How I Got Over
BY LN LEWIS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LN Lewis is a Detroit-based writer whose work has appeared in Jet Fuel, Untenured, Sundial Magazine, Wrath-Bearing Tree and the anthologies Stories to Change the World; Streetlights: Illuminating Tales of the Urban Black Experience and Undeniable: Writers Respond to Climate Change. February through March 2022, LN Lewis was an Artist Associate at the Atlantic Center for the Arts under the guidance of writer, Jaquira Diaz. LN’s stories, “One Summer Day” and “Her Boyfriend Felipe” have been nominated for the 2024 Pushcart Prize.
In “How I Got Over,” LN tells the story of a woman who is unexpectedly thrown into a situation that causes her to reconnect with 30-year-old anger and a desire for vengeance. Ultimately, she finds her way through the anger to find forgiveness and a recognition of her blessings.
How I Got Over
A Short Story
© 2023
Below her, floral carpeting in green and gold. Flanking her, saffron walls trimmed with cream. And overhead, vast chandeliers dripping crystal pendants. Just like in the brochure. Just like in the personal tour.
A motorized palanquin—$2,100 with a ten percent discount from Curry Medical Supply—ferries Shirlene Lauder, resplendent in her lavender pants suit and new wig, to her debut breakfast at Hacienda del Oro Independent Living. Gabriel trots beside her in her stilettos as Shirlene glides through the parted French doors into the dining room, a configuration of round tables set with linen, china and fresh flowers. In wheelchairs or seated beside walkers or canes, the throng chats, sipping coffee or digging into eggs and fruit cups. Shirlene bestows smiles and nods and a few residents nod back. A girl in a green uniform approaches.
“Good morning, Ms. Lauder! We have a seat for you at this table—”
They commence their greetings before Shirlene is full in place. Jenny, apple-cheeked with short, fire red hair and as round and wide as Shirlene, calls, “Hello there!” Flora is Jenny’s opposite, gaunt and pale with eyes magnified by colorless glasses and a surprisingly loud voice: “Welcome to Hacienda,” she veritably bellows. And Ana Belén, a dumpling of a woman with ink black hair piled on top of her head, adds, “Nice to meet you. Please tell me your name again.”
“Shirlene. And this is my oldest daughter, Gabriel. Gabriel works for A.B.R.E. Group in Century City. That’s real estate. Gabriel’s husband is a lawyer.”
Gabriel positions the scooter so Shirlene has a view of nearly the entire room, kisses her on the cheek and then strides off, passing a woman in a wheelchair. Across the distance of the dining room and through the span of thirty-two years, Shirlene recognizes the woman’s face and chokes.
“Are you okay?” Flora asks.
“I’m fine,” gasps Shirlene. “Juice went down the wrong way…” She catches her breath, focusing more intently.
“My son works at Coinbase and my granddaughter just won a ribbon for equestrian arts—” declares Ana Belén.
“My grandson is teaching English in Peru!” Jenny announces.
“My granddaughters belly dance—” Flora proclaims.
Now Shirlene remembers that heifer’s name and the full experience they shared floods her mind. Clarice Wally. If that was her real name. Who knows?
Clarice Wally was little and brown-skinned back in the day, too. She had sashayed into Mount Olive Holiness Baptist Church of Inglewood the Sunday after Easter, 1991, in a tight, flouncy pink dress with a pink hat cocked to the side. The couple of men in the church about broke their necks looking at her, including the deacon, old enough to be her daddy. Shirlene had on a black and white striped knit dress she had bought at K-Mart a few years before and that Larry had stained with some grape juice, which she had mostly got out, but anyone who looked hard enough could see it. Worse, the dress was tight, because every baby put another ten pounds on her. When she was young, boys told her, “You dark, but you pretty.” In 1991, she hadn’t heard that in years. So, all the Christian in Shirlene dried up and she just sat with Michael, the twins Raphael and Uriel, Saltiel, Jehudiel, Barachiel and Larry, glowering at that heifer in pink.
After saying goodbye to the reverend after church, she walked her children out into the broiling Los Angeles haze. That woman and Saltiel were talking under a magnolia tree leaning over the parking lot. “Mama, Ms. Wally is going to hire me!” Even at fifteen, Saltiel was attractive, confident and inclined to presume that her dreams and wishes were fact.
“Ain’t nobody hiring you,” snapped Shirlene. “You got track team and you got to write that paper.”
“Can I work for her, Mama?” asked Michael. Two years older and a foot taller than Saltiel, Michael willing to do anything that could bring him closer to owning some Air Jordans.
“Why you trying to hire my children?”
Undeterred by Shirlene’s stone face, the sweet smile under the pink hat made an introduction. “Sister, my name is Clarice. Clarice Wally. And praise Jesus, I just got the best new job. I never thought I’d be making this kind of money.”
Shirlene was about to ask Clarice Wally where she worked when the sonic boom reverberating from the sound system of a passing Ford Bronco cut her off.
If asked to look back and identify to the year when music went straight to hell, Shirlene Lauder would point to 1991, the start of a decade when her children sucked their teeth and rolled their eyes at her car radio, tuned to an AM oldies station that cranked out Al Green, Gladys Knight, the Supremes and the Chi-Lites.
More and more frequently, Shirlene caught her children listening to stuff like the mess pounding out of that Bronco, performers and groups with strange names like NBA, Dr. Draw, Ice Pick, Ice Dog ... Hearing loss that would be diagnosed decades later made their lyrics even more incomprehensible to Shirlene. It sounded like “Itch, because I’m Debbie Bobbin— ”
After the thunder receded, Clarice Wally said, “I work for a boutique baking company, Strictly Sweet Potato Pie and I need help doing delivery.”
“Gabriel, my oldest girl, is at—” Shirlene slowly drew out the name: “University … of ... California … San. Diego. And …” She gestured to her seven other children. “They following her. Their job is school. Now if you want me to help …”
Clarice Wally examined Shirlene doubtfully. “It’s a lot of footwork and we go all over. Can you handle that?”
Girl ... thought Shirlene … Can I handle that? She was cooking and selling plates of food and picking cotton when she was eleven. Her family left Arkansas and moved to California, where she picked strawberries, green beans, cantaloupe and tomatoes. She had worked cash registers, stocked inventory, scrubbed toilets, waited tables, wiped behinds, processed chickens and sold subscriptions. In 1991, she was pulling forty-eight hours a week, graveyard, doing security at an LAX parking lot. But more work for good money? Heck yeah.
Clarice Wally took Shirlene’s phone number and said she’d be in touch.
Over the Hacienda del Oro intercom, a woman excitedly exclaims, “Events of the Day! At 9:30 a.m., join us for Wii bowling in the Den. At 10 a.m., Get Aerobic with Emily in the Wellness Room! And at 10:30, you can try your luck with Bingo in the Activities Room!” Shirlene never misses a chance to play Bingo.
At 10:20 a.m., Shirlene leaves her apartment and rides the elevator down to a sunny room filled with tropical plants, motivational posters and watercolors. She surveys residents crowded around tables, steers her scooter and parks next to her target, slowly pivoting to glare at the woman in pink sweatpants, Hello Kitty t-shirt and bifocals. The lustrous, black curls have turned sparse and iron gray, but it is unmistakably her. Shirlene hisses, “I got a taste for some sweet potato pie.”
Clarice Wally giggles.
On an early, April morning in 1991, her shiny-new, white Ford Taurus honked at Shirlene’s raggedy, Morton Avenue bungalow. That day, Clarice Wally wore a short, curve-hugging, leopard print dress and the rearview mirror was angled at Gucci sunglasses perched on her nose. Her left hand played with her black curls and her right hand pressed against her head. Clarice Wally was talking to someone, but Shirlene could not figure out to whom.
“I love them, sugar. Absolutely love them, your fineness. Your royal fineness. Sweetness. Mr. Big Money. But I got to ask you one thing, babeee. Are these Gucci Guccis, or are these San Pedro Street vendor Guccis?”
Clarice Wally snatched a small, black panel away from her ear as if it had scalded her, and Shirlene could hear the device emit a staticky stream of curses. Clarice Wally returned the unit to her ear and purred into its mouthpiece, “Sweet daddy … sexy papi … you know I was playing. You know how much I appreciate you, how much I love everything you do …” She finally disconnected and exhaled, “Got damn.”
“I never seen one of them phones before in real life,” commented Shirlene. “Just on tv and in movies.”
Clarice Wally shoved it in a Louis Vuitton bag. “Yeah. Mo-bile phone. The latest and greatest.” She grimaced at Shirlene’s L.A. Raiders t-shirt and too-tight stirrup pants. “That’s what you wearing?”
An hour later, outside Eastland Shopping Center, Clarice Wally ordered Shirlene to “wait here” and switched her leopard print dress into the mall, leaving Shirlene to examine the Taurus, immaculate and lemon-scented instead of reeking stale French fries, it was clearly the car of a woman with no children, small or grown. In the backseat sat two coolers, one empty and other full of clamshell containers, small-sized for probably just one slice, and large-sized, surely for a whole pie, all taped up tight and labeled with letters and numbers. But the coolers were ice-free and warm, and the cinnamon-and-butter, sweet potato aroma drifted only through Shirlene’s imagination. Maybe Clarice Wally would let her have a slice.
She returned carrying Ross bags. Shirlene thanked her profusely, pulling on a flowing, blue and purple top with butterfly sleeves, elastic waist jeans and blue Nikes. Everything fit, except the Nikes, which were a little narrow. Next, Clarice Wally held out a new Benjamin.
“This is an advance. You do a good job, you get one more, and maybe we can do this on the regular.” Over the lowered sunglasses, Clarice Wally gave Shirlene a prolonged, profound assessment. “Maybe I’m telling you this a too little too soon, but we need people like you. People with work ethic. With the attitude you got, you could move up. You could make deliveries on your own. And that’s when you make the real money.”
“Yes, Miz Clarice,” Shirlene said fervently. “That’s me. That’s my middle name. Work ethic.” Shirlene stuck the Bennie deep down in her bra, mentally adding it to her rent money. Fifty more would replace at least one of the four threadbare tires on her 1980 Impala station wagon, and she would send the rest to Gabriel.
“You a godsend, Ms. Clarice.”
Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, Uriel, Saltiel, Jehudiel, Barachiel and probably even ten-year-old Larry could have told Shirlene that the Jeep idling next to them at a stop light was banging Slick Rick, but all she could hear was “Grabbed a pretty lady and put it in automatic—”
To Shirlene’s relief, Clarice Wally clicked on the oldies station, because all attempts at conversation had died. Now it was just “yeah” and “uh huh,” all business, so Shirlene sat back and enjoyed the air conditioning and Otis Redding as they headed east on Interstate 10, past billboards, outlet malls and subdivisions, and then through San Bernandino County’s desert scattered with scrub brush and Joshua trees. A highway patrol car rocketed past them.
“They don’t like Black people out here. Cops do a Ronny King out here,” murmured Shirlene.
“Rodney King. And if you act right, they act right,” Clarice Wally replied as the Taurus climbed an offramp. Minutes later, they were rolling down tarmac past large, ranch-style homes ringed by yucca, palms and avocado trees, and Clarice Wally was slowly pulling into a long driveway. She parked, reached back into a cooler and handed two boxes to Shirlene.
“Just ring the doorbell.”
These are some heavy pies, thought Shirlene, as she followed the walkway to the imposing, mission-style house. An electronic buzz answered the doorbell, and she cautiously opened the carved wooden door to face a solid, closed second door in a brightly lit, windowless entry way. A closed circuit camera, like in a convenience store, aimed at her and she was startled by a loud, crisp male voice projecting from a small, white intercom.
“Leave the boxes. Take the manila envelope.”
“That was different …” said Shirlene, back in the car. Clarice Wally dropped the envelope in the empty cooler and told her that their next destination was “not far. Just a couple of minutes.” But they got stuck behind an accident and after getting clear of that, they were on the 10 West for a solid hour, all the way to the southbound 710, which was no ordeal in this cool, clean car without seven kids hollering in her ears as she sang along to her music, looked out at mountains and golf courses, industrial parks and megamalls and tried to ignore a twinge of unease. That house back there was downright strange, but this was first day, she hoped, of many years with Strictly Sweet Potato Pie. Was she really going to blow this amazing opportunity?
The sun blazed down on a worn strip mall in Lynwood, where Clarice Wally handed Shirlene two more large pie boxes and pointed to a small store front.
“Right there. That red door.”
A/C hummed and the Dodgers played in low volume on tv as two barbers cut hair. Wielding a comb and shaver over a high-top fade, a tall, skinny barber said, “They got video. You can see the cops whomping him. How they not going to convict—”
“Special delivery from Strictly Sweet Potato Pie!” sang Shirlene.
“Sweet potato pie?” said a customer in a De La Soul t-shirt. “I want one!”
A big, bulldog-looking barber flicked his finger at her and led her to a back office adorned with an autographed, number 32 Lakers jersey thumbtacked amid Playboy centerfolds. The bulldog traded the pie boxes for a manila envelope and then demanded, “Where you from?”
“South Central.”
“Like—” he cursed, “you from South Central. Where you from?”
“Arkansas,” Shirlene muttered.
“Arkansas, don’t you ever come in here—don’t you ever come nowhere—field hollering about ‘sweet potato pie.’ Ask for the manager and say you got a delivery. Now get your country behind out of here.”
Except that bulldog didn’t say behind.
Back in the car, Shirlene fumed, “All these negroes pretending to be from here, they not from here. They just like me, from Arkansas, Texas, Missouri—”
“Not me.” Clarice Wally adjusted the Guccis in the rearview. “I’m a Cali girl.”
“Where you grow up? What street?”
“All these streets. Every damn one of them.”
The next stop was at a bar on Santa Ana Boulevard.
“That looks closed,” said Shirlene.
“It’s not.”
Up the street, a speaker was woofing “Whatya know again, you hope it’s Ethiopian,” as Shirlene rattled the metal security gate and knocked on the door until a woman opened them up, letting her into a cool, bergamot-scented twilight where Aretha was promising, “Until you come back to me …” The woman was heavy and pretty, her curves squeezed into black pants and a silky black blouse. She raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow and said, “Well?”
Shirlene handed her a pie box and the woman returned a white envelope, sealed and fat like the others.
Clarice Wally did not lie. They hopscotched all over the place, from Imperial Courts to Nickerson Gardens to Finley Square, from a construction site to an auto repair to several homes. Shirlene’s early morning hunger had turned ravenous.
“Can I buy a couple slices of that pie?”
Clarice Wally said nothing, just got in line at a drive-thru Mexican place and looked out at Imperial Highway when the girl asked for Shirlene’s order, so Shirlene paid for her own burrito supreme, double nachos and coconut shake and took her time eating them. Wiping away salsa, she asked, “You not going to get something? They put real ground beef in their nachos! Who does that?”
Gasping, “My head …,” Clarice pressed her fists to her face and shrank down in the driver’s seat.
After a long sip of her shake, Shirlene asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Migraine …” she moaned. “We got to go. You got to drive. Now.”
With a sigh, Shirlene packed her food back in its bag, circled the Taurus and opened the driver’s side door for Clarice Wally to lean over and vomit on one of her new Nikes. From the passenger’s seat, she whispered to Shirlene to take the 710 to the 91.
They roared west on the 91 over Compton Creek, trickling through its cement bed, and past dusty flatlands of wood frame and stucco crates baking under palm trees, to the exit at Avalon Boulevard. A few miles more, and they arrived at a red brick colossus with towers of stained glass. Clarice Wally staggered through a side entrance clutching Shirlene’s arm and pulled her to a door whose gilt lettering read ,Reverend Pastor Edgar T. Raspberry.
A secretary led them to an inner office, where a man who could star as Marvin Gaye in a biopic sat taking a phone call at a vast, gleaming desk. Clarice Wally slumped in a chair while Shirlene admired golden plaques, crystal knickknacks and framed photos of Pastor Raspberry, smiling or somber, beside celebrities or people who just looked important. He hung up his phone and beamed at Clarice Wally.
“Sister Diamond, how are you?” His voice was deep and melodious, but Diamond? wondered Shirlene. Now she’s Diamond?
“Is Satan messing with you again?” he gently inquired.
“He’s messing with me so bad, Pastor,” whimpered Clarice Wally.
“I see you brought a friend with you.” The intensity of his smile made Shirlene want to dress up and sit in the front row of his next service.
“Welcome, Sister Shirlene. The more prayer, the better.” He rounded his desk and stood behind Clarice Wally, Diamond, or whatever-her-name-was, who flinched when he rested his large, beautifully manicured hands on her head.
“Heavenly Father, we come to You to ask You to break Satan’s dominion over Sister Diamond. Tell the Devil to take his hands off her. Tell Lucifer to loose her. Make Satan set her free, Lord—”
“Yessss …” groaned Clarice Wally
“Bend the Devil to Your will. Break the chains, Father God—Break the chains! Take all that pain away! Take that pain. You control the rivers and the waters and the seas and the winds and the mountains and every single star—so, a little pain is nothing to You, Heavenly Father. Uproot the Devil’s dominion, Lord and cast it out!”
“Cast it out, Lord,” Shirlene echoed.
“Cast it out! We begging and pleading, Sweet Lord, make it stop, m-make make make—” A spasm shook Pastor Raspberry’s powerful body, rippling through his through his designer suit and silk tie. Clarice Wally/Diamond was still hunched in her chair, but Shirlene sat ramrod straight, locking eyes with the Pastor Raspberry. She had seen preachers and congregants get happy since her childhood in Arkansas, had witnessed the trembling, dancing and speaking in tongues, had fanned women and men who fainted under divine possession and, here and now, the Holy Spirit was making a personal appearance at this church office in Gardena.
Pastor Raspberry spread his arms and exclaimed, “Sa hib! Sa hob! Manib manibbi – ara bik bok bala ah doon dop de mockin – ala dang lang foogie, bay wut pump de shoogie – fala biddim, fala shoogie la feet!” Shirlene’s smile slowly faded to puzzlement and then creased into a frown, but Clarice/Diamond gazed gratefully up at the pastor, whose invocation was undeniably on the one: “I – do – rida bike, enah bana jay jello—” He shimmied like an uncle partying at a backyard barbecue.
“Do you feel better?” Shirlene side-eyed Clarice Wally. “You look better. And we got pies to sell.”
The pastor helped Clarice Wally to her feet. “I have to try a piece of your pie one of these days.” Clarice Wally batted her lashes, reached in her Louis Vuitton and pressed a thick roll of bills into his hand. After a Tylenol, some water and one more blessing, they stepped back out into the heat.
“That man was not talking in any tongues,” declared Shirlene, buckling into the Taurus passenger seat.
Clarice Wally turned the ignition and asked, “How do you know?”
“That was not tongues! You know what that was. That was Sugar … Sugar Hill… “Rappers’ De … De …” Nothing. Never mind. How many more deliveries we got?”
“A few more. We almost done.”
The next stop was on Manchester: an old-fashioned hamburger stand whose glass front displayed a counter, swivel stools and a couple of booths in back. There was a CLOSED sign on the door, but the cook behind the counter nodded, so Shirlene pushed her way inside, carrying three pie boxes. The cook shook his head without even looking at her, and that’s when she saw the four cops sitting at the back table.
“Strictly—uh—delivery …”
All four of them dead-eyed Shirlene.
“Say what?” drawled one with a blond buzz cut.
“Delivery …”
With his head cocked and teeth bared, a bald, chubby cop rapped …? Was this cop actually rapping at her? “You getting bucked outta cream— Am I right, boy—Where the VASELINE!”
A third cop had one hand to his head, and on the other meaty forearm, a tat of a skeleton offering a rose under the motto FEAR NOT. He ordered her to put the boxes on the table with a stream of profanity.
Shirlene reared back and then answered: “I’m a child of God just like you are. Get your sweet potato pie from somebody else.” She turned, ready to take the three boxes back out the door until she turned and saw the Glock 22 that a long, rawbone cop was casually aiming at her.
The only other time someone had ever pointed a gun at Shirlene was August 4, 1982, at approximately 11:15 pm. That summer, the twins Raphael and Uriel were having bad asthma attacks, all her money was gone from taking them to the ER and buying them medication, and Larry was just one year-old and teething. Shirlene and the eight kids in that hot, little bungalow had been eating cheese sandwiches for weeks, but when her husband Carlton got home from GM, he wanted a real dinner. That night, she had made him barbecued pork chops, macaroni and cheese and greens with ham hocks, and wrapped it all up for him in the refrigerator. He got home at 11:10 in one of his moods, and when she got his plate out the refrigerator and took off the tin foil, there were little strips of meat hanging off the pork bones, about a dozen macaroni and a teaspoon of greens left. To this day, she doesn’t know who ate that food.
Carlton picked up the plate, threw it against the wall and threw her right after it. She heard hollering: “—Can’t control these little moth—wasting my money—can’t even have my moth—dinner ready—” He was hitting her in the face so hard and so fast the kitchen blurred and jumped and his words were going in and out, like static.
Then she was up against the wall, Gabriel was beating Carlton with a broom, Michael was swinging at him with a pot, Uriel had ahold of an iron and the rest of them were grabbing on him, screaming and crying. He knocked Gabriel down and grabbed Shirlene by her hair. She was looking directly into his Smith & Wesson 59.
“You and all these little moth—you got fifteen minutes to get out my house.”
In ten minutes, they were packed and gone. Shirlene and her eight children hurried out into the darkness with their things stuffed in backpacks and plastic bags and kept running. Where did they go that night? She honestly cannot remember.
FEAR NOT was speaking again, not to Shirlene, but into the mouthpiece of a small, black device, telling it, “Next time I buy you some Gucci, don’t you ever come f--- asking me if it’s really Gucci.”
Shirlene set the boxes on the table between the four cops and made her way back to the Taurus. Clarice Wally was on her mo-bile phone: “I was just teasing, sexy baby … You know I was, Daddy. You know that … I’m always grateful to you, lover, for every single thing you do, every little thing … I’m going, I’m going. Am I going to see you tonight?”
They rode on Firestone Boulevard, listening to the Persuaders warn about love, hate and the distance between them. “Those …” Shirlene, who took pride in never cursing, fought back expletives. “… They didn’t pay for their pies.”
“It was a donation.”
Shirlene coughed out laughter. “Fine. But how much do the pies cost?”
Clarice Wally shot a frigid glance through her Guccis. “That’s none of your business.”
“I’m just asking a question. I might want to buy one.”
“I already told you. They all sold.”
“All right. But can’t you just tell me how much they cost? You got two different sizes. Them small containers, how much they cost?”
Jaws tight, Clarice Wally focused on the road.
“I might want to buy a sweet potato pie slice. I might want to buy a whole sweet potato pie for my kids. How you going to be doing business and you can’t even say how much a sweet potato pie costs? I could sell sweet potato pies to my neighbors. If you give me some business cards for Strictly Sweet Potato Pie, I can pass them around my neighborhood. But ain’t nobody going to buy sweet potato pie if you won’t tell them the sweet potato pie price—”
They passed a “Welcome to South Gate” sign and Clarice Wally slowed and braked next to a Pick-Your-Parts yard.
“Get out.”
“What—?”
“Get the f--- out my car,” Clarice Wally said.
“Just because I asked you how much is a sweet potato pie?” retorted Shirlene. “You must have lost your mind. I’m not getting out in South Gate. You driving me home. You picked me up at home and you taking me back home—”
For the second time in thirty minutes and the third time in her life, Shirlene was staring down a gun barrel, this time, a Colt that Clarice Wally had pulled from her Louis Vuitton and that seemed as big and black as skillet. Her Taurus left Shirlene on the cracked, dusty sidewalk and it took her two hours to get home on the bus.
Shirlene always declares that she remembers everything perfectly. Almost too perfectly. She might have had a stroke, but at least she is still in her right mind and does not have the All Shiners. One morning as she sat drinking tea, Shirlene asked, “Why do they call it All Shiners? All Shiners people do not shine. It’s like their light went out.”
Shirlene faced Gabriel, a live image of her dark-and-pretty days in gold frame glasses, and listened to all her big words like “neurons” and “degeneration.” Shirlene thought she heard Gabriel say, “It’s not called All Shiners. It’s called All Shiners.”
“That’s just what I said!” Shirlene replied
“We need to get your hearing aids checked,” Gabriel sighed.
“I got twenty-twenty hearing.”
Shirlene’s first dinner at Hacienda del Oro is impressive: prime rib and a twice-baked potato with a roasted vegetable medley followed by sugar-free coconut cream pie. She contentedly rides until she arrives at the elevator and sees Clarice Wally in her Hello Kitty t-shirt stained with her meal, waiting in her wheelchair. Shirlene maneuvers her scooter in on her.
“I been wanting say something to you for thirty-two years, and I’m telling you right now,” Shirlene growls. “You evil. Pure evil. You came up in my church, tried to hook my children and then hooked me with your stories about good money. What was in them boxes? That was crack, wasn’t it? Crack cocaine? You know it was. And I hope your behind just got out of prison, you evil, drug pushing heifer—”
Her bright, vacant eyes gleaming, Clarice Wally sings, “How I Got Over,” and her caregiver leans down to tell her, “It’s all right, Ms. Gibson. We’re going upstairs.”
“I know how I got over! He got me over!” Shirlene’s voice rises. “He got me over my husband, that cop and you—”
The caregiver gently tells Shirlene, “Ma’am, she doesn’t know what you’re talking about. Maybe you’re mixing her up with somebody else.”
Shirlene watches Clarice Wally, Diamond, Ms. Gibson, whatever-her-name-is roll into the elevator and then she slowly rides down the hallway, praying: “Lord, take this anger from me. I cannot stay angry at a woman not in her right mind.”
Shirlene knows she should feel blessed. Gabriel has her ways; she can be pushy, bossy and siddity, but her daughter loves her. Her son Michael is her rock; level-headed and easy-going, he’s a pediatrician living in Crenshaw district. Uriel, an accountant in Colorado Springs, wants her to call him Mumin, but he’ll always be Uriel to his mother. Raphael is a singer-songwriter in New York City. He sang back up for “Brian Mars and Joe Rule.” Larry teaches math at an elementary school in Compton. Saltiel, her lesbian daughter, is just like Shirlene—except for being a lesbian—and she runs a ministry in Torrance. It’s the not-lesbian, Jehudiel, that give Shirlene fits. She works with computers, and she says Shirlene is always criticizing her, which is not true. Jehudiel’s just too sensitive, and has been like that since she was a little girl. That’s why she’s not married. “Too sensitive. I’m just saying.”
And then there is Shirlene’s angel baby, Barachiel. She was such a good, sweet girl. Barachiel died of leukemia on October 12, 2007.
Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, Uriel, Saltiel, Jehudiel, Barachiel, Larry: all of her children are beautiful. Shirlene doesn’t even know how all her children got to be so beautiful. Kind-hearted, righteous and hard-working. And don’t even get her started on her eleven grandbabies. It couldn’t be on her account. Must be the Lord.