Giving and Receiving

Karen and I saw side by side, desks abutting, at our job. She is petite, reed thin, blond, a charmer, a natural salesperson. I am her near opposite. Short, round, dark, aloof. She is also one of the most intelligent women I know. I mean, she could take her checkbook and at a glance could balance it in her head. Me, I need a calculator, pencil with eraser, and loads of uninterrupted time. And then only after some struggle could I make the numbers balance.

Unfortunately, she was involved in a serious head-on collision in her car and she and her sister were seriously injured, Karen suffering some brain damage. She lost part of her memory (not knowing her family), her ability to do balance her checkbook just by looking at it, and the ability to tell if she were hungry, couldn't remember how to grocery shop or dial a phone. She had to set her the alarm on her watch to remind her it was time to eat. Before that she was literally starving to death because she didn't know she was hungry. It was only after serious weight loss and fainting that the doctors realized she lost her sense of hunger.

What she was left with, however, was the ability to see auras. I suppose that sounds very "new age" and reeks of women in long flowing gowns, draped in clunky semi-precious and precious jewels that represented their chakras, reading tarot cards, and casting spells. Karen was not like that and she took umbrage at being compared to pseudo psychics. She showed up to work every day in her business suit, wearing closed toe pumps, flesh toned hose, and blouses that were buttoned up to her neck. Her long blond hair was pulled back into a neat, low, pony tail, and her gaze was direct and her smile, when given, was sincere. The only difference was that she could look at you and see fogs of colors swirling around you and the colors had meaning. She could look into your heart and know your character.

Colors had positive and negative aspects and it was only if you had situational knowledge that you could know the color's significance. Without even being aware, we speak intuitively of color's meanings. For example, green was a nurturer or a healer; it could also mean someone who was "green with envy;" red meant passion or anger as in "seeing red" ; blue was peace but it could also mean depression, "feeling blue." And black had only one meaning, evil, a soul devoid of any light.

She could see if a person had guardian angels or spirits about them. She could see into the future. She saw past lives, but because it went against every religious precept she was taught, she reviled the idea of past and future lives and refused to lift the curtain to see what was there. She would become physically ill if images appeared in her mind.

"It's a burden to know so much about people," she emphasized to me. "I don't want to know how shallow and mean people are or how they are not living up to their potential if they only had the courage to follow their dreams. God must cry every day. There is nothing I can do with this knowledge. It is too painful and too awful to bear. I don't want it. I want the doorway that gives me this ability to close and never open again. I don't care what else I have to forget as long as I don't have to have this anymore." She gave me a woeful look. "Your angels, or spirits, or whatever you want to call them, talk to you all the time and are frustrated that you don't listen."

"I don't know how to listen, and I'm not sure I want to learn to hear what they're saying. Don't want a chorus of angels telling me what a screw up I am. I think that's why God made my mother," I quipped.

Karen, undeterred, pressed her point. "Wait, you need to know something important. You have an angel over your shoulder who wants you to know something."

"I don't want to know that I'm going to Hell. I'd rather wait and let that be a surprise."

"One of your other angels is laughing. He says he's the one who shares your weird sense of humor." Karen looked beyond me, nodded and smiled at nothing. (I know because I turned to see what she was looking at.) Nothing there that I could see anyway.

"OK, I'll listen and if it's something I like, then I'll think you're right. If it's something I don't like, I'll think you're making it up."

"It's a lesson you need to learn."

I felt my resistance rising.

"Don't shut me out," Karen admonished. "You need to hear this. Do you believe that God blesses us?"

"Yes, of course."

"Do you think He's like Santa Claus and makes personal visits to everyone's house?"

"Well....sort of. I don't think He wears a red suit or has a long white beard, though I could be wrong about the beard. I think He says "let there be light" and the lights come on. I think He answers prayers. Don't tell me He has a prayer committee."

Karen smiled. "Your angels are laughing again. They want me to hurry up and get to the point. Okay. Sometimes God uses people to bless others. Do you know what I mean by that?"

"Baptism? Confession?"

"Quit being a smart-mouth." Karen crossed her legs and faced me straight on, looking grim and proper. "No, let's say you needed $5,000 and you won $5,000 in the lottery. Would you say that you were blessed and would you accept it?"

"Of course! Are you telling me I'm winning $5,000?"

She ignored the question. "Let's say you needed $5,000 and your mother offered you $5,000 and you knew that it was important to her to give it to you would you accept it?"

"Probably not. I know how hard she would've worked to save it, all the sacrifices she made to be able to offer it. She's worked hard her entire life; her life has been difficult at best. I want her to enjoy her money and to do something that's important to her. No way could I take her money. I'd find another way."

Karen nodded in understanding. "You would turn it down, knowing full well how much she wanted to give it to you and how important it was to her that you accept it?"

"Absolutely. No way could I accept that kind of money from my mother."

Did it occur to you that God might be using your mother as His envoy or courier to bless you? And now you have turned away His blessing and gift? Also did it ever occur to you that when someone tries to do something nice for you, it may not be about you but it may be that they have to be a blessing to others so that they can be blessed in return. By turning them down you are postponing a blessing that they might need."

"I can't possibly accept every gift that someone tries to give me. I don't have the means to return the favor. It's much easier for me to thank someone for their kindness and not have that feeling of obligation."

"You're not supposed to accept every gift that comes your way. Not every so-called gift is from God. You have to have your eyes open to see the difference." Karen shifted in her seat. "Your angel is saying that when it's right you need to learn and develop a sense of gratitude and graciousness." Karen looked hazily past me again. "Not everyone expects something in return you know." Sometimes people just want the good feeling that comes with being kind or generous or knowing that they've somehow helped a friend, or maybe they are repaying a debt by helping you. But by refusing them you are not allowing them to advance spiritually. Also you're telling God that His blessings aren't good enough for you."

"Maybe," I said as noncommittally as I could.

Karen smiled. "And then sometimes you have to gift in return because you are supposed to provide the greater good. It's confusing. That's all I know."

That conversation took place years ago, and it's one I've long remembered and thought on. I've since switched jobs a half dozen times perhaps, meeting new people, making new friends. At my current job I have a friend named Sharon. Sharon is a Gardener. We are talking a couple acres (or more!) of gorgeous flowering plants that she tends with a loving eye. Flowers of all kinds everywhere blooming everywhere.

She came to work one day, and said, "I have too many flowers. They are crowding each other out. I'm digging them up to thin them out. Do you want them? If you don't take them, I'm throwing them away." She is very direct and succinct like that.

Well, if she's throwing them away.... "Oh, I'd love them! I've been wanting flowers for the house since I bought it. I buy one or two plants a year, but my flower "garden" seems to be confined to window boxes."

"Bring your Jeep. We'll fill it up."

Silly me, I thought she was exaggerating, but I should have known better. By the time she stuffed my Jeep full of plants, (roses, phlox, iris, heather, bee balm, clematis, lamb's ear, to name a few) there was barely room for me to sit in the front seat. I couldn't see out of any of the side windows and I was being stuck in the back of my head with rose stems. My car smelled earthy and flowery and heavenly.

For the longest time I had envisioned flowers growing in my yard, and now, Sharon has blessed me with her kindness and generosity. She says I did her a favor by accepting the plants.

Worth My Time?

I used to be a commissioned insurance sales person. It was a job I was coerced into; I didn't like it; I was extremely resentful because of unfortunate circumstances that forced me to be there. I showed up every day but I was determined to punish and exact some satisfaction of revenge on my employer by failing to meet sales goals and deftly, and oh so cleverly, turning away clients. In the end I was the one who suffered my few commissioned sales and a miserly paycheck and a miserable future.

However, while I was so cleverly cutting off the branch on which I was standing, I discovered I had a knack for listening to people and drawing them out. The more I listened, the more people wanted to talk. In a job where potential and established clients were supposed to be hustled in and out as if we were in a 20-items or less checkout line, my clients lingered and shared some of their most intimate and amazing thoughts. That lady there? She was molested by her uncle when she was seven. That widow? Loved her husband but glad he's gone because now she's free to do as she has always wanted to be. That teenager? Hates his stepdad and his mother for marrying him and is driving angry, building up points on his license. And the elderly gentleman and his beautiful wife, still happily married after 45 years, holding hands, reinforcing my hope that love does endure and that marriage is tender bond.

My employer disapproved of the length of time I expended, as time was money; criticism and subsequent training flowed. It was made abundantly clear that my time was to be spent in making them money, and as it turns out in making me money too, though I was too stubborn to admit it, too late in seeing that I was hurting myself financially and personally, and too stubborn to relieve us all of my anger and seek employment elsewhere.

One afternoon, a young man, in his mid-30's, of Indian culture judging from his liquid black eyes, brown skin and musical accent, came into the office, seeking auto insurance on a newly acquired vehicle. It had been a slow day for me, perhaps I had had only one client earlier and no one scheduled for the rest of the day. My time was his, and I was grateful for the distraction and for the opportunity to look busy. He handed me the paperwork to register and title his vehicles, I scanned it, noting that the buyer's name and signatures were omitted.

At first he seemed pleasant enough, and the transaction was one I had done hundreds of times and I could virtually complete in my sleep. I asked him for his name, which he promptly provided, picked up my pen to fill in the missing information on the forms. "No, wait!" he interrupted. "I want this to be in my wife's name."

"Okay," I readily agreed (giving the customer what he wants is paramount to making a sale). "But your wife will have to sign the forms."

"She doesn't know I bought the car but I want her to have it." He leaned over the desk, his upper body touching the desk top as he gave me a pleading look.

"The laws are pretty strict, I'm sorry. I can't put a vehicle in your wife's name without her written signatures. We just can't go about registering and titling vehicles in another person's name. Imagine the possible disastrous consequences."

He was not mollified. "If something happens to me, I want her to have the vehicle," he persisted.

"If something happens to you, this vehicle will become part of your estate, and if there are no children, will go to your wife. It's a bit of a hullabaloo, but from personal experience, it does eventually work out. I must caution you that your best advice is from a lawyer. Or you can ask your wife to come in and we can put everything in her name then, or we can put the paperwork in both names and then you can take it to your wife and she can also sign."

"Things are so different in this country," he said. "I am from India." His voice was trailed off. "I miss my country. I married my wife who is American, and we came here to live. She told me that there was so much opportunity here, but I cannot find one job. In my country, I was an accountant, like your CPAs. My degrees are not accepted here. I have applied many many times." Two hours slipped by as he spoke of his beloved country and family and of his difficulties in adapting to American life.

"Do you know H&R Block? I see that they are always advertising for people to do tax returns. I don't know anything about them, other than they're a huge outfit. I know people without accounting degrees who work for them. Certainly with your knowledge and their training, you could find a position there. Perhaps you could eventually consult or open your own office. Perhaps the answer is not necessarily to work for another but to work for yourself?"

He body straightened and his eyes brightened. "Yes, I will check out H&R Block." He stared thoughtfully at the papers in my hand. "We will put the vehicle in my name."

In a course of ten minutes I had completed and applied the appropriate stamps and he went on his way.

The office manager, a woman with a booming voice, swung her hips, like flashing caution signals, down the aisle to my desk. "Took you long enough. How much money did you make?"

"He ended up buying minimal insurance; he's unemployed." I squirmed beneath her glare but nevertheless felt a slight perverse delight at her annoyance with me.

"Then he wasn't worth your time. We don't want minimum insurance clients."

I don't remember how much time had passed, two, three, four months, but he showed up at my desk again, registration plates in hands. "I want to cancel the auto insurance," he said as he handed the bug-and-mud encrusted plates to me. "I am going back to India." He did not sit this time, poised as if rushed.

"Oh, how lovely!" I said.

He shrugged in resignation. "Yes, I shall see my family, but my wife will not return with me. We have decided to divorce. I do not like it here and she does not like it there. There is no other way."

"Oh, I am sorry that it didn't work out for you. You have had many difficult decisions. I hope that this one will bring you happiness."

"Yes, many difficult decisions." His eyes were so dark that I could not discern the pupil; his gaze was soft and liquid. "May I tell you something?" I nodded, not taking my eyes from his. "Do you remember when I came here the first time, and I wanted to put the vehicle in my wife's name?"

"Yes, and we put everything in your name."

"I wanted everything in my wife's name because I wanted her to have the car and everything else that was mine. I had planned to register the car in her name and then go home and commit suicide. I did not want any problems for her. I was so discouraged, no friends, no family, no job. But after talking with you, you gave me so much hope, that I changed my mind. And now I go home. I could have taken the plates to the Registry myself, but I wanted to see you and to thank you."

He extended a hand and we shook hands, clasping each other's hand longer than is socially acceptable for a polite handshake. I wished him well and he left.

As soon as he was out of earshot and eyesight the bosomy office manager was at my desk again. She stared fixedly at the registration plates. "Turning in his plates and cancelling his insurance! I warned you that we don't want minimum insurance clients. He just wasn't worth your time."

A Perfect Moment

Mao, my sweet and beautiful Colombian friend, was curious about relationships between men and women. He was intrigued with the rituals and rites of romance and courtship. He startled me one day by asking how does a man propose to a woman, does the man really get down on bended knee. I said not always, though my husband did when he asked me.

Mao reflected on that. "When a man offers a woman a ring, she usually says yes. Even if she doesn't want the man; she wants to flash around the diamond ring."

"Not me. I said no."

Mao's black eyes flashed. "You are supposed to say, yes, Kah-thee! It is bad manners to say no. It takes a lot of courage for the man to propose."

"Perhaps, but I never, ever wanted to be married."

Mao gave me his brightest smile, eyes sparkling. "But you married him."

I signed. "Yes, he wore me down until I said yes."

"That's how it should be." He grunted in final approval.

I smiled at his Latin machismo. Perhaps in his culture that was the way. This little old Yankee girl had different ideas.

"I read somewhere that in everyone's life there is one perfect romantic moment. What was your most romantic moment? Was it with your husband?"

I thought back. How much do I share? "My husband was an intellectual, Mao, a good man in many, many ways. He didn't have a sense of humor and he really wasn't romantic, but I knew I was loved. He just showed it in different ways. But there was a time after that, when I was in college..." I drifted off, embarrassed. "After my Daniel died, I decided to go back to college and pursue a degree in English. I was taking a poetry class and as part of our grade, the class had to present original poetry to the entire college. There was a man there, a classmate, who presented his poems after mine, and they were all love poems. I didn't know it at the time, but they were written for me."

"Why aren't you with him! That is very romantic! That took a lot of courage to stand up there in front of everyone!! Kah-thee!! Women love a man to do that for them!"

"You're right. When I finally understood his poetry was meant for me and not just a homework assignment to pass the course, I was extremely flattered. And it truly was one of the finest moments of my life. But I had to turn him away and tell him he could only be my friend. I had to." I could feel Mao sizzle in disapproval and disappointment. "He was married. He had children. We're still friends. That is enough."

Mao slumped a little, saddened by my story of unrequited love, and I gave him a quick hug and a laugh and forgot about the conversation. Days later when I went to pick him up for work (we commuted to work together and I drove), Mao called me from the second-story porch of his apartment. "Kah-tee!" he yelled down. "I need you to come and stand under the porch." I was running a little late and felt impatient that he was delaying me even longer, but I did as I was bid. "Wait, stand right there!" he instructed as I was about to step onto the first floor porch deck. I need to be able to see you!." He disappeared for a moment, and gave me a beatific smile. "I have something I want to give you!" He held a long-stem yellow rose in his hand. "I want to give you a romantic moment! I am going to toss this rose down to you and I want you to catch it?"

"Does it have thorns?" I teased.

"Kah-thee, this is the perfect romantic moment, like in the movies. I am doing this for you," he gently chided. "You do not ask about thorns in the perfect romantic moment! It is not right!"
The rose fell from his hand and sashayed through the air, dipping and twirling, until I caught it over my head.

I clasped the rose and brought it to my nose and sniffed its delicate fragrance. "Mao, this is beautiful! Thank you! I shall remember this forever!"

"I wanted to be the one to give you the perfect moment!" he said triumphantly.

I smiled. How fortunate and blessed I am. Love, even misguided, is a gift. Two perfect romantic moments that could make the world stop: love poems that filled my heart, spoken in a filled auditorium, by a married man, and a yellow rose tossed from a second story porch by a man who shared my love of men.

Love Endures All Things

My oldest brother, Mike, was speaking of our grandmother, our father's mother. Mary Birdena Hussey was her birth name, though most everyone in the family called her Dena. There were some who called her Mary, her coworkers. doctor, bank teller, the meter reader and such, but to me and my two brothers, she was Grammy, and Grammy was her most cherished name of all.

"I just came back from the nursing home," he said. "She looks like she's doing okay, getting thinner, and she cries and begs to come home. She worked and sacrificed her entire life for the family and now all she remembers is her own name, and she says it over and over. She doesn't know who I am but she knows I'm someone who can take her back home. I feel so guilty about leaving her there when she's done so much for us. I hate Alzheimer's!" he hissed vehemently.

I felt his pain subside as I waited quietly for him to go on. I understood too well about why she said her name over and over; it was one of my secret guilts that I didn't tell him.

Grammy and I were outside in her yard, enjoying a beautiful New England summer day. She took my hand as she often did and held it and then brought it to her lips and she kissed the palm of my hand. "I think I'm losing my mind," she said.

"Grammy, I don't think you're losing your mind," I assured her, panic seizing me like no other panic I had ever experienced. "Tell me, what's your name?" I threw an arm around her and hugged her until she squealed with delight. She loved being loved. I loved loving her. The fear of losing her was incomprehensible.

She laughed, "Mary Birdena."

"See, you're okay. People who are losing their mind can't remember their name. As long as you know your name, you're just fine." Her large hazel eyes peered deeply into my dark brown ones, to see if I were telling her the truth, and she seemed satisfied.

"It's just that I seem so forgetful lately...but okay. I'll know I'm fine as long as I remember my name..."

"Grant and I were talking about Gram," Mike continued, " and what we remember most about her. You know how there's usually one thing that you remember the most about a person?"

I hadn't thought to define Grammy's essence and spirit with a single memory and I was a little irked by the thought that someone could be summed up so succinctly; but it was a curious statement. "What do you mean?"

"Well," he said, "when I think of Grammy, I think of her as always offering me an apple. Every time I went to her house, she always offered me an apple. I'd say I didn't want it, but she'd make me take it. Grant says she was always giving him canned peaches. Remember how she always had canned peaches and pears and fruit cocktail under the sink cabinet?" Yes, I could clearly see her badly yellowed, white enameled sink, two cabinets, one each side, one for pots and pans on one side and canned goods in the other. She kept creamed corn in there for me when she made chicken fricassee for Sunday dinners. "What do you remember?"

"Those creme-filled vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate sugar wafer cookies, I suppose." That was not what I remembered the most about her, but it's what I said. "She always kept a secret stash of them in her white dish cabinet." She also kept a stash of rainbow colored gross grained ribbons for my long hair that she loved. The baby books she kept of me had dozens of pictures of the back of my head because she loved my long dark hair.

"Gram always loved you best. How come she never loved me and Grant as much as you?"

It's too complicated, really, to understand and explain family dynamics between siblings, I thought. I said, "I suppose because it's easier to relate to another female, because I'm the one who spent the most time with her, because Dad loves you best and because Mom loves Grant best, because Grammy always wanted a daughter and had a jackass for a son. She loves all of us, just differently. She and I just had more in common, that's all."

Mike thought on it for a moment, and said "Trade you Dad for Gram. She can teach me how to cook and you can learn to drive a dump truck."

"No deal," I said.

It was a six-hour ride one way to the nursing home to visit my grandmother in Vermont. Connie, my boyfriend, was keen that we should see her as often as we could while we could and we'd make the trip once a month or so. The residents would crowd around us, vieing for scraps of our attention, asking if we knew where their children were, asking us to come back.

I would trim Grammy's nails (she was always particular that her nails should be short) and comb her hair "extra pretty." Her eyes would light up, and she'd smile broadly as I assured her that she was the most beautiful Grammy in the whole entire world.

As we would get ready to leave, she would always beg me to "take her home" and promise "I'll be good, please take me with you," and the guilt at not being able to take care of her, to take care of her as I imagined she would have done for me, would be so overwhelming and suffocating that I would leave a sobbing, wretched mess.

The Alzheimer's progressed rather quickly once she was diagnosed. When she first went to the nursing home, it was just to provide her with assistance for her daily activities as she could not cook for herself or attend to her financial needs. As time went by, the bright light faded from her eyes and she lost the ability to speak but a few words. I could see her trying to remember how to speak, her lips twitching, but only indiscernible sound coming out.

At the end, we went to see her to ensure her care. I still filed her nails and made her "extra pretty" and told her she was the most beautiful Grammy in the world. She seemed happy for the attention, patting my hair, and eagerly accepting my kisses, holding my hand in her frail one as we walked the nursing home hallways. My brother Mike stopped going "because she doesn't recognize me anymore." I tried to tell him that Grant and I didn't go and visit Grammy because I thought she would recognize us, we went because I still recognized and loved her.

Do we know when it's the last time we shall see a person on this earth? I think some might and that this knowledge is a gift that is the greatest on this earth. A blessing from God to his children. Was it in October? Perhaps. I remember autumn in it's magnificent orange, red and golden splendor. Vermont fields once green, now beige and flaxen, a warm shining sun, but not the hot sun of July. A breeze with the faintest hint of coolness. The languidness of summer fading.

As Connie and I entered the nursing home, I saw Grammy sitting at the piano that was in their recreation area. In her mind she was playing a tune that only she could hear. Her knobby fingers ran up and down the keys, her eyes were closed. (The nursing home had unplugged the piano long ago as she played the same chords incessantly, to the annoyance of everyone in earshot; they couldn't get rid of the piano, but they certainly stopped the sound). As if she knew we were there, she opened her eyes and looked straight at me and stood straight up in unrestrained delight. She scurried as quickly as she could to me, arms open, lips pursed in an anticipated kiss.

I scooped her up, lifted her lightly off her feet, in a mad hug, being careful not to break her fragile body. I set her back down, and the life and the light was back in her eyes. Her lips twitched and little grunts came out. She reached up, cupped my face in her deeply wrinkled and heavily veined hands, and poured herself into my eyes. "Love," she croaked. I immediately started to sob uncontrollably. She patted my hair, as she had so often done when I was little. "Pretty," she barely mumbled. I was holding onto her for dear life, my heart bearing the greatest pain I ever knew. I could hear Connie crying behind me, blowing his nose. Grammy squirmed away from me, reached into her skirt pocket, searching for some little treasure.

She put her clutched fist into my open hand; I looked to see what she had give me. And there it lay, a little cellophane packet of graham crackers, crumbled and crushed. She closed my fingers around it and once again peered endlessly into my eyes.

Honor Among Thieves

Keith looked across the chasm of our adjoining desks, leaned across his desk into my workspace, and blurted in a whisper, "I've spent time in prison." He threw himself back in his chair, crossed his arms in front of his chest. He gave me his five-front-teeth-only smile and his deep brown shone in a perverse humor intended to shock me.

It worked. I tried to repress my knee jerk surprise, but I knew my eyes were wide and my face frozen in a stupid look with my mouth gaped open. Finally, I was able to utter, "Oooooohh..." I had long before surmised that Keith was likely a recovering drug user, someone who had lost his way and was struggling to get back He had a saunter and a chip on his shoulder; he was quick to anger, and just as quick to laugh. He had his own set of ideas about right and wrong. He could look you straight in the eye until you looked away first. He was emaciated looking, smoked too much, could be crude in speech and manner when it struck him to be so, could be gentle and kind if one were gentle and kind with him. He was a drifter, had been homeless. He was a loner in a room full of people. He sat at his desk with his headset on, listening to talk radio, occasionally blurting out answers to quiz questions and political opinion polls.

He was my work mentor. I was in a job that was a poor fit. Map making required someone with strong analytical and spatial skills, measuring and recording roads, time and distance using instruments and published resources. To me, time and distance is measured by feeling and intuition. A road is a journey. My heart is my instrument that guides me. An odd friendship and respect bloomed, Keith was spatial and I was, according to him, spacey.

Keith roared with unrestrained delight, and disapproving faces turned to see who was laughing in this grim place called The Workplace. He stared them all down one of his F* You looks until everyone turned back to their work. I secretly admired that and wish I knew how to do it, too.

"Sooooo, why were you a guest of the state?"

"For starting up my own church."

"You're a minister?" I was dumbstruck. I never would have taken him for a man of the cloth.

"No, that was part of the problem." Keith was clearly enjoying dragging out the story, his smile wider and his eyes glittering. "I ain't no altar boy."

"So, I'm beginning to see. How could you ever end up in jail for ministering a church?"

"Well, I seemed to have "ministered" to myself with the church's money."

"Keith! How could you ever conceive of doing such a thing? That's just not right!"

He pulled out the front of his tee shirt and buried his laugh into his chest at my naivete. " Seems like others agree with you. I can't believe people got so mad about it when you consider how pretty stupid and trusting they are. I only gave them what they wanted. They wanted answers and I gave them answers. I don't see anything wrong with that. They wanted to believe in what I said and they wanted to give me money to say it. So I let them. It was simple. I used to drive a white Cadillac in those days."

"You are a very bad man!" I decreed, disgusted with him. He smiled sadly at me and I gave him an apologetic smile in return.

Changing the subject, he said, "Know how I got this job?"

"I am afraid to ask."

"Remember on the job application they asked if you spoke any foreign languages?" I nodded my head. I had written "some Spanish" on mine. "I don't speak no foreign languages, figured they wouldn't hire anyone like me, so to be a wise guy I wrote "Ebonics. Do you know what Ebonics is?"

"Yes, it's commonly called "black" English."

Now it was Keith's turn to be surprised. "Not too many white people know that word. Well, the human resources person didn't know, and when she saw it, she was impressed that I could speak "Ebonics." She went on and on about I was the only person she ever met who could speak such a little known language."

I didn't mean to, but I started to laugh. "You correct her?"

"I needed this job. My two dogs and I were living in my car. We needed to eat. That HR lady and me were both bluffing each other. She tried to show off by letting me know she knew that Ebonics was some dead language like Latin and she needed someone who could speak another language. We both got what we wanted."

I begrudgingly acknowledged his point. "Giving up on the church founding business?"

A huge grin. "I never did look good in a white robe. Miss that white Caddy though...."

"Keith!" I admonished. I looked at my watch, it was the dinner hour. "Look, I'm starving. Want to go to lunch?"

The invitation surprised us both and for once Keith was the one who was dumbstruck. "That is very nice. You are the only one here who has ever asked me to lunch in the whole year I've been here. " I started to say something but he cut me off. "But I cannot go with you. You are a nice lady and I would damage your reputation if you were friends with someone like me. I am a bad man, but you have been kind. Go find some nice friends." Keith put his head set on and shut me out.

At the same time my regular lunch pals came over to gather me up and go to lunch. As we were headed towards the cafeteria, one of them leaned over and whispered, "Be careful of that one. He's no good, hasn't got a decent bone in his body."