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A Shepherd's Song

By Janice Lane Palko

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Chapter 1-1992

I didn’t belong here. I sensed it. But if I were truthful, I didn’t belong anywhere. But I wanted the money so I ignored that bowel-clenching sense of dread that has come over me and shut off my Sentra’s engine. Picking up the note my roommate, Rob Bubash, had left me, I re-read it, wondering what a graphologist would make of his handwriting. It spiked on the page like a printout from a Richter scale.
Tom—
Got to be at work by eight. Deliver a Sammy to some chick named G. Davidson at three, 1000 Perry Highway, Ross Township. Man, she was desperate. Squeezed her for $150!!!
When my eyes saw that figure this morning, they bungeed out of their sockets. In a matter of days, the toy’s price had skyrocketed.
I stretched across the seat, wiping a porthole on the foggy window. The car’s heater had broken back in October making it a meat locker on wheels. This last Sunday in November, Perrysville was deserted: everyone was either indoors watching the Steelers or at Ross Park Mall Christmas shopping.
Last year we were robbed in a parking lot during one of our deals. Since then, we’d made it a practice to meet buyers at public places. As I scoped out the street, the place looked safe, but hey, you can get killed anywhere these days. Why would Rob agree to make a delivery here? One hundred fifty dollars probably had something to do with it. Through the condensation, I made out the address on the The Nuts and Bolts Hardware store across the street. It said 999 Perry Highway. One-thousand Perry Highway had to be nearby.
My hands were not only cold now, but also clammy when I opened the car door, put a foot outside, and stood, looking over its roof. The sign stuck in the small, snow-dappled lawn beyond the sidewalk, stopped my heart.
It read: Holy Redeemer Church. 1000 Perry Highway.
Oh, this had to be a mistake! Maybe this was Rob’s idea of a joke.
I ducked back inside the car and moved my fingers to the keys, which were still in the ignition. I wanted to get the hell out of there. But what if it wasn’t a joke? I’d lose $150.
My hands dropped into my lap. Holy Redeemer? It sounded like a congregation of coupon clippers. I snickered. Ah, this is ridiculous to be afraid of a place. It was only a church for God’s sake. What could happen to me?
Pushing up my fatigue jacket’s sleeve, I glanced at my Timex—three twenty-five. I was late. I got out of the car, scanned the street, and wished I were an animal so I could sniff the air for the scent of danger.
The church, a red brick giant, sat back from the street, squeezed in among the smaller buildings.
I shoved the note and my keys into my pocket, grabbed the black garbage bag containing the Sammy from the back seat, and closed the door.
Snow flurries fell in slow motion from the dust-rag colored sky, but they were too sparse to freshen the mounds of old, gritty snow lining the curb, which was all that remained of the Thanksgiving eve blizzard we’d had four days ago.
Hanging in the air with the snowflakes was a palpable creepiness. Something was strange. Who at a church would want to buy a toy?
I walked to the far side of the building. No sign of a buyer. A driveway ran along it and led to a rear parking lot, which was filled with cars. I didn’t see anyone milling about waiting for me.
I hurried back to the front of the church and decided to give my buyer a few more minutes to show.
Then I had a thought. With this lousy weather, maybe my buyer had gone inside to wait.
I climbed the limestone steps and set the bag down. Pressing my nose to the glass doors, which were etched with some kind of crazy religious symbols, I cupped my hands around my eyes and peered inside. All I could make out were some flickering candles.
I pulled the door’s handle. Damn, it was unlocked. I stuck a foot inside but quickly withdrew it. No way was I going into a dark church alone. I released the handle; the pneumatic door closed with a sinister hiss as it slowly shut.
Glancing over my shoulder, I checked to make sure no one had sneaked up from behind. Then I looked at my watch—3:28. I’d give the buyer two more minutes, and then I’d be out of there.
I watched the Timex’s digital readout form the numbers 3:30. Time was up. No one was going to come now. If this wasn’t a joke, Rob was going to go ballistic that I’d been late and botched the deal. I’d have to lie and make up some kind of an excuse.
Annoyed at the weather and that I may have screwed up a deal, I picked up the Sammy bag to leave.
“They’re in the church hall,” boomed a voice from behind me.
“Jesus Christ!” I cried, nearly jumping out of my Doc Martens. Whirling around, I saw a chubby man in a Steelers jacket standing there. His face was as red and round as the bulb end of a thermometer, and thick, unruly white hair stuck out all over his head.
“Sorry, wrong guy,” he said.
“Huh?”
“Jesus Christ? You called me— Get it?”
When I didn’t laugh at his lame joke, he waved his hand. “Ah, never mind. Sorry to scare you.” He patted my shoulder. “Come on, follow me.”
And like an idiot, I did. Holding onto the plastic bag’s drawstrings, I trailed along after him as he walked around the side of the church.
Perhaps I followed him because he seemed so harmless. His jacket barely covered his gut, and he walked on the toes of his suede shoes, swinging his arms happily at his side, reminding me of one of Snow White’s dwarfs, you know, Fatso, going off to work.
When we came to a side door, he opened it for me. I could see that it led to a staircase. He smiled a dopey grin and swept his arm aside like he was a doorman at the Hilton or something.
Ignoring my instincts to run and get the hell out of there, I stupidly went in. As I passed through the doorway, I rummaged in my pocket for Rob’s note.
The door closed behind us with a loud thud, like the sealing of a vault. Inside the stairwell, an odor of dust, coffee, and stale Coke lingered in the air while a droning, like the buzzing of a thousand bees, rose up the shaft.
Midway down the stairs, I found the note and pulled it from my pocket. I could barely read the name on the paper my hand was trembling so badly. “I’m looking for a G. Davidson,” I said to Fatso. I didn’t want him thinking I was there to join in on some Bible class or something.
Fatso pulled open the door at the bottom, releasing a sonic boom of chattering voices. As he walked into the hall, he said something.
“What?” I yelled, stepping in after him. But if he answered, I didn’t catch it. Then what I saw inside the room made my ears ring and sent my other senses into overload. Blood. It was everywhere. As were people lying on gurneys hooked up to tubes. What the hell is this? A damn Robin Cook novel?
My vision dimmed as my legs turned to blubber. I wanted to run, but blubber legs don’t respond well to terror. Feeling myself starting to sway, I dropped the bag, reached behind me for the wall, and braced myself against it, preparing to black out.
As I waited to faint, the tidal wave of adrenaline pulsing in me ebbed, and my sight slowly returned. And then I felt like a complete ass.
A table to the right was draped with a huge banner that read: “Pittsburgh Metro Blood Bank.” Two nurses were seated there, while a line, hundreds of people long, snaked away from it.
I straightened up and caught my breath. “It’s a blood drive,” I whispered repeatedly to keep from passing out.
I looked around, and Fatso was gone. Obviously, he’d mistaken me for a donor. My legs gradually changed back from liquid into solid, and I quickly picked up the bag. As I was about to bolt, he reappeared.
“This is Ginny Davidson,” he said, presenting a dark-haired woman.
Fantastic! I hadn’t lost the sale.
The woman was petite and looked to be about thirty. I could tell she was young because her body still had that youthful snap—like a green twig has when you break it. But her face looked much older, and her dark, straight hair hung limply on either side of her colorless cheeks.
Don’t get me wrong, she wasn’t ugly; she just seemed tired or worn out. Her brown eyes were fixed on me, and looking into them, I was reminded of burned out light sockets. They had no juice.
“Will you excuse me a moment,” Fatso said, and left us.
The woman continued to stare at me while I waited for her to say something. After all, she’d been the one who called to buy the toy. Then she arched her brows, opened her palms, and said, “Yes?”
“OK, hold on a sec . . .” Turning my back on the crowd, I loosened the bag’s drawstrings. “It’s in there,” I whispered.
Puzzled, she glanced inside the bag and then her eyes shot to mine. Electrical service restored. Shock registered first on her face then a broad smile took over.
She looked into the bag a second time. “Oh, praise God,” she said, covering her heart with her hands. When she raised her head, tears were glistening in her eyes. “I can’t believe it. Oh, God bless you.” She threw her arms around my neck, hugging me so tightly, I swear she knocked my spine out of alignment.
Man, the way she carried on, you’d have thought I was giving her the toy. For $150 bucks, I should have been crying and hugging her.
One of the nurses at the table rose and called, “Mrs. Davidson, is something wrong?”
She released my neck and turned around, wiping tears from her cheeks. “Wrong? Oh, good heavens no.” She picked up the bag containing the toy. “You’ll never believe it. This young man is here to give Christo a So Big Sammy!”
Give a So Big Sammy? Is she out of her mind?
A murmur rippled through the crowd.
What should I do? What I should have done when I first got to this creepy church. Run. I’ll rip the toy out of her hands and get the hell out of there.
As I was about to snatch it away, the mob suddenly burst into applause. Surprised, I halted. A collage of eyes focused on me, nailing my feet to the spot. If I grabbed it and ran now, they’d nab me and kill me. My intestines coiled into a giant knot.
All I wanted was to get my money and get out of there. The woman clung to me, mumbling, “Thank you! Thank you!”
“Excuse me, ma’am,” I whispered, as I pried her arms from my neck. “I’m afraid there’s been—”
A voice like a shovel scraping cement pierced the thunderous applause. “Quick, film this!”
Film? What the hell is going on?
“What’s your name, young man?” That voice again.
I jerked my head so that my hair fell in front of my face. Through the screen of hair, I saw that a woman in an expensive navy suit was standing next to me. She was all made-up like those cosmetic counter ladies in Kaufmann’s who spritz you with cologne, and her honey-colored hair was short and puffy and so heavily sprayed, her head looked like a shellacked walnut shell. She held a notebook, and for some reason, she looked familiar.
A man with a camera perched on his shoulder like a flamethrower was aiming his lens at me. Then I realized that Walnut Head was a reporter, and I was going to be filmed by the Channel 6 News crew. I wanted to puke.
Walnut Head called to a young woman in a Channel 6 News sweatshirt. “Melody,” she commanded, “get the kid over here. Let’s get a shot of him,” Walnut Head was pointing at me and talking to the cameraman, “giving the kid the toy.”
Why did everyone think I was giving the Sammy away? Oh, I have to get out of here.
The crowd wandered out of the orderly line and surged toward the camera, hemming me in.
“What’d you say your name was?”
“Huh?” I mumbled.
“Push the hair out of your eyes and speak up,” she commanded. Her tone scared me, and like an ass, I obeyed. When I pushed my hair behind my ears, I saw that she’d traded in the notebook for a microphone. Uh-huh, no way was she interviewing me. I pulled my arm away but her French-manicured nails dug into my flesh.
“I got the kid,” Melody shouted as she threaded her way through the swarming crowd.
Ginny Davidson called out, “Someone please find Joe.”
“I’m coming,” yelled a husky, bearded man as he emerged from what appeared to be a kitchen on the left. In front of him, an apron-clad old lady walked carrying a tray of doughnuts. The man reached over her shoulder, plucked two from the tray, and strode toward us, licking jelly filling from his upper lip. When he saw the TV camera, he looked as confused as I felt.
He swallowed hard. “What’s going on?”
The intern put her finger to her lips and shushed him. She took the bag with the Sammy from Ginny Davidson, and shoved a small boy forward.
When I saw the kid, my heart deflated like a steamroller had run over it. The boy had no hair. Did he have the mange or something?
I tried to move away but the crowd was too thick. Trapped, I constricted my nostrils, so as not to breathe in too deeply. If this kid had something contagious, I didn’t want to be sharing the same air.
Walnut Head stepped in front of us and her transformation as she morphed into her on-air persona stunned me. Throwing her shoulders back, she raised her head, and began to speak. The annoying voice was gone. Instead one as sweet and smooth as fudge flowed from between her glossy lips.
“As you recall,” she said, “yesterday during our six o’clock broadcast, we introduced you to four-year-old Christopher Davidson, who is battling leukemia.”
Leukemia! Man, this kid is really sick.
“We’re here at Holy Redeemer Church in Ross Township, where a blood drive and tissue typing is being held with the hopes of fulfilling his Christmas wish of finding a bone marrow match.”
Bone marrow? I’ve walked into a frickin’ nightmare.
“We also told you that Christopher had another item on his Christmas wish list—a So Big Sammy. He is hoping Santa will bring him one. His parents, Virginia and Joseph Davidson, told us yesterday that they cautioned Christopher to not be too disappointed if Santa doesn’t bring him one as this toy has become quite popular. In fact, Channel 6 News at our noon broadcast reported that all the local stores have been sold out of the popular toy and that toy scalpers are demanding upwards of $50 for one.”
Toy scalpers? That’s what they’re calling us? It sounds so . . . so criminal.
Walnut Head continued to gush into the microphone. “But we’re happy to report that one of Christopher’s wishes has come true.” She paused for effect.
The intern nudged Ginny Davidson, who then moved in front of the camera, bent down, and put her arm around her kid’s thin waist.
“Christo,” she said, “this nice young man has something to give you.” Her last few syllables were punctuated by sobs.
The intern kicked me in the shin, snapping me out of my disbelief. She handed me the Sammy, cueing me to give the kid the toy. As much as I wanted to run out with it, I couldn’t. There was no way to escape. I had no choice but to give it to the kid.
“Here,” I said, grudgingly handing it over to the boy and making sure I didn’t touch him.
The package was nearly as tall as he, and Ginny Davidson helped him unveil the bag’s contents. When he saw the toy, color filled his pale cheeks, and his eyes lit up like a neon beer sign. “It’s Sammy!” he shrieked, grabbing for the box.
Quickly, his mother took his small hands and held them tightly while she looked into her son’s face. “What do you say to this kind young man?”
The kid looked up at me, and smiled, revealing baby teeth no bigger than grains of rice. Then he wrapped his arms around my leg.
I flinched; I felt like shaking him off like you do a dog that’s humping your leg, but I couldn’t because everyone was watching.
“Fanks so much,” he said, butchering the “th” sound. “Now all I need is a twanspwant.”
A transplant? I felt a squeezing sensation in my chest and hoped I wasn’t having a heart attack. What kind of world is it, I wondered, when a kid too young to pronounce transplant correctly needs to have one?
Staring down at the boy with hair like the fuzz on a peach, I waited for him to release me, but he hung on tightly, and it scared me that now he’d gotten hold of me, he’d never let go.
“Welcome,” I squeaked. Finally, he relaxed his grip on my leg to inspect the toy. When Walnut Head knelt to get Christopher Davidson’s reaction to his gift, I made a break for it.
A collective gasp from the crowd followed me as I ran to the door. I hit the handle and shot out of the hall, climbing the steps two at a time. When I burst through the door at the top of the stairs, frigid air hit my face.
While I’d been trapped in the church basement, the snow had intensified, covering the driveway. I slipped as I sprinted alongside the building, skidding the last ten feet to my car.
As I stuck the key in the lock, I heard Melody calling after me from the doorway, “Stop! We didn’t get your name.”
I hopped inside and fired up the Sentra’s engine. My back-end fishtailed as I pulled out, the snow covering the rear window blowing off, trailing behind like a comet’s tail. In the rearview mirror, I saw Melody run toward the street, waving her arms like she was Gilligan trying to flag down a rescue plane.
Walnut Head came running up beside her in her pumps, skidded, and fell on her ass. I laughed as I floored the pedal.
The last thing I saw in the mirror as I sped away from Holy Redeemer was Walnut Head sitting on the snow-covered sidewalk scribbling something in her notebook.

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