Margie
[Fiction sketch]
this piece started out as a rather stupid writing exercise from John Dufresne's book, A Lie That Tells The Truth.
Sometimes crazy old black ladies just gotta bust into song. Sometimes it’s gospel, cuz that’s the way crazy old black ladies sing on the teevee. Sometimes it’s radio music and sometimes it’s just whatever old crazy old black lady song just popped into their fool head. With the ratty purple knit cap sitting proud on top of it like it’s making a point. The crazy old black lady seems like she’s a metaphor but she probably ain’t. They never are unless it’s on the teevee or unless they’re angels. But that’s another story. This is Margie and she’s not an angel. I don’t think. You’re not supposed to know, supposedly, but you would think you’d get an inkling. Plus angels don’t say M.F.-er, do they? I don’t think they do. Margie says M.F.-er like it’s her first and last name and favorite color. Which, for all I care, it is. She’s the crazy old black lady who’s either on the bench or under the tree in that sad little park next to the Dunkin Donuts. The sad kind of city park that’s sort of like, “Well, we tried, but… well, you know.” It’s all of 12 feet by 12 feet and you’ve seen 7-11s bigger and with more trees inside. Well, not the second part, but really, the point is the park is small. It’s not a park, what with one bench and a big wooden thing that probably passed for art back in the 70s when they did all this nonsense. And two trees. Under which you can most probably always find Margie. The other one belongs to Ben. He’s probably an angel. He doesn’t say M.F.-er. And he kind of looks like Morgan Freeman. But that’s another story. I go for coffee for myself and Gloria and Magda, the receptionist, Clarence, who’s a little bit slow at around 7:30 every day. By then we’ve all been there a good hour and a half (except Gloria because she’s been with Customer Service since the telephone was invented and she’s got to get her son, George, off to school and she isn’t trying to break her neck for no G.D. job and if you think she should you can stuff it up your A., M.F.-er.) I’ll have a cup of coffee at home before work, to wake up, but by 7:30, I’m usually nodding off at the computer, my little headset slipping down my head and people all, “Hello? Hello?” on the other end. So, I take a walk around the block, past the construction they’ve been doing on the far corner for what seems like 3 years, which is how long I’ve been with the company, across at the traffic light that takes forever, and past the ugly brown park. Everything about the park is brown, even in the fall, even in the winter. Even when it snows. The park is on the corner and you walk past it and make a left to get to Dunkin Donuts, which is next door to the cleaner’s and the Chinese food place where Magda calls our orders into on some days. Margie is always there in the park, like clockwork, and always awake. Which beats the H. out of me because if I was a crazy old black lady or just a general bum I sure as H. wouldn’t be getting up at no time in the morning. And at the same time (well, I guess the same time, can’t say for sure) every day. Maybe she’s got an alarm clock. That’s what Clarence said when I told him about her once. I try not to talk to Clarence cuz he’s slow and not very funny and doesn’t understand me when I talk about Day of Our Lives, which I watch when I get off of work in the afternoons, but he sits right across from me and if I move my head left or right even the littlest bit there he is looking at me like a little puppy. I said like a puppy cuz Gloria said I ought to throw Clarence a bone every once in a while and talk to him. So I do. I told him about Margie and how she was always there and awake and being all crazy-like and he said, “Well, maybe she has an alarm clock.” I just rolled my eyes and decided that I would accidentally forget the Sweet & Low for Clarence’s coffee the next day because what he said was just so G.D. stupid, pardon the expression. Clarence really has no kind of brain whatsoever. If you were a crazy old black lady, why in the H. would you set your alarm to get up? Why, you got an appointment to jump around like a monkey in front of City Hall ‘round 3 p.m. and you want to get ready? Clarence is all kinds of slow. Like yesterday he asked me if I was getting coffee and I had to simply stand up and look around like, “Say what now?” because don’t I get coffee every day at 7:30? And wasn’t it 7:10 and didn’t that mean I’d be getting coffee in 20 minutes? Lizz, with two z’s, says we ought not waste our money and just drink from the machine in the lounge. We think Lizz might be a lesbian. The coffee they have in the lounge is not as good as Dunkin Donuts. Plus, I like the walk. So, I get up to go early cuz I can’t even stand to look at Clarence no more with his slow self and the people on the phone can stuff it, I’m sorry to say. Gloria looks up all, “You’re getting coffee already?” and she’s going for her purse and I say, “Just pay me when I get back.” So, yeah, so I’m walking past the construction and waiting at the light and I see Margie, like always, and she’s leaned up against the tree and scratching the bark all absent-minded. Like she’s stroking a cat. Ben, who’s an angel, is asleep on the bench. Guess he called in sick to Crazy R Us today. Margie’s got moles all over her face. Kind of like Morgan Freeman, actually. Which makes me a little confused and wonder if maybe Margie and Ben aren’t married. But that doesn’t make much sense in any case. That stupid Clarence’s got me thinking all kinds of dumb stuff. The light turns green and I cross and Margie’s still rubbing on the tree and now I can hear she’s singing her crazy old lady song. She doesn’t sound bad but I wouldn’t be suggesting her for American Idol any time soon. For one, she’s too old. Margie’s got all these gray hairs sitting up in her matted black hair, which she wears natural. I say that like it’s a choice. Maybe it is. I guess crazy old black ladies have style choices, too. I smile a little bit as I’m getting to the other side of the street because I just imagined Joan Rivers standing next to the big wooden art thing in the park and commenting on the fashion of all the crazy people walking around. “Oh! Oh! One-legged Man, where did you ever find that mustard yellow wool coat with red stains all over the front? Off a man you shot, you say? So fascinating! Do you think you’ll win tonight?” Man, I’m funny. That Clarence has got no idea. I feel like I know the song she’s singing, but I can’t place it. That’s going to bother me for the rest of the day, I know. I stop, well, not stop, but kind of slow down to a real slow pace so I can get a better listen. One minute it sounds like “Amazing Grace” but then the next minute it sounds like “Angie” by the Rolling Stones. So I don’t have a clue. Looking at her this way, though, it’s like she’s playing a harp on the tree and I think how interesting it must be to be crazy. Maybe she really thinks she’s playing a harp. I half want to ask her. That and also what she’s singing and if it is the Rolling Stones why in the world she’s singing the Rolling Stones, though I guess that’s a matter of taste. If it’s “Amazing Grace” I’m gonna look around for the television cameras for real because I must be special guest star Neal Patrick Harris and she must be Della Reese and this must be Touched By An Angel, if you follow my meaning, cuz nobody just sings “Amazing Grace” at like 7:12 in the morning (I know going early is going to throw my whole day off) without being some sort of extra special being or having some sort of meaning behind it. Not even at sunrise service on Easter Sunday. But then my Aunt Joan who is a preacher says we’re entertaining angels unawares, which, I believe, is supposed to mean that we’re actually not supposed to know which one is an angel and which one is not. I really want to ask her if that means that angels can say M.F.-er but I never remember and plus when I see her it’s Christmas and there’s no delicate way to approach the subject. Aunt Joan says that we are to be on our best behavior, though, because angels are in our midst and one never knows. “I stand at the door and knock,” she says. Which is a quote from the Bible about letting Jesus in your heart, from my understanding. Well, I haven’t a clue what any of this has to do with Margie and the harp, but all of the sudden I decide that she might want a cup of coffee. See, I knew leaving early was going to throw my day off. I don’t know. It’s getting cold lately and she’s got a long day of acting the fool ahead of her. So, I stop full and think to myself, I hope she really is an angel cuz that would be something interesting to talk about and even Magda, who’s heard everything, will have to shut up about Belarus for one G.D. second. God, Magda, really. I open my mouth and Margie looks at me. I don’t even know how I knew her name was Margie. I think Gloria told me once. How Gloria knew is a mystery to me, but Gloria knows everything so it’s no use asking. Margie stops stroking the tree and I stare back at her. “Are you playing the harp on that there tree?” I ask. Which is not even in the least little bit what I was trying to say to her. I was trying to say, “I’m going to get you a cup of coffee, you crazy old black lady making like Mick Jagger and whatnot.” I don’t know how, but this is Clarence’s fault. Margie’s eyes get real big like and dart back and forth in her head.
“Whaddya want?” she asks. Which, I have to admit, is a very good question.
“I want to get you a cup of coffee,” I say. “From Dunkin Donuts. If that’s okay.”
Margie lets her hand loose from the tree and pokes at her hat. She looks at me and says—you won’t even—she says, “We’re entertaining angels unawares.”
Well, I just ‘bout fell over. I looked for the teevee cameras for real and wondered if maybe the ladies at the office were having a little fun. They knew, I think, that I’m a little curious about the supernatural and whatnot. I mean, really. “What are you talking about,” I say.
And then Margie does the strangest thing yet, which, believe me when I tell you, is very very hard to do. She starts to cry. Not like weeping and wailing, but she’s got tears coming down her cheek. And she looks at me and I look right back at her like, Honey if you don’t get yourself together. She opens her mouth and sort of gags and then says, “I ain’t ready for you.” And I look at her even funnier, which is probably not possible, but I do it anyway. Then she hangs her head and sort of mumbles to herself, “We’re entertaining angels unawares.” She starts to shake and says to me, “It’s time, ain’t it? You come to take me away.”
I say, “I ain’t taking you nowhere.”
And she breaks out into the biggest grin I’ve ever seen with no teeth save a couple on the bottom. “I got more time,” she says. And I think to myself, again with crazy old black ladies having schedules. Let me see she’s got Microsoft Outlook all set up on some laptop under that pile of old pizza boxes and I’ll be through for real.
I say, “You got all the time you want.”
It looks like she’s mouthing “Thank you,” but I can’t hardly hear nothing. Just air and a tear or two running down her face into her empty mouth. I start walking cuz, well honestly, she’s crazy and I realize that I don’t like that sort of thing.
She calls after me, “You’ll watch after me, though, won’t you?”
And I turn and I look at her as I walk away. She’s no angel, I think to myself, she’s just a lady who got down on her luck and ended up sharing a two-tree apartment with Morgan Freeman and likes the Rolling Stones. Or Mahalia Jackson. She’s as human as anyone. “I will,” I say. “I’ll watch over you good.”
this piece started out as a rather stupid writing exercise from John Dufresne's book, A Lie That Tells The Truth.
Sometimes crazy old black ladies just gotta bust into song. Sometimes it’s gospel, cuz that’s the way crazy old black ladies sing on the teevee. Sometimes it’s radio music and sometimes it’s just whatever old crazy old black lady song just popped into their fool head. With the ratty purple knit cap sitting proud on top of it like it’s making a point. The crazy old black lady seems like she’s a metaphor but she probably ain’t. They never are unless it’s on the teevee or unless they’re angels. But that’s another story. This is Margie and she’s not an angel. I don’t think. You’re not supposed to know, supposedly, but you would think you’d get an inkling. Plus angels don’t say M.F.-er, do they? I don’t think they do. Margie says M.F.-er like it’s her first and last name and favorite color. Which, for all I care, it is. She’s the crazy old black lady who’s either on the bench or under the tree in that sad little park next to the Dunkin Donuts. The sad kind of city park that’s sort of like, “Well, we tried, but… well, you know.” It’s all of 12 feet by 12 feet and you’ve seen 7-11s bigger and with more trees inside. Well, not the second part, but really, the point is the park is small. It’s not a park, what with one bench and a big wooden thing that probably passed for art back in the 70s when they did all this nonsense. And two trees. Under which you can most probably always find Margie. The other one belongs to Ben. He’s probably an angel. He doesn’t say M.F.-er. And he kind of looks like Morgan Freeman. But that’s another story. I go for coffee for myself and Gloria and Magda, the receptionist, Clarence, who’s a little bit slow at around 7:30 every day. By then we’ve all been there a good hour and a half (except Gloria because she’s been with Customer Service since the telephone was invented and she’s got to get her son, George, off to school and she isn’t trying to break her neck for no G.D. job and if you think she should you can stuff it up your A., M.F.-er.) I’ll have a cup of coffee at home before work, to wake up, but by 7:30, I’m usually nodding off at the computer, my little headset slipping down my head and people all, “Hello? Hello?” on the other end. So, I take a walk around the block, past the construction they’ve been doing on the far corner for what seems like 3 years, which is how long I’ve been with the company, across at the traffic light that takes forever, and past the ugly brown park. Everything about the park is brown, even in the fall, even in the winter. Even when it snows. The park is on the corner and you walk past it and make a left to get to Dunkin Donuts, which is next door to the cleaner’s and the Chinese food place where Magda calls our orders into on some days. Margie is always there in the park, like clockwork, and always awake. Which beats the H. out of me because if I was a crazy old black lady or just a general bum I sure as H. wouldn’t be getting up at no time in the morning. And at the same time (well, I guess the same time, can’t say for sure) every day. Maybe she’s got an alarm clock. That’s what Clarence said when I told him about her once. I try not to talk to Clarence cuz he’s slow and not very funny and doesn’t understand me when I talk about Day of Our Lives, which I watch when I get off of work in the afternoons, but he sits right across from me and if I move my head left or right even the littlest bit there he is looking at me like a little puppy. I said like a puppy cuz Gloria said I ought to throw Clarence a bone every once in a while and talk to him. So I do. I told him about Margie and how she was always there and awake and being all crazy-like and he said, “Well, maybe she has an alarm clock.” I just rolled my eyes and decided that I would accidentally forget the Sweet & Low for Clarence’s coffee the next day because what he said was just so G.D. stupid, pardon the expression. Clarence really has no kind of brain whatsoever. If you were a crazy old black lady, why in the H. would you set your alarm to get up? Why, you got an appointment to jump around like a monkey in front of City Hall ‘round 3 p.m. and you want to get ready? Clarence is all kinds of slow. Like yesterday he asked me if I was getting coffee and I had to simply stand up and look around like, “Say what now?” because don’t I get coffee every day at 7:30? And wasn’t it 7:10 and didn’t that mean I’d be getting coffee in 20 minutes? Lizz, with two z’s, says we ought not waste our money and just drink from the machine in the lounge. We think Lizz might be a lesbian. The coffee they have in the lounge is not as good as Dunkin Donuts. Plus, I like the walk. So, I get up to go early cuz I can’t even stand to look at Clarence no more with his slow self and the people on the phone can stuff it, I’m sorry to say. Gloria looks up all, “You’re getting coffee already?” and she’s going for her purse and I say, “Just pay me when I get back.” So, yeah, so I’m walking past the construction and waiting at the light and I see Margie, like always, and she’s leaned up against the tree and scratching the bark all absent-minded. Like she’s stroking a cat. Ben, who’s an angel, is asleep on the bench. Guess he called in sick to Crazy R Us today. Margie’s got moles all over her face. Kind of like Morgan Freeman, actually. Which makes me a little confused and wonder if maybe Margie and Ben aren’t married. But that doesn’t make much sense in any case. That stupid Clarence’s got me thinking all kinds of dumb stuff. The light turns green and I cross and Margie’s still rubbing on the tree and now I can hear she’s singing her crazy old lady song. She doesn’t sound bad but I wouldn’t be suggesting her for American Idol any time soon. For one, she’s too old. Margie’s got all these gray hairs sitting up in her matted black hair, which she wears natural. I say that like it’s a choice. Maybe it is. I guess crazy old black ladies have style choices, too. I smile a little bit as I’m getting to the other side of the street because I just imagined Joan Rivers standing next to the big wooden art thing in the park and commenting on the fashion of all the crazy people walking around. “Oh! Oh! One-legged Man, where did you ever find that mustard yellow wool coat with red stains all over the front? Off a man you shot, you say? So fascinating! Do you think you’ll win tonight?” Man, I’m funny. That Clarence has got no idea. I feel like I know the song she’s singing, but I can’t place it. That’s going to bother me for the rest of the day, I know. I stop, well, not stop, but kind of slow down to a real slow pace so I can get a better listen. One minute it sounds like “Amazing Grace” but then the next minute it sounds like “Angie” by the Rolling Stones. So I don’t have a clue. Looking at her this way, though, it’s like she’s playing a harp on the tree and I think how interesting it must be to be crazy. Maybe she really thinks she’s playing a harp. I half want to ask her. That and also what she’s singing and if it is the Rolling Stones why in the world she’s singing the Rolling Stones, though I guess that’s a matter of taste. If it’s “Amazing Grace” I’m gonna look around for the television cameras for real because I must be special guest star Neal Patrick Harris and she must be Della Reese and this must be Touched By An Angel, if you follow my meaning, cuz nobody just sings “Amazing Grace” at like 7:12 in the morning (I know going early is going to throw my whole day off) without being some sort of extra special being or having some sort of meaning behind it. Not even at sunrise service on Easter Sunday. But then my Aunt Joan who is a preacher says we’re entertaining angels unawares, which, I believe, is supposed to mean that we’re actually not supposed to know which one is an angel and which one is not. I really want to ask her if that means that angels can say M.F.-er but I never remember and plus when I see her it’s Christmas and there’s no delicate way to approach the subject. Aunt Joan says that we are to be on our best behavior, though, because angels are in our midst and one never knows. “I stand at the door and knock,” she says. Which is a quote from the Bible about letting Jesus in your heart, from my understanding. Well, I haven’t a clue what any of this has to do with Margie and the harp, but all of the sudden I decide that she might want a cup of coffee. See, I knew leaving early was going to throw my day off. I don’t know. It’s getting cold lately and she’s got a long day of acting the fool ahead of her. So, I stop full and think to myself, I hope she really is an angel cuz that would be something interesting to talk about and even Magda, who’s heard everything, will have to shut up about Belarus for one G.D. second. God, Magda, really. I open my mouth and Margie looks at me. I don’t even know how I knew her name was Margie. I think Gloria told me once. How Gloria knew is a mystery to me, but Gloria knows everything so it’s no use asking. Margie stops stroking the tree and I stare back at her. “Are you playing the harp on that there tree?” I ask. Which is not even in the least little bit what I was trying to say to her. I was trying to say, “I’m going to get you a cup of coffee, you crazy old black lady making like Mick Jagger and whatnot.” I don’t know how, but this is Clarence’s fault. Margie’s eyes get real big like and dart back and forth in her head.
“Whaddya want?” she asks. Which, I have to admit, is a very good question.
“I want to get you a cup of coffee,” I say. “From Dunkin Donuts. If that’s okay.”
Margie lets her hand loose from the tree and pokes at her hat. She looks at me and says—you won’t even—she says, “We’re entertaining angels unawares.”
Well, I just ‘bout fell over. I looked for the teevee cameras for real and wondered if maybe the ladies at the office were having a little fun. They knew, I think, that I’m a little curious about the supernatural and whatnot. I mean, really. “What are you talking about,” I say.
And then Margie does the strangest thing yet, which, believe me when I tell you, is very very hard to do. She starts to cry. Not like weeping and wailing, but she’s got tears coming down her cheek. And she looks at me and I look right back at her like, Honey if you don’t get yourself together. She opens her mouth and sort of gags and then says, “I ain’t ready for you.” And I look at her even funnier, which is probably not possible, but I do it anyway. Then she hangs her head and sort of mumbles to herself, “We’re entertaining angels unawares.” She starts to shake and says to me, “It’s time, ain’t it? You come to take me away.”
I say, “I ain’t taking you nowhere.”
And she breaks out into the biggest grin I’ve ever seen with no teeth save a couple on the bottom. “I got more time,” she says. And I think to myself, again with crazy old black ladies having schedules. Let me see she’s got Microsoft Outlook all set up on some laptop under that pile of old pizza boxes and I’ll be through for real.
I say, “You got all the time you want.”
It looks like she’s mouthing “Thank you,” but I can’t hardly hear nothing. Just air and a tear or two running down her face into her empty mouth. I start walking cuz, well honestly, she’s crazy and I realize that I don’t like that sort of thing.
She calls after me, “You’ll watch after me, though, won’t you?”
And I turn and I look at her as I walk away. She’s no angel, I think to myself, she’s just a lady who got down on her luck and ended up sharing a two-tree apartment with Morgan Freeman and likes the Rolling Stones. Or Mahalia Jackson. She’s as human as anyone. “I will,” I say. “I’ll watch over you good.”
posted by R. Eric Thomas at 2:43 AM
1 Comments:
I think the "writing term" for what I like about what I've read from you is your voice. Those short skits and this thing I've read from you all sounded genuine.
Oh, and you have a lot more soul than me. But I think that's to be expected.
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