reach the deserted, main-road intersection. Harlow stops the quad and stands so I can climb off. Watches as, shaking with cold, I step away and fumble to shoulder my purse and canvas bag. “You should have worn gloves.”
“I don’t have any,” I say, unable to stop myself from glancing at his.
For the first time all night, his mouth thins into a smile. “Yeah, well, life’s a bitch and then you die, right?” He revs the engine, turns the quad in a wide, slow circle back toward Churn Road, and pauses beside me again. “Okay, look. Uh, tell your mother I said she’d better hurry up and get out of there so we can hang out again, okay? Tell her it sucks without her.” He hesitates, then tugs off his gloves and hands them to me. “Will you do that for me?”
“Sure.” I fumble them on and the lining is still warm from his fingers. “I’ll tell her.”
“Good,” he says, and heads back up into the woods.
How I Came to Know Harlow
WHEN I WAS TEN, AFTER WE lost our home to foreclosure but before the wondrous year we lived with Beale in a haze of unaccustomed happiness, before the inevitable, irreversible destruction of all things good and promising, my mother and I ate our meals down at the Mission of Mercy soup kitchen on Main Street behind the Shell station, along with Dug County’s other down-on-their-luck unfortunates.
The Mission was nothing on the outside, a cinder-block building squatting on a barren, graveled lot strung with potholes in the front and spent .22 shell casings in the back, a grim reminder of its years as a no-frills dog pound, when being homeless did not get you a hot meal and a supportive Unitarian blessing but a one-size-fits-all choke collar, a walk out into the weeds, and a bullet to the head.
On the inside, though, through those smudged and crooked doors life trudged on. Up until I met Beale, the only love I can remember came from my grandma Lucy, and then from Miss Mo, a retired Walmart cashier and street preacher from outside Atlanta who’d turned foster parent and mission volunteer, a short, stout, shelf-bosomed lady with kind eyes, generous hands, and a voice that made my name sing like a hymn.
She would smile when she saw me and ask how I was doing, like she really cared, like she was so happy to see me again that she would hold up the whole line just to hear, and while I squirmed and blushed and stammered an answer, she would wink and slip an extra pancake or scoop of mac ’n’ cheese onto my plate.
One morning, when a junkie in line started freaking out over some invisible torment and using his bony elbows like javelins, Miss Mo leaned right over a steaming vat of home fries and talked him down before he could do more than bruise me, catching him up in a safety net of comfort words and soothing him the way you would a panicked dog.
“Lord have mercy, that boy needs more than this place can give him,” Miss Mo said, after he finally calmed down and reeled off. “How you doing, honey? Did he hurt you?”
“No,” I said, rubbing the tender spot on my shoulder where his elbow had hit the hardest. My knees were still shaking, but that would pass. It had before. “I’m okay.”
She gave me a disbelieving look and glanced across the dining room to where my mother was hunkered down at a back table shoveling in her breakfast, oblivious. “Someday that woman’s gonna look up and see what she’s got,” she said, as if to herself. “And, Lord, I just pray it isn’t too late. You hang in there, Sayre. Sometimes the hardest people to love are the ones who need it the most.” She handed me a plate heaped with scrambled eggs and Tater Tots, winked, and became my benevolent Miss Mo again, seeing promise everywhere, and nourishing the world one plate at a time with a faith that never seemed to waver.
She nodded and I nodded back, as though we had reached some profound agreement, and I took my tray and wove through the hot, crowded room to a seat near my mother who,
“I don’t have any,” I say, unable to stop myself from glancing at his.
For the first time all night, his mouth thins into a smile. “Yeah, well, life’s a bitch and then you die, right?” He revs the engine, turns the quad in a wide, slow circle back toward Churn Road, and pauses beside me again. “Okay, look. Uh, tell your mother I said she’d better hurry up and get out of there so we can hang out again, okay? Tell her it sucks without her.” He hesitates, then tugs off his gloves and hands them to me. “Will you do that for me?”
“Sure.” I fumble them on and the lining is still warm from his fingers. “I’ll tell her.”
“Good,” he says, and heads back up into the woods.
How I Came to Know Harlow
WHEN I WAS TEN, AFTER WE lost our home to foreclosure but before the wondrous year we lived with Beale in a haze of unaccustomed happiness, before the inevitable, irreversible destruction of all things good and promising, my mother and I ate our meals down at the Mission of Mercy soup kitchen on Main Street behind the Shell station, along with Dug County’s other down-on-their-luck unfortunates.
The Mission was nothing on the outside, a cinder-block building squatting on a barren, graveled lot strung with potholes in the front and spent .22 shell casings in the back, a grim reminder of its years as a no-frills dog pound, when being homeless did not get you a hot meal and a supportive Unitarian blessing but a one-size-fits-all choke collar, a walk out into the weeds, and a bullet to the head.
On the inside, though, through those smudged and crooked doors life trudged on. Up until I met Beale, the only love I can remember came from my grandma Lucy, and then from Miss Mo, a retired Walmart cashier and street preacher from outside Atlanta who’d turned foster parent and mission volunteer, a short, stout, shelf-bosomed lady with kind eyes, generous hands, and a voice that made my name sing like a hymn.
She would smile when she saw me and ask how I was doing, like she really cared, like she was so happy to see me again that she would hold up the whole line just to hear, and while I squirmed and blushed and stammered an answer, she would wink and slip an extra pancake or scoop of mac ’n’ cheese onto my plate.
One morning, when a junkie in line started freaking out over some invisible torment and using his bony elbows like javelins, Miss Mo leaned right over a steaming vat of home fries and talked him down before he could do more than bruise me, catching him up in a safety net of comfort words and soothing him the way you would a panicked dog.
“Lord have mercy, that boy needs more than this place can give him,” Miss Mo said, after he finally calmed down and reeled off. “How you doing, honey? Did he hurt you?”
“No,” I said, rubbing the tender spot on my shoulder where his elbow had hit the hardest. My knees were still shaking, but that would pass. It had before. “I’m okay.”
She gave me a disbelieving look and glanced across the dining room to where my mother was hunkered down at a back table shoveling in her breakfast, oblivious. “Someday that woman’s gonna look up and see what she’s got,” she said, as if to herself. “And, Lord, I just pray it isn’t too late. You hang in there, Sayre. Sometimes the hardest people to love are the ones who need it the most.” She handed me a plate heaped with scrambled eggs and Tater Tots, winked, and became my benevolent Miss Mo again, seeing promise everywhere, and nourishing the world one plate at a time with a faith that never seemed to waver.
She nodded and I nodded back, as though we had reached some profound agreement, and I took my tray and wove through the hot, crowded room to a seat near my mother who,
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