerald and tell him about that fool but she was close to work and she could see that Linda and Milton were mad at her for being late.
Linda was a shortish woman with a Jamaican accent who was the morning waitress. She was thicker than Beverly, mostly in the hips and her hair was short and dreaded tight to her head. Beverly always wondered if she should attempt that style but Gerald always said he did not like women with their hair short. Linda had been born in the states but raised in Kingston with her father’s family. Her mother had died in some way that Linda never wanted to discuss. Linda returned to the states in junior high and lived in Cincinnati since she was 19. Somehow all the time in the Midwest had no affect on her accent, or her loyalty to her childhood home in Jamaica.
Milton was an older black Gentleman in his early fifties who had been a cook all his life. He had been a cook in the army from age 17 and the military had regimented the rest of his life. He always woke up at 4:30 AM and did at least 50 pushups and walked the 10 miles from his Eden park apartment to work. Milton had to pass through a fairly bad neighborhood to reach work, but it never seemed to bother him. He carried a knife in his sleeve that he refused to show Beverly when she asked to see it. Milton said that knives were made for killing and if he pulled it out he had to use it for its true purpose. Milton had previously worked in a hotel in the area but when there had been a fire in 95 he quit and worked at a few other restaurants before Jabril found him to work at the café Orisha. Beverly liked Milton because he usually didn’t talk unless asked a direct question, and if you got him talking he would tell you stories that you never wanted to end like he was your grandfather at bed time.
Beverly had been day manager at Café Orisha for a year after quitting her job at the bank where she had met Gerald. She had gotten her degree in business management and entrepreneurial hospitality, wanting originally to work at hotels but settling on the restaurant when the owner Jabril Vincennes moved in from Atlanta and offered her a good salary. She liked the hours, coming in early meant getting off early. The one thing she missed most was the bank holidays. In the restaurant she rarely got a holiday off.
Once she was through the door it was all routine. Linda fussed about her being late while Milton went to the back to prep food. Beverly ignored Linda and set up the specials menu. She was scrawling the soup of the day and trying to remember if they had settled on bisque if the lobster meat had gone bad, or if they were going to try to go with vegetable. Beverly maneuvered through opening the restaurant on auto pilot and in what seemed like moments between Linda’s rants, it was time to open the doors and seat customers.
One thing Beverly enjoyed about the restaurant business was that the days went fast because there was always so much to do. The Café Orisha was not very big, wedged between a Marriott Hotel and a shop that specialized in expensive ceramic figurines. There was a bar in the middle with space for about 5 tables on either side. There were four booths on the walls on either side of the bar as well. All the tables had rusty red colored cloth on them, and large sections of parchment looking paper to be used as placemats. Little glass dishes sat at the center of the tables to serve as place settings as well as a convenient place for sugar packets and cream for coffee. Beverly checked each one before she opened the doors. She did not fully trust Linda to do it herself.
The breakfast crowd was usually sparse enough to not block the walkways, and today was not an exception. Beverly made her way around the restaurant with ease making sure people had enough coffee.
A few regulars made their way in and ordered the same things. The older gentleman, Tony, who worked security at Sears came and took his seat by the windows and looked at the people going by as he held a paper in one hand and a fork for his eggs in another. Tony wore a suit to work every day and had also been in the military. On particularly hard days he would return to the restaurant after his shift and tell Jabril about what he had to do to catch a shoplifter. The woman, Ann, who worked at the phone company came in to order a breakfast sandwich to go. Beverly always remembered her because her hair that had been dyed too many times and now looked like brownish purple with different colors showing near the roots. Ann had gone to Moeller high school and when they were doing well in football she would wear purple all the time to show her support. The other security guy, Vince, who sat at the desk at city Hall, came in and livened up the room with his jokes. He flirted with Linda like he always did. Vince was a jovial dark skinned man with a large gut and a big laugh that showed off his three gold teeth. He had come to Cincinnati from West Virginia and had been a cop for the city until his retirement in 2000. He always sat in a table for too long talking to Linda and reading Tony’s paper before going in at 9 when his shift started.
Beverly didn’t notice the day slipping away from her. She just followed the routine, letting the orders pass by her as she made sure Linda remembered to take water to that table in the far corner, and make sure that Milton got his smoke break before he got cranky.
What Beverly did notice near the end of her shift was the man in the grey slacks and rumpled blue tie that was holding down the booth by the door. It was after the lunch rush that she had noticed him, because the business was dying down. The man had asked for tea instead of coffee and was sitting with his head in his hands. She could tell he hadn’t slept by the haggard look on his face. He would occasionally take a call from his cell phone or call out, but would go back to staring into space as though there were something between his eyes and the wall to hold his attention. He was polite, but he had finished his food an hour ago and he had not left yet. He had taken the newspaper that the security guard had left behind and would flip through it occasionally but it did not seem to interest him enough to actually read any of the articles.
The man was fairly attractive. He had a reddish bronze skin and simple features. He had full cheeks and sharp eyebrows that seemed to spend all their time furrowed in thought. He had a middle to large build with broad shoulders and thick arms. He didn’t seem like a business man, or a lawyer, or any of the young black professional types that usually came through the restaurant. She wondered if he was staying at the Marriot next door, but he seemed comfortable enough to be local.
Beverly wondered what his deal was. He had a very casual nature, but there was a weight to his presence, like he was comfortable no matter where he was, and yet he did not stand out. Beverly felt that if she stopped paying attention at any moment he could vanish from perception but remain sitting right where he was in that little booth, only invisible to all around him. Every time she went into the back Beverly expected him to be gone before she returned. When he wasn’t she was always surprised.
Linda said the man was nice, but he did not seem to have much to do. He would occasionally make a joke to Linda as she passed by or filled his water. Every good while he would order more boiled water and another tea bag and fix himself another cup. Other than that request he seemed to desire nothing else than to politely occupy that booth near the door. His eyes occasionally glancing up to see who was coming or going.
When three o’clock rolled around and he was still there Beverly thought to tell Jabril to ask him to leave. Jabril had arrived at 3:30 like he always did on Fridays, blustering about the dinner menu and some new thing he had seen on the food network and wanted the cook to try to make for the day.
Beverly liked working for Jabril, his energy was contagious but sometimes it could be too much. With the same fervor that he had inspired her to come work for him he could also annoy her to death with his random ideas on how to alter the menu to suit his whim. Beverly wondered if she should point the man in the booth out to Jabril, who would love the opportunity to talk with a customer. Beverly figured that part of the reason that Jabril got into the restaurant business was to entertain people and wander from table to table making introductions. The Café Orisha was like one big dinner party for Jabril, who got the opportunity to retell Atlanta stories as though they were novel, when in fact the stories were probably what cause him to leave Atlanta in the first place. It is hard to live around people who have heard all your stories.
When Jabril was finished congratulating Milton on a well done shift he walked up to Beverly to get the report. At the time Beverly was standing in the doorway to the kitchen staring at the man in rumpled blue tie. Jabril asked her what she was looking at and she told him about the man in the rumpled blue tie who was sitting at the booth by the door since about lunchtime.
Jabril asked “what, did we get a squatter? I can talk to him. Get him out of the booth.” Jabril straitened his own tie, which was a swirled mix of gold, tan and black to complement his sharp khaki colored suit.
He crossed the room to the man, who looked up to see him approach. Beverly watched them talk as Jabril eased down in the seat across from the man. She knew that Jabril would begin with small talk, asking how he liked the restaurant and the food, then talking about how he came down from Atlanta after his divorce with only his suits and a bunch of money from his old business that he wanted to invest in a restaurant.
The man had his back to her from his seat and Beverly wished that he was sitting closer to the back of the restaurant so she could see his face as he talked with Jabril. She already knew what Jabril was going to say, he was predictable. This man though was not. As she watched the man’s head nod she thought of her father.
The man reminded Beverly of her father with his reddish skin that her father said was because of his Indian blood. There was also something about the causal way he filled up his space that put her at ease. She could tell that he wasn’t a harm to anyone, but there was still a manly edge that gave him presence.
She saw Jabril approaching after a while and wondered why he had stopped talking to the man. Jabril put his hand on Beverly’s shoulder as though something were wrong. He said “are you getting out of here soon? You can check out now if you want.”
Beverly looked at him puzzled, “Who is he?” was all she could think to ask.
Jabril said, “Well, I think he wants to tell you himself, he said he’s been waiting there for you to get off shift.”
“I don’t know him.” Beverly protested.
Jabril looked solemn as he put his hand on Beverly’s back and encouraged her towards the booth “I think you should talk to him.” Jabril walked her over to the man and stood her before him. Jabril said, “hey, good to meet you man.” He reached out a hand to shake with the man, who rose for the occasion. Jabril made introductions, “Beverly, this is Mitch Wells. Mitch, this is Beverly Mitchell.”
Beverly gave the man a firm handshake. The man smiled warmly and said “Nice to meet you Beverly, Jabril says some good things about you.”
“Don’t tell her that man, it will ruin my image as a slave driver.” Jabril joked, his voice a little awkward like he was trying to cover something up.
Mitch raised his hands, “My bad, my bad, he only has complaints about you, wants you to work harder is all. Really, nice to meet you, have a seat.”
Beverly asked “Do I know you?”
Jabril excused himself from the conversation quietly, which was not his way. He said to Beverley, “I think I can take over now, and you can check out.”
Mitch said, “I heard you don’t have a car, do you need a ride home?”
Beverley said, “I don’t know you, so why would I let you give me a ride home.”
Mitch nodded. “I’m sorry, I’m being too forward. My name is Mitch Wells, we have not met before, and I wish I could have met you under a different circumstance. As it is I have been up since four this morning dealing with a very important matter that has lead me to you. It is gravely important that you and I talk, and I would prefer it not be where you work. I thought I would sit here and wait until you got off and then catch you on your way out. It was not the most well thought out plan.”
“What do you want?” Beverly felt herself tensing up in her back. It was as though every muscle in her body was ready to fight.
There was a seriousness to Mitch’s face that she did not feel comfortable with. “I really don’t want to do this here, could we at least step outside? I will understand if you don’t want the ride home, but I really don’t want to discuss this here.”
“I am not going anywhere until you tell me what you want.” Beverly squinted at him. She noticed her fingers balled into a fist and told herself to relax, that she was safe within the café.
Mitch put his hands up in a gesture of surrender and said, “I understand,” He sat in the chair and asked “Can you at least sit down, all important matters should be discussed when one is sitting.”
Beverley remained cautious but slid into the booth across from the strange man, who now did not seem so harmless. She said, “What is this about?”
“It’s about Gerald.” Mitch said quietly.
Beverley sighed, almost relieved “What he done done now. Are you a cop, is that it?”
“I am a detective actually, a private detective. Look, Gerald is… There is no easy way to say this.”
“Is he alright?”
“Last night someone got into Gerald’s apartment. They think the person might have used the front door.”
“Is he alright?” Beverly said, her voice more firm, wanting only the answer at this point, more than the story.
“Beverly, Gerald is dead. He was beaten to death with what the police think was a baseball bat…”
Mitch continued talking but the sound in the world went down to a low dull buzz. She looked around the restaurant, expecting to see Linda collecting glasses from the tables. She saw her but did not hear the glasses clinking together. She saw a couple at a far table in conversation but did not hear their voices. She felt her head slowly turning back to Mitch who was still talking, taking short pauses to look into her eyes as he spoke, but she could not hear his voice. He put his hand out to her and she jerked away. Her voice filled her ears as she said “Did you say he was dead?”
Mitch nodded and said what appeared to be yes, but she still could not hear him. She sunk into the booth chair and felt her body tingle all over. Her eyes fogged with water but she did not cry. She felt her heart beginning to pound on the walls of her chest.
If anyone were to ask her later she would say she did not remember exactly how she got into Mitch’s car. She remembered nodding as he spoke calmly and evenly as far as she could tell. She remembered getting up from the table with him and walking back through the restaurant. She saw Jabril who looked sadly at her, with compassion more than pity, he pat her on the shoulder as she walked by. Linda looked to her and grabbed her in a hug. Milton, who was putting on his jacket to walk home came up and clutched her by the shoulder. They were all speaking to her but she could not hear them, she could not understand the words they were saying.
Beverly remembered walking back through the restaurant with her things and walking along side Mitch. He stood close to her with his hands across her back. He was talking, taking those considerate pauses. She nodded and tried to smile at him but couldn’t.
They approached his car, in the lot across the street from the figurine store. He went to open her door and she stopped and tried to think of ways to ignore the last 20 minutes. She tried to think of what it would take to have never met this man, not seen him in the café and been curious about him, to still be expecting Gerald to call when she got off work.
Mitch stood by her as she began to cry in the parking lot, her body shivering heavily. Without a word he embraced her in a hug and they stood there for the longest of moments without anyone saying anything.
