All Suffering Soon to End

My boss called in the early afternoon while I was still in bed. I’d been working with a hotel housekeeping staff, cleaning guest rooms and getting paid under the table because I couldn’t be hired anywhere that required a background check.

“What do you want?” I groaned.

“Can you tell me — after the horrible morning I just had — why you didn’t show up for work?”

“I didn’t feel like it,” I said miserably.

“You didn’t feel like it?”

“I guess not.”

“You can go to hell,” she said before she hung up.

I rolled out of bed, stepping carefully around the garbage and dirty laundry on the floor. In the kitchen, I opened a can of cat food for Fred, plopped it in his bowl, and switched on the news. Reporters were describing the latest American disaster, another school shooting, twelve children dead.

Then the doorbell rang, a loud buzzing, like something you’d expect to hear in a prison. For nearly two years I’d lived in that apartment, and I didn’t even know I had a doorbell. I crept catlike down the stairs and peeked from behind the curtains. A young woman’s voice with a southern drawl — she must’ve seen me — called out: “May we have a moment of your time, sir?”

As soon as I opened the door, I raised my arm to shield my eyes, the bright summer sun temporarily blinding me. As my eyes adjusted, I saw her, this demurely dressed girl-next-door, offering me a Watchtower pamphlet. Behind her an older man stood looking down the street. I accepted the brochure, pretended to flip through it interestedly.  On the cover, a man and woman were beaming in a paradisiacal garden. In bold print across the top it said: All Suffering Soon to End.

“Would you mind if we shared the will of Jehovah with you?”

I couldn’t deny her pretty-eyed smile, and — let’s face it — I was pathetically lonely. I gave a facial shrug. “Sure, why not.”

As I brought them up to my apartment, Fred walked between my legs, meowing plaintively. “Oh, you have a cat…” A hint of conflict in her voice. Her male counterpart stopped suddenly, as if a hex prevented him from entering.

“Is that a problem?”

“My father, he’s allergic.”

“Oh…”

“That’s all right,” he said. “I’ll wait on the porch.”

No one had ever been in my apartment before. For the first time, I actually saw the unconscionable squalor in which I lived. I began to notice mini liquor bottles stashed like Easter eggs everywhere I looked. I guided her to the kitchen table and cleared away the debris of dishes and unopened bills, apologizing as I emptied the overflowing trash. The shamefaced excuses rolled off my tongue. “I’ve been working a lot… haven’t had time to clean up.”

“What kind of work do you do?”

“Housekeeping.”

“Oh…” she said, looking around at the mess.

“I think I just lost my job, though.”

As we made small talk, I stood at the sink with my back turned to her and emptied a mini-vodka bottle into a glass of orange juice, then joined her at the table.

“You know, when God closes a door, He opens a window.”

“God sure likes to slam the door in my face.”

“It’s funny you should say that.” She smiled and looked down shyly. “You’re the first person who hasn’t slammed the door in my face all morning.”

“People are just… awful.”

“They’re just doing the best they can.”

“That’s a generous perspective.” Gesturing with my hand towards the television. “Have you watched the news lately? You could just as easily say they’re doing the worst they can.”

“A lot of them are on the wrong path.”

“Like me?”

Fred suddenly jumped up on the table between us. He strutted across the table to her.

“I can’t answer that,” she said. “All I can do is point you in the right direction.”

“I’ve done some bad things…” 

Fred hopped into her lap. He purred as she quoted scripture with her sweet southern twang. “As far off as the sunrise is from the sunset, so far off from us He has put our transgressions.” She smiled at the cat in her lap. “We’ve all done bad things.”

“Not like me,” I said.

“I’d like to give you my Bible,” she said, producing a New World Translation from her handbag and pushing it across the table to me.

“No thanks, I’m Catholic.”

“That’s all right.”

“I don’t want it.”

“I’d like you to have it.”

I slammed my fist down on the tabletop. “I don’t want your goddamn Bible!” 

My outburst startled Fred. He scratched her arm as he jumped out of her lap. She sucked air through her teeth and looked at the scratch.

“I don’t want it,” I repeated calmly, almost apologetically.

“What do you want?” she asked.

I was caught off guard. And then I surprised myself when I said, “I want to clean up this damn apartment.”

After she was gone, I was alone with Fred again. He hopped back up on the chair where she had been sitting and would not budge. I looked around my apartment; I had a lot of work to do.

I turned the television off, put some jazz records on, and began clearing away the longstanding clutter. I washed the dishes, scooped out the litter box, vacuumed the carpet, and filled three trash bags with empty bottles and fast food containers. I didn’t sleep. Throughout the night, though my hands trembled, I scrubbed the sinks and shower with inexplicable vigor. I sweated profusely, purging the toxins from my system. All of the windows were open, and a summer breeze circulated the muggy air. Sheets of sound from Coltrane’s Giant Steps blazed from the stereo speakers. The sun was coming up quickly.