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My name is Alise Liddell. I live in Langley, Virginia. I am a Translator Grade 3C. I can't tell you where I work. I have Top Secret security clearance. That should tell you enough. I translate mainly Arabic and Persian to English and sometimes English to Arabic or Persian. That should tell you even more.

 

I am twenty years old. I want to be a rabbi some day. I was a Near Eastern Studies major at Cornell before I got drafted to do my National Service. I managed to finish one semester. I have worked for Rose Among Thorns. I have worked for Marguerite Weinstein, Malka ha Shoshannah l'aolam vo'ed. When I am down, I think of Marguerite running away, going in to exile from her people in Syracuse, New York. For how many week was it just Marguerite, her writings, and her poor hormones gone haywire? For me it will be a hundred weeks roughly or two years of exile, two years in my life.

 

I have a roommate named Kabira and another named Valorie. Kabira fears the darkness and going out even with just another woman. She was raised sheltered. Valorie worships her body with constant regimes of diet and exercise that she fine tunes and to which she devotes herself. I do not have to tell you that she is deluded.

 

Early this morning I dreamed I was in prison. I have been in prison, the Public Safety Building of Syracuse for three days on a trespassing charge. I got out with time served, but you never forget jail. I exorcised a woman named Athena Martin there. I am stronger than most demons. I tell myself that on my worst days.

 

 

 

I do not fear the darkness. I often walk home from downntown Washington where I work. Actually I tell the security officer that I will not be on the bus. I'm not military so when I'm not working I'm a free girl. I've been tailed a few times heading in to the Metro station after work. Once as far as Bethesda, I can walk home the four miles to Langley. I cross the pretty Patomac. Sometimes I stop and shop. I'll pick up something for poor Kabira if I feel charitable. She likes toaster cakes and toaster French toasts. I like bread and jam and sometimes fix myself a good dinner. I can't see eating out of plastic trays after the good food at Rose Among Thorns.

 

Kabira and Valorie ask me how I can walk at night. I ask them how they can bear to be cooped up? They say something about Napoleon syndrome since I stand 4'10" in my stocking feet. I know that Ithaca and New York City and for that matter Vermillion South Dakota and Big Spring Texas are miles away. I am out of words for now and it is time to go back to work.

 

Alise Liddell

Translator Grade 3C

somewhere in Washington, DC

USA

Point Two-Five

 

October 10, 2006....late at night....

 

Dear all,

 

This has been a long day and to think it actually started out good. I got a letter from Chabad in Brooklyn, actually their Bais Din. A Beis Din is a Jewish court of religious law which oversees conversions.

 

For those of you who don't know, I am in the process of converting to Judaism. I ALSO have a Lubavitcher boyfriend named Dov who is my absolute love. He is in terrible exile in Big Springs, Texas where he is the only Jew. I get his letters and write him back and sometimes we talk on the cell phone. That means Dr. Karch knows we are all right since a lot of our cell phone conversations are tapped. We take the conversation in to Hebrew when we want privacy.

 

Dr. Karch tapped our cell phones March of my senior year at Hunter (which was three years ago) because he feared that Dov's family were racist and I was going to be terribly hurt. I'm West Indian and very dark. Dov turned out to be decent much to Dr. Karch's surprise though not my own and his family came around to my presence in time, mainly because Vijaya and I can hold our own at whist and spit, two card games.

 

Well amid all this ancient history is the fact that I want to convert to Judaism and I want an Orthodox kosher conversion that every rabbi in any congregation any where will recognize. The rabbis grilled me. I think some of it was unfortunately prejudice, but what could I do? Back down? Go somewhere else? Give up? What would you do?

 

The rabbis said I was to live and worship as a Jew which I do and my conversion would take effect on my twenty-first birthday in about ten months. Then, of course, I get drafted. That meant that the supervision for my conversion switches to the Lubavitchers in the Washington, DC area, particularly Bethesda, Maryland where I go for services and Shabbos dinner every week or most weeks. Sometimes I just do the services.

 

The Brooklyn Lubavitchers for all their being parochial in their own way, had become used to visitors from Hunter which had the Peace Project. They were used to stranges faces learning to read a siddur and young men who could only daven in English etc... Down here in Washington, the rabbi took one look at my chocolate brown face and.... Let's say he used a certain nine letter S word to my face that is worth a good twenty-five cents in Ithaca. I told him that this particular word that translates literally in to English as black when used in English (rather than Yiddish) is an epithet and he owed me an apology.

 

I have not been off on the right foot with this rabbi all fall. Rabbi Samuels' wife is no better. While other girls get to hold and play with her small children and other women have jobs in the kitchen, she can never find any work for me and it is a good thing that small children do not thrill me. I grew up in a small apartment wtih two sisters who are close to me in age. I was the oldest. Rabbi Samuels has eight kids. Talk about close quarters. Stifling is more like it.

 

Matters came to a head some weeks ago, when Rabbi Samuels asked for the court papers that prove I am making good progress toward my conversion. I had no such thing with me. I wrote to Brooklyn and the Beis Din took its usual slow time to respond. Well, I had the paper work in Hebrew, Yiddish, and English that I was a convert in progress in excellent standing.

 

I made arrangements with the security officer and after work yesterday, took the Metro to Bethesda and walked along tree lined streets to the Chabad rabbi's three story house that smelled of either chicken or beef for dinner (For some reason they never have fish, not even canned tuna or salmon) and not even good beef or chicken. The place smelled old. Rabbi Samuels must be in his thirties but he is going grey and getting fat and maybe it's being a father to all those kids.

 

He took my paperwork in to the study and spoke to me in Yiddish which is my weakest language. "Nu?" he asked. "It's all there pretty much," I responded in English. "Alise," he said. "Do you keep kosher?"

 

Now I know what Hercules felt like when he was sent to muck out the Augean stables or King David felt like when he was sent to get a whole pile of Philistine foreskins. I wonder if Urijah felt the same way. Poor Urijah never made it back and right now I was in that spot.

 

The point is, Rabbi Samuels, knows my living arrangements. "I'm afraid I can't at the moment."

 

"What do you mean you can't?" he continued the charade. "You want to be a Jew don't you, yet you tell me you can't keep kosher."

 

"One of my roommates is an agnostic and the other is Moslem," I remind Rabbi Samuels.

 

"Then find some Jewish roommates," Rabbi Samuels explained.

 

I wanted to strangle Rabbi Samuels or at least knock some sense in to him. I live in GOVERNMENT HOUSING. I am here in Washington, DC because I was drafted. Getting new roommates of the appropriate faith requires a mountain of paperwork and approval from our Housing Authority out in Langley. Even if I did manage the transfer, is there any guarantee that Jewish roommates would want to be observant? Some Jews treat the idea of observance as if it gives them hives. This is where the Reforn, Conservative, and Reconstructionist and other liberal Jews come from.

 

I could have and should have walked out of Rabbi Samuels there. Were it not for the fact that I have wanted to become Jewish since I was fifteen years old and the fact that I love Dov and want to marry him some day, I would have done just that. Instead I walked home and I thought about how to get a roommate switch. I knew there was one official who could help but in the two months since I have been drafted and lived in Langley, I have yet to see his face. He is none other than our Chaplain.

 

To be continued.....

 

Alise Liddell

Translator Grade 3C

Somewhere in downtown Washington, DC

Point Two-Five

 

Dear all,

 

I hope all of you noticed something in my last letter. I said switching roommates would take a mountain of government paperwork. I did not say it was impossible. In fact, I know someone with whom I can quite easily switch. Over in Apartment 8J, are two Jewish women. One is from Knoxville, TN and the other is from somewhere in California. Both work as clericals. I suspect at least one of them had pull, but so too did their roommate who is very tall like Vijaya.

 

There, however, the similarity ends. The roommate whose name is Jodie is blond, and apparently it is natural and voluptuous and when she does not find action with the opposite sex, she lies and connives and gossips about such action. She preens and as far as she is concerned she is the sun about whom the whole universe revolves. This irrittates Jodie's roommates no end. If Jodie roomed in my present apartment, she'd have to compete with Valorie who believes herself physically superior to all of us due to the care she devotes to "her health." Valoire would be excellent competition for Jodie and Kabira would simply consider Jodie a vulgar example of the nonMoslem world. In other words, Jodie would lose her competitors and most of her audience and the two Jewish roommates, Miriam and Cheyenne, would have peace at last.....

 

Well they really would not have peace. The room switch would come at a price. I found Miriam and Cheyenne last night watching the big screen TV in the downstairs lounge. Jodie had a boyfriend upstairs and just staying out of Jodie's bedroom (We all have single rooms here.) was not enough. Jodie wanted privacy in the whole apartment. Kabira would refuse to give it to her and I think Valorie has some spine.

 

I pulled Cheyenne and Miriam aside and asked if they would like to have me or a roommate rather than Jodie. They looked me over. I'm weird in their eyes though they would use the word, "ethnic." I'm also zero competition. They smiled. Then I explained my situation. "We'd have to kasher the kitchen," I said. I got a quick "whatever" nod from Miriam and Cheyenne blinked. I explained what would be involved. I get paid enough that I could cover all the expenses since we would be starting out with new pots and pans dipped in a mikveh, or ceremonial bath, or older metal untensils and dishes boiled in great pans of water out in Bethesda and not used for twenty-four hours. I'd buy a second kitchen table to help keep dairy and meat separated.

 

"But I don't eat meat!" exclaimed Miriam.

 

"Do you eat chicken or turkey?" I asked.

 

Miriam nodded. I told her I preferred canned fish which is pareve. I explained more of the particulars about having to read food labels and foods that would be off limits for obvious reasons and about how we could get a plastic dish box for anything that was treif and mark it with a T and all the treif stuff that might appear or anything that was suspect would have to go there and not be eaten on any of the kashered dishes.

 

Miriam and Cheyenne looked perplexed. I reminded them that kashering the kitchen might be a good price for getting rid of Jodie. They said they would think about it. They were honest. There was no point in sneaking this one in. I am worrying about having my conversion delayed or having to make trips back to New York on the weekends to get matters taken care of up there, but maybe it will work out.

 

I was able to get the papers to apply for an official roommate switch. They list all kinds of reasons for incompatibility but none aobut needing to configure a kitchen to obey religious dietary laws. Of course I knew who could help me with this. I just wish our chaplain here were as understanding and as visible as the one in Vermillion, South Dakota. Oh well....tonight I'll go looking for him if Cheyenne and Miriam say yes. Jodie all ready is looking forward to a situation where she thinks she can shine as the queen bee. Too bad, she doesn't know either Kabira or Valorie.

 

Alise Liddell

Translator Grade 3C

Somewhere in downtown Washington, DC

Point Two-Five

 

Tracking down the chaplain was going to take work, but it was do or die as far as keeping my conversion to Judaism on track. How do you track down an absentee Chaplain? You can camp out outside his office. You can leave him notes. You can phone him and talk to his machine. You can email him, but of course I had tried all those countless times.

 

Fortunately, I had learned something from one of the ministers who sometimes did business with Rose Among Thorns in Syracuse. Clergy, except for Lubavitchers, Moonies, and other splinter groups often belong to a Clergy Association. Fortunately, the King County, Virginia Clergy Association had a web site and a member directory. I now knew our absentee chaplain's parsonage which is the name for a chaplain's house if he is a rabbi or Protestant minister. In this case, our absentee chaplain is something called Ethical Humanist. I wondered what that was. Taking the government's money and doing nothing is not very ethical.

 

Thursday night, I took the bus back from downtown DC to Langley and walked several miles to the Ethical Humanist Society's church. It really looked like a church, a big 1970's era a-frame with frosted isntead of stained glass and a low lying Sunday school or class room set up behind it. How very suburban I thought. The parsonage was an old three story brick building nearby. The lights were on.

 

I rang the bell. A man in his thirties in a yellow sweater answered. He was a nice pink shade of caucasian with a full light brown beard that was trimmed roundly and a silky brown mustache and a full head of nice soft hair. His eyes were a watery shade of green. He asked me what I wanted. I tried not to sound too angry.

 

"Oh!" was his answer and then he invited me inside.

 

That chaplain turned out to be deaf, not because he couldn't hear but because I had to explain three times the mechanics of an adult kosher (Orthodox) conversion to Judaism and the fact that I had changed jurisdictions by being drafted and that Shimon Samuels, the Lubavitcher rabbi in Bethesda wanted me to keep kosher. I had found two amenable prospective Jewish roommates who were exchanging a more troublesome roommate for me and Ms. Troublesome was going where she would do no harm. This was, I explained, a win-win situation.

 

The chaplain whose last name is Morgan answered: "Alise, do you really want to keep kosher."

 

"I'll have to start doing it sooner or later," I replied.

 

"Why?"

 

"Because I am Jewish and I need to live my faith. I also am planning on becoming a rabbi if I can ever get back to my education."

 

"Don't you think we learn something every day."

 

"Yes, finding you has been very educational."

 

The conversation went dead for a second.

 

"Alise why is it important for you to keep kosher?"

 

"It brings me closer to HaShem," I answered. "That is the purpose of positive mitzvos. Humans can not always think in the abstract."

 

"So you think God really cares what you eat and drink and how your food is prepared. You realize that if you really keep kosher you won't be able to eat out in any restaurants..."

 

I shrugged. "God wants us close to him," repeated. I think Chaplain Morgan thinks I am a fanatic. That is better than him thinking I'm doing this just to marry a Jewish boy some day which is not true. The fanaticism may have a grain of truth to it after all.

 

Chaplain Morgan looked over the roommate switch papers as if he had never seen such things. He also gave me some pamphlets on Ethical Humanism that basicly says that God only cares about morals and that belief in HaShem is not important. I believe faith holds up part of the world. I realized I would have to respectfully disagree. Well now at least I know why Chaplain Morgan has laid so low. He has so little to offer. He had something to offer that night though. I got my letter.

 

I made photocopies of everything at work on Friday and Monday I get to submit my roommate change application. I even got to tell Rabbi Samuels about it at services. He was unimpressed since he thinks I should just be able to snap my fingers and switch roommates. Finally, he asked how soon he can be on hand to supervise the kashering of the kitchen in Apartment 8J.

 

I wonder what Rabbi Samuels will ask me to do next. He is going to make this conversion hurt, and I am going to bear the pain. By the way, I have stopped dreaming that I am in jail in Syracuse. Instead, I now dream I am again Rabbi Akiba, a secret I do not tell Rabbi Samuels. I dream I am again the poor shepherd sleeping under the stars and hungering for the written word. I remember sneaking in the main house after dark to study by lantern light. I was dead tired. My wife taught me the words. Now in this life the situation reverses. It is Dov, my love, who knows more than I do though we are evening up as he gains general knowledge and I prepare to go to seminary even with my life on hold for two years.

 

If you want something you have to suffer for it. That what Rabbi Samuels is asking may not be fair is beside that very important point.

 

Alise Liddell

Translator Grade 3C

Apt 3G

3533 Freedom Boulevard Executive Park

Langley, Virginia

Point Two-Five

 

Dear all,

 

I'm sorry I haven't written in a while. I am now in Apaterment 8J. It wasn't that hard to move, but kashering the kitchen.

It was work, but let's just say it was a labor of love. It took three nights and Reverend Morgan came by to watch while Rabbi Samuels supervised. The two men hardly spoke. Reverend Morgan did not lift a finger. He sat reading a magazine or writing longhand in a big legal pad. Rabbi Samuels sometimes commented. We got in one friendly Halachic argument but other than that it went smoothly.

 

It took me until well in to the second night to realize what was going on. Reverend Morgan is a kind man at heart just like Dr. Karch, and he had my welfare in mind. He wanted to make sure that Rabbi Samuels did not spit upon all my hard labors just as a way to keep me out because my skin is black and I was not born Jewish. Such things after all can happen.

 

Finally, when we got done on the third night, I was very tired and a bit fed up with both men. I turned to Reverend Morgan and said: "You spent all this time hanging around with me but this is the first time you've been in the complex with the conscripts, don't you think the government pays you to minister to us as a chaplain?"

 

He answered: "This is the first time any one has really desperately needed me. Most people who want organized religion seek it out in the community and most people who want God find him without my help. Why should I step in? If there's a crisis, I deal with it."

 

"Cause you're paid to be a chaplain!" I cried out.

 

"And what is a chaplain supposed to do, 'save souls?'"

 

"He's supposed to bring the comforts of the faith to the laity," I snarled back.

 

"Well, you are the one who has the call to be a preacher."

 

"I have the call to be a rabbi," I corrected Reverend Morgan and Rabbi Samuels winced. Women can not currently be Orthodox rabbis so my ordination will be through the Conservatives. This is no big deal for me. It's the best I can do and it is years away. I've got to finish my National Service and then go back to college etc....

 

"Well what is a rabbi supposed to do? Put yoruself in my place."

 

"I'm not chaplain. You are."

 

"You want to be my assistant?"

 

"With no official power."

 

"I'll put it in writing. I'm serious. I'm not going to fight with you. You want to see what it is like. It would be excellent training. It can even go on your resume."

 

Rabbi Samuels cleared his throat. Somehow he got me away from Reverend Morgan and gave me a lecture that went something like this. "Alise, that man ((Reverend Morgan)) is an apikorus ((Hebrew for heretic)). He was born Jewish but

look what he calls himself."

 

"He's an Ethical Humanist," I responded.

 

"That means he does not believe in HaShem and he thinks that belief and faith are unimportant."

 

"I know, I looked it up."

 

"Well do you think you should have anything to do with that man?"

 

"This complex needs a chaplain," I responded.

 

"You heard what the clergyman said himself. There are hundreds of churches for the goyim."

 

"Twenty-five cents!" I thought.

 

"This man gets paid to be a chaplain."

 

"So go complain to the government."

 

It was plain Rabbi Samuels did not get it. "The conscripts here need a chaplain and they aren't getting one. That's more important than the money," I continued. "Would you like to be chaplain here? Where's Chabad outreach?"

 

"To who, the goyim?" asked Rabbi Samuels.

 

"They have spiritual needs too...."

 

"Then let their priests take care of them."

 

"That's not happening. Someone has to do it and our chaplain here should," I announced; for now our argument had grown loud enough for Rev. Morgan to hear it.

 

"I made you an offer Alise, are you going to take it?" asked Reverend Morgan.

 

"Yes," I answered. "And you're going to embarassed by what a good job I do! You're going to be shamed to action!"

 

By the way, my conversion is still on track. Next week, we have our first nondenominational religious services at Freedom Boulevard Executive Park.

 

Alise Liddell

Translator Grade 3C and Assistant Chaplain

Apt. 8J

3533 Freedom Boulevard Executive Park

Langley Virginia

Point Two-Five

 

"What's that?" Miriam and Cheyenne don't like that I've come home on my own again instead of on the bus. I caught them twice inadvertantly treifing up the new kitchen and got them to stop. They asked me how I learned to be so strict. I told them I studied. Well, you don't reinvent the wheel to have nondenominational interfaith services which means I need a collection of prayer books which I have been begging, borrowing, and not quite stealing from an assortment of houses of worship.

 

Well I showed them my haul and it was as if I had brought a large pat of excrement in to the apartment. "Come on!" I all but screamed. "You aren't superstitious." Some of the Lubavitchers, sad to say are, but most of the ones I know would only look upon another religion's prayer book with disdain, not fear. These young women with whom I room have no religious education. Ignorance and fear walk hand in hand.

 

I explain what I have to do as assistant chaplain. "The rabbi lets you read this stuff!" exclaimed Cheyenne.

 

"It's nothing I haven't seen at some time in my life," I explain. "Most people here aren't Jewish and they're going to be more likely to attend services if they have a more Christian flavor." An assistant chaplain has to be realistic.

 

At least I've been able to start a Liturgy Committee to be in charge of the services. Jodie who worships boys is on it. I think she likes one of the guys, a tall bornagain Christian who thinks he is out to save us. "All you get is one vote," I told William. I think he is knowledgeable about white conservative Protestantism. I know about the black kind plus my own new faith.

 

Our biggest dispute thus far has been about music. I say that any music we have has to be something everyone can sing either a capella or with a piano which we seem to have in the downstairs lounge in Building 2. Now we need a pianist. William says recorded music is fine. I say we need participation. I made my case and made some of the others feel guilty. I find I am also getting a lot of questions about Rose Among Thorns. Many people have seen the New York based news which covers the Syracuse, Ithaca, Binghamton and Rochester houses. Yes, there are four Rose Among Thorns houses now.

 

Langley Virginia could be the moon as far as Rose Among Thorns is concerned, except the people who have turned out for liturgy committee don't think so. Anyway, my two roommates want no part of Sunday services. They fear anything that even smells of Christianity would contaminate them. I told them that Jesus was a disciple of Rabbi Hilel and that he was a Jew. The religions are intertwined and share the same roots and besides a lot of Christian music is part of the vernacular. I told Miriam and Cheyenne if they are fighting this hard to keep their culture, they are going to lose it. They don't believe me.

 

We have our first services this Sunday. Wish us luck.

 

Alise Liddell

Assistant Chaplain and Translator Grade 3C

(Yes C is for conscript)

Apt #8J

3533 Freedom Boulevard Executive Park

Langley, Virginia

Point Two-Five

 

We've had services four times since I last wrote. Being Assistant Chaplain is exhausting. We get from six to twenty-three people at services. We had recorded music last Sunday because singing a capella is new to our group and the piano is alas out of tune.

 

After work tonight, I have to go down in to the bowels of DC and find a piano tuner. I have his address and we've spoken over the cell phone. He says he gets lost in Langley. I think there is a race issue involved. The weird part is that I think of myself as very dark but West Indian rather than Black.

 

I also have dinner tonight in Silver Springs. Apparently, our Founder, up in Syracuse got wind of what I was doing down here in Langley and she talked to Colin and Kayla out in Manlius and they know people who know people who know people down here in the Washington metro area. In short, I hear the beat of angel wings. The odd thing is that Rose Among Thorns -- Langley (if there is to be such a thing and that is a big if at this point) doesn't need money so much as bodies. Marguerite gave me permission to use the movement's name. That makes good advertising, but we get our space for free. We will need some funds to print prayer books when we finally get ours drafted. This is good work when you can get it. We'll also have to pay the piano tuner. I'm paying him out of my own pocket this evening.

 

Anyway, things are going along well. I bought Dov, my love, some shirts Sunday and mailed them to Big Springs Monday. I bought him plain flannel chamois shirts. That is what they call a plain flannel shirt. This way he is warm and feels as if he is wearing a dress shirt which is what he likes. He is doing singing with the patients and learning a lot of nursery rhymes and American folk songs. He tells me about this over the cell phone.

 

Kabira went shopping with me to buy the shirts to send to Dov. She asked me if my parents approve. I told her they think it is weird but everyone has come to accept we are a pair. Kabira doesn't know where to begin with boys so she leaves them alone. She is eighteen. I was seventeen when I met Dov and was busy with schoolwork as much as I was busy with him which says a lot. I told her it is a matter of meeting the right boy. It happens when it happens.

 

Alise Liddell

Translator Grade 3C and Unofficial Assistant Chaplain

Somewhere in downtown Washington, DC

Point Two-Five

 

Dear all,

 

I had another run in with Dr. Morgan (aka Reverend Morgan, our "chaplain"). This time I needed his help. I work full time. We have a thriving worship group but since my background is Rose Among Thorns, we have to do more than just get together. The now well tuned piano is a godsend. Eliza from New Jersey plays blues and gospel tunes on it. William has discovered he can sing and he remembers all the hymns from his grandmother's church, but our congregation has needs.

 

Chief among these are education or more precisely a way not to go stale with school. Most of us were planning to finish or start college. We need books as well as computers. We need a library. I don't have the time to go around when many places that might donate books are open and while I can write letters to those who are potential angels, they do not know me from a hole in the wall. Fourth in Command for Rose Among Thorns #1 and Head Religious Officer for Rose Among Thorns #2 doesn't amount to squat.

 

Dr. Morgan on the other hand is a known quantity. I tried to explain all this to him. Oddly enough I got his ear. He asked me why I needed him. He always asks. I explained I am unknown and work nine to five. He has more flexible hours and as I said before people know and respect him.

 

"Your rabbi doesn't respect me," he said.

 

"Rabbi Samuels only wants to minister to Jews. Rose Among Thorns wants to minister to the whole world," I replied.

 

Dr.Morgan laughed. He has heard of Rose Among Thorns. "Do you know Marguerite Weinstein was Chasidic?" he asked.

 

"She was Lubavitch," I answer. The joke was over.

 

Dr. Morgan is going to help me find book angels. Meanwhile Saturday night is a cleaning drive in the common areas. One alcove in the computer room in Building 2 is going to become a library and reading room. The computers are going to be clensed of viruses, malware, and spyware and we are getting our own laser printer to finally print some decent prayer books and song books of our own.

 

Miriam and Chyenee, my roommates are thrilled. This surprised me but they have never thought of a religion before that served young people. Could our building at Langley become a Rose Among Thorns house? I hope and dream.

 

Alise Liddell

Translator Grade 3C

Somewhere in downtown Washington, DC

Point Two-Five

 

Cheyenne was all over me when I came last night. It seemed our voice mail was full of messages from Marguerite Weinstein up in Syracuse. I called back Marguerite. I am glad she took notice of her poor follower and former religious deputy in exile down here in Langley. Of course when Marguerite calls or when you beg her for help, no news is often good news and you are not bringing good news and don't expect a good response.

 

Marguerite was not happy with me. "You are putting too much on Doctor Morgan's back. He only wants to run his Ethical Humanist Society for the Comfortable. You know that is not what Rose Among Thorns is about. If you want to build a house here, you have to spread the word. Look at your Dov. He's all alone in Big Springs Texas yet he reads to children and teaches others about his culture and in turn learns from them. What do you do and don't tell me you work full time. Dov also works full time...."

 

You get the idea. What Marguerite does not know is that Dov lives in a small town. He walks down the road and has neighbors. Here in Langley my fellow conscripts who've drawn special assignments and I are isolated in a suburban wasteland. Freedom Executive Park is a prison. Of course I escape from this park regularly to walk home and visit Rabbi Samuels who is in charge of my conversion and to visit area malls.

 

One of those malls has an Office Depot and with my salary as a Grade Three money is not a problem. This reminds me of the days when Independent Rainbow Zia was flush but that is another story. If I need something like two hundred business cards and five hundred hand bills, hey, my own problem is hauling them home. I can find the bulletin boards in supermarkets, the telephone poles and more. The business cards are more discrete. When I shop in malls, I can hand them to clerks and fwllow shoppers. Maybe we'll start seeing outsiders at services. I also need to look in to volunteer opportunities.

 

We need to have a service committee as well as a liturgy committee. So far there are about twelve to fifteen of us at services on a typical Sunday. That is not bad, but not good enough. We need to become part of our community. We also need to start with Golden Hour. Yes, it is named after the Golden Hour in the New York City public schools. I'm the one who named it. I am investing in a stove top crankable corn popper for Golden Hour so we can serve popcorn for those who have not had enough to eat at Saturday dinner.

 

I tell myself this is only the beginning.

 

Alise Liddell

Translator Grade 3C (Yes for real! I'm an officer and a gentlewoman. The gift of tongues pays off!)

 

Dear all,

 

I walked home part way to DC to a different Metro station than I normally use and then on to Bethesda to walk the rest of the way. The excercise keeps me from turning in to a little brown ball. At 4'10" it is very easy to become a little brown ball. I need the exercise whether I was trying to post hand bills and talk to people in stores and generally get the word out about Rose Among Thorns or not.

 

I did not ask Marguerite, but part of me just keeps saying "you have to have a call for this," Alise. My call is dead silent. I ws sure my call is dead silent. People give you funny looks when you hand them the business card. They even act funnier when you tell them that you have interfaith services with no hell fire and lots of singing and reading and other fun activities. Religion is in the doing not the creed. Knowledge and good works hold up the world. I could go on, but those of you familiar with Rose Among Thorns all ready know.

 

I was heading in to (I'm not going to tell you where it is because where I work is a secret building) the Metro station when a woman called out. "Hey you! Hey you little black girl with dreadlocks!" Washington, DC is full of small black women with dreadlocks so I am nothing special even if my dreads are not long and luxurious. I turned to find a tall black woman in a fake leather coat and flowered blouse and old blue jeans following me. I thought "trouble?" I have a suspicious mind. At the very least this was some kind of a conjob or I was going to get mugged or have my pocket picked.

 

"What do you want?" I asked the woman in the fake leather coat.

 

"Weren't you up in that jail in Syracuse where you drove out that demon a couple of years ago?" asked the woman.

 

I blinked. "Yes," I answered. "The woman was Athena Martin. She works as a tutor for Rose Among Thorns at their Ithaca house. I don't usually do exorcisms, but we all needed to sleep."

 

"Wow, that's something with all those girls singing like angels," sighed the woman in the fake leather coat. "You really had the spirit then. Do you still have it?"

 

"Sometimes," I did not feel like lying.

 

"God said I should be looking for you. He said you were in this city," said the woman in the fake leather coat. "I remembered your name Alise with an S but not your last name."

 

"I'm Alise Liddell. I've been drafted and I'm on my way home to Langley. We have interfaith services every Sunday." I gave her the card, the handbill, the schedule. I wish I could have given her more.

 

The woman said her name was Florence and she lived in Bethesda so we got to ride home together on the train. Florence talked about rehab and an encounter she had had with the devil. I tried not to think of the monsters three hundred years away in a parallel future on the Telegraph, the ones who destroyed the Sirius Gate out near a cold dark moon of Saturn. There are enough monsters to fight right here on Earth. Why would any one go to the stars to fight monsters?

 

Florence will be coming to services on Sunday. I still don't feel I had the call. The call is Florence's, not mine. I thought that as I walked in the door. I found Cheyenne and Miriam, my two roommates looking quite unhappy. They got rid of Jodie who was a boy crazy show off and inherited a preacher. They feel they got the worse bargain. "Most people are just not in to religion like you are," Cheyenne tried to explain.

 

"Am I pushing it down your throat?" I began a familiar argument that bores me even to write it now.

 

"You push it down even when you're not trying," Miriam chimed in. "You're always there with your books and your liturgy committee and now it's going out to advertise."

 

"Well why don't you join us?" I asked. I could not resist. I told you, I have no call.

 

"Because it fucking bores me to tears," wailed Cheyenne.

 

"That's because you're not using it the right way. What do you want to do, sing, read, cook, set up, visit the sick? We have lots of choices. If you put your faith to work it will make you happy..." This was useless.

 

"You don't fucking understand!"

 

"I understand that it's something your parents dragged you trhough and made you sit through and you were made to memorize stuff by rote that you knew was biased at the time you learned it in 'religious education' and then when you were thirteen, you had a bas mitzvah and got bribed to pretend to be religious with lots of presents and finally you were free and could disregard God just like all the other adults around you. You'd learned nothing of how to have Him in your life."

 

"Shit," sighed Miriam. "She's got it right except I don't think there was anything there."

 

"Yes, there is..." I said. "Want to give it a try."

 

"You are going to teach us whether we want it or not," answered Cheyenne.

 

"No," I answered. "You're going to teach me. What is the thing you like to do besides just be entertained and buy things?"

 

Cheyenne and Miriam looked at one another and gave each other blank stares. "OK," I said. "Let's try it another way. You're locked in this apartment, no work, no mall, no TV, what do you do?"

 

"Probably doodle," Cheyenne confessed and MIriam gave her a knowing look. "I do fashion drawings," Miriam confessed.

 

"The meeting space needs a mural. Can I get you two to design and paint it?"

 

"They're not going to let us paint a mural," complained Cheyenne.

 

"I'll cut through the red tape. I think I've got a willing Chaplain. You get the mural designed and up on the wall."

 

"What's supposed to be in this mural?" asked Miriam.

 

"Whatever you and Cheyenne think is appropriate for a religious meeting space. It's totally up to you. I also have a reading for you if you're up for it."

 

"I knew this was coming...." groaned Miriam.

 

"Ever hear of the Song of Songs?" I asked.

 

"That's in the Bible," said Cheyenne.

 

"But did you ever read it?" I asked. I got blank stares.

 

"Fine, then I'll bookmark it and you give it a try. You are going to find it is very different from the rest of the Bible."

 

I did leave an extra Bible with the Song of Songs bookmarked. I don't know if Cheynne or Miriam will read it, but they say they are walking home today so they can buy art supplies and posterboard to do prototypes for the mural. I managed to reach Dr. Morgan's answering machine and tell him that I need a great big favor. If he doesn't come through, I am just going to go over his head. What I have to remember is even with my wretched excuse for a call to preach, nothing is impossible.

 

Alise Liddell

Translator Grade 3C

Somewhere in Washington, DC

Point Two-Five

 

Dear all,

 

Cheyenne and Miriam have nearly completed the prototype for their mural. It is based on the Song of Songs when Shulamit goes in search of the sleeping king who is most likely Solomon. Shulamith is a black woman whose white tunic is nearly sliding off one shoulder. She is nuble and has breasts like two pomegranates and a big winning smile and good thick straightened black hair. I would think braids would be nicer but Cheyenne and Miriam are white and what they know about hair is basicly that you wash it, comb it, blow dry it if you feel like it and get it cut when you feel like it. Otherwise it is a weed planted on the scalp that just grows.

 

We had thirty-one at services which is a new record. Florence arrived with her boyfriend and small child and several women who work in our closest mall and one who works at the supermarket who also brought her husband. We will need to fix free lunch soon which means a food fund. I have started a fund raising committee. We will need funds for paint and food and pots and pans and other kitchen utensils. We will need money or donations of shelves for books in our library. They have a little cybercafe for us, but no library where those kept out of college for two years can keep from going stale and pursue learning.

 

Books we can usually get by donation. I don't mind if the collection is heavily leisure reading with religious works thrown in. We could use some practice books and recent texts for math and the sciences as well. Dr. Morgan came by after services and I had Cheyenne and Miriam show him their mural. He laughed and laughed.

 

"What happens after you're gone?" he asked.

 

"Others take over after me," I answer. "I'm not the only one with the call." That I don't have much of a call goes without saying.

 

Dr. Morgan asked me if I were willing to spend Thanksgiving dinner feeding the destitute at a shelter. I asked if the shelters weren't full of one day do-gooders on that day. He scratched his head. He said I was probably right and then wondered what else I could do to prove my faith is pure. He thinks I am out for myself. He doesn't realize I work for Marguerite Weinstein, Malcha ha Shoshannot, in Syracuse, New York. She is the one who has the call, not I.

 

Finally I suggested we do something to amuse the children at the shelter, a day with art. Cheyenne and Miriam and several of the other women would enjoy leading that. The men could hold a soccer or basketball or even a football clinic. Dr. Morgan said he'd see what we could do. He thought the shelter would be delighed to have us.

 

I asked when Cheyenne and Miriam would get permission to paint their mural. He said he'd see what he would do. I bet the mural is up before Thanksgiving. There is a line in the New Testament about the Kingdom of Heaven being as small as a mustard seed. I think of that line tonight. I am acting on Marguerite's orders. I am filling a need for religious comfort. I am teaching where there is ignorance but it all starts so small and yet...

 

Dov can teach effortlessly. Dov makes the patients in the hospital where he works (It is a mental hospital) smile with his stories and demeanor. For Dov, nothing stands in the way. For me, I walk through walls.

 

Alise Liddell

Translator Grade 3C

Apt 8J

3533 Freedom Executive Park

Langley, Virginia

Point Two-Five

 

Alise' letter to Vijaya......11/14/06

 

Dear Vijaya,

 

Are you awake? I looked at a map and it is six in the morning where you are. the western third of the Dakotas is on Mountain Standard Time, but you are in the east of your time zone. The sun must rise early for you. Is the sun shining where you are? I hope it shines brightly and makes the snow glisten like diamonds.

 

I hope it went well for you last night. Police frighten me. I hope they did not frighten you. I hope they arrested the creep who laid his hands on you. I hope you stay brave and strong.

 

Sing Baa Baa Black Sheep for the foster kids. Teach them the version we made up. Sing it for me. Sing it for you. Oh my poor Vijaya. Please, tell me that you'll let Clay know what happened. You did nothing wrong. You stuck up for yourself and stayed brave and kept your temper in check.

 

Please sing Baa Baa Black Sheep today and may God be with you.

 

Alise Liddell

Translator Grade 3C

Somewhere in Washington, DC

Point Two-Five

 

Dear all,

 

It is business as usual today. It was business as usual yesterday. Business has changed but it is still business. If I had a real call maybe things would be different but my calling is my gift of tongues and what knowledge I have learned. I can preach from my knowledge and I can teach from my knowledge but the call to lead a ministry, you know that it is missing. Dov, has such a call in the marrow of his bones. I am a scholar and a linguist, perhaps in this life. I can train for the rabbinate and with training I can be of service, but this...

 

Last night, I did not take the bus home. Instead I went tutoring. I promised Florence who went to services last Sunday and who will be attending regularly to tutor her nefews in English and her cousin in Spanish. I took a Metro bus and then walked the last ten blocks in neighborhood that makes the Bronx look good. They say the Bronx was going through a renaissance when I was growing up. After walking through DC, I believe it. I won't say where Florence lives but the neighborhood was what some people call blighted.

 

All apartments even those neatly kept get squalid when you sleep three to a room. I grew up this way. So too, did you Vijaya. You would understand how people in Florence' corner of DC live. I tutored at a corner of a dining room table jammed in to a living room where I had to beg to have the TV turned off. I gave a long lecture on the importance of quiet for study and suggested the grownup people read and the youngest children color so those doing schoolwork have quiet. My own parents made a habit of reading the New York Times while my sisterse and I did our reading for school and worked on math problems. Remember, there were five of us in that two bedroom apartment and my father was the building manager.

 

I made progress. I can teach what I know. That is not the hard part. Today I tutor Florence' neighbor's children and I bring two math tutors with me. Tutoring is a good advertisement for our ministry. It shows we care and that we put the gifts and blessings of HaShem within reach as they should be. Learning is said to be a pillar that holds up the world. This applies to secular as well as religious learning.

 

When I got home last night, I smelled oil paints. The prototype for the mural and the mural istelf will be in acrylics. The oils went with a stretched canvas. Miriam is painting again. Cheyenne is reading the Golden Bough. She wondered if that would make me mad. I just laughed. She said the Song of Songs had gotten her interested in mythology. HaShem is hard at work among us, but it is no thanks to me. Would that it were.

 

Vijaya, do what you have to do. Enclosed is an extra Amsco Preliminary Math and Amsco Algebra text. These are for you to use with Kelli. The only way most thick heads learn math is by practicing problems. I hope Kelli is willing to practice for all the trouble through which you intend to go.

 

Alise Liddell

Translator Grade 3C (An officer but not the gentle type!)

Somewhere in Washington, DC

Point Two-Five

 

Dear all,

 

It was hard not to fall asleep on the Metro riding from Florence' neighborhood to Bethesda from whee I can walk to clear my head. I know what Marguerite has asked me is impossible. Think of Jesus' parabale of the seeds. I am a seed on stoney ground which is why I have no call within me. I tutored four people tonight. Two women were studying for the GED while one of their mother's watched their babies. I taught a ten year old boy his times tables. His younger sister wants to learn French. I told her they teach it in some middle schools. I even taught her a few words. I had a can of Pepsi but no dinner. I rode the Metro light headed with hunger which feels good some of the time. It felt good tonight.

 

The problem is simple. Here is how I know I have no call. I am transient. In fifteen months, I'm back in Ithaca finally working on my own education, tutoring, and translating because Spanish is one of my tongues. Here....I am a visitor. Even in Florence' neighborhood where she worries about my safety at night. I know only the people to whom she introduces me. I harrangue and preach but I go home to Langley and I have to live in Langely or I lose my security clearance and can't work. I'm an officer. I got out of neighborhoods like this at least part way when I was twelve and got in to Hunter. Once you are out, there is no way in.

 

I also know how Rose Among Thorns got its start. Marguerite made friends. She preached her message to Rinah and to Charlene first and converted them. With my hit and run tutoring there is no way I'll make a friend except Florence who knows me from the nights we spent together in the county jail. I am an officer equivalent who is never short of money. They even give us free lunch at work. How can I tell people the virtues of trhift when I have money to spare? How can I preach studying, when my own education is on hold for two years? How can I preach caring when my commitment is fifteen months and a few horus each night?

 

And you can pat me on the back and point to Cheyenne, Miriam, William and all the rest, but two years from now or mabye sooner if we get transferred they will be gone, dispersed. I'll have convinced Miriam and Cheyenne their faith is more than just a relic and a way to keep functionaries paid, but that is not what Marguerite wants. She wants faith to be the force that breaks the yoke of ignorance and fear that keeps so many people poor, unhappy, not knowing enough and constantly in want. Tutoring for three hours a night after work and then returning to the suburbs just won't cut it.

 

Alise Liddell

Apt #8J

3533 Freedom Executive Park

Langley, Virginia

Point Two-Five

 

Shabbat Shalom all,

 

I am uncertain of my future tonight. Let me tell all of you why. At noon today, they brought us in to the conference room. The "us" was all the translators and specialists, the speakers in tongues, the native speakers, those with a sense for deciphering arcane mathematical formulae and technical diagrams and told us that they had ramped up security. This meant they would bring us in lunch. We could have whatever we wanted to eat but we could not go out for lunch. We also had to take the bus to and from work, no more going home from work on our own.

 

I don't have to tell you what this does both to the ministry and to my attempt to convert to Judaism. It ends the tutoring prorgram. And tonight was Shabbos. Rabbi Simon expected me at his house. He has grown used to me. I do not know why the government has clamped down on us. No one as far as I know has taken documents home and after work. Our time is our own once we are off the secret location's premises. We work between a forty and fifty hour week with no overtime and very good monthly pay.

 

I was an officer, but there is a part of me that is not gentle as you well know. Tonight that part of me took over. Around the time we were to go back down to our buses to take us to our quarters, including my bus back to Langley. I slipped down the back fire stairs and in to the alley and then to a Metro station eight blocks south of work. I rode downtown toward the Capital because I knew they would be looking in the other direction.

 

I then caught a bus that headed toward Bethesda and crossed a different bridge and reached the rabbi's house from a road along the river. I cut through two shoppign centers so that those in vehicles could not follow me. I got there. We davened (prayed), ate Shabbos dinner and then things broke up. I explained my problem to Rabbi Simon. I knew the government would be coming for me. The rabbi said he had no room to keep me. I was shcoked. "I just need sanctuary until Shabbos is over," I sai, "or at least services tomorrow." I need more than that. I need to go to stores and malls. I need to visit houses of worship. I need to tutor and if I am free....and others....I can't think of others. I can only think of me right now.

 

I begged the rabbi to accompany me to Dr. Morgan's house. He told me I'd have to straighten out my problems with the government myself, but he did walk me that far. Dr. Morgan was surprised to see me. I explained my problem. "It's a civil rights issue," he said. Around 11pm, the government showed up. It was not MP's because Langley is not a military base. It was two plain clothes officers who were not quite Marshalls either. Dr. Morgan reminded them that I was entitled to a chaplain's consult. They in turn explained their side of the issue. Dr. Morgan said I'd have to go home and live under security. I could probably get out for services on Friday but the tutoring was done. There was no law that said I had a right to set up a ministry, hold down a "second job" tutoring, or run numerous errands. He was nice but he was firm. The guards took me home. They warned me politely not to run away again or they would "write me up" and sanction me.

 

Upstairs Cheyenne and Miriam were watching a DVD while Miriam painted and Cheyenne drew. The DVD was just white noise they explained and they said they had heard how I held up the bus for two hours. I laughed and then I started packing. "What the f*ck!" asked Miriam. "We won't have a ministry here if they keep us prisoners. 'That which works for the power that starves the body and spirit, always fears the people it creates. It hides them away in secret sections of cities, in dark holes made fearful so that such people are kept outside the company of those who are their brothers and sisters.'" I quoted Marguerite. Now her words would guide me tonight and HaShem's mercy would protect me.

 

I gathered up a napsack of clothes and some fruit and a few cans of tuna. I carried my cell phone. The GPS would give me away. I'd also let work know I'd be there on Monday and I'd be by for services on Sunday and if any one needed me between now and then I was just a phone call away. I made sure I took the cell phone charger too. But there was a very good question whether the agents would come where I was going to go.

 

I walked back down the highway, passed the closed shopping malls and toward the streets that led towards the Potomac and finally across the river in to the now sleeping suburb of Bethesda. It took two or three more hours of walking through industrial strips and gritty urban streets of row houses and three and four story tenaments. Finally I reached Florence' neighborhood. By a boarded up store, a knot of men stood and whistled. I whistled back. One of them asked if I wanted to spend the night. Another asked if I could change a twenty dollar bill. I told him it was too dark out. In front of a squat square apartment block a bunch of men and women stood smoking cigarettes and probably getting drunk. Further away others indulged in other vices. In bushes by a playground I could hear the grunts and groans of sex. I just kept walking. I knew Florence' building but that was not where I went. I liked Joelle, the little girl who wanted to learn French. She lived with an aunt a cousin, and a half sibling. The aunt was lending out quiet apartment space. Now I prayed she would do what the rabbi and the chaplain could not or would not. I tried to get buzzed in to her building but no one answered the door. I walked around to the side and called up to the second floor.

 

"It's me Alise. Raylina, it's me Alise! Please this is an emergency! You have to let me in!"

 

A light came on. Maybe it was a bathroom light, but it was Raylina and I managed to get her to buzz me in. Her twin sister had just gotten back from working 2/3's shift. That meant half way between second and graveyard. It was 3:30am on Saturday morning. In three hours, I'd travel back to Bethesda and risk another confrontation with the authorities. My body will ache from sleeping on the carpeted but otherwise hard floor. Eventually if they do not pursue me in to this neighborhood out of fear, I will stop hurting. I will be back to Langley for services on Sunday and to the office to work on Monday. If the government locks me up, they lose a valuable translator. They wanted me, and I will give them their portion. The rest though is mine. I am ready to risk my life. I am ready to go to prison. Let them come and get me.

 

Alise Liddell

HaShem guides and protects me!

Apt 2L

Building #14

Oak Gardens Plaza

Washington, DC

Point Two-Five

 

Dear all,

 

I made it to services, dazed, tired but very happy to be free to worship HaShem. After services the plain clothes crew was at the door ready to give me a ride back to Langley. I wasn't going back to Langley. "Rabbi," I asked Rabbi Simon. "Can you explain to them that my religion forbids me from riding on Shabbos?"

 

Rabbi Simon replied: "Alise, they know you aren't Jewish."

 

"They know I live and believe as a practicing Jew. My conversion is only a formality."

 

"Are you so sure?"

 

"I wouldn't have risked a walk back to Bethesda and then back where I'm going if I didn't care and believe. I'd be sleeping and regaining my strength, but I know HaShem gives me strength. What other kind of test of faith do you want?"

 

"It is not what I want. Alise, I don't control the government."

 

"I'll handle it then," I said. Some days American history, particularly twentieth century American history comes in handy. I walked down Rabbi Simon's front steps. An official (for want of a better word) in a nondescript navy blue short quilted jacket and not quite matching pants motioned me in to the car. He held open the back door like a chauffeur. That was almost comical. I walked away from him and then turned.

 

"No thankyou," I told him.

 

"What do you mean?" he asked. "You're under orders."

 

"I dont' respect those orders. When I'm not working, my time is my own and I'm free to come and go. I won't be your prisoner." With that I started walking. Do not ask me how I knew he was going to try something from behind. I expected to be overpowered and dragged back to the car. I prayed for protection and remembered something about once having to defend the name of God under torture. I was fighting for my right to spread the word of HaShem. I told myself that any pain or humiliation endured in that cause would be an honor.

 

Still it was a shock when the official threw a hot flaming comb at the back of my legs. That was what it must have been, a hot iron comb, a fiendish creation of the Edomite Hordes (Romans) used to torture Jews. I felt my legs turn to water as the pain cut through me but I did not scream. I hit ground on all fours. I wished I could walk on my hands. I knew I had to find a way to make my legs move. The best I could manage was a forward role and from there I got to my feet. The official was nearly standing over me as I broke in to a run.

 

"Holy shit!" he screamed. "I just tased her and she just kept going."

 

"Tase her again," the other official called out. I guess they traveled in pairs. This time I was ready. I am excellent at withstanding torture in the name of my faith.

 

The second blow was across my back and buttocks and hurt more, but it was assymetrical and I hopped until the sensation returned to my bad leg and then I ran again. I could hear the officials say something about authorization. I dashed between houses and across back yards and on to a parallel street. That would make it just a little harder for the officials in their unmarked car to chase me down, and then I did it again and headed toward the Potomac and on in to Washington DC.

 

If I can stand to fairly strong taser shots, I can tutor on no sleep. I set up in Raylina's apartment and later I worked in Building #6 where I tutored a young woman in a head scarf. She was an excellent pupil until her older brother came by. He wore a long tunic that almost looked like a dress, but he sported a thin beard and an embroidered skull cap. He said something to the sister that I understood; for his language was Ahamaric and that is one I speak and sometimes translate. Basicly he called me an Oreo. You all know what color an Oreo is on the inside. I was a commuter from Langley, a Cornellian do-gooder. I'd get tired of the complex and tired of the people there and decide it was too dangerous anyway. I was worth no one's admiration.

 

I replied in Ahmaric that I was an Uh-Oh Oreo or a Milano. I had a good, and yes fairly Eurocentric education on the outside, but inside I was West Indian. I also replied that had just been tased that afternoon. I stood up and turned around and showed the elder brother the taser barb embedded in my shin and the other which only made it in to my skirt. Any one wanting to see an Uh-Oh Oreo can visit this web page.

 

http://www.nabiscoworld.com/./Brands/ProductInformation.aspx?BrandKey=OREO&Site=1&Product=4400000797

 

"Fuck!" said elder brother in English. Then he shook his head. "If you were tased, how are you still walking?" he asked.

 

"I had to get here," I answered.

 

"Well little West Indian," said elder brother. "We have bigger problems than teaching my lovely sister to write essays. Down by Building #17 is the supermarket. That's what we call it because that is what it is. You can get anything there."

 

"You have young men who prey upon their neighbors because the world has abandoned them and they abandon themselves."

 

"Uh no...I mean I'm sure they have some customers here, but most come from Bethesda, Silver Springs, and Langley. They have a drive up service. It's really quite efficient except when there's competition between brands or when someone doesn't like the merchandise. You see, the supermarket has no return policy and if you can't pay at the register...well you know what happens. There busy doing buisness and don't care about innocent bystanders."

 

"Has any one called the police?" I asked.

 

Elder brother laughed. His younger sister shook her head.

 

"This is a law enforcement issue, but we are going to have to testify and insist that the cops do t heir job. That means I'll have to talk to lots of people and get a group to take a stand against the supermarket and work to shut it down. If just one person testifies against the supermarket...we know what can happen but if it is ten, twenty, thirty people or more, if it's the mothers and grandmothers and the older brothers who have respectable jobs, then what can they do. Do you want to help me. I'll call the police if no one else is willing. I think I also know someone who will be very glad to call the police or whom the police will listen to. They work either for the CIA or Homeleand Security. Hey they're law enforcement. We'll also need to be coordinated on the ground. I have a friend in Ithaca who can help with that."

 

I was out of breath. I hoped older brother believed me. Well, I need some sleep. At 5am it's back on foot to Langley for the 10am service. Then I'm going to have to deal with my friends in the unmarked car again. They might try shooting me with a tranquilizer dart or with real bullets. Tasers I can handle, but I don't think I can put up with more than a flesh wound.

 

For those of you who don't know. A taser is a weapon that shoots an electrical charge at the victim. The charge is painful and it disrupts the nerves and it stuns but does not kill. Tasers are torture. Taking two taser hits tonight left me light headed and feverish. Rayline's twin sister, Soleadad, suggested I drink Gator Ade to restore fluids and she also gave me tylenol because when she put a fever strip to my head, I was running a tempoerature. I wonder how many taster hits I can take.

 

Alise Liddell

HaShem guides and protects me!

Apt 2L

Building #14

Oak Gardens Plaza

Washington, DC

Point Two-Five

 

Dear Luchi-Xara,

 

Please get word to Dr. Karch that I need his help. I am working on a project during which a group of concerned citizens will run a drug and prostitution "supermarket" out of an apartment complex in a raunchy neighborhood of Washington, DC. To accomplish this we need mass action that is spontaneous. That means I need to be able to reach hundreds of cell phones (or tens if we don't get hundreds with a single page or call) I need some kind of a device which will enable me to do this. Do not worry about my safety. I am in the hands of HaShem and any pain I endure glrofies and sanctifies his Name.

 

Alise Liddell

HaShem guides and protects me!

Apt 2L

Building #14

Oak Gardens Plaza

Washington, DC

Point Two-Five

 

Dear all,

 

I led services this Sunday and also had a meeting with William, Miriam, Cheyenne and the rest of my core group. They still have permission for the, mural the sketches of which went up last night. Shulamite and Solomon are thin pencil ghosts on the wall leading in to the library which has become our chapel. At the meeting I outlined plans for a massive tutoring and enrichment effort for young men (It will mostly be men and boys) who have run afoul of the law. It will be a matter of days to a bit more than a week. It is wrong just to arrest those who work in the supermarket and leave them with no way to survive. Those who worked in the supermarket did not receive the right education in the first place. This time around they will need to obtain it and this is a Rose Among Thorns mission if ever there was one. "Do you know where Oak Gardens Plaza is?" asked Sunshine who is from DC originally and who gets visits from her parents Sunday afternoon. "Do you know what kind of a place it is?"

 

"What epithet would you like me to call it?" I responded. "There are good people and bad there and those who have been deluded and preyed on others after being preyed on themselves. If those there can do a bette job of looking after themselves, Oak Gardens Plaza won't be such a rotten place."

 

"What about safety?" asked William.

 

I was in no mood to answer this, having been tazed last night and still feeing weird and a bit sick. Apparently the sickness is a physiological reaction that helped me resist the tasing. Alicia, our premed (or would be premed) looked up tasing in Medling and found out that a certain kind of delirium works as an antidote. I'm not delirious but I'm feverish and thirsty and just not myself. I'm held togther with Gatorade and Tylenol and really would like some hot tea more than anything.

 

"We take risks in the name of God. Nothing is done without taking risks. The prize here is to free us from the fear of poverty and the poor. The prize here is to teach those who do not know how to learn and take care of themselves. The prize is to break the bonds of class that separate us and to learn and worship together. The prize is to bring God's forgiveness and mercy from words in to action. We are the instrumetns of God's mercy. We will not be hurt. Think of Abram when he walked through the fiery furnace in Ur of the Chaldees."

 

"You mean Shadrach, Mishak and Abed-nego," said William.

 

"That's in the Book of Daniel," answered Miriam who has been reading Scripture on her own.

 

"This is in the oral tradition, the Midrash, surrounding Genesis," I explained.

 

"We could be like Shadrach, Mishak, and Abed-nego too," I added. "That's the righ tidea."

 

After services we had visitors. There were three of them, two men and a women. One man and the woman wore dark blue polyester pants and short unmarked quilted navy blue jackets that did not quite match. Another man was a portly person in a suit.He was caucasian with a flat topped head with combed over lank light brown hair and beedy blue eyes.

 

"We need to talk to you," the man in the suit began.

 

"So tallk," I offered.

 

"You need to see a doctor," the woman explained ever so kindly.

 

I reached in my pocket and pulled out the two barbs from last night's tasing. I also said I was drinking Gatorade and taking tylenol. I said my job would be much easier to do if I did not have to worry about being chased down as I commuted from Langley to DC and ran my errands in peace.

 

"Why can't you obey simple rules?" asked beedy eyes.

 

"The rules are neither reasonable nor simple," I answered. "I.." and I stopped. I don't have a call. I'm doing what I have to do to try and bring two groups together. I am following what creed Rose Among Thorns has. I am teaching. I am fighting, but it remains to be seen whether I can lead. Elder Brother as I think of him may be able to lead. Raylina and her twin sister may be able to lead. William can lead. Naama is a born administator. Dov makes people laugh and understand in new ways, but me, I am just a servant of God with no call to be more than that. I am a tongue and a set of ears. I am twelve and a half years of very good formal education. I'm an Uh-Oh Oreo with dread locks on my head and two taser wounds in my calf and buttocks.

 

"What's the matter?" asked the female security person.

 

"You wouldn't understand," I told her. "Marguerite Weinstein, Malcha ha Shoshannot, up in Syracuse believes I have the call from God to start a movement in Washington, DC. Marguerite has the call. I don't, but I respect Marguerite and.... I believe she is Moshiacha, that's the Hebrew word for Messiah. The Messiah didn't come two thousand years ago. She is here now. She will succeed if we are willing to work and sacrifice to bring her message from words to action." I stopped. What I say makes no sense to outsiders and those who consider church just something to which they go on Saturdays or Sundays.

 

"Oh lord," sighed the male security person.

 

"Have you ever been to a therapist?" asked the man in the suit.

 

"Yes," I responded. "Haven't you bothered to bring up my medical records. Ihave a comb phobia." I ran my hand through my dreadlocks. "These would be braids if I were normal."

 

"I've got to get back to DC if you don't mind," I explained and with that I turned my back and started walking towards the river and Bethesda. They trailed me for a while, but I cut through a shopping center. Apparently there are orders not to tase me again. Alicia, the premed, said that I could die from being tased too much since the delirium can be lethal. Clearly the government does not want me dead.

 

When I reached Oak Gardens, I had some tea in Raylina's apartment with Soledad who is off this afternoon and babysitting. There were little kids and broken toys everywhere, so I set up tutoring in building six. I then went down to the corner store for Gatorade. I am dragging. I won't lie to you. Soledad is an LPN and she took my vitals. She said my heart beat was fine which is the big worry. I sat at her kitchen table drinking green GatorAde. The stuff comes in five or six different colors and I am rotating the colors and flavors.

 

I was in no shape for a nap though I was dog tired so I headed over to Building #17 to get a load of the supermarket first hand. It was an efficient operation, SUV's and expensive sedans cruised through the small space between what should have been the parking lot and the sidewalk so that no one could drop any one off or even get in or out easily with shopping or errands. Lookouts, probably middle school kids stood looking bored at the periphery of the parking lot. Walk up customers came up and down the stairs past a lobby door that had been propped open. A plump girl probably about my own age or a year or two younger sat on a big cinder block that was being used to keep the door which is supposed to be locked propped open so the walk-in customers could go in and out. I could see a few strung out types smoking crack. Two boys passed a blunt back and forth. Most customers though, took their merchandise home with them. I asked the woman who was acting as doorperson/security where I could find the manager. She laughed. "What do you call him then?" I asked.

 

"Hey teacher, go teach the kids who want to learn. We're busy working here," she said.

 

"I want to speak to the manager," I insisted.

 

She laughed again and then called for a big boy who was lounging in the stairwell. "This woman bothering you?" he asked the doorwoman.

 

"She keeps bugging me yeah, says she wants to see the manager."

 

"We have no manager. This is an entra penoorial thinng."

 

"You have a big manager," I answered. "He's the one who makes sure the big shipments come in and get packaged so they can be sold retail. Where is he?"

 

"What do know about shipments?"

 

"More than I want to. May I see the manager please. I need to speak to him."

 

Well, he was up on the fourth floor. I was told not to even knock on certain doors. There was no working elevator in Building #17 and the secret off limits doors led to apartments where procsesing took place. The Manager's office was in the end of the hall. I expected the place would be spiffy in some way, new furniture or even new cheap furniture, a big desk from an office supply store, a TV a computer. Instead, the apartment was a bombed out shell. Even the linoleum that had once been under the carpet on the living room floor was cracked. There were chunks of concrete and cinder blocks, surplus door props to use as chairs. Two saw horses and a board formed a table. It took me a while to realize someone had made quite an effort at creative destruction.

 

Also despite the chaos, this apartment was clean. There were no huge piles of fast food conatiners or candy wrappers or cigarette butts. Whoever lived here had even propped open a window to admit fresh air. Eyes; for that was what everyone called him, sat on a chunk of cement just like the door woman. I thanked him for seeing me.

 

"Why shouldn't I see the teacher. It's good that we have teachers here now. Young people need education. You need education to make it in life."

 

Was Eyes mocking me?

 

"Well," I answered. "I feel flattered. I know you are not going to like to hear what I have to say."

 

"I can guess what it is."

 

"Yes, but this time it has teeth in it. I'm asking you to get out of the drug business. I'm asking it politely and nicely because I think you are a thinking man and you deserve a warning."

 

"Heh.... what makes you think you can put me out of business this time around?"

 

"God is with me."

 

"Well, God is with me too. Down on the first floor is a Bubalweo and she helps me wtih Santeria and Hoodoo and all the rest. You know about that stuff?"

 

"Yes," I answered. "My God though is bigger than her Orishas. Even Exu answers to HaShem."

 

"You really believe that shit. Well preacher teacher, go on believing it but don't make my men have to defend themselves."

 

"I think you are a problem solver," I told Eyes.

 

"Yes, and if you are a problem, I'm going to solve you."

 

"Did you hear what I said. You are a problem solver and your problem isn't me. Your problem is that you are eating and defacating in the same place. You know what happens when you try that."

 

"What the fuck are you telling me?"

 

"Figure it out, problem solver, and then solve the problem or Rose Among Thorns is going to solve it for you."

 

I did not wait to be escorted out. I left the apartment and met my escort in the hall. Getting to the Bubalweo would be a bit difficult but that would be step number two. Meanwhile, I needed some good food and some sleep. That meant a trip to a decent size grocery store. If I was bunking with Raylina and Soledad and the children in their care, I would need to kick in for groceries. Tonight's dinner would be macaroni and tuna salad made with farfelles and frozen mixed vegetables and fresh dill if I could get it, Gatorade, an apple and tea.

 

I also wanted to be seen on the streets of this neighborhood. I wanted my Metro route known. Now that I was not going to be tased any more, I needed my GPS traced. I wondered if Dr. Karch could help me there. Also at 10pm tonight there would be a meeting to discuss strategy, and yes, I'd have to ask Raylina, Soledad, and others for an appointment with the Bubalweo.I'm sure she had a child or two who needed free tutoring.

 

And don't worry folks, there is a lot more to come. Ha'Shem be praised!

 

Alise Liddlell

All glory to HaShem!

Apt 2L

Building #14

Oak Gardens Plaza

Washington, DC

Point Two-Five

 

Dear all,

 

I spent most of the morning at Walter Reed Army Hospital as an OUTPATIENT. I had an EKG where they tape electrodes to your chest and make you walk on a treadmill and record the electrical impulses and beats of your heart. Mine is normal but a bit fast. My blood pressure is also a bit high but given that I am Afro American, Dr. Latimer thought it was in the genes and not a result of being tased. When I recover (I'm still feverish even with naproxen), I get put on a diarrhetic which is the first line medication for low level hypertension. Other than that, I am not going to be working this afternoon. I was told to stock up on edibles and stay home (as in Langley) for two to three days or until I stop running a fever. I'm free to walk around a bit and have visitors but no roaming all over DC. I cell phoned Raylina and Soledad and let them know I'm out sick. This stinks, but being incapacitated Saturday night or winding up dead (a very real possibility. The gatorade worked. Thankyou Soleadad LPN). I also had a nutrition consult. Dr. Latimer does this with all the cases he deals with who are "unusual." Fever apparently burns calories and can waste muscle. I have to laugh because Naama Roth I am not. There is only one Naama and she knows who she is.

 

Anyway, I'm sidelined for a lot of the week. I hope my friends from Oak Gardens Plaza come out to visit me. Soledad and Florence said they would be by. That means that we'll be tutoring at Langley for a change or at least I will. I also promised to make pepper hash for Thanksgiving dinner at Florence' apartment. I do hope I'm better by then. I think I probably will be. I have so much work to do.

 

Alise Liddell

Translator Grade 3C

Starbucks near Takoma Metro Station

Washington, DC

Point Two-Five